Chapter 113 - Confrontation
In the desolate city after the events of the Red Glare, those that fled the Devil Splicers' sectors overran the neighboring cities, and with the rise of villains and loss of heroes, the places unaffected by the threat of Splicers quickly fell into lawless chaos.
One such event quickly tore through the streets and buildings like a wrecking crew of raw muscle. Short, spiky blonde hair and baggy black pants were all one could see other than a manic smile and an empty left eye socket on the villain's face. His whole body was warped and disfigured by muscle fibers bursting from his skin. "Is that all the fight you got in you!?" Muscular taunted, burying the hero beneath his fist.
The hero wore a gold jaw-guard that covers his cheeks, a thick green strap over each of his shoulders, attached at the front to two black plates with golden trimmings which cover the sides of his chest, black elbow pads, and green wrist-guards. He also wears baggy pants with some small green markings and plain black boots with heeled soles. Yo Shindo, aka Grand, was currently up against an unstoppable force. "'A hero's always in the vicinity of civilians he's protecting', now that's a handy proverb!"
Despite being buried into the earth, Shindo pressed his fingers against the fibers, vibrating them as best he could, causing Muscular to cackle at the half-witted attempt. "It's useless! You're being buried under 12,000 layers of muscle fibers! Whatever strength you can muster is no match for my sheer size!"
"That's right...!" Shindo seethed, digging his nails in which broke Muscular's smirk. "There are certain things I can't do lest I hurt my opponent," But his face screamed anything but concern. "But with the way things are going, I'll have to shake you a little bit harder! Cuz' as the proverb goes, 'The bigger they are the harder they fall'!"
"TREMORING EARTH!" He screamed, reducing the surrounding area into thousands of pieces, stripping off layer upon layer of muscle fibers like strips of paper. "I'll turn you to a muscle milkshake!"
But to his horror, the hand that pinned him didn't release, and a shroud of fibers covered all the damage inflicted instantly. "Just gotta add... more layers then!" Shindo gasped, the applied pressure squeezing his insides so tightly he threatened to burst any second now.
"Yo!" His companion, a girl with blue eyes, short, ash blonde hair styled with two longer clumps spiking outwards on either side of her head which somewhat resemble the fins of a fish, and a single, chin-length bang on her right. Tatami Nakagame. She rushed to his aid, despite how useless her quirk was in this all-out slugfest.
"We're going to go save him!" The de facto leader of a group of civilians refusing to leave their city behind rallied with her to help the innocent boy trying to hold the line.
"Time for a bloodbath!" Muscular's grin would be the last thing Shindo saw.
*BOOOSH!*
It was only an instant but a tremendous force collided with Muscular's side, punting him through the roof of an empty building like a golf ball in a haze of black smoke. He shook off the rubble, glaring daggers to find the culprit. "Muscular," A strong but withdrawn voice spoke up from a neighboring building, the smoke clearing away. "No wonder my Danger Sense was going haywire,"
He stood there with Shindo passed out in his arms, safe from Muscular's wrath. What bubbled up as frustration immediately plunged into jubilation across the villain's features, if fate couldn't get sweeter, the universe brought one of two people he was eager - no, yearned to meet face to face again. "That voice... could it be...?" He laughed. "How could I forget you, you're that kid, right!?"
Deku said nothing, watching Muscular's every move. "Midoriya! I missed you so much! I was getting bored right about now with these small fries!" Then he noticed the smoke was starting to leak from Deku's body, cloaking his back with the occasional mint-tinted bolt. So he shook his head, fishing around in his pockets. "Huu~...stop, no... you better not run away, no, don't be mistaken, I should say something grand about revenge here but..."
He rolled his shoulders, "Eh, I'm not here to go on a monologue. I just want to do whatever I want with my quirk. I'd be content to go my regular rampage as always," He shoved one of his new eyes into his empty socket, splitting the skin a bit with an audible squelch. "But after the stunt you pulled earlier, how could I ever go back!" He grinned like the devil straight from hell.
