MosesArk Reborn2000 - Not exactly aspects. Independent entities, but still connected to her somewhat. She's their god, after all :P And, well, a good vibecheck sometimes leads people somewhere.
Shahryar - Aye.
(***)
Neito Monoma is, generally speaking, an extremely perceptive and cautious man. He has to be when living in a country like this.
He considered leaving Tetsutetsu outside, but that would have been… a bit too dangerous. They had no idea what sort of people Midoriya's organization could spare during a crisis of this magnitude - Real Steel was tough, but making him stand outside alone would mean begging for death.
They had checked the surroundings before entering, and Reiko was a veteran hero that simply shouldn't be sneaked upon.
Hell, Setsuna literally had an ear outside. But judging from the sudden expression of horror on the face, she heard nothing.
The intruder was good. Very good. And things just got needlessly complicated.
"That's…" Ibara says, relief on her face. "... faster than I expected you to arrive, Decay."
"I move fast when needed, Eden." Decay replies. Monoma can see him grinning behind the mask. "Go help your brats pack-up. We're doing the plan B."
"Right." Ibara sighs while standing up from the chair and walking over to Decay. Tetsutetsu and Tokage, the people closest to her, do not react. "Do me a favor, and try to solve it out… peacefully, alright?"
"No problem, no one's dying here today…" Decay pauses for a second before continuing, his eyes on Monoma. "... preferably. Also, if you're doing a class reunion, I heard those are fairly popular nowadays, don't you wanna join?" He then says.
Someone enters the room through the door next to him a moment later. eliciting a shocked gasp from Tetsutetsu.
"Manga?!" Setsuna stares at him in shock. Yeah, way to slap them in the face again.
"Sup, folks." Manga Fukidashi replies, his voice slightly awkward and slightly ashamed at the same time. "C'mon, you all know I love making children smile, was it really that surprising that Shiozaki recommended me for recruitment? Speaking of, Shiozaki, we have a job to do."
"Alright." Eden replies, before turning her face towards her old classmates. "I'm afraid that we won't see each other ever again, so… consider this my last words for you. You were great classmates, and I don't regret attending UA with you in the slightest. What you did later was a disgrace, but despite everything, I still hope that the hero trainees I knew aren't dead. And I'm going to pray for them to come back. Goodbye."
She leaves the room, together with Manga. Unlike her, Fukidashi leaves no final words behind.
"So…" Monoma's eyes narrow. "... what happens now, Mr. Entropy knockoff?"
"Entropy knockoff?" Decay clicks his tongue in irritation. "I beg your pardon. It was my sister that stole my villain outfit and pretended that it was her idea the whole time, not the other way around."
Decay could as well set off a real bomb. The reaction would be similar.
"Si…" Monoma blinks at him in shock. "You're…"
"The name's…" Decay grins again. "... Tomura Shigaraki. One of All for One's five adoptive children, adoptive older brother of Apocrypha and Revenant, younger brother by blood of Entropy, etcetera, etcetera. Don't feel bad about me sneaking up on you, I'm at least a level fifteen rogue, you lot just don't compare."
"That's… quite a boast." Setsuna stares daggers at him. "You don't expect us to believe someone that we've never heard off before that they are related to the worst villains ever, now did you?"
"Ask Monoma." Decay glances at Neito. "I think he already connected the dots, eh?"
"Similar quirk to Entropy." Monoma replies dryly. "Similar outfit, vaguely similar looks, and you working for Midoriya explains why no one ever heard of his villain organization before the Revival Celebration. Your quirk is perfect for getting rid of evidence."
"Ka-ching!" Decay smiles, his hand still on Reiko's head. "You unlocked the 'Working Brain' achievement, plus one hundred experience points! Whenever someone found out something about us that we didn't want them to know, Midoriya handed me a vacuum cleaner and told me to get rid of the problem… permanently."
