Smog slides off the form of Tomura Shigaraki as he steps through Kurogiri's warpgate. The portal brought him to the roof of a building high enough for him to survey the scene without being noticed himself. Katana Man carves through cops below, bullets doing nothing to stop the slaughter party. It's a sight to behold for anyone who craves violence. Bloodshed bred by those trying to prevent it. The irony isn't lost to the villain, a smile etching its way across his scarred lips. Kurogiri materializes behind Shigaraki to join him atop the building's brim. Though the foggy fiend isn't quite as entertained while watching Katana Man's rampage.
"Are you sure this is worthwhile? Wouldn't it be wiser to retrieve our ally and dissolve the matter?", Kurogiri's eyes fluctuate from a peeled pattern to narrowed slants as he judges both Shigaraki and the Nomu version of Stain.
Ordinarily, that line of questioning – or any for that matter – would infuriate Shigaraki. Now, however, he's much too in a good mood to be bothered. "My pet wants to play", the villain gestures broadly with a spread of each arm, "Let him play until his playmate arrives!"
Kurogiri glances over at his partner, slitted eyes shrinking smaller. "How can you be so sure the boy will even bother to appear?", he doesn't hide his speculation in the slightest with his tone of voice.
But again, that somehow doesn't bother Shigaraki. "He's a wannabe hero", the villain returns his ally's stare while his smile morphs into a grin, "And heroes can't help themselves at times like these."
Kurogiri sees something in the young master of evil, something all too similar to their elder leader. Shigaraki is learning, evolving, growing; Kurogiri's smokey form shudders at the implications. He hides his dishevelment with a hum, diverting his gaze.
And with proper timing too. Suddenly, the telltale sound of a chainsaw jumpstarting sweeps through the streets. "See?", Shigaraki shows his smug side when the source of brattling razors arrives, "He's here" None other than Izuku Midoriya in his full quirked form swings from chain linked lines.
Izuku drops down, opposing his rival. Katana Man's skull shaped jaw curves upwards, some semblance of a smile welcoming their confrontation with one another. Each of them raise their bladed arms, one as still as swords while the other spins wildly. The police that had been trying to stop Stain 2.0 themselves begin backing off, instead focusing on evacuation and crowd control. A less than silent standoff starts what has been made into an arena.
"You wanted me", Izuku's tongue flops out of his frothing mouth when he gnashes his elongated fangs to shout at Stain, "Here I am!" The act of bravado comes with a scrape of his chainsaws against the ground to sharpen their rotating blades.
Katana Man returns the gesture by sliding his sword augmented appendages against parked cars, steel scraping steel eliciting a shrill screech. "Here.. Hero", a malformed version of the villain's voice growls at a lower decibel than Izuku's yelling but the boy hears his enemy loud and clear.
"That's right", Izuku beckons the bad guy forward with a chainsaw arm, "I'm right here!"
Their fight commences. A swing and a slash, sharpened limbs crossing blades. The amount of force put into their attacks is more than any of their previous encounters. Cracks in the pavement beneath their feet form, full potholes leaving indentations from their steps. Swipes cut through the air, wind splitting into separate gusts that blow back any spectators of the battle. All except Shigaraki and Kurogiri who view the match from a higher vantage point.
Izuku sweeps under his opponent, utilizing the swift motions he learned from Hawks. He's also able to parry better than before now that his lessons from Kyoka have been refined further. But blocking and dodging isn't going to be enough to cut down the villain. He moves back with each counter. The fight is in Katana Man's favor. Izuku hides his mindful attack patterns with seemingly wild swings; he waits it out, luring his challenger into a riposte.
The katana Nomu slides forward, lashing out at Izuku. The boy's chainsaws intercept the swords. The blades are trapped, locked against eachother. Untangling their weapons, each fighter swerves to switch sides and rebound with a second bout of blades. Katana Man resorts to a kick, outstretched leg smashing into Izuku's stomach. The blow separates them greatly, knocking the boy back a ways.
