Please, watch warmly.
~0~
Izuku flew over the Ocean, Separating him from his fated fight, his heart hammering as every minute sluggishly passed by.
Every moment meant that he was approaching his fated duel to the death with Shigaraki…
Oh, Izuku knew one of them would not walk away from the battle field. he was tired; he hadn't slept for the past... week? Yes, that sounds about right. And he had pushed One For All at its maximum... and he would have to go plus ultra after that.
Still, even when he managed to arrive at his designated battle field, there was no telling what would happen to his peers.
Seriously, what had Aizawa been tripping on when he made his plan? Marketability? Grudge match? How to cause even more Trauma in a bunch of kids?
True, he could see some that would make sense but... why mostly 2-A? Why not 2-B also? And how about 3-A and B?
Right, he expelled them… bravo, Aizawa.
Seriously, those villains only wanted one thing, and it was to kill. While the Heroes were aiming to subdue...
It would not end well for any of the heroes.
'Kimiko would've been perfect for sweeping everyone, quirk or no quirk, hell, she would be the prime hero to bring down AFO; she could kill all of them if she wishes so, and we all know she wouldn't hesitate at all, for jeepers sake, even my mom could have gotten AFO to his knees, his whole life support rigs a bunch of tiny objects... So why did Aizawa sensei CHOSE AN ALMOST EXCLUSIVE TEAM OF OUR CLASS WHEN MOST OF US WON'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST THE LOT OF THEM 'CUS ALL OF US ARE MELEE FIGHTERS! TSU AND URARAKA VS TOGA, PHYSICAL FIGHTERS WHO ARE HOLDING BACK VS TOGA! SOMEONE WHO HAS A KILLING KINK SERIOUSLY WHAT THE F-" His internal rant was cut short when the very fabric of reality above him twisted and curled until it ripped appeared, showing a purplish black void filled with eyes, held open by a pair of red silken ribbons.
Izuku stared with dread and... hope?
Why was he feeling hope, and why was his heart beating so fast... wait, no, he knew why.
And from the Gap (why did he know it was called a gap and not a warp gate.) a huge wooden ship with a pair of feet in a Lotus on its square sail emerged, plying the air as one would ply the sea. Its oars pushing it forward, its shadow covering Izuku, cooling him off from the winter sun's harsh light.
(Wait a minute, Izuku and his mother would burn at nothing when outside, which was why he had to cream his face up every TIME he was out, lest he risks skin cancer. So why did the sun not feel like a burning laser on his freckles but a gentle kiss on his cheeks and lips?)
Nevertheless... This was bad.
It must be a trick from All For One? another villain? One of his quirks or maybe sleep deprivation was finally catching up to Izuku, and he was stuck in a daymare of epic proportions.
"Oh fuck, now what?" Daigoro Banjou asked.
"Danger sense's silent. Whatever this is-"
"Toga didn't trigger it either..." Izuku mumbled in horror.
Whatever was in this ship... or Izuku's hallucination spelled doom for everyone, he just knew it.
'Still.' He clenched his fists, noting how no pain came despite his bones and sinews having been ground to nothing over the past couple of years. 'I can't give up yet. I will fight until the bitter end.'
"And we will all help you, Nine," Yoichi spoke, his presence soothing.
Suddenly, three figures fell from the ship... and flew toward Izuku.
It was three girls about Izuku's age, maybe older.
One was dressed in a green and white sari; her rainbow-black wings indicated a bird mutation like Hawk, but more in the corvid family of birds, a raven, perhaps? Her piercing red eyes never left Izuku, the sclera bloodshot as if she had cried, yet her smile was sweet and anticipatory.
Another girl was mostly pink and blue; she had long pink hair (actually, the raven mutant also had ridiculously long hair, but the pinkette's lengths were preposterous, such a horrible liability in the field.) she wore a long pumpkin skirt with a smile/frown cutout pattern showing some rather loud pair of leggings.
Her face was... even more, emotionless than Todoroki at the beginning of their friendship. And yet, the mask floating around her face spoke of fear, doubt and hope.
The last one was...
She had mint green hair that flowed under a black sun hat, her eyes matching them. Her pupils were white and heart-shaped. She wore a loud yellow blouse and a green skirt, but what really caught Izuku's attention was the dark blue eye connected to her body, floating in front of her...
...
