The legacy of All For One ended in a crimson pool on a dirty, concrete floor. Destro stepped back
deftly to avoid staining his rented bowling shoes with the blood of his slain foe.
It was as if all the stars across reality--heedless of the laws of physics--snuffed out in an instant leaving only a cold sense of finality in their place. This was the heat death of the universe. The last living things were heaving their final breaths and life would never return to the barren, black expanse that remained of a once glorious world. Yet it was not a grim end. No, this was how it should be, how it ought to go. Life was a story about death. What really mattered was the final page, the moments that drew every stray thread of the story back together and wove them into a coherent conclusion. This was a beautiful, well-deserved end to All For One, Shigaraki... and Destro's stories and it was a long, long time coming.
After countless lives and painful decades, the MLA War was over. It didn't end at Utapa with the Army's defeat. It ended in this ruined basement with Destro's victory in the duel of a century, with this brutal, final revenge for a million unjust deaths.
Nobody dared to speak, the only sound steam hissing ominously from the damaged time-travel machine's subsystems. The permissive paradox field might have flickered for a moment. Fossa had to get Destro home now. There was no telling what was wrong with the device that made this whole situation possible and the doctor had run off... but even if Kyudai hadn't fled it was too dangerous to allow him anywhere near the thing to fix it. The dead and the living were kept separate for a reason. No exceptions should be made... or no more exceptions after Chikara, anyway.
A wave of vindictive satisfaction spread throughout Destro's emotional field in a golden wave, a vague impression of feathered wings unfurling across the room and trailing airily along the walls.
"What has--what?" screamed Toga as she skidded into the room. Compress--who must have arrived in the Citadel within in the last few hours given Izuho had heard no rumor of his presence-- was only a few steps behind her. The blood drinker stared at the carnage, at her leader's headless corpse, and shrieked, "stop them! Stop them kill them stop them!"
"Destro," Compress at least recognized the MLA leader on sight. "What... how?"
"Destro, please," Izuku interrupted desperately. "You have to go! The machine isn't going to last!" he pointed to the paradox field, finger shaking with nerves. It had definitely flickered. "If you get stuck here I don't know what will happen!" Nothing good, certainly. The MLA needed their leader. For all that they would be defeated in the end, there was no doubt that Destro and his army had exerted a huge influence on the modern world. Without Destro to lead, the MLA would be defeated far earlier, likely with many more casualties, resulting in terrible repercussions across the globe. Reality as Izuku knew it would--well, who knew? Who knew how time-travel worked? Maybe the world would mutate and shift around Izuku into an unrecognizable hellscape; maybe Izuku would disappear, unborn in the new reality; or maybe the two timelines would coexist peacefully, following parallel but well separated tracks. Regardless, Izuku had zero desire to test these theories. Even the best case scenario was still very bad.
"One second," Destro murmured. "I have something to say."
Gold twisted through Destro's emotional field in coiling spirals, spreading like intricate tattoos. The effect was almost hypnotic, timeless shapes whirling around each other, drawing the eye towards an infinitely distant center. Every eye had already fixed on him, but now nobody could so much as glance away. "I expected better!" Chris roared at them, his voice echoing through the cavernous room. "Really? You built on all of our hard work and this," he pointed to Shigaraki's body and then the machine with its auxiliary nomus, "is the best you could do? A third-rate Third Reich led by a selfish idiot so stuck in the past that he squandered all his resources trying to raise the dead and restore a golden age rather than looking to build a better future for himself and his people?"
Destro let them stew on that question, staring into the gathered crowd, meeting every gaze he could find. "I do not belong here any more than All For One and I will not be staying to solve your problems for you. That is your responsibility. But I really did expect more effort, more than this pitiable token. My friends, my army, fought and died for a world free of people like All For One and his cronies. Meta humans, non-metas, it doesn't matter. Good people and wicked people, talented people and good-for-nothings, come in all shapes and sizes. My army and I fought for a world free for meta humans and non-metas alike. My good friend Fractal is a non-meta, and there is no better strategist to be found. Your conduct," the ethereal feathers of his wings twisted to point at the onlookers like accusing fingers, "the things that you have allowed to be done in my name and the name of my generals, shames me to no end.
