Jpx0999 - You'll find out faster than you think :v
Shahryar - Things are going to get bad even before Invincible shows up.
TheGreatBubbaJ - Not quite. Let's just say that this battle is going to be rather crazy.
(***)
Seven Days Ago
"Unfortunately, while swarming the enemy with our numerically superior S and SS-Ranks would be nice, we won't be allowed such a comfort." Midoriya then announces, before scratching his hair. "We're going to need the majority of our heavy-hitters in the center of the battlefield."
That surprises a number of people in the crowd.
"To break through the enemy frontline?" Landslide raises her hand and asks.
"No." Midoriya would like things to be as simple. "To make the enemy assume that we're focusing our attention there. So that when Invincible arrives, he'll head there, and stay there for a moment we need for our plan to work."
Yeah, the atmosphere immediately goes cold.
No one wants to fight Invincible if they can avoid it. Midoriya understands it perfectly.
"The anti-Invincible task force is going to be composed of the following people." Midoriya then continues to speak. "From the Paranormal Liberation Front: Frostfire, Quicksilver, Blackwing, Curator, Apocrypha, Singularity, Hypothermia and Eclipse."
One SSS-Rank, three SS-Ranks, and four S-Ranks for a single person. And it wasn't even the full list.
"Hypothermia and Eclipse will be on a standby elsewhere." Midoriya then continues. "Blackwing and Apocrypha are going to assist the PLF with the initial breakthrough, only to be warped to the position by Cloud when someone spots Invincible."
That man is a lot of things, but low-profile isn't on the list. Feel Good Inc. observation satellite should locate him with enough time to spare for the switch.
"They will be supported by as many of the Four Natural Disasters as possible." Midoriya continues. This is going to, after all, happen in the part of the frontline that will belong to the NVA. "In other words, as many of them will still be capable of fighting at that point."
"This is going to mean that the heroes will have an advantage in S-Ranks." Ryukyu notices it.
"Unfortunately, yes." Midoriya admits. "Of course, they don't have that many of those, and they should be completely disorganized following the massacre of their leadership and sudden multiplication of their enemies numbers. We'll go through other ideas on how to lessen their impact a bit later, for now we're focusing on the SS-Rankers."
To be honest, S-Ranks escaping don't exactly matter to him. What the PLF and the NVA need to happen in the Marukane is a wholesale slaughter of the SS-Rank Heroes, and obliterating the foundation of the stability in the country.
The HPSC put too much focus on the SS-Ranks as the solution to the PLF problem. If they are massacred, the image of the government is going to hit the rock bottom.
That, aside from killing Invincible, was pretty much the primary objective for the day.
"First one to take down is going to be Molecular." Midoriya then announces. "With her quirk being as useful in healing, I assume that she'll be deployed to the field hospital. And since deploying more of our S and SS-Rank heroes would weaken our numbers further, I think… that I'll have to go there myself."
(***)
Today
They actually tried to shoot him.
Which was, well, perhaps understandable, considering the circumstances, but still rather rude.
The gunfire, naturally, bounced off the force field quirk, Midoriya not even flinching.
Midoriya just stood there for about a minute, waiting for the enemy to be tired of it a little, and the gunfire (plus quirk attacks to die down). It was actually quite entertaining to see them struggle so much.
He then puts a megaphone to his mouth.
"I assume…" He says, his voice projected over the entirety of the field hospital. "... that you have a lot of questions concerning my presence here, and the way I used a quirk right now. Let me assure you that I'm here to answer those questions!"
A part of him enjoys freaking them all out a little, by acting like that. Like they didn't expect him to act.
"You see, I was never quirkless." Revenant then says. "I was born with a meta-quirk called Mastery, one which amplified control and power output of any other quirks in my body. Yes, I know you can see how utterly useless that was on its own."
Is it normal that he is having fun here? He worries about his state of mind, sometimes. Now, he does so most certainly.
"The secondary adaptations of said quirk improve my learning abilities, making me master non-quirk related skills much faster." He continues. "The Prime Minister, back then the HPSC President, had me expelled from a hero school due to being a 'quirkless runt', despite me having a de facto Class-Five Intelligence Quirk, just one rather subtle. Ironic, isn't it?"
He doesn't think that they enjoy the irony in question. How unfortunate. They won't enjoy what comes after this either.
Unfortunately for them, it's merely an introduction. An added terror factor to his name (some will survive the day). A way to vent out on his enemies, because despite the fact that at least for now Eri was safe, he was…
Too much stress. Too much hatred. Too many demons of the past unleashed again, including Entropy, the one monster he thought he buried.
This is probably one of the least bad places to let it all out. Even if he will probably hate himself afterwards.