Tears spontaneously fell from his eyes as he remembered who those wonderful girls were, those who had saved his life and were ready to give them his...
"So, do you remember us now?" Kokila asked as she flapped her arms, looking like a drunken puppet.
Damodhara could not answer, and instead, he threw himself in the arms of his Uttara and Kamala, sobbing and wailing loudly in relief as he knew... oh, he knew.
It was over.
Back with the fratricidal duel, pitting Dabi against his brother, the heat was unimaginable.
Dabi kept ranting about how this war was caused by the clash of ideals and how Shoto followed the path his father had plotted for him.
About how he'd died once but was revived by none other than All For One.
(Shoto did not believe him since if he had died, how did he remember Sekoto hill? And why was he so sure that All For One had saved him? The duel quirk boy still likes his 'alien did' theory better than that.)
Shouto wanted to deny it, that no, he was not doing that, he was his own person... and he did but...
In the back of his mind, he wondered if...
if Dabi was not hitting closer to the truth, then what he's liked.
But no, Dabi was a villain; he was covering his brother, his true self.
He listened as Dabi revealed how he was All For One's contingency plan, and how his hatred for heroes had been fanned and how he'd managed to escape the facilities and return home. (actually, Shouto thought that his story had so many plot holes, that it would make Aoyama's holiest cheese jealous. If he had been as good as dead for over two years, how did he manage to move when he woke up? And how come he still had his hair? Weren't severely burned victims bald?)
His father Had already left to deal with All For One since it was well known that if one wanted to thoroughly kill a Zombie, it would be by fire, leaving Shoto all alone with his crazy brother, his insanity caused by the bi-coloured boy's mere birth...
He was the masterpiece... while Touya was the failure, and Shouto hated the fact that he owed his very existence because his father had lost the genetic lottery four times in a row.
Did Shouto mention how much he hated his left side right now? Thankfully he had a plan...
Dabi had begun to... for lack of a better word, melt, the bottom of his face sliding off his bone in a gruesome display.
Thankfully, Endeavour had already desensitized his masterpiece to the horrors he would see on the fields, like burnt-out bodies and corpses of different ages... so seeing his presumed dead brother looking like the corpse his father showed him at the morgue did not affect him...
'hmm... wonder what Hound Dog would say about that.' The dual user wondered as he pushed away his fear and grief where all his emotions went when they appeared; those were for future Shouto to deal with.
Maybe.
Suddenly... part of the ground, one slab that had been untouched by the molten metal, the once inspiring statue of All Might raising his fist to the sky (there must be another meaning to it, something about Midoriya.)...
And out came...
a cat-quirked person wearing a purple cape with a tribal dragon on it.
"What in the ever-loving fuck?" Touya... Dabi cursed as he watched the... uncommon display in front of him. "The fuck are you? One of the Commission's bio-weapon? A designer soldier kid? Who the hell was your genetic donor? The Owl?"
The mysterious woman smiled and folded her richly decorated palms. Shouto had never seen someone wear that much jewellery in the middle of the battlefield; hell, he'd never seen this much gold in his short, sad life. Period,
"Hare Krishna, my name is Uma Devi Dasi, but you may also know me as Toyosatomimi no Miko or Prince Shoutoku." She bowed... " I am the true administrator of Japan, and... I have returned from my overly long retirement to rectify the great injustices that have plagued Japan ever since my departure.
Shouto narrowed his eyes. Now that was... quite the claim. Also, was this a man or a woman? Why were they wearing this much gold, and what was this heavy cape with the moving dragon on it? What technology made it move? Was this the cause of their flight?
Besides, Shotoku... this was a male name... another villain perhaps?
Or yet another side to this war.
"I am a Gaudia-Vaishnavi, I worship and serve God, Krishna and yes, I truly am over a thousand years of age; dare I say, I am closer to two thousand at this point." no, she was using the female pronoun.
"And I was sent by my friend, Damodhara das... you also know him under the name of Midoriya Izuku... to take care of you, Dabi-san."
"Wait... Izuku has another name?" Holy crap, this was not a possibility Shouto had expected... but it did nothing to disprove Izuku's true lineage.
Nevertheless, the dual-quirked boy had the distinct feeling that a monkey wrench had been thrown in a cog.