The second Muscular lunged, Deku threw himself into the air only to pause. "He's not jumping after me?" Then he watched as the villain slammed his fists into the upper half of the building, tearing through rebar and concrete like a cardboard box.
"Let's settle this with a rematch, Midoriya!" Muscular bellowed, tossing the half-ruined building into the sky as smoke and dust erupted in a massive cloud between them.
From inside the nearby safehouse the civilians established for themselves, many voices of worry and fright spun through the air, but it was all white noise as Nakagame ran to the entrance where the smoke fell to follow a shrouded Deku who escape the conflict temporarily. "Ah, thank God! Please take care of him!" He asked of her, handing Shindo off to her arms as she held back her tears with an angry glare.
"Yo! You cringelord, going out there on your own like that..." Nakagame was furious but eternally thankful he wasn't dying or worse. "Dummy..."
"I apologize for the delay, please give this man immediate care! Collateral damage is through the roof..." Deku replied through his smoke, turning to where Muscular rampaged. "But I'll make sure there are no more casualties!" He swore to her, One For All burning within him.
"Yep!" She nodded quickly, her eyes lingering on Deku a while longer. "I couldn't see because of the smoke... but his voice is pretty familiar, who is he?"
Propelling forward, Deku's mind wandered. "Did I overdo it?" Around his shoulders, En's astral form leaned forward close to Deku.
"I suppose, you've done enough to control the area," En replied simply. "You've used too much of your Smokescreen."
"Understood, sir," Deku acknowledged.
Then En passed him a friendly look, his eyes closed. "Don't let him turn your advantage against you, I suppose."
"Yes... sir!" Deku sorta understood him that time, the general idea was he was to use Smokescreen as a brief diversion, but too much would put him at a disadvantage also.
While gliding through the streets, masking the area in smoke as he went, En continued to support Deku. "I suppose, you're relying on OFA too much... you're making avoidable accidents under its influence. You shouldn't repeat those mistakes the other eight generations made," He patted Deku's shoulder. "You've got the biggest burden considering you're the latest generation,"
"Try to loosen your shoulders, try not to let the power use your body, instead, let your body use the power. Our collective quirks alone aren't enough to serve as your crutch, you value quirks too much I suppose," En digressed, disappearing as Deku charged energy into his calves. "Think of them instead as more of your tools! You using those tools will get you in the right mindset,"
That last piece of advice briefly made Izuku think of a jetpack for his floating capabilities, rope for whips, smoke grenades for cover, and a radio as the eyes on the back of his head. All of these little pieces of equipment bolstered him beyond a simple acrobatic close-quarters fighter. He was an arsenal of tricks to better perform in any situation.
"Muscular... the man that could withstand my 100% punch atop SIVA... I wouldn't forget him either," Bending down, Deku launched into the sky through his smokescreen, floating above the black haze. "I'll reduce his vision with Smokescreen, and catch him unawares. Now! Izuku! Think about that day! Remember what happened back then!"
The smoke burst forward like a fissure, releasing Muscular as his wide punches skimmed by Deku's nimble frame, his body swirling around the fists with air pressure. "I'll use Danger Sense to evade!"
"MIDORIYAAAAAA!" He thundered, flying through the air after the smaller male.
Deku slid and ran parallel to the walls of balconies attached to an apartment complex, doubling back through the air and past Muscular's left hook. Arcing his swing, Deku caught Muscular in a binding of Blackwhip, flinging him through the side of the building and down into the shallow canal below, ensnaring the powerhouse villain before landing with a splash.
"I'd hoped you wouldn't resort to pesky tricks! But it can't be helped, you're all alone this time!" Muscular laughed, barking at Deku. "What happened to your little partner? Azuru, right?" That got nothing but silence from Deku, but his energy output snapped at the restless water. "You don't know? I doubt she died, not with the strength she was packing that day, hah, I really wish she was here, then it'd be like old times!"
"She's gone..." Deku muttered, pupils burning holes through Muscular. "...Kovik... beat her." Every word felt like bile. "Because I was too weak."
