Hey guys I'm back with yet another chapter of A Tale of Two Endlings! I hope the wait wasn't that bad for all of you and that you all had an amazing time during the holidays! Sorry I've been kind of radio silent on my PMs over the past few days, I've been busy working over the break so I didn't have much time to work on this! But I'm back now and ready to continue this tale! So, I'm going to go ahead and close this off here and continue on with the story! I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own DGM or BNHA, all rights go to their respective owners.


Chapter Sixteen: What Makes Men Shake

Metal Meister greedily gulped down a breath of air as he sprinted up the mountain trail. Just moments ago, he heard a horrific scream coming from near the graveyard he left Walker and the killer at. He knew that the two were going to be dueling, but he never expected that it would get that bad. "That voice was too deep to come from Walker," he thought as he bit his lip. "But, if it came from Chin-Mae, what in the world could the boy have done to warrant such a screech?" He had heard plenty of terrified voices over the years, but none were as gut-wrenchingly disturbing as the one that just crashed into him. The wet, guttural, shaky tone of that chorus of pain simply wasn't normal. Especially when he considered the fact that it must've come from a bloodthirsty serial killer. "Psychos like that don't show their cards lightly," he mumbled to himself as he sprinted around a large tree. "Kid," he thought, "just what in the hell happened up there?" Metal Meister's desperate sprint continued on in this state of nervous confusion for a handful of minutes as he slowly, painfully, made his way back to the graveyard. For some reason, the trek felt longer than before—almost as if fate itself was trying to persuade him to turn around and leave. However, Metal Meister did no such thing. Instead, he only hastened his march, and before long he was staring at the rotten gates which bordered the aforementioned area.

"Holy crap," he thought as his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "Did those two do all of this?" he pondered to himself as he stared, his mouth agape, at the destruction which surrounded him. Thanks to the killer's quirk, veritable acres of trees were mere moments from bursting into an enormous forest fire. Several lit embers were strewn about the plants' trunks and underbrush. "I need to get the kid out of here!" he hissed as he bit his lip. If Walker was still in this place by the time these woods burst into flames there was a good chance that he'd suffocate. "But where is that little bastard?!" At a glance, he could tell that the kid wasn't in the graveyard. "Did those two drag their fight somewhere else?" Metal Meister thought as he clambered up one of the few safe trees. Once he had a proper vantage point, the corrupt hero immediately set to surveying his immediate surroundings. "Christ," he spat as his eyebrows narrowed, "there isn't going to be anything left of this forest by sundown!" That villain's quirk was more potent than he thought. Judging by the ferocity of some of the flames—many of which originated from small puddles and streams—there was a good chance that some chemicals resembling white phosphorus were created as a byproduct of the battle. If that was the case, even if they brought in emergency heroes, they wouldn't be able to do anything. "If the wind blows in the wrong direction nearby neighborhoods might catch alight." All in all, this was a hazard that completely exceeded his expectations.

"Still," he thought as he wrapped his hand around a branch to stabilize himself. "I can't comprehend how it got this bad." For Chin-Mae to be pushed this hard... what in the world did Walker do to warrant that villain using such firepower? However, before the corrupt hero could even begin to think about that issue, another one reared its ugly head. "Huh?" he mumbled as he felt something wet and warm begin to pool under his palm—the one which was holding the branch. "What in the world is thi—" he stopped as soon as the putrid smell reached his nostrils. In that moment, he jerked his arm away from the branch to behold a terrible sight: a small pile of gore and bile had built up on the bark, no doubt being thrown here after some massive explosion. For a second, Metal Meister feared the worst. "Did that bastard tag Walker?!" he panicked as he immediately jumped off the branch and sprinted deeper into the wall of burning trees. Injuries for professional heroes were always serious. In some cases, they could easily immobilize or disable one for life. Walker was still a trainee. All it would take was one mistake and his entire career could go down the gutter. "I can't let that happen!" Metal Meister thought as he balled one of his hands up into a fist. If he couldn't protect a youth as bright as that boy, then what was the point of him becoming a hero to begin with?