-Dabi's POV-
Dabi stared at the unknown... a woman dressed as an Indian prince. She had the purple silk pants and the long, pink silk tunic he'd seen in those old collector prints. The only thing that didn't match was the sword, something he'd remembered seeing in this one exposition he went to sneak in on, the one about he Legend of Shoutoku...
But it was clear this woman was bullshitting him. Prince Shoutoku was a myth; he never existed. How could he if they'd never managed to find his tomb?
"This is because I was transferred from Shinagawa to Gensokyo when people lost faith in my existence, Dabi. And how could one finds my remains when I'm still very much alive?" She asked with a quirk of her lips, slowly advancing toward the pyre Dabi had made for himself.
Oh, he had no illusions; he knew he was going to die, either during the fight or after...
Hopefully, after he'd destroyed Endeavour's masterpiece.
"And why do you want to destroy Shouto, your little brother?" Uma asked, coming ever closer to the mad arsonist. " as the elder of the family, whatever younger sibling you have are to be seen as to be like your sons, not as an enemy." She scolded gently. "My... Japan has been drowned in envy and hatred; if the first thing an elder brother thinks about seeing his youngest sibling getting abused by his father under the name of training is how they hate him, then better I ask Uttara to torch the place and be done with it."
"You wouldn't understand." He snapped as he sent waves of his hottest flames at the silk-covered frauds, knowing how well it would end for her.
Only, while the tongues of flames licked her body, nothing burned, and not even a smudge of ashes was to be seen on her person.
"I do understand. You said before you desired to Die in a blaze of hatred after burning what caused your father pleasure, saying that this conflict started because of different ideals. And to this, I spit on it!" she declared as her purple cape floated majestically behind her.
Man... Dabi missed his long coat now.
"This war was started because everyone in power is no better than rabid dogs fighting over a piece of meat called money, fame, and women. And your 'father' is one of those rabid dogs."
oof, burn!
"And because of that, he neglected and abused all of you for his own gain, and you were his first victim. And, learning from such an animalistic man, you are now doing the same thing he tried to perform with Yagi-dono, only this time, with your little brother." Uma spoke wisely. the wind generated by the smelted metal making her cape flapping in the wind. "and your desire to destroy what you see as precious to him is also something Enji-dono-"
Holy crap, she was fucking majestic.
"- wanted to do, only, Yagi-kun was a smart man and thus held nothing that could be used against him. He only had his power and his title, something Enji-dono tried to take away using every means available to him... including bringing four precious children to the world."
"Precious?" Dabi spat... along with some blood. "Only as long as Shoto-kun over there didn't show his fucking face."
"And do you think your faith would've been better if he had died in the womb?" Uma asked with a tilt of her head. God, she looked like an owl like that. "Oh, foolish child, you do not know what you are talking about.
In a deep rage (he was so close to his goal, why did this bitch have to ruin his moment?) Dabi sent his hottest flames to date...
Those he had reserved for roasting baby Shoto alive...
(The baby looked at him in sheer wonder before he gave his big brother a gummy, slimy smile...)
"From unfulfilled desires comes anger, and from anger comes envy and wrath, and from wrath comes madness and illusion." The bitch quoted from Star Wars, walking through the near white-hot flames with not a single piece of silk singed. In the back, Shoto had hastily erected a barrier of ice... ice that had already exploded, causing a flood of steam...
Shit... air moisture was the worst thing he needed at the moment.
Dabi was about to call the high school dropout Yod-hoe when he realized she was right in his face, holding what was left of his cheek in her cool hands.
When was the last time he had been touched so tenderly?
"You, Touya." Her voice took a... an otherworldly quality, like an angel speaking to a sinner with love and compassion. "You saw your brother as the source of your pain and thus, in your madness, sought to destroy him to get at your seminal provider." She shook her head. "It is quite sinful for a big brother to do that to his much younger sibling, especially when the 'man' of the house leaves much to be desired."
Oof... to be scolded so gently had been the last thing to... Dabi expected to suffer from today.
And yet...
he could feel...
'no! Get your fucking act together.' Dabi shook himself as he pulled away from those gentle hands.
He would not falter. He was shameless and revelled in destruction and pain.
He was the fucking monster his father had forged, and he would take his bound of flesh!
"Ah! Finally, someone who understands. Now you know why I have to make him..." But the words could not exit his mouth...
She had a point... Dabi didn't want to see it, but...