"Really? Damn, here I thought I'd get my chance, aw well!" He smashed the ground, nearly crushing Deku who evaded into the sky with a summersault. "Guess that means she was too weak after all! Considering how much it took two brats like you to beat me, that's no surprise!"
"...that's a lie," Deku spoke, making Muscular stifle a laugh behind a smirk. "She was the strongest person I've ever known. It might not mean much to you, but her strength of will far surpassed any hero in history, the choices and burdens she carried... were what made her so much better than me," Those eyes were not the eyes of a hero, and the sight sent a tremor through Muscular. "Yuki is not weak... don't insult her,"
"Hahaha, that's more like it, Midoriya!"
"Your liberators, Shigaraki and Kovik, where are they located?" Deku focused on the important question.
Muscular huffed a laugh, "Don't know, don't care, all they told me was to 'do as I see fit' when they freed a bunch of us, so stop changing the subject! You're ruining the mood!" He snapped, fighting against Blackwhip. "I'm not here to make small talk or anything! Clash into me like the last time, use everything you've got!"
"Why - why do you have these urges to go on rampages?" Deku asked again, his arm buckling from the resistance.
"To live life without any regrets!" Muscular replied honestly, shrugging as best he could.
"'Regrets'? What would that be?" Deku pressed but Muscular wasn't having it.
"I'd regret not being able to fight you or Azuru again!" He roared, bursting through Blackwhip, the canal's water splashing against the walls.
"Is there no other path for you to take, Imasujigoto?" Deku felt it, there was nothing he could say to convince Muscular otherwise to reveal any more information.
The great mass of fiber and flesh grew to a monstrous size, a face that screamed 'death' in every sense of the word. "NONE AT ALL! You can take that therapy talk and shove it elsewhere! The only thing I care for in my life-"
"If I truly understood him... maybe things would turn out differently..." Alas, it wasn't the case. But a small part of Deku believed it was for the best, for if he was to be honest with himself. After what he put Kota through. What he said about Yuki. Deku wanted to bury him in the ground personally.
"-Blood. Guts. And the thrill of battle!" Muscular answered.
Deku's eyes disappeared in his mask momentarily, "He also hurt and murdered countless numbers of other people," He envisioned Shigaraki, but that quickly faded to a flickering image of a boy clutching his pet dog, sobbing. "But, despite that, I could feel that in his heart, within the deepest crevices of his soul..."
"A rematch... is pointless," Deku disagreed, hunched forward as his output bolstered as high as it could go, sloshing the water behind him as his cape fluttered in the afternoon light.
"You're starting to turn stale-" Muscular's bravado cut short when he flinched, his muscle fibers tearing themselves apart, shredded like bits of paper.
"Your tendons in your 'Muscle Augmentation' were pulled," Deku observed. "They can't help but unravel themselves, the fact you didn't just jump straight to me earlier meant that you felt your own muscles affected by it too," His mask pulled back against his forehead, revealing his steady glare and firm frown of determination. "I suppose that vibration earlier did do the trick,"
"I wanted a legitimate fight with power-!" The villain was cut short when a blast of raw power collided with his stomach at lightning-fast speeds.
The water splashed and curled into a fountain of arcs between Muscular and Deku, his fist having torn through the fibers and struck a perfect blow on his enemy, bringing down the towering brute with a single punch. "This... is my power!"
The sunlight refracted off the water droplets around Deku, his fist lowered as Danger Sense finally quelled itself once more. "I did it... Kota, Yuki..." The nightmare that could've been left to fester was brought to an end. If only briefly, Deku felt a tiny smile break his stoic features, tapping his knuckle twice to Yuki's mask.
Within a random, uninteresting alleyway, Deku landed before All Might with a short slide, the ex-hero unphased by the loud entrance, taking off his shades. "Any injuries?" He asked after hearing Deku had safely secured Muscular and dropped him off at the nearest police station to be detained and sent back to the renovated Tatarous.
"I'm... uninjured," Deku huffed, stretching a few times.