"Kid! Are you there?! Answer me!" he called out as he finally arrived at a small clearing. Even though he didn't know exactly where he was going, he could make out basic directions by following the pungent stench of blood. With every moment the scent of iron grew stronger, he knew that he was getting closer to his goal. And, right when his senses were about to be overwhelmed by disgust, the corrupt hero found Allen Walker. "There he is," Metal Meister thought, giving out a relieved sigh, as he made his way to the kneeling boy. With his veins still full of adrenaline, he wasn't able to properly realize what he had just stepped into. All that was on his mind was Walker's apparent safety. "He doesn't look injured," he mumbled to himself with a smile. However, as his brain slowly began to compute what he was seeing, that mask of joy hastily slipped off. "Wait a minute," he thought as his jaw went slack, "if Walker's uninjured, that must mean that that gore I found was—" and that was when Metal Meister saw it. Namely, the splotches of blood and guts which were strewn throughout the surroundings. Even though Osada Shoji was a hero, such a horrific sight was enough to get anyone's stomach to churn. Before he even realized what was happening, the corrupt hero was emptying the contents of his stomach all over the burnt forest floor. As he vomited, Allen Walker seemingly broke out of his trance and stood up to help him.

"Metal Meister!" he called out as he rushed to the Shoji's side to offer him a shoulder. "Are you okay?!" the boy asked him. In response, Metal Meister took in a breath and nodded. Now that he had a chance to regain his composure, the hero coughed into his hand and turned to stare right into the kid's eyes.

"Walker," he started as he took a step back and surveyed the bloody surroundings, "what in the world happened here?" The sight was so shocking that he struggled to even put his thoughts into words. After all, besides the grotesque nature of the sight itself, this situation was simply bizarre. He assumed that this mess used to be Chin-Mae, but if that was the case, how in the world did he even end up like this? Unless he was mistaken, Walker didn't have a quirk, so defeating a villain using such a method momentarily overloaded Shoji's capacity for rational thought. In this moment of confusion, the corrupt hero noticed the boy's eyebrows twitch for a split second. However, that expression was immediately erased from Walker's gaze to be replaced by the student's usual—albeit worried—visage.

"It's a horrifying sight... isn't it?" Walker started as he stared at some of the burning, gore covered, trees. "I didn't expect that Chin-Mae's quirk had such a terrible drawback," he continued as a few tears welled up in his eyes. Normally, in a situation like this where someone had died in battle, it was common sense to assume that it was said deceased individual's enemy that caused their eventual demise. However, Walker's reaction was just so... so... genuine that any suspicion Metal Meister had was immediately cleared away.

"If you didn't kill him, what did?" he asked, his tone shaky, as he kneeled down to touch some of the congealing blood. "Or was his death caused by that drawback you mentioned?" As the hero spoke, Allen joined him next to the pool of gore and sighed.

"I don't know what exactly happened," the boy started as he nervously gulped down some air, "but Chin-Mae lied to us about his power." In response to this claim, Metal Meister couldn't help but scoff. However, instead of reprimanding the student, he simply stayed silent and allowed Walker to continue. "He told us that his ability could chemically change any non-human to violently react with oxygen, but that wasn't true," Allen continued as he pulled up his right sleeve to reveal an arm covered in burn scars. "Whenever he'd touch me, he'd burn the flesh underneath my skin, causing these injuries."

"Those were caused by Chin-Mae's attacks?" Metal Meister thought as he frowned. It was true that Walker's arm was covered in burn scars, but, going off his experience, those scars all looked way too old for that to be the case. However, yet again, Metal Meister discarded that suspicion. Depending on what was burnt it was entirely possible that those scars were genuine. Not only that, but when he considered that Walker didn't have a quirk, that had to be the case. There were simply too many injuries on the boy's body for that not to be true. "Unless this kid was a soldier or something at thirteen, he had to have gotten those during his duel with Chin-Mae." Having made his conclusion, Metal Meister returned his focus to Walker. "So, he can combust humans as well, how did that lead to all of... this?" he asked. In response, Allen raised his left hand and pressed it against his heart.

