A/N: Alright, here we go! This is the longest chapter I've written for this story to date (which honestly surprised me, as I had planned for 'Stand' to have the highest word count), and it's loaded with references, action, drama, and even more action. It's a piece of the story that I've been looking forward to for quite some time, and I'm very excited to share it with you all.

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did!

The Guardian Hero

The sun had just departed the horizon when the villains began their approach under the watchful eye of Nabu Island's heroes. "They're taking the path you predicted," Earphone Jack said to Deku and Kai, the latter of whom nodded grimly.

It had been decided the previous evening that the class would take on the villains in groups after separating them with long range attacks that would be all but impossible to stand against directly. Their battleground of choice was a small spit of land that sat just off the coast of Nabu, which hosted some kind of temple ruins atop a small mountain that was perfect to double as a shelter for the island population. It allowed the heroes to take the high ground in multiple areas, and they knew that they needed to take every advantage that they could.

Izuku had pointed out that the leader had a shielding quirk that would likely be able to withstand their initial assault, so they set up their traps with the thought in mind that the boss would press on, alone if he had to. The others could then attack in waves and force him to overuse his quirks, which would eventually allow them to capture him once he collapsed. Meanwhile, three teams had been put together in order to target each of the other villains backing up the new power thief. Without any of his cronies to bail him out, they could ensure that the new All For One wouldn't be able to make another getaway.

Now through the lens of a monocular, Creati was keeping an eye on the approach of the villains as they walked across the single strip of dry land that connected the old ruins to the rest of the island.

"Phase One is underway," Shoto said from next to Kai, whose eyes and veins began to glow green as he prepared one of his ultimate moves. "We're almost up." He, Deku, Tentacole, Creati, Tailman, and Ground Zero were the last lines of defense between Katsuma and the villains. The boy and his sister were staying close to the heroes, just on the off-chance that one of the villains snuck past them and tried to go looking for him among the islanders, who were hidden in the caverns that ran under the mountain, having Sugar Man and Anima to protect them.

"I'm ready," Kai replied softly, his mechanical arm clenched tightly.

"Where's your scouter at?" Tentacole asked his friend as he noticed a particular item missing from his head, the other boy shrugging in response.

"It took some damage when I bombed myself yesterday, so I decided to leave it behind at the shelter," he replied as he kept his eyes trained on the approaching villains. "Even if it was working, we still don't have a signal, so the com function wouldn't help us in this situation."

"Aoyama is getting prepped…" Earphone Jack then said with another glance upward. "Five… Four… Three… Two… One!" True to her count, Can't Stop Twinkling unleashed his ultimate move, Super Nova, from down below them, the dazzling light big enough to swallow the quartet of villains whole and vaporize them if it made direct contact.

However, as Izuku had predicted he would, the leader of the villains conjured a shield to deflect the oncoming threat. That didn't stop the secondary laser bursts that flew from the Shining Hero's shoulders and knees, which were targeted at the other villains behind him, quickly forcing them to scatter in multiple directions. The heroes kept an eye out, noticing that the beast-man had been successfully driven away from all three of his comrades, but the two women had managed to stick together.

"Now we're on," Kai muttered as he placed a hand on Shoto's shoulder, using his Giving Heart technique to transfer a small portion of his power into his friend. He took special care not to give so much that he would pass out, as he wasn't planning on napping through the upcoming fight. After all, his part in this was not yet done. "Ready, pal?" he growled as he sighted the woman responsible for his near-fatal injury.

"Let's do it!"

"Kaito Combo…" the two of them muttered as they stood back-to-back, Kai with his right hand aimed at their quarry, and Shoto with his left arm doing the same as the air around them began to heat up. "PROMINENCE FLASH!" White-hot flames mixed with energon and raced down the mountainside in a brilliant beam, scorching the ground beneath as it barreled toward the two enemy villains. It was a far improved version of the attack that they had used against Gang Orca during their licensing exam, allowing for Kurai to have less exposure to the awful heat that had knocked him out the first time that they had used it in combat. The tradeoff was that the fire was only so much hotter because of the energy that Kai had supplied to his teammate, but Shoto was also now much more adept at controlling the heat's output in a way that wouldn't hurt his friend so much. The powerful technique didn't hit their enemies, but the area where they had been was annihilated with an incendiary burst, leaving no sign that anything green had ever lived there.

"Phase One is complete," Earphone Jack said after a tense moment of her listening intently through her auxiliary ear cable. "All four villains have been separated, and our teams are in place." She stood up and quickly moved to stand behind Shoto, her arms encircling him from behind as he cooled them all off with a brief chill burst.

"That's a relief," Deku breathed.

"For us," Kai coughed through a smirk, wiping red spittle off the corner of his mouth while Shoto conjured an ice ramp that would lead him and Earphone Jack down the mountainside to join up with Cellophane. "I'd hate to be in those villains' shoes, especially the one that got me nearly killed."

Shoto slid to a stop on the ramp a little more than halfway down the mountain, where Cellophane was hiding. "I'm ready to move as soon as you give the word," he said from where he was kneeling behind a boulder, unseen by Nine, who had kept his unhurried pace toward the top of the temple ruins, where he knew his prize was being guarded.

"We'll attack in waves," the half-and-half hero said as he locked eyes with their newest enemy. "Jiro, make some ammo for Sero while I get things started."

"I'm on it."

Without another word, Shoto sent forth a new wave of ice that obscured Nine from view, though based on the explosion of frozen debris coming from down the mountain path, he knew that the villain was nowhere near being stopped yet. Meanwhile, Earphone Jack was using sonic pulses from her cables to break up the ice behind them and turn it into smaller pieces that their classmate would be able to hurl at high speeds with his tape.

Shoto's eyes noticed a subtle change in the target's defenses, and if Deku's analysis of the villain's quirks was accurate- and it almost always was- their enemy was about to counterattack. "Both of you, get behind me!" he shouted as he dropped the ice barrage and unleashed a blast of fire that was just in time to intercept a number of purple lasers that would have skewered them otherwise.

"We're ready to go back here!" Cellophane said from behind his back. "Just say the word!"

Shoto waited another moment before he shut off his fire and said, "Go!"

Slice shook off the debris that had landed on top of her as she examined her surroundings, finding them to be a dark underground cavern littered with stalagmites, stalactites, and a small river gurgling nearby. "A plan to split us up, huh?" she mused as she brushed out her bright hair. She had to hand it to the heroes- young or not, they had definitely caught her comrades off their guard.

Even so, that wouldn't stop-

"Recipro Burst!" Slice just barely managed to duck under a high-speed kick from a hero in thick armor. She followed this by unleashing a burst of needles from her hair that forced him to retreat, but now he had a friend backing him up.

"Red… Gauntlet!" a boy with rock-hard skin shouted as he charged forward, immune to the razor-sharp hairs' attack as he aimed a mighty punch toward her midsection, which she knew would do more than leave her with a bruise if it connected.

Still, her quirk wasn't all that Slice had going for her, and she moved using the flexibility that she had worked hard to achieve and maintained all her life to evade harm once again before turning her hair into a set of flexible, diamond-hard blades that could move according to her whims. "Your power and his armor may let you deflect the small ones, but let's see how you handle this," she said with a sneer.

This was right before she was knocked into a stalagmite by an unseen force, disorienting her temporarily as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. As her vision began to clear, she saw a boy with a raven's head approaching at an unhurried pace, a monstrous shadow protruding from his back and moving to cover his body as he said, "Iida, Kirishima, leave the next part to me." With an unmistakable air of menace, Tsukuyomi gripped his bladed gauntlets and added, "The darkness is my domain."

"Heh… You cheeky boy," Slice grinned as she flexed her fingers, causing small daggers to sprout from hidden compartments in her gloves over each individual appendage.

"Better watch who you're calling a boy," Red Riot warned her as he and Ingenium remained on standby. "We're not here as heroes for no reason, lady. We're men!"

Chimera found himself near a waterfall, wondering what had become of his comrades, but also being fairly unworried by the prospect of an ambush. "They got me on my own," he mused. "So what're they- argh!" He howled in pain as a bullet tore through his left ear, drawing blood and causing him to clutch at the wound angrily.

No sooner than he glared in the direction of where the bullet had come from than did he find himself being surrounded by four girls, all of them armed with glares of disgust- nothing he wasn't really used to. One of them looked ridiculously young, and he scoffed at them in spite of the pain in his head that had resulted from a sniper round. "You've gotta be kidding me," he snorted contemptuously as he plucked a cigar from his pocket and lit it in his mouth with a short puff of fire. "Are little girls really the only ones brave enough to fight me? What, did all of your friends get scared off from yesterday? I wasn't even serious."

"Today's a different game," said the smallest one, wielding a scythe with a blade alone that was nearly taller that her.

"Without any civvies nearby, we can go all-out," said the tall blonde with a wicked grin as her gauntlets made a cocking sound akin to a loaded shotgun.

"If you want a serious fight, you're about to get one," added a slim heroine dressed in white.

"For the record, we're not just girls," muttered the one wearing black. "We're American."