"How are your limbs?" He continued, seeing Deku marvel at the mid-gauntlets around his arms
"They're completely fine. Thanks to you getting in touch with Melissa before the travel restrictions were instituted," He flexed his muscles carefully, and the two red bindings unraveled back into two rolled clumps. "With them, I can't feel a thing, thanks to it!" He had to words to begin thanking his overseas friend for the upgrades.
"Remember, that these are just an enhancement prototype, it's meant to reinforce your entire arm, it can nowhere near handle your power at 100%," Deku handed them back to All Might to do a few check-ups on their condition. "Make sure not to overdo yourself before the final showdown," When that would come, All Might hoped not for a long time but the world never worked that way.
"Yes, sir..." Deku murmured, flexing his arms quickly. "He used a similar support item in his Silver Age days..." His muttering continued even after adjusting his mask and mouthpiece over his face.
~I AM HERE! I AM-~
All Might quickly answered his phone. ~Hello? All Might?~ It was Hawks' voice over the sound of crumbling buildings and roars that made it sound as if he was stuck in some action monster movie. ~How's... Midoriya doing?~
"He's doing quite alright, he returned just now-" His head quickly spun around to the dust left by Deku a moment later.
"Sorry, All Might! Gotta run!" And like that, he was gone again.
The old hero sighed, "... never mind." But in his state, all he could do was watch his successor dive off above the buildings and back into the dangerous world, his mind burning with the promise he made to a worried parent a month ago.
After being told the results of his medical examination, and that he was lucky that his bones weren't destroyed, probably in part to some unknown of One For All, and to Yuki's quick repairs when she still controlled SIVA. His mother asked All Might the truth about what her son's quirk really was.
It was a lengthy conversation, one that led to the ultimate fate that Shigaraki and Kovik would be watching him, potentially coming after Izuku to finish the job.
"What happens next...?" Inko asked. Her son still staring down at the mask resting on his lap, a sense of Deja Vu rushing back to him of a similar scene before the Camino Disaster
"We're prepared to protect him. If it's UA...-" All Might was cut off quickly.
"I won't be going back to UA," The words rolled off Izuku's tongue like a lead ball, eyes fixed to the mask.
"Young Midoriya..." His student had already made up his mind, probably before waking up.
"Izuku...!" His mother was panicked, that was expected, but nothing would sway his gaze from his lap.
"Even now... it wouldn't be unexpected of Kovik to launch an attack here, I..." His thoughts drowned in failure and regret. "I don't want to see anyone getting hurt anymore..." He picked up the mask in his right hand, staring into its empty sockets. "I refuse to see anyone I care about end up that way again,"
"If I sit and do nothing, Kovik will perfect NARA and in turn, Shigaraki, if that happens, the situation will go from bad to worse, I need to stop them before then," He set the mask down, sucking down any and all doubts left. "...Yuki isn't here to stop Kovik... Akio, Velk, and Hana aren't here to prevent the most powerful Nightmare in the world from cremating the whole world, Rayla and Tekres aren't here to exploit the Splicers' secrets, so I have to bring them back," He resolved, burning his eyes into his lap. "No matter how long it takes,"
As any worried parent would, Inko was quick to try and persuade him otherwise, "But look at the state you're in, how will you...!"
"I'll just get stronger," Izuku affirmed. Until he had complete control over One For All and its quirks. Eighty-Five percent, that was still his struggle limit, a comfortable Seventy-Five was his base. Coupled with still learning Float, and that new ability he used in the heat of the moment, the Third User's quirk, Fa Jin.
"I said I'd put my trust in you, but -" Inko was shaking like a leaf, tears dribbling down her face. "-No! I don't approve! I know you're hurting, Izuku, from losing Yuki especially," Even a blind man would've seen Izuku's body flinch. "I understand that you feel torn up and that you believe it's only you that can accomplish this, but I can't stand seeing you do this to yourself! Not if that's your only plan...!"
Izuku clasped his hand around his mother's, smiling gently, he knew this was probably selfish of him but he really did consider his options, all the possibilities, but all ideas centered around the same conclusion. It would hurt a lot of people, and he hated that, even if he knew it had to be done.