"Dabi... when you chose this path, you were filled with anger and hate." Uma continued regally. "This anger and hate... same as the madness that poisoned your life. Was given to you by your father... in a way, you are his true legacy."
"N-No... That's not true." Dabi denied it, but whatever heat he had seemed to be sapped away by an unknown force, leaving him struggling not to cry like a little bitch.
Shit, he could already feel the pain in and around his eyes.
"Now... this hatred from your father comes from when All Might rejected his unwanted advances," Uma spoke with a smirk. "His lust was frustrated, and this frustration turned into a wave of irrational anger, and this anger turned into obsessive madness. And out of this madness... Todoroki-dono prevented you from getting the one thing all children desire and need to grow and thrive."
an Ugly sob escaped Dabi's blistered throat as the divine woman told him his truths.
"Your intrinsic desire to be loved and cared for, to be cherished as the treasure you are... and not as a means to an end, an imperfect result to a seemingly simple problem."
Another sob escaped... this wasn't... this wasn't normal; Dabi would always wrap himself in a cloak of wrath and sass, sadism and violence... those walls he had erected when he realized that his father would always be the ass-holes of the family. Where was this burning wrath that kept him alive as a half-nomu, something that could not even be qualified as human anymore, a heartless beast deadset on destroying Shouto and Endeavour...
No, instead...
Instead, Uma had peeled away the ever-raging Dabi and exhumed the child Touya, reviving him from his ashen grave, crying and screaming for someone, anyone, to see him, to hear him...
To save him...
"I'm here, Touya. I'll get you out of here... I'm sorry you had to wait so long." Uma spoke quietly as she embraced To... Dabi...
Like his mother used to do...
She was so close...
Incinerating her would be a cinch, even if Dabi would not survive...
and yet...
He could not bring himself to do it... not after feeling the parental love that Uma seemed to radiate like the old Fukushima reactor...
And her arms around his shoulder, the embrace that was... a good possessive.
A protective possessive... an 'I got you, no one will hurt you ever again, cry on me all you'll like, I'll keep the nightmares away.' sort of possessive... not a controlling possessive like Enji had.
Like his pimp once had.
... He had spent so long surviving on spite and hatred alone. His constant pain used to fuel his wrath while he destroyed himself and everything he knew...
Including his little brother, whose only sin had been to win the genetic lottery... and who paid for it?
'Why... Why do I hate him? Why do I want him dead? Why?... I could've... I could've just kidnapped him, hid him and changed countries; not the hardest to do; human trafficker does it all the time, so why-?
Why did I act like that?'
He let his head fall to Uma's inviting shoulder as she began to gently rub the back of Dabi's head, making gentle shushing noises as she rocked him from side to side with such gentleness...
"... Ma... I'm tired." he rasped as he felt whatever energy he had felt, most likely the adrenaline and whatever the fuck had been injected in his veins and felt his knees give up.
Thankfully, the smaller woman was strong enough to hold him...
she smelled nice too... like incense, smoke and the smell that preceded a lightning shower.
"Don't worry; mama's on her way. I can hear her bike from here. She'll make you feel better, I promise."
Touya wanted to make a noise, to tell his ma... to tell Uma that she would hate him... everybody did at one point, but he was just too damn tired.
He closed his eyes... maybe just five minutes?
~0~
Back with Shouto, the dual-quirked boy had been standing on high alert for the past... five minutes(?) with his arms raised, ready to fight Dabi and possibly Uma, as per his father's wishes.
His father who was facing All For One...
His father had seemed more distraught the longer Dabi talked and boasted...
Was it bad if... Well, obviously it was, but...
'No! I am a Hero; thinking like that is not Heroic... Deku would never think like that.' Shouto chastised himself, wanting to pull his hair hard or bite his wrist.
He should not think like that about his father; he was trying to be better; he was better; it's just Shouto who could not move on...
And yet...
Was it bad that he was envious of Touya right now? Being cradled in the arms of one who claimed to be the crowned prince of japan?
His father never hugged him. Well... he did, but it felt fake, forced.
His father never did that when they were alone. For one whose flames burned so bright, he could be shockingly cold.
He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood; father was getting better; what Shouto went through was just teenage rebellion... but he would still use his ice and less his fire. Deku said there was nothing wrong with that...
Did he?
He shook his head; Dabi had slumped in... Uma's arms, the person who was the only reason he was not kissing the molten ground.