Katana Man charges in with a destructive strike to add extra pressure but Izuku is able to block just in the knick of time. The velocity tackles them both through a building's infrastructure. Walls crumble when the two ram right through them to continue crossing blades. The momentum moves upwards, their bodies pivoting to make the fight an aerial one.
When Katana Man brings a sword down to hack off Izuku's face and it's stopped by a chainsaw, the Nomu's head tilts to convey confusion. This battle isn't as one sided as their encounter in the Yakuza tunnels. In a broad open space, Izuku thrives with a separating kick to put space between them.
Stain's muscle memory activates, slick sword movements that only years of experience could hone starting to shift the tides back in his favor. Izuku gets sent sideways but lands on his back. The Nomu leaps, planning to stomp on his chest; the hero hopeful dodges and the floor gets shattered instead of his ribcage.
Katana Man doesn't let up once Izuku gets back on his feet, following up with an underhanded swipe of a sword mounted arm. Izuku moves to the side. He blocks the next two attacks with his chainsaws. The volley of vicious swings continues. Izuku keeps stopping them with his arm bars. Stain slashes. Chainsaw clashes.
Katana Man tries throwing in an upper body strike. Izuku bends his back, the blade passing over his neck and stopping short at the chainsaw protruding from his head. When Izuku rights himself, the katana pushes back. The Nomu state of Stain is programmed to keep attacking; a relentless flow of sword swipes doesn't cease. Izuku can hardly keep up, failing to block them all, instead jumping back and avoiding them with leaning steps.
Izuku throws in a few swings of his own, retaliating in an effort to fight back. Katana Man matches the boy's footwork, also veering to avoid getting cut. It almost seems as though the two are dancing at this point, moving to the flow of the other's attacks. They carry on with an exchange of blocks or parries a while longer before Izuku hops back to charge up a stronger strike and chops down.
Katana Man draws his blades up to shield his body before mirroring a charged swing of his own. Izuku ducks under it while bending an arm back for a second wind. The timing has changed the pacing of their exchange but now a deadlier diciness has opened way to the match. When the Nomu's enhanced strength plows into Izuku and sends the boy skidding back, their contest of endurance comes to a close.
Katana Man roars as he sprints at his rival. Another move preserved in the mind of Stain's fighting prowess helps the Nomu to spring forward with a flying kick that launches Izuku high into the air. Izuku crashes through a billboard as he's thrown over the rooftop that Shigaraki and Kurogiri are on. The boy spirals in the sky before landing atop a train that happens to be passing through that sector.
Izuku bounces across each passenger car, rolling with every impact. It's not until he falls atop the final box that he stops. Shigaraki moves from one end of the rooftop he's on to the other so that he can keep track of the battle that's now gone mobile. "Kurogiri, be ready to warp me so that we can follow if need be", he gives a curt order to the villain watching with him without so much as a glance.
Izuku pushes himself to a standing position right as Katana Man joins him on the train's roofing. The two stand across from one another, finding themselves in another brief exchange of glares. The first to move in is Izuku. He swings both of his chainsaw arms back as he charges forward. Katana Man swings his bladed arms back to match his enemy's stance. Then they meet in the middle.
The two opponents close, Katana Man cutting at Chainsaw Man. Izuku parries, but Stain's instinct mutates his cut into a thrust. The move of slashing and then prodding happens again. And again. The Nomu drives the boy along the train cars, both of them having to hop the gaps in between occasionally.
Izuku veers as much as he can without falling off the train, attempting to counter to compensate for his loss of a spacious arena. But Katana Man presses without yielding, never giving up the initiative. A blade slips past Izuku's guard, causing the boy to jerk back, barely turning a head cleaving hew into a gash across his chest. Blood stains his shirt; Katana Man drew first blood,
More blood will be bound to spill if Izuku doesn't dodge the next incoming attack. He twists his body to perform an acrobatic maneuver over the swordsman and lands on the other side. Katana Man turns, bladed arms shifting with the motion. Izuku does the same. Their complete turnaround is what powers the uptake of each fighter's weapons. Chainsaws and katanas collide, clashing together harder than ever before.