Perhaps that's the point? It worked for Tsuyu. Going too far made her stop. Never again go as far. Perhaps Midoriya Izuku simply needs to hate himself, to avoid going too far after Marukane Ward, where the entire country will be at his mercy?
Maybe.
He should probably go talk about that with some psychologist, but, yeah, the only ones available to him were from the CRC, and he would then have to kill those. The sad story of his life nowadays.
"Naturally, all of that has changed." Midoriya then adds. "Because, you see, my old friend, Overhaul, has figured out a way to bestow temporary quirks to people through drugs! And not just temporary, although that part is the government's monopoly, they are using it to mass-produce SS-Rank heroes with multiple quirks."
Heh, he should probably make more of them escape after this, just to spread the message to the people of Japan?
He makes a fake gasp, when some of them appear shocked by the statement.
"Oh, dear me, accidentally releasing government's secrets, how clumsy I am!" He then shouts. "But guess what, that's when things start getting interesting."
Mad science isn't something to base your entire war strategy on. They all learned that during the first Paranormal Liberation War, although in Entropy's case, the lesson clearly didn't stick. How incredibly unfortunate.
"Because nowadays, another good friend of mine, Hatsume Mei, created this." He raises up his right hand, covered with some sort of black gauntlet, with a lot of small, numbered buttons. "This little beauty is connected to a small device that injects the wearer with appropriate temporary quirk drug when I press the button."
The hardest part was, to be honest, Hatsume managing to reproduce Overhaul's research. Midoriya had the copies of his papers, but biochemistry wasn't exactly her specialty. And yet, she achieved that in her new research facility in Five Under.
He already gave himself Forcefield, Shock Absorption and Hyper-Regeneration - just in case some of the attacks on him went past Forcefield. Having those quirks inside him permanently would have killed him, but the temporary ones do not cause the same reaction.
Now, he touches another button.
Summon.
That particular noumu was long past its expiration date. No longer working (just vegetating), but still viable for some significant blood donation. Before being euthanized.
In a heartbeat, black sludge erupts all around him. Noumus - all of those that were left to the PLF to this day aside from the camera noumu and Uraraka - emerge from it.
Time to end the noumus as a phenomenon. They outlived their usefulness. If the world was to become a tiny bit better after the Second Paranormal Liberation War, it was probably best to send them to the grave already.
Let them join All for One and Doctor Garaki in it.
He should have added some final note to his speech, but honestly, he isn't in a mood anymore. But if there is something that he is in a mood for, it's probably committing some war crimes. Like, say, attacking a field hospital.
Then again, what were the chances of the heroes at this point acting nicely if they overtook the CRC-run field hospital?
He should probably stop looking for excuses, though.
Another click, Midoriya clearly reaching the limit of simultaneously active quirks (he can feel the pressure behind his eyes, in his brain, telling him to stop). Airhammer's quirk kicks in, a ball of raging wind manifesting in front of his palms.
He then concentrates it enough to decapitate two soldiers instantly. Both of them were clearly armed and had tried to shoot at him earlier, so… valid targets, right?
There'll be more.
And, besides…
"Kill everyone here, aside from me and Molecular." He orders the noumus.
They follow his order to the letter.
For Molecular, Izuku has plans.
(***)
Lemillion realizes that the situation is actually less bad than he initially thought.
Yes, he is facing two notorious and well-experienced villains, who are out to kill him. Yes, they trained their quirks and other combat skills. They are worth their A-Rank designation - they are both at the upper end of it.
Frankly, if Lemillion wasn't there, they would have probably murdered all the soldiers behind after the initial sonic blast, most likely officially earning an S-Rank in the process.
S-Rank villain duos? Why not? There are permanent hero team-ups after all.
But against him? They struggle. Because while Jirou is skillful in early detection thanks to her quirk, it simply doesn't work against him.
Then again, they both need to hit him exactly once. He can't say the same about himself, regretfully.
Jirou's face mask breaks completely after the second blow, Lemillion's quirk empowering his attacks to superhuman level.
Mirio Togata's eyes meet those of Kyoka Jirou.
It's a shame, really. She was once a hero trainee, a genuinely heroic individual that just wanted to make the world a better place. Not for free, yes, but then again, Mirio wasn't against getting paid for it either.
What was left from that girl today?
Those weren't the eyes of a human. Those were the eyes of a rabid animal, driven by hate, sadism and an awful lot of madness.
She was enjoying it. She was going to enjoy killing him. Then she was going to enjoy murdering the soldiers she knocked out earlier. Was it her only enjoyment in life nowadays? It sure did feel like she was obsessed over it.
Nothing to save. It's the sort of a villain that even All Might wouldn't try to talk into surrender, into giving up so that one day, hopefully, they would rejoin the society as a free person. This was the type of a villain that had to be locked in Tartarus for the rest of their life.