Her words replayed in Shouto's mind despite his attempt at burying them.
He didn't need love... His father...
His father.
His father loved him in his own rough way; it was tough love.
That's what the HPSC-sanctioned therapist had told him... and Shouto had no reason to doubt him...
Right?
"Dabi's Down!" Burnin' cheered as he gestured for whatever Flaming Sidekick remained to apprehend his Brother.
(and it felt wrong, so wrong to think he would be thrown into Tartarus, left to rot with the rest of them.)
Suddenly, Uma's neck snapped up and, floating in the air, turned around to face the flaming sidekicks, still holding Dabi in her right arm as she raised a wooden stick...
And filled the air with tiny bullets of light.
'She's attacking us!" Shouto thought as he prepared to use his father-... his flame... no, his ice.
What would be the best in this situation...
fire...
Father would say fire.
Always fire, stronger than ice.
But before he could activate his quirk, the sound of a motorbike reached his ears... but this motorbike was not on ground level.
It was a flying bike.
And sure enough, a mat black bike spewing out rainbow flames landed in front of the dancing lights, its rider a well-endowed woman with gradient hair that flowed out of her helmet.
"What's going on here, Uma-chan?" She asked the Princely woman as she got off the bike, the mechanical beast melting into her shadow.
'Is this her quirk? Oh, where's Deku when you need him.' Shouto thought as he tried to figure out if this woman had a shadow manipulation quirk like Tokoyami or something else.
"My dear, I came here expecting to fight a mad man. What I faced instead was an extreme redux of the Mahabharata. Still, instead of having a narcissistic Dhuryodhana facing his half-brother Bhima, it is a pair of used and abused children fighting out of a desire to be loved by their so-called father." Uma spoke as she ignored all of Endeavour's sidekicks.
Shouto frowned... that wasn't true; he didn't need to prove to his father that he needed to be loved...
He was the only worthy son in his eyes...
Still... the better he acted, the less the hits hurt and the less shouting there was back home.
(He had to be like Fuyumi; Fuyumi was perfect... she just didn't have a perfect quirk. But Fuyumi was more appreciated by Father...)
"Oi, Shouto-kun!" Uma called out, and Shouto braced himself from whatever bullshit the woman would do. The regal woman handed Dabi to the motherly woman with the flying bike, who then...
Well, whatever she did, it was out of either a video game or an anime since she took out a scroll out of her pocket and, letting the rainbow light scroll fly, and bespelled cast a spell on Dabi.
Uma, seemingly satisfied with what the magical woman did, then turned her attention back to Shouto.
He preemptively erected a barrier of ice... only for the dual-eared woman to float over it.
"I just want to speak to you."
"My answer is no." He already knew what-
"But your heart says otherwise." The woman said, the sun haloing her head.
"I can hear what you truly desire... and I am willing to give it to you." She gave her hand to the dual-quirked boy.
Shouto was about to blast her away with his F̌̊͏̼̘͉̩͕̻̯a̻̻̻͇̭͚ͪ̍ͩ͞t̢̫͕͌h̺̝͓̮̣̭͖̐̋͘e̋̄́̚͏̰̤r̮͙̟̦̠̩̱̙̰͉͇͛̄ͮ̀̄ͭ̎ͤ͟ͅ'̴͓̟̠̼͔̳͍͛ṣ̷͇̩̅̍ͧ fire.
Only to feel a burning blade pierce his chest, right through his heart.
He could distantly hear the scream of the sidekicks...
and...
"Don't worry... it's for your own good." Another young girl spoke, her voice as sweet and quiet as the wind. "Release your emotions, let yourself feel."
"N-No..." Shouto uttered in pure horror as he tried to move... only to feel a decade and a half worth of grief erupt from where he would hide it, hoping it would one day die with him.
The grief, the pain, the betrayal, the crushing loneliness...
The rage he's stifled for too long at himself and the world, the cutting sessions he would have to make himself feel something, to make him realize that he did exist, that he was not just a doll... to punish himself for being a bad son, to have failed everyone and to have let plenty of silly ideas like friendship, freedom, and justice fog his mind
All the blood that had spilled from him, not at the hands of villains like All For One and the League, but by his own family.
The burning anger he felt towards Fuyumi for never taking his side and being his Father's yes ma'am. The betrayal he felt towards Natsuo as he had left him all alone to go play doctor in his university.