Yeah, that explains a LOT of things. While also meaning that they might be in a room with someone pretty damn close to Entropy's level. Or, gods forbid, Apocrypha. Monoma is fairly certain that they could win if it's the former, but with Yanagi being there…
"Shiozaki said to try to solve the whole thing peacefully." Decay then announces. "How about this? You've clearly come here to arrest her and get some of your questions answered. I came to make sure that Ibara Shiozaki and her kids get to live a boringly happy life overseas. I think we can solve this peacefully by meeting midway, eh?"
"Elaborate." Monoma glares at him.
"You drop pursuing Ibara and don't try anything funny." Decay replies. Yeah, Setsuna and Yanagi were probably trying something funny right now, just carefully. "In exchange, I'm going to answer three questions of mister Big Brain over there, truthfully AND in detail. Nothing about the present situation of course, so I'm not giving you Midoriya's house address, but if you want to gain some context for the war, I'm here for you."
That was… Decay most certainly knew much more than Shiozaki did. However, there was a small problem with that offer.
"And I'm supposed to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?" Monoma retorts.
"You don't lose anything by simply trying, hmm?" Decay tilts his head a little. "C'mon, ask me a question. I don't have the whole day."
What exactly does Neito loses by at least trying? It's probably better than fighting a second Entropy in close quarters, not to mention the risks of Ibara and Manga showing up while the fight was still on-going… and, well, Yanagi probably dying.
"What the hell…" Monoma says, drawing his words. "... is the thing destroying Shikoku and what's Midoriya's relation to it?"
"Technically two questions, but connected, so I'll let it slip." Decay replies. "It's Armageddon, formerly Romero Fujimi, one of Doctor Garaki's Special-End Noumus. Although we called it an Ultimate-End Noumu, because putting him and Uraraka into the same category feels kind of dumb. As for his relation to Midoriya… there is none."
"Bullshit." Tokage growls. "We're supposed to believe that Armageddon just showed up out of nowhere right after Midoriya restarted the Paranormal Liberation War?"
"Midoriya personally ordered the last group of people in the old PLF that wanted to activate Armageddon to be buried alive alongside it." Decay calmly replies. "He also spent most of his villain career blocking its activation. First with Re-Destro against All for One, then with Overhaul against Entropy. Even now most of the new PLF is running around like headless chickens, looking for the off-switch."
"That's…" Setsuna says, but Monoma cuts in.
"... probably correct." He says. She gives him a shocked stare. "Ibara started packing her things up in a hurry after Armageddon started to move. This felt like a rushed evacuation, and if he considers her important enough to send someone like Decay here to intervene, he would have moved her overseas BEFORE activating it." He glances at Decay's face. "Am I wrong?"
"Hey, what do you know, you really have a working brain!" Decay grins. "That was question one. What's your question two?"
"Why did Midoriya start the Second Paranormal Liberation War?" Monoma asks. He knows about Crucible being involved, that should tell him if Tomura was going to try to bullshit him.
"Have you heard about the Paragon Program?" Decay asks. Monoma nods. Setsuna and Tetsutetsu give him a questioning look, clearly being out of the loop. "And you're still working for the government? Wow, what a hero you are."
"Don't." Monoma says. Ibara was bad enough, he isn't taking that from Entropy's brother. "Stick to the subject."
"Fine, fine." Decay shrugs. "Support Network was helping kids from persecuted groups but we were also getting potential Paragon candidates, typically orphans and the like, out of the government's reach. HPSC, regretfully, raided one of our unofficial secret orphanages, kidnapping fifteen children and killing Crucible, their caretaker."
Decay was actually speaking the truth? Monoma finds himself genuinely shocked by it. He also decides to ignore the stares Tetsutetsu and Tokage are giving him.
"That alone would be bad, but… not apocalyptically bad." Decay continues. "Unfortunately, due to a terminal case of bad timing, the raid happened when the group was visited by someone. Waking up and choosing violence was Midoriya's response to the HPSC kidnapping his adoptive daughter in order to brainwash her into one more governmental lackey."
Tokage lets out a choking sound. Tetsutetsu simply stares in shock. Monoma… Monoma is the one who is supposed to reply to that.
How?