"Specifically from Texas," Firecracker said as they began to circle their quarry, who was eyeing them shrewdly. "We love our guns."

"And one of your friends is responsible for almost killing one of ours'," Gambol Shroud warned their enemy. "We intend to pay that back with interest."

"Heh…" Chimera grinned viciously as he flexed his muscles, shredding through the sleeves of his overcoat and sprouting large blue feathers on his arms. "Bring it on!"

"I take it you're looking for a rematch, huh?" Switch sneered as Ashid Queen glared at her from beneath a tree, pungent acid dripping from her fingertips. "Tell me, how long did it take for your handsome friend to bleed out? Or is he still holding on, trying desperately to cling to a worthless life that's soon to end at the hands of Nine?"

"Trust me, this is not going to be much of a match," the heroine answered with an uncharacteristic harshness in her voice. "And he's the one that scared your friends off to lead you here, so that I could deal with you myself." Uravity, Invisible Girl, and Froppy all realized that their friend was well past the point of simple anger- she was downright furious, and to see such hatred on her face was unsettling in the extreme.

I hope she can keep it together, Uravity thought nervously as Switch's eyes began to gleam purple, indicating that she was ready to use her quirk at any given moment. Right now she could only see her and Ashid Queen, since Froppy and Invisible Girl were using their quirks to remain hidden until the opportune moment to strike, so hopefully they had the advantage.

The villain settled into a slight crouch as if she were getting ready to run before she whispered, "When all this is over, you'll be so ugly that even your boy toy won't even want to look at you."

"When I'm done with you, your own mother won't be able to look your way," Ashid Queen shot back venomously.

"Ooh, real original," Switch snickered as her enemy narrowed her eyes. "What's next, an old-?"

"Warp Refraction!" A blinding light exploded in front of the villain, causing her to let out a shout of surprise as her optical nerves were assaulted, and the battle began.

"Counter Balance!"

"Tape Shot: Trident!"

Earphone Jack's concussive soundwaves pulsed through the air from Nine's left while Cellophane hurled ice chunks at him from the right. He repelled them with a barrier, followed by lasers from his fingertips. Cellophane evaded the counter attack while Earphone Jack simply shifted the aim of her boots and nullified the lasers with an extra-powerful burst of sound.

Neither of their attacks were meant to be finishing moves, but they were forcing the villain to use his powers, which would hopefully get him closer to reaching his limit before the final act of Phase Two could begin. And here's hoping we don't have to let it get to Phase Three, the Hearing Heroine thought as she took a knee and planted her hands on the ground while shouting, "Heartbeat Distortion!" The ground beneath Nine was ripped apart, sending solid rock chunks up in the air, which Cellophane snatched up and hurled at their enemy before it could pass him by.

Nine continued his forward path, unhurried and seemingly unconcerned while he beat their attacks away as though they were no more of a threat to him than a couple of mosquitos. So far it didn't seem as though he was being worn down, but Izuku had mentioned that he hadn't keeled over until the last minute. It was very likely that they would have no real way of knowing how close he was to hitting his limit, and thus they would have to fight as hard as they could for as long as they could.

Cellophane suddenly cried out in pain- one of the ice shards that Nine had destroyed with his lasers had sent a chunk back at the boy, which had struck him in the head, shattering the glass on his helmet and cutting him right beneath his hairline. He fell over backward, so Earphone Jack redoubled her efforts, hoping to get the villain's attention enough that he wouldn't go after her friend. This was when she finally heard Shoto yell above the noise, "I'm all set back here!"

"Sero, we gotta bail, now!" the slight girl called to her teammate, who was getting to his feet.

With a single nod, he shot a piece of tape and snatched her up toward him while using his other arm to yank them both up the mountain, passing by Shoto, who was glaring down at the villain without so much as a glance in their direction. He did, however, call back, "Keep going! I don't want you anywhere near what comes next!" Cellophane didn't need to be told twice- he could already feel the air around them dropping rapidly in temperature, so he knew what was about to happen.

Shoto settled in a wide stance before he unleashed a monstrous wave of ice at his opponent, bigger than the attack that he had used at the Sport's Festival against Midoriya. It buried half of the mountainside below him in a glacier, and he was just getting started.

His internship with Hawks during the Fall semester had seen to him focusing on improving his reaction times and precision moves under high pressure, but for this next maneuver, he would be falling back on lessons far older. His training under Endeavor- hated though it had been- had served to help Shoto understand what his body would start to do when he pushed either his fire or ice too far. In order to draw out the maximum power of his quirk, he would have to approach not just one, but both of those deadly limits.

With the ice firmly in place, he concentrated on regulating the temperature, dropping it into subzero degrees. Frost began to coat his whole body, not just his right side, lulling him dangerously close to the darkness of unconsciousness, but he refused to let go just yet. We can't let this madman get close to the kids, he thought as he pushed himself well past the limits of the cold that he could safely handle, no longer able to move the right half of his body at all. If he gets past us, it will fall to Bakugo and Midoriya- and Hikari won't be able to hold himself back. He'll fight… and we can't let it get to that!

Everyone in the class knew that if they couldn't hold this villain off, Kai would fight him, injured or not, doctor's warning notwithstanding. Katsuma had managed to heal him better than before, but the physician that had examined him still detected internal bleeding that could spill into his lung if he overdid it. This was why they had created a plan where his part in it was minimal, and every single one of his friends were determined to keep it that way. He had already fought more than enough on their behalf for them to allow another loss on his part.

The USJ ambush, I-Island's violent heist, the summer camp attack, the Hassaikai raid, and more- in every battle he had been forced into alongside his friends, Kai gave nothing less than his all to see it through so that they could walk away in one piece- and had given pieces of his own flesh to make it so. Even now, with his body severely wounded, where many others would have had every right to say that enough was enough, the Guardian Hero was still standing, determined to do everything that he could to stop these villains. He would never stop standing, and whether he knew it or not, that determination had fueled a new drive toward victory in his classmates.

Just when Shoto could no longer stand the arctic air around him, he shut off his ice and switched over to the fire that raged within the left half of his body. He let out a ringing shout of pain as the frost evaporated off of his skin, leaving him with awful steam burns that made his flesh look as though his childhood scar had spread, but he did not stop. He willed the temperature in his body to climb until the fire roared to life across his arm and leg. Come on…! he thought as he saw a purple glow beginning to emanate from the frigid prison that he had created for the villain. Hotter! More!

He had to protect the civilians on the island. He needed to save Katsuma, an innocent victim in the sights of a power hungry villain. I have to keep Hikari from fighting any more. He's done more than enough for all of us- now it's our turn to protect him.

The flames turned blue as he forced his power to go beyond what even his renowned father could have accomplished, the heat washing over the entire island as he prepared what would be his last strike. "Arctic Flash…!" he grunted, spitting the words out painfully. "Solaris Wave!" He sent forth the azure flames to hit the point in the ice where he guessed Nine to be, allowing them to wash over the frozen structure and promptly melt it in its entirety.

The result was an explosion that shook all of Nabu Island, not just the temple ruins. Shoto was unable to withstand the blast that he had generated, and went flying through the air, back up toward his wide-eyed companions, though he could not see them. Before the darkness finally claimed him, he could only wonder, Did I… do what I needed to…? Hikari?

"Dammit!" Kai shouted, taking a step forward as they saw their enemy still standing amid the giant crater that Shoto had created with his attack, having been protected by his shielding quirk. The Guardian Hero wanted to go and help his friend, but he was held back by Tentacole and Creati. "Todoroki's still in the line of fire!" he said as he pointed at their comrade, who had collapsed a few hundred meters in front of the villain.

"Sero is on it," the multi-armed boy replied calmly.

"Our main reason for concern should be the fact that he wasn't able to stop him with that," Tailman said nervously as they watched Nine continue to advance at an unhurried pace. "Jiro and Sero can only do so much at this point without Todoroki to back them up."

Cellophane snatched up Shoto in his arms, flinching at the heat that the unconscious hero was still emanating, and seeing the burns covering his flesh. "He's in bad shape," he told his teammate, who was eyeing Nine with no small amount of anxiety.

"We're about to be in the same boat," she said as she plugged her auxiliary cables into her boots again.

Nine regarded them with a bored expression from behind his mask before he asked, "Is that all?" He flexed his fingers toward them, his nails glowing purple for a second before he swept his hand back and conjured a shield, just in time to block a shining laser that looked familiar to the heroes.

"Aoyama?!" Earphone Jack called down as they saw their friend, struggling to remain upright as he aimed his navel laser at their enemy. It was clear that he had been partially caught up in the explosion meant for the villain, because his armor was blackened and part of his face and hair had been singed.

"Now's your chance!" he groaned as his laser fizzled out. "Run!" He was then buried in a small landslide that Nine caused with a burst of wind springing from his shield, stirring up mud and rocks that took the Shining Hero out of the equation.

"It's no use," he told Cellophane and Earphone Jack. Purple lightning danced around him as wind began to stir through the air before he added, "Playtime is over."