Toward his mother for not having done more to protect them...
Toward himself for being unable to run away from this...
He wanted to find his blade and a quiet place... he had to punish himself for those thoughts... for being bad... for not being perfect...
"Please... you don't have to punish yourself." Shouto heard Uma's deep voice from deep within her chest. "It is a great sin to harm yourself, and nothing noble about what you plan to do."
The haze lifted up from Shouto's mind, and he realized that his face was buried in Uma's shoulder and neck.
He felt so tired... and yet...
"S... Save me?" He dared to ask; now that his personal Pandora's box had opened and all of his feelings laid bare for him to experience in full, Shouto doubted he could face any members of his family.
"Tata stu... I will, child." Uma assured Shouto, who could feel her sincerity.
Sobs once again bubbled from his chest, and once again, despite his expertise at burying his emotions under the cool mask of stoicism, he let them out, once again soaking Uma-san's shoulders and cape.
"Alright, then. Bahula, is ah... our scared friend stabilized?" She asked.
"Yes, I managed to stop his internal organs from shutting down, but externally his burns are still there, and his jawbone... oh my!" Bahula exclaimed. "Well... his jaw fell off."
"Yes, I heard that."
"But I think it will be safe to fly him to Senkai."
"Oh? We're not returning to your Palanquin?"
"Oh no, the Miyourenji is in full battle mode."
"And you used to be a Buddhist?"
"Are the words 'Fighting Monk' of any familiarity with you?" Bahula asked. And wow, her voice was so pleasant, even with her sass. "also, I only was a true Buddhist when I was still human. And to be honest, I wasted enough time there."
"Hear, Hear." Uma cheered... and Shouto felt even more confused than the first time he had gone to the hero Gala and had listened to the adults conversing.
"And I'd gather that those two children desperately need peace and quiet to heal. I've already contacted Ekarani; she's sending Reisen-chan with the medicine needed to heal those two."
It took more effort than it should have, but Shouto managed to raise his head from Uma's shoulder to stare at the woman.
There was another one beside her, about the size of Midoriya. She had close to floor-length pink hair, pink eyes, a blue long sleeve shirt with odd buttons and a pumpkin skirt...a rather long one, might he add, that was decorated with happy and frowny faces on every panel.
Her face was completely blank; only the blazing blue masks that floated around her could give Shouto some clues as to what her powers may be.
Was she a Hero? No, since he was sure he would've heard of her from either his Father or Midoriya? Was she a villain? No... this wasn't it; she didn't have this villain vibe going on... Despite having stabbed him in the heart with a blazing blue spirit Naginata.
Maybe she was a genetically engineered woman-child with over ten quirks... made by the commission to be the next big thing after Hawk would inevitably 'disappear' after the war, having outlived his usefulness.
Uma gave the dual-haired boy an odd look.
The tall and beautiful woman noticed Shouto and gave him a gentle, beatific smile. "Well, hello there, child."
Shouto... had no idea how to react to that... What was he supposed to do? She looked so nice, so soft...
Like... like Mama...
"A-... Ah..." He felt his cheeks redden, and more tears filled his eyes.
There were too many emotions, too much to deal with...
He wanted to run, to scream, to curl up in her arms and just forget about this whole war and start planning how to get away from Heroics altogether and start his soba/ ice cream store and fade away in anonymity.
"It's alright, Shouto-kun, you're just unused to experiencing all of your feelings; it's alright, it will stabilize, and we will help you navigate them in a healthy way... and I do believe I could also help you with your dream," Uma assured him as she released him from her fatherly hold, gently pushing him toward his jaw-less brother and the glowing, angelic woman.
Shouto tried to speak, but... he was overwhelmed with the amount of Kindness those two generated; he was left mute by it.
It was like having a pair of Midoriyas going Plus Ultra with their sun-like smile and kindness.
"Now come, let's go to Senkai."
Ignoring the cries of rage and distress by his father's sidekicks, the youngest son of an unworthy father slid into a crack in the cooling bitumen and emerged in a fog filled paradise.
"Welcome to Senkai, Shouto-kun," Uma spoke gently as she made a sweeping gesture following the horizon.
The fog lifted, revealing a golden roof Dojo and a tall pagoda in the distance, rising from a lotus-filled reflection pool hewed from moonstones.