How do you respond to the discovery that the HPSC somehow managed to fuck absolutely everything up and started another war - with millions of casualties in the first month, because there is just no way that Armageddon would be released if not for the Revival Celebration, Neito doesn't buy the idea that it started moving spontaneously - by kidnapping the wrong child?
Tartarus, UA, Shiketsu High, the entire island of Shikoku, multiple Top Heroes - all gone because of a single child being kidnapped. This was…
"Yeah, I think I can read that from your face." Decay adds. "But I'll specify it just in case. Midoriya is insane. Even I noticed that. That girl? She was the one person that he didn't feel like he failed. The one person he managed to save, the one person that he was still a hero for. For as long as she was around, he wanted to be a positive influence on her. For as long as she was next to him, he was still Analyst, the UA Hero Course student. That's why when he abandoned the first PLF, he organized the Support Network. Because she made him feel like trying again. And then…"
"... then the government took her away from him." Monoma finishes for him. "So he lashed out against it, badly enough to start what's shaping into another civil war, practically at a moment's notice."
"Correctamundo!" Decay grins wryly.
"And why are you telling me that?" Monoma cuts back. It sounded like an actual betrayal of Midoriya, if Monoma managed to locate the girl (that the HPSC clearly didn't know about the identity of, at least yet), it would open so many prospects that…
"Well, I heard that you're supposed to be heroes." Decay replies, with a hint of mockery by the last word. "And rescuing a kidnapping victim and reuniting them with their father sounds like something that the heroes are supposed to do."
"Their father…" Monoma glares at him. "... is a supervillain."
"Yaoyorozu brought up, unknowingly, the subject of the girls' life being used against Midoriya." Decay replies. "Midoriya made the woman that destroyed Shiketsu High while having a picnic with her walking vibrator wet herself with words." Decay grins wryly once again, his eyes locked onto Monoma's. "Making sure that the one-horned brat is back with her daddy might just be the one and only way of making this country survive the Liberation Festival. Consider that a gentlemanly advice. After all… if there are more old PLF superweapons left anywhere in the country, Midoriya's the one that knows where to find them."
Is Decay banking on Monoma's investigation skills? He beats Midoriya on that one field, Revenant switched over to a total war because even with his spy he couldn't find out everything…
Wait.
Something didn't add up.
Midoriya probably kidnapped Thunderbolt to ask him questions about the location of his daughter. Where the hell was his spy if he needed Thunderbolt to find out her location? He knew about the Shinigami Record, for god's sake! It made absolutely no goddamn sense.
Monoma is missing something. Judging from the shit-eating grin that he can see under Decay's mask, Tomura knows it, but decided against sharing that detail with the hero.
Shit.
"One last question." Tomura announces, cutting that segment of the talk off. "Anything else you want to know?"
Neito Monoma wants to know a million different things. He settles on one. Because years might have passed, but there is still a name that he dreads more than anything else, one that sometimes wakes him up at night.
He knows full well that he was on the list of to be kidnapped by the League during the Training Camp Massacre. And, if not for Vlad King, he would vanish alongside Uraraka and Hagakure Tooru.
And he knows who to blame for that.
Besides, Neito Monoma is fairly certain that it's a person who had both the mindset and capability to unleash Armageddon upon Japan. He needed to make sure.
"All for One." Monoma glares at Decay. "Did he die in Deika?"
He ignores the looks he gets from Tokage. Yeah, he might have 'wasted' a question, but… he has to know. He has to know that one thing because…
"No." Decay says after a few seconds of staring at Monoma in silence. "He had a short-term danger detection quirk, enough for Kurogiri to warp him out of the city literally seconds before the blast."
Wh…
"But you don't have to worry yourself with him." Decay continues. "I saw him crawling on the floor, missing his legs due to Apocrypha's Extinction Ray, fruitlessly gasping for air because I decayed his life support, and with Entropy's boot on his face. All his children were there… and we were much more thorough than the heroes were with their nuke. All that's left of the old demon lord is the skull that Apocrypha is using as a part of her villain uniform."