The instant before he could strike down the three of them, a raw-throated scream of rage and explosions barreled toward Nine, culminating in a huge blast that forced the man to conjure a trio of shields to protect himself. Ground Zero slammed into the biggest one and was instantly repelled with a grunt of effort, forcing him to land back on the ground, whereupon he directed a vicious smile at his enemy, who seemed surprised to see him.

"You're still alive?" he muttered.

"Yeah," Ground Zero snarled in response. "I guess you shoulda hit me harder!" Then he was back in the air, using his Auto Cannon to rain explosions down on Nine while Cellophane and Earphone Jack beat a hasty retreat, apparently deciding to let their classmate handle things his way, even though he had initiated Phase Three early.

There was a shudder in the air that heralded the arrival of Deku, ablaze with lightning as he pushed his quirk to the twenty-five percent limit that he had mastered. Katsuma and Mahoro witnessed him go, each of them praying for his safety as Kai watched alongside them, the knuckles on his left hand whitening as he gripped the stone wall in front of him angrily, wishing that he could fight alongside them. He couldn't use his long-range techniques at this point- he could end up hitting his one of his allies on accident if he did. All he could do was wait and watch.

While Nine kept up his shield to hold Ground Zero's assault, Deku soared through the air to deliver a thunderous side kick from above, screaming, "St. Louis… Smash!" The kick connected with the shield, giving Bakugo time to break from his own attack and work out a better angle of approach while Nine was preoccupied.

Deku knew that he didn't need to go all-out at this point, not like Shoto had. I don't need to break him with my full power! he thought as he struggled against the shield in front of him. I just need to make him use his quirks!

Then he was flung away with an air burst and a yell of surprise, the resistance that Nine had put up suddenly increasing tenfold. Ground Zero reached out his hand and caught the other hero by the arm with a loud growl of displeasure before he started to use a series of explosions to whirl Deku around himself, building their momentum up to the speed of a cannon blast before releasing his rival at Nine with the word, "EX…PLODAPULT!"

Deku sailed into Nine's newly reformed shield with power comparable to the strength of All Might in his prime, and was rewarded with the villain's shield finally breaking, sending him back a few paces in a storm of wind and dust. He and Ground Zero landed next to one another, both of them breathing heavily as the air began to clear, revealing their enemy, who had managed to protect himself with another, smaller shield.

Still, it was the first time that they had managed to keep him in check and halt his advance, even if only for a few seconds. It counted toward the beginnings of a victory for them, and they took pride in it.

Even Nine was impressed to a degree. Dropping the shield, he eyed the young heroes with renewed caution as he conceded to say, "Not a bad effort."

"We're just getting started," Deku retorted confidently under the watchful eyes of his friends.

Ground Zero took it a step further, his hands sparking as he declared, "Now we'll kill you!"

The explosion that had ripped across the island only minutes prior caused a series of collapses where Tsukuyomi was battling Slice, forcing them- as well as Red Riot and Ingenium- to dodge the falling rubble as much as the attacks from each other. "Sounds like Nine is taking care of your little friends!" Slice sneered as she slashed at a recovering Dark Shadow, who growled angrily in response while its master evaded the sharp blades of her hair.

"Don't underestimate the heroes of UA!" Red Riot shouted, suddenly having appeared behind the woman. Ingenium had hurled him down from above after using a Recipro Extend to get high among the stalactites of the cavern, adding gravity to the already-considerable momentum given to them by the speed boost. As he crashed into the woman, the redhead hardened his body to maximum, giving him the appearance of a living rock golem while he roared, "We are Unbreakable!"

Slice panicked and lashed at him with her hair, only to recoil in shock as he crashed straight through her weapons, breaking her defenses like dried kindling. Before she could recover her footing, he darted forward with the war cry, "Red COUNTER!" His boulder-like fist smashed into her abdomen hard enough to send her flying toward Ingenium, who was already charging toward them with blue fire streaming from his exhaust ports.

"Recipro… Turbo!" he announced before delivering a max-powered kick to the small of Slice's back, sending her soaring into the waiting clutches of Dark Shadow, who grabbed her up like a broken ragdoll.

"Black Abyss…! PIERCING TWILIGHT!" Tsukuyomi roared as he delivered the final blow, smashing Slice into the ground and burying her under a pile of rubble.

Unfortunately, the violent exchanges had coupled with Todoroki's blast to cause an almost total cavern collapse around the three young heroes. With practically nowhere to run, they all lashed out with their powers as best they could, striking at every rock that fell toward them, trying to stave off death by burial. In the end, though, their fights over the last two days had worn them out, and they were forced to yield to the crushing weight of the stones above them.

The sound of the collapse drew Deku's attention, leading him to worry for his friends as he saw the extent of the damage to the landscape further down the mountain. Iida, Kirishima, Tokoyami! he thought concernedly. I hope they're okay…

He was brought out of his thoughts when Ground Zero kicked him out of the way of a laser blast, sending him rolling in the dust. "Pay attention, ya damn nerd!" the explosive boy shouted as he charged back into the fray.

"Yeah, I'm trying to!"

Creati was holding Nine back with consecutive cannon blasts from weapons that she had made with some of the last of her lipids in order to give them a few seconds of reprieve, but she was clearly coming up on her limit, so it was important that someone get his attention again before he could figure out that she was near the children.

Ground Zero did just that by letting loose with a maximized blast from the stored sweat in his right gauntlet that he had been saving since the previous day, forcing Nine to hide behind another set of shields that held him in place for a few seconds. I'm not gonna lose to this guy, especially not for a second time! the explosive hero vowed silently as Deku fired off a series of Delaware Smashes. I'm damn well sick of Hogo-sha doing all the rescuing around here- now it's my turn to win!

Chimera let Crescent Rose crash into him at high speed, his meaty hand shooting out with surprising speed to grab her scythe by the shaft and stop the blade before it cut at him. "Pitiful!" he snapped before hurling her at Myrtenaster, who was skating forward on a series of hexes that were adding to her speed the more that she stepped on them. Instead of trying to evade completely, the white-haired heroine ducked low while her teammate fired a round from her sniper rifle to change her momentum and soar over her friend's head.

Myrtenaster stabbed at the monster with her rapier, wincing for a second when he grabbed the thin blade barehanded, even as he used his tail to smack Gambol Shroud away and his left fist beat back Firecracker. Then her expression changed into a superior smirk, followed by a copper hex that appeared in front of Chimera's face, confusing him more than her sudden change in mood. His confusion doubled when she suddenly became a white blur that raced away from him, even as her companions became no more than colored shadows that flitted at the edges of his vision, too quick for him to keep track of. He tried to strike back several times, but he was now accumulating cuts on his body left and right, though his thick fur and tough skin prevented even Crescent Rose's weapon from causing any permanent damage. Bullets hardly broke his skin, though he was sure that one of the sniper rounds had fractured a shin bone.

"Give it up, old man!" he heard the blonde one taunt as the quartet slowed to a stop around him, their weapons all aimed at his head. "Once you're in Weiss' temporal contraction hex, you'd lose in a race against a snail!"

The beast-like man snarled, his cigar turning to ash in his mouth as he snorted flames angrily. "Don't be so insolent!" he growled as his muscles began to bulge even further, shredding through most of his clothing. "I'll show you… why I've been called a monster my entire life!" He bellowed loud enough for the girls to cover their ears on reflex, and disrupting the concentration that Myrtenaster needed for such a complex sigil, freeing him from the slowing effects of her quirk.

"He got bigger?!" Firecracker yelped in surprise. For indeed Chimera had nearly doubled in muscle mass and height, and he more resembled a monster from ancient Greek mythology than that of a large man with wolf's skin. The horns of a ram sprouted from his head and phoenix wings decorated his beefy arms while his hands and feet sprouted four-inch claws like a lion's. He had become, in every sense of the word, a monster.

He breathed in deep, scarlet light shining from between his fangs as he glared at Myrtenaster, who gulped nervously. "That can't be good," she said.

"Scatter!" Crescent Rose shouted, just in time for Chimera to breathe a bright red laser that ignited anything it touched- trees, dirt, even bare stone. The speedy heroine snatched up her sister while Myrtenaster helped Gambol Shroud with her hexes to make an escape into a nearby river runoff that branched out from the pool where they had ambushed their opponent.

"Now what?" Firecracker grunted as they felt the heatwave pass over them. When her sister didn't answer immediately, she shook her shoulder and repeated, "Now what, sis?!"

"I… I don't know."

Switch was laughing as she struck Uravity a heavy blow across her head, breaking her helmet and sending her sprawling on the forest floor. Ashid Queen grit her teeth and skated in close, coating her fist in acid before trying to hit the elusive villain, only to find her hand buried in a tree trunk that sizzled in reaction to the corrosive substance.

"Ribbit!" Froppy croaked as her tongue wrapped around Switch's leg. The villain was surprised, having not realized that there was a fourth hero among the group, largely because the frog-girl had used her camouflage technique to stay hidden until the prime opportunity to strike. Now she flung the woman up in the air before yanking her downward, seemingly to slam her into the ground with enough force to knock her out.