For a moment, the boy forgot the breath... he had never seen anything this beautiful in his life.
And in his mind, Shonto knew full well that Uma truly meant 'welcome home, Shouto-kun.'
~0~
Back upstairs, in the command centre, things had turned into a pandemonium.
What the hell was going on? Who were those weird women with multiple quirks?
At first, they all feared that they were another type of nomu (AFO was a fucking psycho, they wouldn't be surprised that those magical girls were the next generation... the next step in bio-weapons).
Not only that but there was...
A flying ship in the sky, a seemingly wooden palanquin with a huge sail billowing in the wind, a pair of feet of all things... Their reddish bottoms were decorated with the symbols of a fish, disk, thunderbolt, a sacrificial dais, flowers, and a bunch of other stuff that, lest you were a Vaishnava, made no sense at all.
Then, by All Might's statue. They watched in horror as two of those women interfered whit Shouto's fight against Dabi, his brother (what had Aizawa been thinking, fighting a villain was like performing a surgery; you don't perform it on a family member, that was the unwritten rule to be followed, save for some rare instance that should not be spoken off.) one, the pink-haired one with the blue and pink dress... and the numerous masks floating around here, stood to the side, watching the whole thing. A sad looking mask glowing gold as she stared unblinkingly at Dabi...
Who...
Broke down, unable to burn an animal-eared woman wearing a silken garment of pink and purple. And who, instead, had been sobbing on her shoulder like a child before collapsing.
Then came yet another woman, this one wearing black and white, riding a flying bike and...
Possessing what could only be the world's strongest healing quirk, manifesting as a rainbow-coloured scroll consisting of ancient cyphers not even Nedzu had managed to crack.
It had to be, since the moment she touched Dabi, his wounds began to heal.
Well, the villain still looked like a half-cremated corpse, and his jaw had fallen off... but he was not bleeding anymore, and UA's Biometric scan had reported that his heartbeat had stabilized and that his lungs provided all the oxygen his body needed.
... mixed feelings were had over this.
Then Shouto tried to stop them... only to have the pink-haired one run him through with a ghostly blue naginata.
Some would call it blazing, but no heat signature where to be found; it truly was a phantom blade,
The scream that had erupted from the control room could have easily rivalled Present Mic's own.
But it was not the end... for the animal eared... Indian prince(?) rushed in to catch the falling Heroling, cradling him as he screamed and wailed like a wounded child, no blood present on his being.
Then... they watched with fear and anger as the three women disappeared under a lifted tile, but not before turning whatever remained of All Might's statues into a form of a pair of dancing Indians, their raised arms too long to be human, desecrating the site.
But this was not the worst... oh, no...
Apparently, numerous radiation alarms had been triggered simultaneously, coinciding with the flying ship's shadow.
"What the fuck's going on?" One of the active heroes asked Yagi-san, who stared at the entire display...
"I... I don't know... and I can't contact Deku." he wiped the dribbling blood from his lips.
… this was bad. this was horrible…
they already had their hands full with the league, and Aizawa's clever plan was falling apart the moment Izuku had been taken away from his designated battle field.
His GPS had pin-pointed his location to be over the ocean when he disappeared…
"Yeah, my wife had this terrible habit of frying out cell phones. Sorry about that."
The dispatchers all whirled around just in time to see Midoriya Izuku, dressed in a white bed sheet on his legs and torso... (he has dressed like an Indian priest... what the hell?) emerge from a door in one of the police officer's backs. "Sorry I spooked you all."
...
(Nani kore!?)
"Midoriya... what's the meaning of this?" Yagi asked as he tried to make head or tail of the weird situation.
"Well... Shigaraki Yoishi, the first holder of One For All, was telling me to remember my friends, but my friends remembered me first, so... yeah, now the war is won, I'm a believer and servant of Krishna, and I got a hot chick as a wife and were looking to adopt a cute baby boy.." Izuku explained as he stretched back carelessly.
Toshinori stared at his heir...
and then spewed out blood. "WHAT!" he managed to choke out with a spray of blood.
"Geez, you should really have this checked out... like, I'll ask Ekarani to set you up an appointment as soon as she's free," Midoriya spoke with deep concern. "Anyway, just sit back, grab a snack and watch warmly."