"I've seen these sorts of atrocities plenty of times before. It's common enough among the MLA's bitterest enemies, so I can't say I'm surprised, but I am very disappointed." Cold, dingy blue sorrow mixed with burgundy resentment crackled through his field, highlighting his wings in particular. Much more quietly, he continued, "all of you have disappointed me. How dare you claim kinship with the Meta Liberation Army and fight to destroy all the things we loved?
"Perhaps it was just fear of this Shigaraki," he gestured to the corpse, "that set you on your wretched path. I'd like to think that were true. I'd like to think you were capable of better than this,
capable of building rather than merely destroying. I've seen dozens of lost souls turn their lives around. I've seen whole countries turn their lives around. It's never easy, but you must be capable of more than this. You have a better future ahead of you if you get your acts together and fight for it."
Just the bell-clear, booming tone of those words would haunt any listener for life, but the sounds was augmented by a projection of emotional force, Destro's meta ability flaring out in a thin wave so that everyone gasped, chests tight with purple-gold-red-silver passion, too many emotions to name. Tears poured from Izuku's eyes. Was it really something to lust after like this? The future... could it really be worthy of this feeling?
"So the question I pose to you is this: what kind of world do you want to live in? A dystopian, dictatorial hellscape ruled by the iron hands of megalomaniacs who try to cheat death and steal your very souls from your bodies," the machine hissed again and that was not a happy noise--oh god Destro was going to end up stuck here. This was an amazing speech but Chris needed to finish it up, "or a world where everyone, every single person without regard to accidents of birth, is free to live a happy life, respected and equal before the law and society at large? You decide. And if you choose the latter, then and only then, may you put 'Liberation' in your army's name!"
Chris swiveled on his heel like a king returning to his throne and Izuku approached him cautiously. For the moment the room was frozen in shock, but it would soon thaw. Already commotion had begun, murmuring voices in all directions gradually gaining volume.
"So how does this work?" Chris asked as they approached the paradox field. A new, ominous clinking noise echoed up from the smoking machine's internals.
"I think I just have to visualize the bowling alley like I did when I brought you here, general," Fossa replied, "that was what the doctor implied, but I don't want to leave this machine intact in any way and I don't have the power to destroy it completely. Just shooting it isn't going to be enough."
Destro smirked. "That part is easy to handle." He growled, narrowing his eyes and summoning up a good chunk of rage to strengthen himself, then raised a mighty paw, extending it towards maximum range so that the emotional field acquired the consistency of smoke, and batted insistently at the exposed trusses supporting the ceiling. Metal shrieked and twisted and the building began to creak like a pine in strong winds. Destro smashed straight through two more supports. "That ought to do it," he said as huge chunks of a beam plummeted to the ground with a crash. The whole floor shook and a handful of wiser onlookers ran for the doors. Pressing his paw up against the ceiling, Chikara held the shattering concrete slabs in place. "When I go the whole thing will go with me."
"Brilliant," Fossa should have thought of that.
"Hasn't it been enough?" Magne's shrill shout cut through the background twitter of angry and frightened voices. "Isn't it enough? Enough, Toga! Enough, Compress! I'm sick of it sick of it! Twice is dead, Re-Destro is dead All For One is dead Shigaraki is dead! Isn't it enough?"
"No! They can't just do this!" Toga shrieked in fury, pointing a jittery finger at Shigaraki's body, "and walk away!"
"Haven't we killed enough people and had enough people killed, Toga? What is the goddamned point? Shigaraki was our friend but he lost it big time and now that he's gone we can finally end this madness!"
"Magne wants a cease fire," Fossa realized. That... wasn't actually surprising given Izuho's limited interactions with her.
"And the other two don't," Destro said after briefly assessing Compress and Toga. "There is going to be plenty more blood spilled here tonight." The tension boiling in the room was thick enough to eat with a fork. In minutes, or maybe seconds, this room would be a war zone again. "You know what happens when you cut the biggest head off the hydra."