Switch had other ideas, of course. As she began her downward descent, she cast her eyes about, looking for one of the other girls to exchange places with. She could phase out in place of a stone or tree, of course, but she had seen what had happened to their morale when a hero struck down one of their comrades. It would only make her job easier to complete if she could get them to turn on one another.

For a second, it seemed that the others were hiding, but then she saw the gloves and boots of the girl who had the ability to bend light around herself, which had resulted in Switch being temporarily blinded at the start of the fight. She'll do nicely, she thought as the ground rushed up to meet her.

Engaging her quirk, she instantly found herself beneath the shade of the trees, safe from the grip of Froppy's tongue. Turning around to savor the sight of friend striking down friend, she was promptly greeted with a floating tree branch to the face, knocking her flat on her back and dislodging a couple of teeth. "Wha…?" she slurred, unable to understand what had just happened. Switch realized that she hadn't even heard the sound of a body hitting the earth, nor was there a cry of pain that resulted from a broken hero.

There was only the sound of distant explosions in the background while she was quickly surrounded by three heroines. Where is the invisible one? She wondered blearily. I saw her clothes, so I should have been able to switch with her…

"You fell for our little trap, hook, line, and sinker," said Ashid Queen as she planted her boot on the chest of the defeated villain with a hard look on her face. "We figured you'd try to get us to attack each other again, so we used a little sleight of hand to get you to go after a dummy target."

"You thought you were switching places with me, but all you got was my glove, which Uravity made float, so it only looked like I was there," said the disembodied voice of the Stealth Heroine, coming from somewhere to Switch's right, next to Uravity, who had just tossed aside the thick tree branch that had collided with her opponent's skull. "The only thing Su could've hurt that way was an empty piece of clothing, while you teleported right into the line of fire."

"You… heroes really are stupid," Switch said through a mangled smile, blood running from her busted lip and broken teeth. Her eyes flicked over to a distant boulder that rested on the beach, barely visible from where they were, but it would be enough. "That's always a given… with the pretty ones."

Before she could teleport, however, a pink hand clamped down over her eyes, preventing the use of her quirk, much to her frustration. "At least we're not dumb enough to monologue before making an escape," Ashid Queen said in a cold voice that gave her friends pause. "And don't dream of getting away again." Acid gushed out of her hand, eating away at the soft tissue of the villain's face and scorching her eyeballs to render them permanently useless.

The smell of burning flesh and a piercing scream assaulted the ears of the heroines as they bore witness to the wrath of a woman who has watched her lover come close to death one time too many.

"What's the status of Team RWBY?" Kai asked pensively as he kept his eyes trained on the scorched part of the forest that had suddenly appeared a minute ago.

"I can't… really tell," Creati panted, her body exhausted after overusing her power. "I don't see them or the villain."

"We should go help them out," Tailman said, but he was stopped by Tentacole.

"We can't," the beefy hero said dully. "Remember, our job is to protect Katsuma and Mahoro." The two kids of whom he spoke continued to watch the battle below them unfold, their eyes widening as it drew ever closer to their location.

Kai grit his teeth before he spat blood on the ground and took a step up onto the wall in front of them. "Balls to that," he growled as he watched Nine use lasers to cut at Deku's body and destroy Ground Zero's gauntlets simultaneously. "They need me."

"No!" Kai was startled to feel Creati's hand wrap around his forearm with a surprising amount of strength, given her weak constitution at the moment. "You won't accomplish anything other than giving these villains another chance to kill you."

"You don't know that!"

"You just spit up more blood! Your injuries aren't done healing!"

"I don't care!" he said as he yanked his arm away angrily. "I won't die- I know what my limits are!"

"Dude, you're not going," Tailman said as he grabbed his friend by the shoulder and pulled him away from the wall to face him. "Don't make me knock you out."

Kai regarded the normally passive boy shrewdly, trying to determine if he was bluffing. After a few seconds, he nodded slowly, knowing that even if Tailman didn't make good on that promise, Tentacole would.

Nine was just about to skewer Ground Zero with a direct laser to the chest when he felt something strong wrap around his arm and yank it off-course. He looked up in surprise to see Cellophane zooming toward him, a fierce look in his eye. "You better think again!" he shouted as he aimed his foot to connect with the villain's face.

Nine responded quickly, repelling the boy with a shield and air burst, followed by a series of violet lasers that left the Taping Hero as a beaten mess on the ground near one of the walls that led up to the temple ruins. Ground Zero saw this, his eyes widening in shock. "Sero?!" he cried out when the other boy didn't move.

Nine was about to target him again when he was forced to block a thunderous soundwave from behind, glaring over his shoulder to see Earphone Jack using her boots to amplify her heartbeats into sonic pulses once more. With a flick of his fingertips, he destroyed her boots and severely injured her legs with another laser blast, causing her to scream in pain as she fell to the ground.

"Jiro, no!" All Might's heir shouted.

"Keep on him, Deku!" yelled another familiar voice, a flash of pink entering the fray. Ashid Queen skated forward at high speed, lashing out with ropes of acid that Nine had to guard against for fear of being dissolved. From the looks of the substance striking the ground near his shields, it seemed that the Melting Heroine wasn't messing around. When the villain tried to blast her, she conjured an acid veil potent enough to absorb the lasers and nullify their effects while Invisible Girl and Froppy moved to rescue Cellophane and Earphone Jack.

Wait, where's Ochaco? Deku wondered when he noticed his girlfriend missing from their number. And what happened to the villain they were fighting? Did they beat her, or did she get away?!

"The teleporter's been dealt with!" Ashid Queen told him, as if she had heard his thoughts. "We've restrained her away from the citizens!"

"It's about time!" Ground Zero shouted as he sped alongside her, both of them using their quirks to close in on the multi-quirked villain. Unseen by their enemy, Uravity flew at him from behind, intent on striking him with her hands to make him float, which she hoped would at least disorient him and give her friends an advantage.

Spectral blue dragons suddenly burst out of the villain's body, snatching up Uravity and Ashid Queen in their jaws. Ground Zero managed to avoid the third dragon, but was still forced to retreat. The monsters shook the girls a couple of times and then spit them out, blood flying from their bodies as they hurtled toward the ground.

"Ochaco!" Deku cried out as he leaped high and caught his girlfriend up in his arms, bridal style.

"I'm okay… Deku," she mumbled before passing out. On the other side of the fight, Ground Zero had managed to catch up Ashid Queen and safely deposit her on the ground before glaring over his shoulder.

The green-haired hero set his girlfriend down as gently as he could before whirling around, rage to match Bakugo's in his eyes. "You'll pay for that!" he shouted as he poured more power into his tired muscles, ignoring the limit that he had worked to maintain thus far. "Full Cowling… Forty percent!" Lightning sizzled the air around him as he rocketed forward, a slipstream of violent winds trailing him while he smashed through the dragons with barely a thought, his only goal being the villain who had hurt his friends so badly.

Ground Zero took a moment to be surprised by the new level of anger being displayed by his rival before he sensed another disturbance in the air, coming from further up the mountain. Light that blazed like a miniature star was coming from where they had stationed the escape team, which could only mean one thing. Don't tell me…

After seeing his girlfriend get snatched up by the dragon quirk, Kai finally snapped. Tailman tried to move to restrain him, having seen the same thing and knowing what was probably about to happen. "Hikari, don't- oof!"

He was swiftly jabbed in the stomach, cutting off his words before pure power flooded the air around Kai, who was now standing atop the wall in front of him. "I won't go down," he growled as his throat glowed blue and he glared down at Nine, who was trying to hold back an enraged Deku with his shields- only this time, he seemed to be losing ground. "But this guy just made his last mistake!" Drawing in a deep breath that was exhaled with a trickle of blood that leaked out the corner of his mouth, he then added, "Let my wrath be made manifest… True Speech…!" Blinding light flared all around him, preventing the others from looking directly at him and causing Katsuma and Mahoro to cower in fear of his might, even though it wasn't directed at them. "Nine-Tailed KURAMA!"

This was not a technique he had practiced before, only conceptualized. Even without having any practice with it, the sheer size and fine control he would need to utilize such a creation properly would be monumentally exhausting, even for his vast reserves of power and impressive mental fortitude.

None of that mattered to Kai, though. Mina had been hurt, and he had just been standing there, letting his friends do all of the fighting when he could have been helping them. He could have helped her. He bared his teeth and let out a wordless roar as he declared his intent to all within earshot from within the shifting mass of light that he was now bending to his will. This bastard can curl up and die, for all I care!

Tailman and Tentacole reacted only just in time to shove the kids and Creati out of the way as a behemoth arose from within the harsh blue glow. Nine massive, tail-like appendages shot out from where Kai had stood, streaking through the air to strike at his enemy down below with a savage intent. The earth shook where each tail landed, even when the villain managed to put up shields between him and the new source of danger. As six of the glowing blue limbs continued to rain down brutal blows against the heroes' enemy, three of them moved to envelop the heroes who had been scattered about the field by the battle, and then bring them up to gently deposit them next to an awestruck Creati and her friends.