"I was so happy for you, I laughed with you, I was happy then... but now-" She choked up a sob, remembering when it was just her son playing hero to 'save' her, and now, that fantasy was replaced with a harsh reality. And then to her surprise, her timid, shy son brought home a girl that was anything but shy, Yuki made Izuku confident and reassured Inko many times when her protective instincts screamed at her to say otherwise. She was proud of Izuku, but this situation terrified her beyond measure.
Wrapping his arms around his mother, Izuku did his best to help calm her down, guessing the memory she was probably comparing to this nightmare. "Which is why I have to go save more people and bring them all back, as Izuku-Might," The old term made him chuckle a bit. "But don't worry! I will come back!"
Overwhelmed by this affectionate scene, All Might remembered a promise he had made on his hands and knees and shot up from his chair. "Even if I try and stop you, you'll still leave... so in that case! Even if you don't want it, I'll accompany you through this, Young Midoriya!"
"All Might..." His emerald eyes blinked in surprise. He wanted to say something but All Might shook his head, clenching his fist close to his heart.
"I watched as my students flung themselves into danger, I had to stomach as Young Azuru was beaten within an inch of her life and tossed from our eyes, far from our reach," He failed her, he will not make that mistake ever again! Finding a smirk, he eyed his successor. "If I can change my fate, then the two of us will change theirs."
Later, after Izuku was discharged from the hospital, he went to a room at night to visit one last patient, one that still recovered from his own severe injuries. "Hehe, is that right? Crying in the afterlife, eh?" Gran Torino mused, finding the news to be reassuring in his state.
"At least... I ain't dead yet, can't join you right now, Nana," He wheezed, looking to Izuku's earnest expression. "As for you, kiddo, don't be too stubborn about redeeming Shigaraki. Sometimes, death can be a form of salvation too, and in his case, it could very well fall to that," He then weakly motioned to the bedside table where his torn cape remained in tattered shreds.
"Don't you... ever forget that" It was his last lesson for the young successor as he watched Izuku take the yellow cape to repurpose, the young man bowing his head and wishing him luck in his recovery.
Flying through the air, Deku's eyes hardened onto every street and dark crevasse he could find. "I still have nothing on the Splicer Sectors..." They were like walls with no top, stretching seamlessly into the sky. And with villains becoming much more carefree, alongside escaped convicts, it put a lot of pressure between Deku and his answers. This didn't deter him. "I swear... I will bring them back to this world!"
Several days passed since Deku encountered Muscular, since then, nothing but petty thugs, and the occasional villain came within his scope. All were dealt with, not a single casualty to speak of...
It was night under rainfall, turning the streets into a darker manifestation than they'd appear in daylight. Commotion roared above the storm, feet splashing and heavy breathing mingled with the shouts and cries of various people.
"That monster-!" One screamed as he fled behind two armed civilians.
The towering person stepped into view under a streetlamp, shielding themselves in fright of the support gear strapped on the people below. 'She' was over six feet tall with a head resembling that of a mouse with a blonde ponytail and a longer bang hanging over her frightened features. "Please, no! Stop it!" She walled, discarding her umbrella to shield her face from the pressured water bolts from a gauntlet on a person's arm.
Tears welled up in her eyes from the stinging sensation that struck her arms. "I'm no monster! I was just scared- squeak!" She made a noise similar to a mouse out of reflex but the people below didn't care in the slightest.
"Trying to let our guard down, huh!?" The arm-cannon man didn't even hesitate, his face constricted with dark lines, his fear overwrote any semblance of logic.
"Please, stop it - squeak!" She begged, her pink eyes flooded with tears as the next shot barreled toward her.
The crackle and pop snapped through the air, striking a fist through the water bolt in time to save the woman from harm. Sliding to a halt, Deku swung his arm out to the three men and one to keep the woman behind him calm. "Please, calm down!" His mask's eyes blinked with surprise, holding their glares. "It's a rainy night, tensions are high but this person is not your enemy!" He assured them.