"All the little heads fight for the free place," Izuku replied, quoting Arch. "But it doesn't matter. You need to go now. I don't like that hissing sound and the field definitely flickered again. We need to hurry." Wait. Fossa had forgotten to give Destro his bowling ball back--but he couldn't do anything about it because Destro was destined to leave his bowling ball here. If Fossa gave it back to him, it would break the stability of the time loop. Izuku's dream of the bowling alley incident would no longer match reality. He couldn't take the risk. Oh well. There was no dearth of balls back at the lanes. Chris would just get another one.
"We have to be in this light?" Destro shifted to stand in the cube fully, adjusting his grip on the soon to be ex-ceiling.
"I think so, general, the permissive paradox field the doctor called it," Izuku said as he stepped in beside Destro, almost close enough to touch him.
"You're insane!" Fossa whirled in time to see Toga push Magne to the ground, the permanently injured general staring at her friend in shock--then one of Magne's loyalists stepped forward with a clenched fist and furious curse. Magne, shaking her head, grabbed the man's trouser leg and the inevitable intra-faction bloodbath was delayed another few seconds.
More people arrived through every door even as the savvier recognized the structural instability and fled. A medic raced across the floor, stopping short of approaching Shigaraki when Destro snatched the corpse with his free paw and flattened it. Even Fossa had to turn away, gagging. He was not going to throw up in front of Chris. Fossa had seen worse. He had. "Sorry," Destro muttered, sounding absolutely disgusted himself, "I wouldn't do that if... well, it sounds like Garaki has come a long way in what he's willing to do with corpses and we don't have a way to burn the body."
The medic, undeterred, gave Destro a wide berth as she approached the unconscious form of Stain.
No more delays. "Thank you, Destro. Goodbye." The scent of fried food... Bit Weasel's exasperation, Arch's smug ambition almost tangible in the air...
"Come with me," Destro snatched Izuku's wrist and the warmth of his real, living hand was like lava poured through Izuku's soul. Dizziness swelled through him as the spy tried to memorize the sensation of those strong fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist.
"W-What?"
"Come with me," Chris repeated. "The ceiling is going to come down. Even if you're very fast it might catch you and even if you get away from that, everyone here is going to be gunning for you. I don't know much about you but what I do know I like. You don't deserve to die here after everything you've achieved. Come home with me."
And it was so tempting.
He could go back in time with Destro. He could fix everything before it even went wrong! He
knew enough to change the course of the MLA war. He could keep Tripswitch from getting killed, Arch and Influx, too. He could save Destro from his horribly unjust fate. He could stop the PLF from ever forming and that would save Tokoyami and Hawks and Midnight and Hound Dog and millions of others--he could change anything... by giving up on everything. By throwing his life away again, like he had when he took Switcher's offer...
And it wasn't his place. It wasn't his world. It wasn't his war. The past was never meant to be the present. Hadn't Destro himself just challenged them all to turn towards the future and build something better for themselves and their descendants? This, the PLF war, was Fossa's war and he would see it through. Either he would succeed, make it back to UA to his mother and Kacchan and all the others who waited for him and live to see the future in all its limitless possibilities, or he would fail and be dead like countless others lost to this bitter war. No, he was not going to abandon his place here to become a part of some sort of bizarre history-changing time-travel paradox. "I can't, Destro. The PLF War is my war and I have to see it to the end, even if it's bitter. This has to be a closed time loop."
Strange things can happen if you invite someone home in a borderland between realities.
And it was so tempting.
All those things he could fix, all those people he could save, those he could spare directly or indirectly from persecution and death, the infinite possibilities of a new future at the very dawn of the age of quirks...
Izuku had little to no chance of escaping the heart of PLF territory alive now that he had thrown his cover by the wayside. He would make a run for Chain lines, but even if he managed to steal a very fast car, even if the infighting among PLF generals were very bad, there was little chance Izuku would survive. If he took this offer and went to the past with Chris... who knew exactly what would happen but certainly Izuku would vanish from this world, from this timeline. To those he left behind, it would be as if he had taken his own life. It was Switcher's offer all over again.