Kai stood above them inside the head of a translucent, giant foxlike monster that bared its fangs as he raged at Nine from within his created avatar. The fox itself stood at three stories tall, and that was crouching down. If Kai had a mind to make it stand on its powerful-looking hind legs, it would have towered over a good number of buildings in Tokyo. Everything about it bespoke destruction and wrath, all of which Kai was now bringing to bear on the enemy who had hurt his loved ones.

How powerful is he, to be capable of fighting like this with that kind of injury?! Creati could only wonder.

At first glance, he seemed to be lashing out without rhyme or reason to his attacks, but Tentacole quickly noticed that in spite of the speed and ferocity with which Kai was directing the nine tails, none of them were close to striking Deku or Ground Zero, who- after a moment of being surprised and adjusting to this new set of circumstances- used their razor-sharp reflexes to fall into a new pattern of attack, giving Nine almost no time to react, let alone come up with a strategy to get him out of this predicament. Even the dragon projections that he could send out of his body were decimated by the power of Kai's newest conjuring.

Still, in spite of him being hardly able to counterattack, Nine wasn't giving ground, either- and Kai could only last so long. He could feel his chest tightening as his breathing became more laborious, and he realized that even if he wasn't flexing his physical muscles, the sheer amount of raw energy that his quirk generated was indeed putting stress on his damaged body, all the same. This attack, or bust, he decided, even as his ethereal beast opened its mouth wide, baring its fearsome incisors down at Nine.

"True Speech…" he growled, ignoring the soreness in his throat that came from overusing this particular chakra ability, and watching a huge ball of condensed energon form in front of his body/Kurama's head. All nine of the tails slammed down around Nine, shutting him away from the rest of the world, and leaving Kai with a clear line of sight that would not allow for a miss. "Tailed BEAST BOMB!"

Even as the projectile shot toward Nine at breakneck speed, Kai noticed a movement behind him in his peripheral vision. It was the last thing he saw before something heavy struck him in the head and sent him into the waiting embrace of unconsciousness.

"Whaddya mean, you don't know?!" Firecracker demanded of her sister while the fires of the beast raged above them. "We've fought monsters with quirks back home! Why's this guy any different?!"

"Those monsters didn't have the intelligence of a human mind," Gambol Shroud said to placate their hot-tempered teammate. "This guy can think, strategize."

"Can he?" Myrtenaster asked as balls of plasma started shooting over their heads, seemingly at random. "It doesn't seem like he's really trying to hit us, specifically."

"Maybe his power-up comes at the cost of his intelligence?" the Shrouded Heroine asked.

"Maybe…" Crescent Rose muttered as she examined the haphazard destruction around them. "He might also be trying to flush us out. I wish Midoriya were here- he'd know how to counter this guy's powers."

"Well, we gotta do something before he decides to go after our friends, whether or not he's in his right mind," Myrtenaster told their leader. "Come on, Ruby. You're a faster thinker than Midoriya, and in my mind, you fight better than he does, too. You've led us to victories without his help before, and it's time for you to do it again. You're Crescent Rose- the youngest and bravest heroine to make it into Second Amendment, and that's not for no reason! You took on the yakuza and lived to tell about it! So show us why you're in Mister Aizawa's class, of all places in the world!"

Crescent Rose regarded her partner for a few seconds before a familiar spark appeared in her silver eyes, along with a confident smirk that they hadn't seen in some time. "You guys remember the Nevermore?" she asked them, prompting grins from all of her friends.

"Now that's more like it," her sister said as she ruffled her hair.

Less than a minute later, Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud were standing with their weapons drawn in front of Chimera, who regarded them with a predatory growl of malice. The black-haired girl was the first to spring into action, creating several shadow clones that divided his attention and causing him to spit several balls of plasma at them, as opposed to the concentrated beam that he had been using.

At the same time, Myrtenaster conjured over two-dozen hexes around their opponent before springing onto the closest one and streaking through the air to slash at Chimera's snout, scoring a shallow blow that enraged the beast. She landed on one of her airborne hexes and used it to ricochet toward another, just out of the range of his massive claws. She repeated this process, working the monster up into a frenzy as he tried in vain to keep up with the slender girl's superior speed. Of course, if he did manage to get a hit in on her, she would snap like a toothpick, and that would be it for her.

Just as the last of her hexes faded from around the monster, she darted away, leaving room for Firecracker to charge in and meet Chimera's fist with a punch of her own. She grunted in pain as the direct contact caused her knucklebones to fracture while her knees buckled from the impact. None of this would stop her, though. With blazing red eyes and blonde hair aflame, she swung her left fist toward the beast's stomach, shouting, "Sun Dragon FIST!"

The punch contained all the kinetic force of Chimera's last attack, combined with the power of every other blow that Firecracker had absorbed into her body since the fight had begun, and then doubled by the strength of her own quirk. The result sent the heavy man flying through the air, a sensation that he had not experienced in years, not since he was younger than the girls were now.

He heard a high-pitched war cry, followed by the sound of sniper fire, announcing the presence of Crescent Rose. She was launched toward the beast by the power of Myrtenaster's black hex, adding to the speed of her own quirk and the recoil force of her weapon's gunfire. All of these factors combined to make the girl fast enough to compete with the speed of sound as she let the massive blade of her scythe trail behind her until it collided with Chimera's neck in midair. There was a brief moment of resistance from his thick fur and muscular physique, but in the end, the scythe cut through and separated the beast's head from his shoulders.

The huge body crashed onto the forest floor amid the flames that Chimera had created while Crescent Rose flew further out, her momentum too great to simply stop as she wished. It wasn't until she was out near the ocean that she was finally able to crash into the ground in a more-or-less safe landing.

Exhausted by all of their efforts, and now able to see that their leader was safe on the beach below them, the other individual members of Team RWBY collapsed to the ground wherever they were, each of them hoping that their friends were having better success than they had.

Deku and Ground Zero each kept a wary eye on where they had seen Nine caught up in a massive blast of energon, cautious of what the villain might throw at them next. Kai had clearly meant to assist them, in spite of his orders to stay back, but now it was just a question of whether or not his gambit had paid off. That move just now was amazing, but I hope he didn't overdo it, Deku thought as the blue tails of energy dissipated before their eyes and the dust in the air began to settle, revealing Nine. Is he…?

The man clutched at his head and screamed in pain as the shield he had used to protect himself shattered around his body. "Yes!" Deku cried while Ground Zero grinned in satisfaction. "He reached his limit!" He had dropped back to his twenty-five percent cap off, and he thought that his arms and legs might have some bruised bones, but he could still stand and fight.

"That damn glory hog actually did it," the explosive hero admitted begrudgingly.

"Then let's not waste the opening he gave us!" grunted a familiar voice as the owner skated by them, much to their surprise. Ashid Queen sped toward Nine from above, who was stumbling about as if drunk.

"Ashido?! How are you still standing?!" Deku asked as the two boys raced after her.

"When that thing grabbed me, I was able to melt the jaw so that the only damage I took was when he shook us up!" she answered over her shoulder. "Made me feel kinda sick, but I'm fine to join back in! Froppy and the others have gone to take care of our wounded, so don't worry about them!" She was clearly torn, no doubt wanting to go and make sure that Kai hadn't pushed himself so hard that he would need a hospital right away again, but knowing that the fight was not yet over. To her credit, she remained a hero in that hour of need, setting aside her personal feelings, and moving in alongside her classmates.

"Let's finish it!" Ground Zero shouted as they closed in on their enemy.

There was an ominous rumbling in the air while the sun darkened that made the three heroes skid to a stop and turn their gazes skyward, whereupon each of them paled. Nine discarded his mask to reveal his face, which was partially covered in what looked like cracks made of purple light, same as the lasers that he could shoot from his fingertips. His eyes glowed red as he reached up to the heavens, which were now obscured by the eye of a monstrous storm that had covered the entire island in a matter of seconds. Lightning crackled along the swirling maelstrom, congealing above their heads in a clear indication of what was about to happen to the heroes who had pushed the villain too far.

The next second, the four of them were consumed in a brilliant flash of light and deafening sound that shook the temple island and leaving the onlookers to wonder what had become of their friends.

Katsuma and Mahoro were trembling as they tried to see through the smoke and dust that remained after Nine's brutal attack. The little boy was trying desperately to heal Kai, following Tentacole's knockout punch, hoping that maybe if he pushed himself, he could seal up the hero's leaking lung and let him get back in the fight that he was so desperate to be a part of. "What happened?" he asked when none of the heroes spoke.

When all that they did was turn and look at one another with grim faces, the two children let out wails of desperation and fright, only to find themselves wrapped up in the strong grip of Tentacole. "You gotta get them out of here," Tailman told his classmate. They had seen Nine emerge from the dust cloud without any sign of their friends, which meant that they had to assume the worst.

"We'll hold him off for as long as we can," Creati said tiredly as she held up a pair of grenades that she had just managed to make. "Go, please."