A sk… oh. Oh shit. She seriously…
Monoma has no words. Judging from the shocked looks on the faces of his comrades, he isn't the only one.
Tomura looks to the side, probably at something behind the door that they can't see from their position. Then his eyes return to them.
"That would be all." Decay says, while slowly moving during the door. "I have a last stage of evacuation to oversee, before I follow Shiozaki and Fukidashi overseas. Gotta join my wife and kids, 'ya know."
"Wife and kids?" Monoma asks, he is ready to leap off the chair and towards them if he tries to kill Reiko. He isn't sure if he could do anything to stop it, but… at least Emily is cooperating thus far. "How did that happen?"
"Oh, we murdered her father together." Decay replies almost cheerfully. Monoma blinks at him in surprise. "Midoriya was nice enough to bullshit Entropy that Beast 'disappeared mysteriously' and my sister bought it, what a goddamn fool."
Be…
Tomura takes his hand off Reiko's head, before kicking her back strongly enough to send her towards Monoma. Then he immediately dashes through the door.
Monoma dodges Reiko, Setsuna's hands giving him a boost to move slightly faster. Except, when he dashes through the door after Decay, all he gets to see is a rapidly vanishing black cloud.
Cloud. Shit.
"They're gone." Monoma says bitterly, turning back. "We have to search through the house for some leftover cl…"
He doesn't have the time to finish before Tetsutetsu grabs him by the front of his shirt and slams his back into the wall, on his face an expression of sheer, livid fury.
"What are…" Monoma tries to retort, but he isn't allowed to.
"What…. the hell… is the Paragon Program?" Tetsutetsu glares at him with eyes threatening bloody murder.
Shit.
"Government takes kids, orphans or those of poor families but with powerful or useful quirks, and trains them into heroes." Monoma replies. "It's pretty much a pre-training into heroism and…"
"THEY JUST KIDNAPPED FIFTEEN KIDS AND KILLED SOMEONE FOR THAT!" Tetsutetsu explodes. "IT'S NOT A FUCKING PRE-TRAINING, IT'S KIDNAPPING AND BRAINWASHING OF CHILDREN! AND YOU KNEW ABOUT IT THE WHOLE TIME?!"
Tokage is now behind him, clearly torn between joining the shouting match and intervening to prevent a potential murder. Monoma expected to at least check on Yanagi first, but she was clearly doing alright and…
"WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO?!" Monoma shouts back. Because, yeah, his mood just reached the rock bottom. "CALL THE POLICE?! IT'S A PART OF THAT! GO TO THE NEWSPAPERS?! THEY'D CONTACT THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVE ME ARRESTED!"
"CONTACT THE NVA!" Tetsutetsu roars back. "YOU'RE GOOD ENOUGH TO LOCATE THE PARAGON FACILITIES, WE BOTH KNOW THAT! NVA ARE VILLAINS BUT THEY'D AT LEAST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM! THAT'S MORE THAN I CAN SAY ABOUT YOU!"
"DON'T YOU DARE…"
Setsuna finally intervenes, her disembodied hands slamming them both shut.
"Just… shut up, alright?" She says, while they are both glaring at her. "Both of you. There might still be villains in the area, hell, Frostfire might be powering up his Prominence Burn in front of the building right now, get a fucking grip. We have to check the surroundings, look for clues, then fuck off."
Right.
Monoma doesn't miss the fact that Tokage spends the rest of their joint excursion trying her best to not look at him. Tetsutetsu does look at him regularly, but with genuine anger that he didn't expect to ever see on his face.
Shit.
(***)
As they expected, at least some part of the facility was still powered. The Armageddon containment area, for example, was still working.
"Built to last, eh?" Tokoyami comments when Mechanist is busy opening a sealed door. "Didn't work on the upper level."
"That's how it was set-up/constructed." Mechanist replies. "When the facility power source began to malfunction, the system began to abandon/kill non-critical parts of the facility/tomb. This part of the facility was made to die as the last one."