They lowered their weapons and quickly took off without even an apology. "Ha! If she was innocent then she should stop acting so suspicious then!"
"...apology accepted," Deku rolled his eyes, the animated lenses of his mask emphasizing the sarcasm. Then he was alerted to the girl sniffling beside him.
"I'm late for evacuation... this town was one of the safer places when this all started, so I thought I could just stay at home as this all blows over, squeak," She hiccuped, clutching her arms around her stomach tightly. "But one by one the casualties began to emerge... I was so scared," She shook her damp head, wiping her tears fruitlessly. "I thought I should make my way to the evacuation center at the school... so I ran..."
"I'm sorry, squeak... I was just so squeakin' scared-!" Because of her, she needed a lucky save from a clearly busy hero.
The rain stopped pelting her face, her umbrella held out over her head by the floating Deku as she slowly took it back. "I'm sure everyone else is scared as well," Deku admitted, floating down to the street again.
"Do you think things will return to normal?" She asked hopefully, seeing Deku nod.
"They will," He assured her, then turned, adjusting his equipment as a pair of car lights spun into view. "Sorry! I have to get going now,"
Quickly, All Might came out of the car to assess the situation. "Are you unharmed?"
"All Might! Please take her to the evacuation center-" He saw the mouse woman's head do a double-take as she recognized the former hero. "-I cannot stay here,"
"Wait a moment, take this with you!" Deku's optics flashed in surprise as a wrapped lunchbox was placed in his hands. "It's a pork katsu. You've been working non-stop lately," He was worried for Deku's health in this state.
The eyes turned to crescents, so much like Yuki's mask to express his gratitude. It was Hatsume that modified the sockets of Deku's hood to display emotion since his face was covered most of the time, but All Might felt as though a part of his other student was with Deku at all times, it was a comforting thought.
"Thank you for the meal!" Deku bowed
"It'll get cold soon, eat it quickly," Was all he asked.
Standing atop the i-beam skeleton of a construction site, Deku was given a bleak but magnified view of the cityscape below. Kyoto tower wasn't far away but even it had only a few lights on, many streets were darker as most buildings were closed or those that could still work semi-normal lives had already left for the night. It was a hollow imitation of the nightlife Japan used to be.
A cold breeze tugged at Deku's blue scarf, his hand patting it down gently. "It's like society's backin' up right now," Beside him, the astral form of Banjo appeared to be scouting the streets himself. "The days where we didn't have any room to breathe from all the vigilante profilin' going on, it's like you just entered a time machine," He scoffed.
"Shigaraki, Kovik, Dabi, Barons... the Splicers and the League of Villains... we still don't have any leads," Deku grimaced, "The sectors controlled by Kovik's own have killed plenty of heroes that tried to stage a battle, there's no bypassing them without a solid plan, and any escapees were simply allowed to wreak havoc, they have no clues either,"
"We're completely in the dark, huh?" Banjo surmised, scratching his cheek while Deku took off his mask to eat.
"Shigaraki with AFO's quirk, add NARA into the mix... I doubt even Endeavor, Mr. Aizawa, and Miss. Akame working together could take him down," With every passing day, the monster Kovik incubated became stronger. 'Incubated' was another thing. "The 'Incubator', whatever it is spawned an army of Splicers, but what is it...?"
Deku stared at the dark horizon, his mind racing with ideas and questions. "If One For All can't put a stop to all this at once... nothing will improve,"
"Hey, listen clearly kiddo," A hand patted his back to snap him from his intense stare at his lunchbox. Beside him was the second user of One For All, a man with short, spiky hair, a large scar across the front of his face, and wears a combat jacket with a large black collar. He is also equipped with a pair of gauntlets on his arms. "We're going full speed ahead now, so rest up!"
"Yes sir!" Deku replied, biting into his meal with gusto. The other successors all disappeared around him after that, once he recharged, he'd keep going. The solution was out there, he'd find it, he just needed time to compile all he knew.