"You can count on me," the tall hero said as he turned and started to run for the escape route that the heroes had managed to work out.

Creati and Tailman checked to make sure that all of their wounded allies were hidden as well as they could be under the circumstances before running off toward the bridge where they could see the villain slowly walking. He may have been able to summon a storm to strike down the heroes right in front of him, but it was clear that such an effort had cost him. We might be able to make the final push, Tailman thought as he flew through the air following a high jump, aiming for the part of the bridge that Nine had just passed.

At the same time, Creati hurled her grenades, timing the throw so that they exploded in front of the villain, destroying the bridge's support while Tailman's Twirling Tail Dance broke the bridge behind him, sending Nine plunging down the mountainside to an almost-certain death.

Just as they were about to celebrate their hard-won victory, two dragons erupted from the shadow of the destroyed bridge and crashed into each of them, giving Nine an anchor to pull himself up and over the edge of the wall that had shielded the heroes and children from his field of vision until then. The man knew that his time was running out, so there was no point in pacing himself anymore.

The second that he had Tentacole in his sights, he opened fire with his lasers, striking the muscular hero multiple times as he shielded the two children with his own body. "Go!" the six-armed young man grunted to the two children, who were frozen with terror. "Don't look back!"

Nine was about to finish him off when a blast of ice sheeted toward him, forcing him to put up a shield between him and a still-wounded Shoto, who was so tired that he couldn't even tell the children to run- it was all he could do to attack the villain and buy time for their escape. At the same time, Tailman soared in from above, having recovered from the dragon head attack and intent on delivering a blow straight to the enemy this time. Froppy lunged out from behind a pile of rocks where she had managed to hide a few of her wounded classmates, her tongue reaching out to strike a solid blow to Nine's head. Tentacole even found it in himself to get to his feet and charge at their enemy in tandem with his friends, sprouting another set of extra limbs to aid in his attack.

Nine grunted before repelling them with electric-riddled shields, finally beating the last of the fight out of the heroes. He could barely walk at this point, but still he shuffled toward the children, determined to reach the dream that was within his grasp.

Both children were sobbing, having lost every line of defense between themselves and the man determined to take Katsuma's power. They both knew that they could expect no mercy from him at this point- the heroes had angered him one time too many, and now he would probably kill them all, regardless of anything he had said beforehand. Knowing this, Mahoro only saw one course of action to take.

If this villain got her brother's power, he would become an unstoppable force of evil that could destroy the world that they had grown up in- the world that all of the heroes around them had fought to preserve. She couldn't let their sacrifices be in vain, and more than that, she couldn't let the man hurt her little brother.

So she stood up, and without looking back at her crying sibling, said, "Keep running, Katsuma."

"No, don't," he begged her as she ran at Nine, determined to do what she could to keep him away from the boy.

"Go away!" she shouted at the struggling villain, whose face was decorated by even more purple cracks than before, a likely sign that his body was close to bursting from the force of his overused powers. It still wasn't enough to make him turn back, so Mahoro continued to yell, "Don't you come any closer to my brother!"

Nine glared down at her before his left hand shot out and wrapped around her throat, choking her and holding her up to his shoulder height as he reaffixed his gaze on Katsuma, who could only tremble and cry as he watched the villain began to strangle the life out of his sister. "Unless you want your sister to die right now…" Nine growled in a voice as ominous as the thunder above them. "You'll get over here!"

"No…" Mahoro managed to squeak out past the grip on her windpipe. "Run away! Escape…!"

When you're facing off against a tough opponent, it's not your own strength that matters. Kai's words echoed in Katsuma's mind at that moment, causing him to stand up with a new resolve burning in his trembling heart. Standing up to them is the important part.

"No!" he shouted as loud as he could, his body moving of its own accord, carrying him with his fists raised toward the man who was hurting his sister. "I can't just run away!" he continued to cry. "I promise I will protect you, Mahoro!"

If my quirk has to be taken so that he forgets about her, then he can have it! he thought as he watched Nine toss Mahoro away like a broken toy and reach out to grab his head. Katsuma shut his eyes as he felt Nine's grip begin to enclose around his skull, ready for his sacrifice to be played out to the fullest extent.

"Get lost!"

The shout was accompanied by a metal fist slamming into Nine's left kidney, sending him flying away from the two kids and allowing Katsuma to open his eyes and see Kai standing where the villain had been, a fierce look in his gaze as he watched their enemy hit the dirt and roll multiple times. Behind him, Ashid Queen skated onto the scene just in time to catch up Mahoro before she even hit the ground.

"Mister Kai?" Katsuma asked, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

"That was brave of you," the hero answered as he grinned down at the boy. "You did real good, protecting your sister from him."

"How are-?"

"Your quirk worked enough to revive me and patch up my insides a little better again," the Guardian Hero answered as he reached down and activated his sword, the yellow blade lighting up the darkness around them. "I'm in it to win it, now." He turned to look directly at the recovering villain again while adding, "Take your sister and get out of here. Things are about to get real loud."

"R-Right!"

As the little boy went to retrieve his sister from where Ashid Queen had set her down, the heroine herself jogged over to stand by her boyfriend with a grim look on her face. "Not gonna fight, huh?" she asked him as Nine finally staggered to his feet, his face twisted in agony.

"Can't be helped," he replied as he used his Giving Heart to send some of his energy pulsing into her body through his hand. "Let's wrap this up fast, before I really do go past my limits."

"No arguments here," she nodded before they both charged at Nine. "But if I think you're overdoing it, I'm getting you out of here!"

"Understood!" Kai was grinning as they ran- he trusted that she was the best judge of when he needed to be stopped, and that unlike his other classmates, if she told him to leave, he would. He was going to have some words for Shoji and Ojiro later for that crack that they had given him over the head once this was all done, but he had more important things to worry about at the moment.

Before Nine could even put a shield up between them, he was struck another powerful punch to his back, followed by a raging explosion that knocked him dangerously close to a cliff that went down for several hundred feet. He looked up, his teeth grinding as he saw Deku and Ground Zero joining the fray, both of them looking none the worse for the storm they had just weathered.

"How could you have possibly avoided my lightning?!" the villain grunted as he barely managed to conjure a shield to block a double punch from Kai and Deku, though they could immediately tell that it was weaker than the others that he had made.

"You stopped us with that before!" Deku grunted as they broke through the shield, sending Nine backpedaling.

"So we planned for it, and used that idiot Kaminari as a lightning rod!" Ground Zero shouted as he and Ashid Queen zipped past their comrades, both of their powers at the ready in their hands.

Sure enough, down below in the area where Nine thought he had defeated them, a single hero could be seen, sparks still dancing along his stiff body as he babbled some nonsense or other. Raging at the fact that mere children had once again stood between him and his goal, Nine unleashed as many lasers as he could at them.

Ashid Queen completely neutralized them with her powered-up Acid Veil while her explosive teammate took care of the outliers with his Auto-Cannon. Kai and Deku reacted the instant that the blue dragon specters appeared, All Might's heir kicking them in half while his friend's blade slashed through the monster like a hot knife through butter. Ground Zero then propelled himself upward and barreled toward Nine with his Explosive Speed and culminated the attack run with a fireball that launched their enemy out into open air.

As if that wasn't enough, Deku, Bakugo, and Mina were all surprised to see Nine slam into a massive boulder that was simply floating in the air above them. Not bothering to wait for the surprise to wear off as the stunned villain flopped onto another floating rock with hardly a sound, Kai leaped out in front of them, his throat glowing cyan as he shouted, "True Speech, primed Hellzone Grenade!"

Now the boulder- and several thousand pounds of additional rocks that the others could now see above them- suddenly found themselves rigged with multiple glowing orbs, which had yet to explode, but the other students had a feeling that they were about to be in for a show. It was confirmed when Kai called over his shoulder, "Are we ready?!"

"We are now!" Uravity shouted as she ran up to the group, blood lining her brow, but determination in her green eyes as she prepared to disengage her quirk.

"Kairavity combo: PLANETARY DEVASTATION!" the two of them cried out together as the orbs exploded, sending the tons of rubble hurtling toward their enemy, burying him in a massive, rough sphere made of solid rock before Ochaco released her hold on them, allowing the huge, makeshift prison to drop out of sight, shaking the ground that it made contact with down below.

The five students all leaned over to watch the sphere continue its downward journey, Kai and Bakugo grinning confidently while the others tried to recover their collective breaths. "How'd you get up to help us?" Deku asked his girlfriend, who was helping him to stay steady on his feet amid the fire and smoke.

"Katsuma revived Kurai, and I was put by him when Su had to hide some of us away from that guy, which is when he gave me some of his power to replenish my stamina and get the trap ready," the girl explained rapidly.

"Pretty fast moves," Ashid Queen grinned tiredly as she moved toward her own boyfriend. "I can already see the headline: Team Lightning Drop takes down its first baddie in an exotic locale!"

"Yeah right," Bakugo snorted. "Pink Cheeks and Saiyaman only finished him off cos I softened him up for you losers!"