Makes sense. So many years without maintenance, even if there was a geothermal power generator under them - so, a source of energy that couldn't just die - it simply couldn't last long enough without slowly cascading malfunctions.
A few minutes they reached the supposed conclusion of the Tomb of Armageddon dungeon raid. Two large vats in a room with lighting barely working, both of them empty. Mechanist immediately headed for the control room, the rest following him.
A few minutes of working on the computer (still working, thankfully, and with the comm array operational again they could track the target everywhere), Mechanist's drone body suddenly straightens itself up in the seat.
"Oh." Despite his lack of emotions by design, Tokoyami can practically feel the shock in his voice. "That's unexpected."
"Elaborate?" Blackwing asks.
"It's here." Mechanist replies. "In this facility, a level beneath us."
Even after fighting several long-dead supervillains, that came out of nowhere. One final (hopefully, that is) plottwist for the dungeon raid.
"In the power plant?" Tokoyami asks. Mechanist nods. "What in the… okay, not the right time. Send a message to the Overlook, tell them we've encountered enemy forces without specifying their nature for now, and that Armageddon has been moved but it's still within the facility. We suspect a warp quirk being involved. Heading out to eliminate him right now."
They were trying to maintain radio silence unless absolutely necessary AND it was going to take the 'dead' templars at least a few days to patch themselves up enough to speak, even with Lady Judgment being there.
This was going to be the first report that Midoriya was going to receive since the start of the operation.
No mentions of the enemy forces they encountered because Tokoyami wants at least SOME answers first.
They are going to need them.
"Very well/yes." Mechanist replies. "May I stay here? With the comm array online again, I can reconnect with my original body, a fact that will speed up the process of searching through the database that was made available/accessible to me right now."
Tokoyami almost forgot that they were dealing with Mechanist's copy, not Mechanist himself. Too deep for normal radio contact, right.
"Permissions granted." Time to head even deeper into the complex. Hopefully Mechanist finds them answers.
(***)
The tank commander pulls the trigger on the machine gun attached to the top of his tank's turret for the last time, tearing through several zombies (including a former hero, judging from the outfit).
His tank is immobilized. Its crew is dead after a tank crewed by infected soldiers hit it. The commander somehow survived, although his legs… he can feel them, but he can also feel how little of them was left. He is going nowhere.
To the left and right of him, the final defensive line is breaking apart. Three minutes ago the last evacuation train sped through the railway right behind it. No more will go through, that much is certain right now.
He raises his hands. The zombies climbing up the tank don't care for his universal expression of surrender. They discover that it wasn't a surrender a second after biting him, when the grenade pins bounce off the tank's turret topside.
The last of the bridges connecting Shikoku and the Mainland is blown up a few minutes later. The first and second stages of the Sword of Damocles are halted, the last missiles preserved in case of Necromancer crossing over to the mainland.
Five minutes later Mindscape looks away from the screen in her command center as Matsuyama city stops existing. For the first time since the day Deika burned, the government uses its final sanction. And she knows that it won't end with that.
The 3rd Escort Flotilla ended like the 1st one, but faster. The Second one was called off, together with the naval evacuation as a whole. There was only the air route left, but it wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough.
She counted it with her quirk so many times, but it wasn't enough. No matter what she did, she couldn't do anything.
She is sneaky enough for the people present in the room to not notice the tears streaming off her face.
Time since the activation of Armageddon: 10h
Est. number of civilian casualties: 2 160 000
Est. number of uninfected inhabitants of Shikoku: 1 000 000
Est. number of evacuated civilians: 900 000
Sword of Damocles: 85% Depleted/Deactivated
Naval Blockade Status:
1st. Escort Flotilla - Annihilated
2nd Escort Flotilla - Recalled
3rd Escort Flotilla - Annihilated
Ground Forces Status:
JGSDF 14th Division - Annihilated
JGSDF 6th Engineering Brigade - Annihilated
Shikoku Pro-Heroes: 90% casualties.
Shikoku Police Force: 85% casualties.
Evacuation Status:
Naval: Cancelled
Ground: Cancelled
Air: Ongoing