There was no Tartarus Prison nowadays to keep them imprisoned. No other prison could guarantee that she would never hurt anyone else.
They were nearly S-Ranks, but he was an SS-Rank. And if the swift mass-murder of S-Ranks that the PLF changed into their modus operandi with their raids was anything to go by, the difference between them was large.
S-Ranks were top of the top of the normal villains and heroes. SS-Ranks were the exceptional.
He didn't break her face mask just to get a good look into her eyes. He knew enough about Jirou's villain history to know that she was irredeemable.
Maybe there was a faint hope that his past kouhai (not like they met for a long time, although the Big Three did try to help 1-A train by the later half of their first year) would surprise him. But she extinguished it quickly.
Lemillion was going to put her to rest here and now.
She was, probably, waiting to blast him with her quirk when he tried to punch her again. His recent blows to the head established a pattern that she noticed, a pattern that she was yet to realize was a deception.
(It was Saiko's idea, she was no Midoriya but she was intelligent and knowledgeable about quirks. Finding one among the heroes that could solidify organic matter was no problem to her, and honestly, Lemillion had no idea why he didn't have that idea himself.)
Songbird assumed that Lemillion couldn't permeate with anything aside from his clothes, forcing him to rely on his fists. She realized her mistake a bit too late, when her attempt to blast him with her quirk was cut short by a combat knife - made from Mirio's solidified - and sharpened - hair entering her brain through her left eye.
Before her corpse touched the ground, Lemillion was underground and on the move again.
He knew Biohazard's position. He knew that unless she was a total psycho, she would respond to her friend's death somehow. And while she clearly hung out with her psychopathic teammate for years, her psychological profile indicated that unlike Jirou, she was perfectly sane.
She just considered killing people for Yaoyorozu to be her job. And she was damn good at that.
He appeared behind her, twisting his body instantly to face her. Another of Saiko's wonderful ideas - a garotte from his own hair - in his hands.
Biohazard was clearly trying to run towards Jirou, probably to check if she was still alive. Lemillion didn't let her. The thread was suddenly around her throat, Lemillion's boot on her back between her arms, where she couldn't muster enough strength to pierce his boots with her toxic nails.
Her body armor reinforced the throat area, but Lemillion was a pro-hero who trained his body his whole life. Like many of the pro-heroes and villains of his stature, his body reached the level of physical strength that would leave most pre-quirks humans in awe.
She struggled. But in vain. He held her long enough for the struggles to end. He expected it to be a feint, but it wasn't.
He still had one of the soldiers (that managed to more or less regain consciousness soon after the fight) shoot her in the head. This was no time for half-measures.
Lemillion has no idea why those two charged him ahead of the rest of the PLF forces. It was odd, and there was probably some deeper plan behind it, but he wasn't in a mood to investigate it. They needed to get the fuck away from this place before the rest of the PLF would roll through them.
(***)
"I heard…" Lady Murder yells at the enemy in front of her, her katana in her hands. "... that you're a fucking tough bastard, hero. I want to fight you."
Emoji was in the middle of following a broken JSDF unit in their attempt to get the fuck out of the trap that the Marukane Ward had clearly turned into. The man wasn't even injured, casually slaughtering every vigilante that tried to follow the fleeing soldiers too closely.
He somehow turned into a lynchpin of the enemy defense on that part of the frontline. Well, if that could even be called a defense. A one-man rearguard.
But a damn successful one.
"Very well, Lady Murder." Emoji draws his short sword. "You want a fight, you'll get it."
She closes the distance with the maximum speed she's capable of. She fails to slice him of course, his counter carving a long horizontal cut on her abdomen. Not deep enough to matter, she moves back at the last time… and then retaliates with a vertical slice that actually splits his hoodie open, drawing some blood.
Emoji dashes back on instinct, not used to being injured. It's enough to make him do the wrong thing.
Then he looks at her and realizes that her eyes are closed.
"I knew it worked like that!" Lady Murder grins with murderous delight, opening her eyes. "When I close my eyes and rely on my hearing, I can trick myself into thinking that I'm not fighting you. I'm… merely training, repeating my sword kata. You simply happen to be in the way of my sword while doing so."
Midoriya genuinely didn't expect it to work that way. But hey, fuck him! He told her to keep him occupied, but she was going to instead fucking murder him.
She had big ears. And she trained fighting while relying on them entirely.
"Well, fuck." Emoji sighs as she licks her sword.
He doesn't drop down. This is thanks to his second artificial quirk after speed boost - Delay. Activation of every quirk influencing him (like her Bloodcurdle) was going to be delayed for five minutes. And if he knocked out or killed the attacker during this time, the quirk wouldn't work at all.