"Regardless of who gets the official win, ladies and gentlemen… that is how you split a banana," Kai chuckled as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. Before his girlfriend could point out the traces of red on his skin, the storm above them rumbled with even greater intensity, giving them all a new sense of foreboding. "Aw, you gotta be kidding me."

A new tornado shot up to life, carrying a glaring Nine up above them, his white coat gone to reveal the remains of some body armor and what looked like a life-support system. He was burned, battered, and bleeding, but he did not look as though he was someone ready to give up- not by a long shot. Purple cracks were running all across his body, but energy of the same color was now pouring out of his back, indicating that any limitations that he had been under were now likely gone. He also seemed to be in less pain than he was angry with them, which meant nothing good.

The flames that had been consuming the area was suddenly sucked into the massive vertical funnel from which they could barely see their enemy through the gaps. The five heroes could hardly stand up, but they knew that if they lost their footing, things would go from worse to calamitous.

"A fire tornado?!" Ashid Queen yelled to be heard above the raging storms.

"Looks like he can control all types of weather!" Ground Zero shouted back.

All across the island, lightning was turning boulders into pebbles and setting fire to the trees that remained. The amount of destruction was overwhelming to comprehend, and it showed no signs of slowing down. How much has this guy been having to hold back?! Deku wondered as the tornado started to advance on them.

"Guys, the kids are still here!" Uravity warned them as she looked over their shoulder. "There's too much wind for them to be able to risk moving!"

Kurai felt it with certainty, now. He was about to die, right then and there on Nabu Island. He could feel that it was getting harder to breathe, and it wasn't just because of the smoke and fire in the air. He hadn't lied to Katsuma when he said that his insides had been patched up a little better, but he had been hoping to disguise the minimal margin of his recovery. He hoped that no one else had noticed the blood that he'd been forced to expel from his mouth onto his hand, but he once again had far bigger things to worry about right then.

Sorry my promise turned out to be a lie, Mina, he thought morosely, though he did his best not to let it show. But if you died to this guy, and I didn't stand up to take the fall in your place, I would never forgive myself.

He was glad then, that he had made the preparations that he had. I guess it was always my destiny to die in battle, he thought as he registered the familiar sensation of a chakra point being cleansed, atop his head this time. What remains to be seen is if I can manage a hero's death with a quirk that I should have never possessed in the first place.

He had finally unlocked all seven chakra pools. It was only fitting that such an occasion come about in time for him to begin his final battle.

It'll all be okay, he thought as a strange sense of peace settled in his heart and mind. It's time for the last of All For One's foul experiments to be put to rest.

"This isn't over!" Kai suddenly shouted with great defiance, much to the amazement of his comrades. "We will see our duty done, villain! You're not getting Katsuma's quirk, and no one is going to die by your hand!" They couldn't tell if it was the firelight all around them, but it looked like something about his body might have been changing. That and his sudden confidence in spite of the circumstances lent itself to the thought that he had one last trick up his sleeve.

"Let's do this!" Ground Zero shouted to his peer as his hands began to ignite rapidly. "We gotta finish up and blast him with everything we've got!"

"No holding back!" Deku agreed, red veins of energy crawling across his body as he prepared to fire off One For All at a hundred percent from his left arm.

"This is it!" Uravity screamed above the flames while digging her fingers into the soil beneath her, causing a new tremor to run through it, and huge cracks to appear around them.

"Him or us!" Ashid Queen cried, her eyes flaring green as she too summoned the last of the power that Kai had given her.

All five of them moved, determined to make the final push and put this villain down for good. There would be no restraint afforded to villain or hero- this had become a death match, plain and simple.

One For All, one hundred percent! Deku let out a raw-throated war cry as he shot toward Nine's tornado, his left fist crashing into the wall of flame as he cried, "Detroit Smash!"

Ground Zero built up his own tornado of smoke and fire around himself as he crashed into the freak weather, roaring, "Howitzer… IMPACT!"

"Fallen Star!" Uravity heaved every muscle in her body and tore out a chunk of earth the size of a city block from in front of her into the air. The second that it started to get pulled into the fiery cyclone, she pressed her fingers together and released her hold on it, allowing gravity to take its natural course.

"Acid Storm!" Ashid Queen yelled as she unleashed massive amounts of acid in a horizontal funnel formation at the base of the tornado, hoping to douse the flames within it by thoroughly smothering the plasma.

Lastly, Kai shot into the air and remained hovering in place as a violet fire coated his body, his hair matching the flames while his eyes shifted into a deep purple shade that matched his brother's while he glared down at Nine, energy surging and dancing all around him in a fearsome display of power. Baryon Mode, he thought as took a half-second to marvel at the fact that he was flying on his own power, and that his energy output had skyrocketed exponentially. The full might of the sun is mine to command- my acceptance of this cursed gift is the core of this power… Violet starlight scorched the air above the temple ruins, forcing anyone who could bear to watch the tremendous battle to look away from him. His muscles quivered with power, letting him know that it wasn't just his projections that were being amplified- his physical strength was also being taken to levels to rival his Joyous Light ability. Final form, much? Firming up his chin, he drew in as deep a breath as his abused lungs would allow and prepared for his last stand.

"I am the son of Moka and Shigeru Hogo-sha…" he declared to both his enemy and himself. If he was about to die, his enemy would know what name to curse as he rotted in hell. "The Guardian Hero: Kai!"

If I lived by a motto, I guess I should be ready to die by it, too, he mused as he placed his hands against one another, a lavender ball of pure power condensing in front of his palms as purple lightning sparked across his body. I'll stand my ground… and die as a hero!

"One last time…!" he breathed out, more scarlet spilling from his lips as his lungs burned, desperate for fresh air. "I'll go Plus Ultra! Final… FLAAAASH!" A purple-white laser of massive proportions shot down from above, striking into the tornado where he had last seen Nine, causing the wind funnel to shift in place for a second, seemingly starting to give from the force of the five heroes who were standing against its master.

Then Deku's arm broke, and he recoiled in agony. Chains of lightning and dragons tore apart the piece of the earth that Uravity had hurled and scattered the rubble to the violent winds. Ground Zero's explosion failed to break through the wall of fire, and Ashid Queen's attack only snuffed out a small portion of the plasma before the cyclone reignited itself and burned her acid away. Even Kai's huge laser failed to reach the villain hiding in the storm. The winds then resumed their vicious cycle with greater intensity, not only knocking the heroes down, but also drawing them into the awful heat of the fire, whirling them around and around for what felt like an eternity. Bones were broken, cuts were opened, flesh was scorched, and breath was stolen.

When at long last Nine let up, the heroes were dumped unceremoniously on the heated ground amid the scattered flames, and allowing the villain to walk on the earth with more confidence than before. Deku was among the first to recover, struggling to get to his feet in spite of his broken arm as he grunted, "It wasn't enough…? All of that… and nothing?"

Ground Zero was also getting up, his teeth bared in a helpless snarl as it began to dawn on him that even with their class' heaviest hitters working together, they just didn't have the power that they needed to defeat this new version of All For One.

"This… isn't possible…" Uravity groaned before she collapsed, face-first into the earth, utterly spent.

Ashid Queen looked up through bloodied eyes to see Kai, who was gasping for breath as he lay awkwardly on the ground, whatever new power he had unleashed dissipating from his body. She realized that he was choking on his own blood when he coughed up scarlet, so she scrabbled to get to him and help him get into a sitting position. "You idiot," she said as tears began to fall down her face. "You were supposed to stay back, stay safe. Why can't you just learn to let other people fight for you?"

There was so much blood, Ashid Queen thought as her battered body shook with pain and fear. It was dribbling from Kai's mouth, streaming from his nose, oozing out of his ear, and pouring from his reopened stab wound, plus a dozen other injuries he had now accumulated. Almost anyone else would have already died from shock if not the blood loss, but her hero was stubbornly clinging to life, determined to see the fight through to the very end.

As she helped him sit up, he spat out crimson and was only then able to take in a sharp, pained breath. "It's not in my nature… to let others take the hit… when I can do it instead," he gasped, barely audible above the sounds of the storm. "I'm sorry, Mina… I just wanted to be a hero… you could be proud of… Please, forgive me for being… so selfish."

"Stop talking like that," she begged him as his eyes met hers'. "You're gonna be fine. Reinforcements will be here soon, okay? We're gonna be okay."

"It's no use." Nine's voice drew their attention to the man, awash in purple energy as he strode forward with purpose. When Deku and Ground Zero tried to move at him again, he blasted them with lasers so that they fell over backward. "You simply don't have the power necessary to defeat me. You would not survive the new world that I will create."

"What new world?" Kai grunted as he tried to stand, only to be torn from his girlfriend's grasp by a burst of wind. He was slammed into a boulder with a cry of pain, more blood flying from his body as the pressure in his chest intensified.

"One ruled by power," Nine answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The strong will lord over the weak in my utopia. Labels like 'hero' and 'villain' won't be necessary."

"Same old crap!" Ground Zero shouted defiantly.