"Deku-san, what's the meaning of this?" Tamakawa asked as his head spun from the screen showing the fight between the tweens and the league (things did not look good for Ground Zero.) to the young hero, not knowing what to give attention to.
"It means that in the... years I was gone, I'd made some pretty powerful allies... and a bunch of Extras." He shrugged as he gently floated to the screen. "Now... ah, there's Tenko-kun... and Kacchan... right, so that's where you guys are at..." Izuku murmured as he proved his identity by dissolving into one of his usual muttering sessions. Suddenly, he snapped his head up. "... say, is it spring yet?" He asked as he pulled out a chair from his back...
As in, a whole recliner with a throw blanket and a laptop stand.
Not knowing what else to do, Toshinori answered him numbly, trying to make sense of what was happening in front of him.
For all he knew, it was another trip from All For One, and they were already dead.
"Ah... well, today's about to be spring in a few hours."
"Good..." He nodded to himself as he set up his computer on the stand. "Perfect, I can't wait to get cozy with our son." He mumbled to himself, then he turned to the wall of Monitors and zeroed in on the Shigaraki/Bakugou fight.
But Izuku could not finish his phrase, for Bakugou... K.E.M had used his untested super move, an explosion so massive, it rattled even the very bunker they were in.
The screen turned white as if ten thousand suns had decided to arise at the same time. The ground shook as if the underground catfish of yore decided it didn't want to sleep anymore.
The silence that ensued only lasted as long as the time it took for the dust to settle... but when it did.
Toshinori could hear Eraserhead's laboured breathing as Shigaraki was revealed to be unharmed, despite Bakugou's explosion having blown apart fifty tons of metal and a good chunk of the floor.
Creati and Lunch Rush were already working on fixing the new holes, but the wall was gone, another entryway for Shigaraki to use.
This was bad... but wprse...
Blood spewed out of Toshinori's mouth as he saw the state Bakugou was in.
His arm... Bakugou's arm was but ground meat, and it was clear that his right eye would have to be removed.
If... he somehow survived the fight.
The young boy, the young teen, not even having tasted what adulthood could give him, was bleeding profusely while Shigaraki still remained standing tall; the right side of his face had been severely burned...
But Toshinori knew it was not even an inconvenience to him. He was a monster, All For One...
Well, Izuku was back, but even then, Toshinori doubted Izuku could survive the whole ordeal, especially now that he wore no protection at all.
No gauntlets, no boots... just a pair of wooden, knobbed sandals.
"... I'm going in!" And with that, Deku grabbed one intern that just so happened to walk to him, roughly turned him around and pulled open a door in his back before emerging from another one in Shigaraki's back. Needless to say, the face Shigaraki made as Izuku popped out of nowhere, dressed in white Indian floofy pants and... kicked him in the head with said wooden sandal, stunning him long enough for Midoriya to rush to deflect Bakugou's suicide attack and send him careening towards a lone patch of green grass.
Bakugou... who was in such rough shape that anything else would kill him.
He had to get off the field, or else it would be…
Back at HQ, no one was silent as they all began to talk and update the rest of the Heroes about this unforeseen situation... and mostly to gawk at...
Midoriya?
"Holly crap..." Someone hissed. "have... have you seen how long his ponytail is."
"That's a thin one but... for fuck sake, how long was he gone? It's... almost to his ass!"
Toshinori took this other detail in, his mind returning to a detail no one seemed to remember, something Mineta-kun had informed the retired symbol of peace (after He had taken Izuku away from the back-breaking chair and treated him to a proper bath and medical care... and an actual meal from one Midoriya Inko. Really, he had thought his confession had been just him being a creep, but now... hmm, it would be interesting to see this play out.) He had told Yagi that Izuku... was not as hurt as expected, and the only trauma he had had been caused by his schoolmates overstepping their boundaries and trying to do the nurse and paramedic job. And that he had this one patch of hair, about the size of Izuku's fist, of a calf hoof, that had never been cut for what could only be years, It had over a dozen knots that Izuku redid after his bath.
And he did so... out of muscle memory... not knowing what they meant.
Now, while Yagi was not a forensic expert, he knew that hair that long could only be grown over a span of years...
years… Decades, even.
"Izuku... what happened to you?" Toshinori asked as his gaze fixed itself on the mega screen; whatever would happen next would set the tone for the rest of the war...
And things were not looking good for them.
e