A natural response for more 'inconvenience'-themed quirks (or the mental ones) that his Peace didn't read as attacks.
He lunges forward, Lady Murder blocking his sword just barely. It was going to be a very long - and supremely enjoyable - five minutes.
(***)
Uraraka was tearing through some soldiers - taking her unofficial role as the PLF's vanguard very seriously - with her quirk, when suddenly she was hit by something and sent flying. Through several buildings.
It hurt. Then again, it was nothing new to her.
But then she saw the person who attacked her with their quirk. Blasting her into some clearly unused space, with no vigilantes, villains or heroes in sight.
Nejire Hadou. Although while the body and the quirk were that of Nejire-Chan, the demented smile on her face was that of Hana Shimura.
"Entropy." Uraraka says coldly, standing up. The impact was blunt, supposed to throw her back rather than injure her. Aside from some broken bones, there wasn't much for her Hyper-Regeneration to work on. "Still alive? I expected you to take a hint finally, crawl into some grave and bury yourself in it."
Entropy clicks her tongue.
"Is that how Midoriya trains his servants?" She gives Uraraka an infuriatingly lewd look from her position above her head. "I didn't take him as one who likes to be belittled like that, but to each their own, I guess."
fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou
don't you dare talk about Izuku like that
"Well, I hope you've come here to finally kick the bucket." Uraraka replies, glaring at her with all the desire for murder she could muster. "Because that's my plan for the next… ten minutes? I'd like to make it slow, but I'm in a hurry, you see."
"Shame for you then, that I'm not here to die." Entropy smiles, before pulling some small object from her pocket and pushing a button on it. Uraraka finds her body suddenly frozen. "I've come here to obtain a perfect spy right next to Midoriya's side… and take back what's mine. Thankfully, Doctor Garaki was kind enough to install some loyalty override in you, in case of Midoriya's disloyalty. You are, now, loyal to me before him."
She can feel it. She can feel this is the case. She will follow his orders, only when they do not collide with hers. Two hands holding her leash, but a clear hierarchy among them. If Entropy tells her to not tell him about it all, if she imprints some additional orders in her…
"Now, stand there and do not move for a moment, I need to list all the orders I have for you, and…" Entropy speaks. She is interrupted.
It feels like trying to lift a mountain, like trying to move Earth itself. But Uraraka Ochako, against the orders she just received, moves.
(***)
To this moment, if you exclude the deaths of Miyuki Tagawa and Kyoka Jirou, the PLF plan was going just as intended, or nearly as intended. The heroes and the JSDF were being driven back, decimated and routed. Most of the SS-Rank Heroes in the Marukane Ward were dead or in a combat that was likely to end with their deaths.
The situation, regretfully, changed at that very moment. And not because Invincible arrived, because he didn't.
It's because the Prime Minister realized that there was a large chance that the PLF leak was in her own extended office. Meaning that the PLF might have known about Invincible being sent to the Marukane Ward. Meaning that they might have found a counter to the Government's One Man Army.
But there were no signs of the HPSC being infiltrated to the same degree. So, she called Yokumiru Mera and told him to organize some additional support for the Marukane Ward battle. No matter the costs - political or financial. But without telling her, Saiko Intelli or anyone else involved in the planning of the battle.
And he did so. PLF's own brand helped him greatly.
Judgment, the Living God of the Ascending Path, was the first one to realize what was happening. Something heavy landed near her position as she was busy decimating fleeing soldiers and heroes (including the now completely broken group of S-Ranks).
She merely glanced at the cloud made from the impact of something that just dropped from the skies. No, not something. Someone, the quirk signature impossible to mistake. She then put her finger to her commpiece and contacted Yaoyorozu. In Izuku's absence, the field commander of the PLF forces.
"Tell Izuku that me and Tokoyami won't make it to the Invincible fight." She says calmly. "We're going to need plan B. Now."
She doesn't wait to answer Yaoyorozu's questions. Counterfeit will realize soon enough when the fight starts. When the drones and satellites pick it up. When others around her (they should start fleeing as soon as possible, it's going to be one of the most horrifying battles of this age after all) report the impossible to her.
"I thought…" Judgment says loudly. "... that you hated our government."
"Because I do." The bellowing voice comes from the cloud, a towering figure emerging from it.
Some of Aiko's cultists and templars recognize it. Gasps and other expressions of shock fill the air. Yeah, it was impossible. Unfortunately, it happened.
"However I hate the organization that ended All Might even more." Star and Stripe, the World's Strongest Hero, says. "And dealing with the heirs of the person that killed him sounds like a noble deed for the day, won't you say?"
Looks like Izu-niichan's plan of using their connection to All for One for intimidation's sake during the Revival Celebration just backfired spectacularly.
Time until Invincible's arrival:
6 minutes and 12 seconds