And yet he'd taken Switcher's offer, and Izuku would take Switcher's offer a second time. Regardless of what the spy decided, he would be dead either way, either now in the present or decades ago in Destro's time. What was the point in staying here to face a bitter, pointless end when there was a way out staring him right in the face? The MLA war was as much his war as the PLF war. The chance to see, to know, those dear friends who had never met him... "I... it's supposed to be a closed time loop. I'm not supposed to go back with you."
"I figured you would say that," Destro gave him a wan smile, "for the same reasons that I would never stay here to solve your problems for you." Destro released his wrist, the warmth of the touch fading away all too quickly.
Destro flicked his head dismissively. "Who cares what was supposed to happen? I am not a believer in destiny. We decide whether it's a closed loop or not."
"I'm really glad I got to see you, just this once. I've missed you," Izuku admitted, "even though we've never met before."
"I would be... I have friends here. I would be abandoning them all..." and somehow that didn't seem to matter so much anymore. They weren't going to see him again either way.
"Thank you for what you did here," Destro told him. "Knowing that somehow, someday, the Soulstealer's legacy ends has taken more off my mind than you know."
"If they are true friends they would rather you escape and live out a good, long, happy life in the past than you fight to rejoin them in the present and die a terrible death well before your time."
He would always regret this. Oh, the temptation to change his mind, to jump at a peerless opportunity to maybe, just maybe, put right some of the wrongs of the world, an opportunity nobody on the planet had ever had before. It was overwhelming. But who was Fossa to play god like that? By trying to put things right, he might make everything worse, and even if he didn't make everything worse, what gave him the right to rewrite history? How could anyone be arrogant enough to assume they knew right from wrong well enough to improve the timeline itself? "Goodbye, Yotsubashi Chikara. Good luck."
There were so many risks, so many caveats, so many reasons not to and yet the temptation was irresistible . How could he possibly turn this opportunity down? What kind of person would refuse an offer like this? If you had a chance to save countless good people's lives by changing the past, how could you justify refusing to try? So what if there were a risk? There was always a risk!
"Run fast. Make it home alive."
"I'll do my best." He would. After everything he'd done, everything he'd accomplished... Fossa wasn't going to give up now. Fossa probably wouldn't make it back to UA, back to the friends and family who already thought him lost, but he would give the attempt everything he had. Destor's cutting words, "you have a better future ahead of you if you get your acts together and fight for it,"
echoed through his mind like a mantra, awaking a lust for life long buried and forgotten in the dark corners of his heart. He probably wouldn't make it home, but if his enemies wanted to stop him they would have to fight Fossa really damn hard.
Chris gave him one last pat on the shoulder, sending another wave of dizziness sweeping through him that redoubled when Destro told him, "I have faith in you, Switchblade."
Izuku pulled Arashiro's ball from his jacket. "I have the same meta ability as Tripswitch," Izuku babbled an explanation, "even though we're not related by blood. I'll explain when we get there-- anyway a few days ago Arashiro realized I was a spy and I imprisoned her because I couldn't think of what else to do but she shouldn't come along for this ride. Goodbye, Arashiro. Good luck." He threw the softball as hard as he could towards a structurally sound connecting corridor. Glass shattered and his friend sprawled out on the ground, still unconscious but stirring a bit within seconds. Good.
Izuku twisted his wrist so that, rather than Destro grasping him, the two now clasped hands. Chris grinned slyly.
Bubbling oil, fluorescent light on shining wax floors, Bit Weasel's exasperated eye rolls, the innate hilarity of thirty special forces operatives jeering about splits and cheering about strikes, the bizarre contrast of hidden body armor and rented bowling shoes, the murmur of countless voices, an occasional giggle interspersed with the hollow smack of a ball hitting a lane, gentle disco music from speakers in the ceiling--
The roof creaked ominously and Fossa scrambled back, fleeing from the now empty paradox field as the reek of blood and ozone flooded the room and the first pieces of the ceiling began to patter down like rain. A hideous groan followed. The structural instability spread like the plague and beam after beam groaned and twisted.
"Run for it!"
Fossa pelted down the hallway towards the secondary incinerator as an unbelievable roar echoed through the building and a cloud of dust chased him.
The angry voices were not far behind.