In response, Nine conjured two more dragon heads that snatched up him and Ashid Queen in one bite, while Deku and Kai were swept up in the other. "In a true superhuman society, power should be the only factor that matters," the villain continued as if nothing had happened. "That is the world I will create."

Deku let out a grunt from the jaws of the dragon head and shouted back, "Sounds like something only a power-hungry madman would come up with!"

"That's never gonna work, moron!" Ground Zero added, trying in vain to blast his way free of the maw trapping him and Ashid Queen, but only being able to make weak sparks from his battered hands. The girl was unconscious, having been struck in the head by a passing rock after the dragon heads had snatched them all up.

Nine shrugged and then willed his monsters to begin biting down harder, threatening to rend to the four teenagers into pieces. "If you insist on standing in my way, you'll have to be eliminated," he told them.

Deku and Ground Zero grit their teeth as the pressure on their chests began to increase, but it was much worse for Kai, who was fully choking on the dark red liquid that had filled his throat and was continuing to leak out of his ears. Spots danced in front of his eyes and his vision started to swim in and out as he struggled in vain to take a breath.

Why am I even fighting anymore? He wondered as he felt his eyes begin to close. I'm about to die, anyway… And in the end… did I… even make a difference…? He had finally been able to use all of his power, the infinite strength of a star itself, and for what? He was on death's door once again, and this time, there would be no one who could save him.

It was over. They had lost.

His eyes flicked back open, almost of their own accord as he heard Deku grunting next to him, saying, "I'll… figure something out, Kurai… I won't let it… end here!" He was surprised to see that his friend was desperately trying to work his arm in between the teeth of the dragon that held them prisoner, trying to alleviate the pressure for his dying friend. He wasn't attempting to get himself out of what could be a fatal trap- he only cared about the person that he could reach out to and save right then.

If I can fight… Kai thought as he clenched his robotic arm, which had been pinned to his side by the creature's jaw. For the people beside us… and the ones that we can yet save… then I have to… He angrily slapped his flesh hand against the face of the dragon, putting as much force as he could into an energon blast that would free them, but only managing to conjure a slightly brighter explosion than what Ground Zero was making. Self-pity does nothing for any of us now… There is only our duty, now… The responsibility of a hero! His sword had been lost in the tornado, so he couldn't cut his way out- if he was going to use his powers, brute force would have to do the job.

Come on! he thought angrily as the spots in his vision continued to grow, threatening to blind him completely. I may be about to die, but that's no reason for Mina and the others to fall here, too! Come ON, Kai! He tried again for another blast, but it too was ineffective.

Just as he thought of trying to take a shot at the villain directly, a high-pitched cry reached his ears from among the flames and scorched rocks.

"Mister Deku!"

"Kai!"

"We believe in you!" Katsuma shouted out to them. His sister added her voice to his as they yelled, "Please don't give up!"

The three heroes looked down at the two children, who were tending to Shoji and Todoroki, both of them with tears in their eyes, but also something else. There was a desperate, unreasoning hope in their bearing, but it was all that they had left. We can't… let that hope go unanswered, Kai thought as he bunched his fists, preparing to give it one last effort for the sake of the innocent children and his best friends in all the world.

Nine began to advance on the two kids, having also heard their voices, and knowing that at long last, with no one to stand in his way, his dream was about to made into a reality.

Kai was about to gather his power and take a direct shot at Nine when he was suddenly stopped in place by Deku saying, "Kurai… I got a crazy idea." He was wearing a strange little smile as he looked his best friend in the eyes and said, "There's still one way that we can stop him."

"…Huh?"

Kai's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as Deku reached out with his broken hand to him, blood dripping from his fingertips. All Might wasn't born with his power, he remembered his friend telling him after he had first learned of his secret. It was given to him by his master, who received it from another, who received it from the user before them, and so on. He gave his quirk to me, so that I could continue his work after his time as a hero has passed. And someday, when I find a worthy successor, it will be my turn to pass on the torch.

Knowing what Izuku was up to, he shook his head negatively, unable to get the words that he wanted to speak out past the blood in his throat. I can't! he thought with a trace of panic. I won't be the reason that another hero lost their quirk!

"Please… Kurai!" Deku begged him.

Still, Kai refused to reach out his hand and accept what was being offered. There has to be another way! he thought desperately as his head felt like it was going to explode.

"Please… this is the only way… to protect them!" his friend insisted. "It'll be okay… Our powers… aren't what… make us heroes! It'll be okay!"

Unbidden, Kai's memories of another hero who had been willing to lay down everything for the innocent party rose to the forefront of his mind. Togata, stripped of his quirk, had continued to be every bit the hero that he had been unable to be in that moment, even with his own powers intact. "Kai hasn't let you hurt Eri yet, and I…! I am still…! LEMILLION!"

He shut his eyes, trying to think of another way, and being unable to see anything but the path now offered to him. This is the only way… to stand against this guy, he conceded to himself before he opened his eyes and looked over to his friend, who was still straining to reach him. Even if he sacrifices his power, he will still be Deku… the greatest hero of our time…

There is… no other choice.

Everything in his life had led Kurai to this moment. Every mistake, every good decision, the joys and sorrows, his losses and victories alike had all put him on the path to the crossroads before him. Both choices led to the grave, but only one would see him put to rest with honor and the satisfaction of knowing that he had fulfilled his duty.

Slowly, painfully, hardly able to see or breathe, the Guardian Hero reached over and grabbed ahold of his destiny.

Mataras: ...Why are you all hiding in the corner?

Kai: We're trying to stay out of the splash zone.

Mataras: Excuse you?

Kai: Dude, do you have any idea how pissed people are probably about to get with you? Not only did you not kill me by the end of this chapter, but you gave me One For All?! Are you trying to commit career suicide?!

Mataras: Hey! Let the situation play out before you start judging! I know what I'm doing!

Deku: I hope that's true...

Deadwood: I don't; you suck!

Kai: Seriously, who the hell is this guy?!

Mataras: Guest commentator. Trying to figure out where to fit him in the story without making it seem like I shoehorned him in.

Deadwood: I didn't know that shoes could be musical.

Mataras: Ever heard of tap dancing?

Deadwood: Touchy.

Mataras: Touché.

Deadwood: I know what I said.

Kai: ...Anyways, moving on... You sure you wanna go this route?

Mataras: Important lesson for writing- if you enjoy a plot point that you genuinely believe is to the betterment of the narrative, go with it. If nothing else, it means that you will enjoy the story, because if you can't enjoy your own work, it's very unlikely that anyone else will. I believe that this is the correct way for the story to move forward so I'm sticking to it.

Deku: Since phase four is coming to a close, do you think we could know what phase five will be about?

Mataras: If I had to sum it up in a single word? Trauma. It'll mostly the aftermath of Kurai's death, and the effect that it will have on not only on you guys, but also the world of heroes at large. For those of my readers who thought that the psychological suffering aspect of this story was lacking, get ready to eat your words.

Kai: Hmm. Dark and ambitious. You really think my death is gonna shake things up that much?

Mataras: Student of All Might- many of whom are praising as the next number one hero- dies in an epic battle when they shouldn't have been anywhere near that kind of danger? How do you think the Hero's Public Safety Commission is gonna look to the public after this?

Deku: That... could be problematic for them, to say the least.

Mataras: Next time- the Final Holder

Kai: Wait, final holder? ...Of One For All? How does that-? Isn't Izuku gonna get the quirk back after the battle is over?

Deku: Go Beyond!

Mataras: Plus Ultra!

Kai: Don't ignore me, dammit!

Deadwood: First time?

Kai: Get outta my show!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Ipseity...

"With Twofold… One For All…" Izuku and Kurai allowed the full extent of their powers to flow through their bodies, giving Nine pause as the air around them swelled with a foreboding presence.

"We'll save everybody!" the ninth holder of One For All declared. Green lightning crawled across his body, giving him All Might's strength for what he knew would be the last time.

Kurai could have sworn that his body was about to burst from the sheer force of the two quirks now dancing and intertwining within his broken and bleeding flesh. It felt like all the cells in his body were on fire as bioelectricity of many colors sparked across his damaged frame. His mechanical arm was trembling uncontrollably and his hair was actually standing on end as he growled, "We… will stand… and triumph!" The earth beneath his feet shifted and groaned, as if threatening to buckle under an enormous weight while the air trembled and crackled with potential force that felt as though it could wreak untold havoc at any moment. In Kurai's eyes burned the fierce determination of someone ready to go down swinging- of a man who had nothing left to lose.

Looking into those eyes, Nine couldn't help the little tremor of doubt that wormed its way into his head. There were red flags and alarm bells going off in the back of his mind, and for the first time since he had set out on his chosen path, he wondered if his dream might not become a reality, after all. Such a thought infuriated him beyond all reason.

"Why won't you weaklings die already?!" he shouted as he commanded the hurricane above to condense its winds and lightning to converge upon the two nuisances obstructing his path. This storm was shaping up to be even more powerful than the last weather attack, but that also meant that it was taking longer to charge, leaving Kurai a moment to ask what he needed to know.