Izuku chops and hacks with broader swings, exposing his torso at the cost of more strength to his attacks. Katana Man, being a Nomu and not Stain fully, doesn't seize the opportunity; the monster merely meets the forceful fighting with an application of equal power. That's what Izuku was counting on. He takes the opening as a chance to wedge a chainsaw into the creature's gut, turning it side to side to saw as much of the walking corpse's innards as he can.
Katana Man doesn't register the pain of the body blow, pressing into it and returning Izuku's stab with a sword piercing the boy's shoulder. Izuku cries out but doesn't let up, he swings his other chainsaw arm around to dig into the Nomu's armpit. Red sprays from each of them while they share a moment of shredding eachother's puncture points. When they separate, Izuku takes a knee.
He loops a finger through the starter string's handle and gives it a tug, reigniting the flow of blood to his heart via chest cord. Already, his wounds begin closing up thanks to his regenerative abilities activating. He pushes up to get himself standing again. Izuku settles his sights on his opponent who is seemingly waiting for the recovery.
"Teach.. You", Katana Man grinds out a raggedly raspy slur of words that's barely audible over the train they're on.
But Izuku hears him. "I've already got teachers", he responds with a light stroke that would have been faster to land if his chainsaw were as light as a feather, "One of which taught me this!" The chains on his arm bars unravel, carried with the rush of the train on its tracks. "And this!", the chains attempt to bind Katana Man but get deflected.
Izuku assumes a stance that was beat into him. Ear jacks had poked and prodded his joints so that they get the proper positioning. "Another showed me how to do this", the bars protruding from his arms slam into Stain despite having their fetters unhooked. The Nomu buckles under the blow, knocked back.
"And lastly", Izuku snags the villain's shoulder with an upward swipe that connects the chains through a means of direct contact. It's thanks to the straight narrow train route that they're able to operate accordingly. The fetters attached themselves to passing structures before hooking to Katana Man. "This", a capture method akin to Eraserhead's snares Stain.
"I don't have anything to learn from a fake", Izuku's parting words leave the Nomu state of Stain mortified. The chains drag Katana Man to hell, ripping him from the train and running him under its tracks. The body is beyond recovery by the time it's torn apart and shredded by the combination of dismemberment and crushing.
Izuku jumps from the train, landing atop a roof. There, he's about to relax. Except, a familiar sight rekindles his vigilance. Kurogiri's warpgate opens a way for Shigaraki to step onto the same roof. "You brat", the villain is seething with hatred as he grinds his nails against his own neck, "How dare you take him from me!"
Izuku cautiously moves around the portal, wary of the villains. "I mean – He attacked me first", he feels the need to point that out even if it doesn't help the situation.
Shigaraki falters at that, at the very least. But it doesn't quell his rage completely. "It's only fair that I take something from you now", he begins stepping backwards to retreat through Kurogiri's warpgate but not without a final threat, "Your little friends at U.A with suffice as sufficient revenge."
"NO!", Izuku throws caution out completely as he literally tosses himself at Shigaraki. But it's too late. The portal closes and the villain escapes.
Izuku quickly gets back up, ready to pursue the villain. When he hears what sounds like another chainsaw running. He runs to the ledge of the roof that he's on, peering over its side. Down below is Hawks on a repaired rendition of David Shield's Chainsaw Cycle. "Yo!", the hero calls for him to jump to street level.
"Yo", Izuku returns the greeting before forcefully switching spots, "Thanks for bringing this – no time to explain – gotta put it to use" He pushes Hawks from the driver's seat much to the hero's confusion.
He starts to try and stop the boy at first. "Now, wait a minute, Makima won't like–"
"My friends are in danger!", but Izuku's desperate look back is enough to change his mind.
Hawks gives the boy a nod, "I'll cover for you", and allows the chainsaw bike to tear its way downtown.
One fight after another. It's tiresome. Hawks heaves out an exhausted sigh, wishing he still had the bike to drive rather than having to fly with his wings. "I'm getting too old for this crap…", he shakes his head before taking to the sky.