A sudden jolt slammed into Deku's crown, and without losing his meal, he slung his left arm back, releasing Blackwhip only to find the blackish-blue binding caught around a single palm, the tendrils refusing to replicate as he held a glare back at the attacker setting his Danger Sense into overdrive.
"Ohohoho, that's some reflex, I almost jumped a bit," 'He' giggled, amused with himself. "You can relax, I'm not here to hurt you, Izuku Midoriya," He cocked his head. "Though I suppose my biological make-up isn't doing me any favors, but I prefer a direct confrontation to mindless white lies and half-truths, don't you?"
"Who are you?" Deku didn't release Blackwhip, and yet, the person snapped the chord with a single twist. "He can overpower my whip at fifty percent?" Now he realized why his Danger Sense was going crazy, or rather, was, as the tension in his brain subsided.
In the spotlight of one of the billboard's lights, the figure did a curt bow, hat tipped toward Deku. Smiling, the creature wore a black suit, with a fur lining for his cuffs and collar, a golden tie, a white shirt, and a top hat with two cards strapped into the side with velvet fabric, both an ace of hearts and spades. It also wore crimson, fingerless gloves to allow a set of sharp, white claws to pierce through.
Two featureless golden eyes curved sharply with mirth, a jack o lantern smile stretched in the same gold pigment. Then it dawned on Deku what exactly 'it' was. "You're a Nightmare..." He murmured, his heart pounding as he lost his appetite.
"Correct! My name is Gambit, The Omniscient Nightmare," His grin glowed in the rainfall, not a drop staining his figure. "This weather is quite dreadful, lemme fix that," He snapped his fingers, and to Deku's bewilderment, the rainfall simply didn't exist around the two of them, continuing to pelt the world instead. "'What do you want? Why are you here for me?' Quite the roster of questions,"
He knew exactly what Deku was thinking, was he telepathic too? What else did this Nightmare know? Or could do? Gambit chuckled, whisking his hand around. "I pride myself on being steps ahead, and I know all about you, Deku, and that quirk of yours, so many souls beginning to merge into one final shape, it's quite exciting," Gambit studied the tense teen, then sighed dramatically. "But alas, here you are waging a one-man war on a High Splicer that took away the love of your life, can't say I don't blame you, we all do the absurd for love, it's an indisputable law of nature,"
The boy's eyes flickered with emotions Gambit saw through with instant attention. Before him, a child was holding himself together on fleeting hopes and a passion to protect, sure, there was a selfish desire, a longing to hold that which is precious to him in his arms again above all others. But Gambit only saw the humanity that made up Izuku Midoriya, he wasn't here to judge the rights and wrongs anyhow.
"I'll skip right to my point, I know where Kovik's Barons scheme, and how to bring them down," He watched Deku's eyes widen. Extending a hand, Gambit's gaze slit like a hungry predator. "So, shall we make a deal?"
To Be Continued...
Starting off with a big bang, the one-sided rematch with Muscular, Izuku's choices leading to his renegade act with All Might. And now, a chance encounter with a familiar Nightmare. I hope you enjoyed, I appreciate the support as always; seeya in the next chapter, Heroes!
Next Chapter Intermission: Of Barons and Heroes
Gambit sat down before the camera, "It's been far too long! How's everyone been? What stories have you fallen into I wonder?" He leaned back, pulling up his cards. "What fortune awaits our little heroes?"
On five cards, Izuku the ace of spades, Kovik the joker, Gambit the king of clubs, the Devil Splcers' symbol on a jack of diamonds, and Draco and Kaneko back to back on the queen of hearts. Gambit marveled at the cards, grinning at the camera, he always grinned.
"Here's a little hint on how my cards work, each represents something significant to what's to come, and no two sets of cards are ever the same," His claws flipped the cards around slowly. "A significant role, the center of the web, an emotional connection, manipulation or a person working behind the scenes, and the wrench thrown into the mix,"
Dismissing the cards, the banner popped down above his head. "Coming soon, Of Barons and Heroes," He snapped his fingers, turning out the lights, leaving only a pair of sinister eyes and a grin to burn in the darkness. "Let the story continue..."