"Even though his quirk worked with human flesh, he held back because he wasn't exempt from his very own power. Every time he used his ability on me, I saw him wince, most likely it was due to his quirk affecting his own body. When I got him on the ropes, and our duel was nearly at an end, he charged forward to do some crazy attack and... this happened." Metal Meister frowned and scratched his chin as he listened to the boy's testimony. While it wasn't impossible that Chin-Mae hid such a major weakness, it was also quite suspicious. When the villain was explaining his quirk earlier, Metal Meister was certain that he was telling the truth.

"Do you have any evidence to support that claim?" the hero asked as Walker pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. If they were in court right now, Walker's words would've been thrown out before the first round of questioning. However, like before, Metal Meister couldn't help but trust the boy. After all the two of them had been through, he believed that the kid had earned at least that much. Plus, he couldn't imagine any other way that Chin-Mae could've met his end in this fashion. In the end, he would just have to count his blessings and move on. "On the bright side, that bastard is finally dead," he thought with a grin as he stood up and cracked his knuckles. "Stand back, Walker, it's my turn," he said as he slowly raised his arms.

"What are you trying to do?" Allen asked him as he retreated back to a safe distance.

"Well it wouldn't be good for either of us if some random civilians found these remains. So, I'm going to do a little bit of cleanup." With that, the corrupt hero grinned and hastily got to work. Using his quirk, he created a host of gasses and chemicals to effectively evaporate and dissolve all the evidence. By the time he was done—barring the ash and copious amount of fire—the woods looked just like they'd found it hours ago.

"Are you not going to douse the flames?" Walker asked as he skillfully dodged a falling branch. As he did, the corrupt hero hurried to his side before practically sprinting back to the main path. "Hey!" the boy yelled as he hurried after him. "What's going on?! Why are you running?!" he asked.

"You were too busy fighting to notice!" Metal Meister started as he turned Walker's gaze to the rest of the mountainside, "but this place is done for!" At a glance, he surmised that they only had a handful of minutes before the skies would be filled with smoke. Once that happened, it wouldn't take long before professional teams and heroes were sent in. "The kid doesn't have a license yet. If the public found out that he killed another villain here, he could end up in prison!" Obviously, Metal Meister assumed that they would both like to avoid that outcome. And so, that meant that the only path left to them was to run.

"I see," Walker said as he watched a pile of dead leaves alight in a brilliant display of colors.

"Good," Metal Meister continued, "I'm glad you understand. Now just shut up and keep running. We've got to get you out of this forest before the scent of smoke sticks to you." Yet again, Walker nodded as he leapt over an outcropping of large rocks. Without saying a word, both he and the corrupt hero continued their sprint in complete silence. The corrupt hero was too focused on escaping the blazing inferno to notice, but—the second his gaze was turned—Walker's jaunty grin was immediately replaced by a tragic expression.

"That was innocence," the boy thought as he stared at the smoke-filled valley behind him while he gripped his left arm. "But how is that even possible?!" he asked himself as he bit his lip. "I saw the cube on the Vatican's website. I know for a fact that I'm the last living accommodator. So what's going on?!" Thanks to his acting skills, he was able to throw Metal Meister off the scent, but the fact remained that—somehow—his presence played a direct role in that villain's demise. He'd relish the chance to just come clean to the hero running next to him, but that simply wasn't an option. "I mean, what else was I supposed to say?!" Allen continued—his mind jumbled like a battered warzone. "If I admitted that I inadvertently killed Chin-Mae, that'd be practically the same as announcing that I've been hiding my power!" No matter what excuses he spouted, nothing would change the fact that a special ability was required for Chin-Mae to have perished in that manner. After all, it simply wasn't possible for a normal human to eviscerate another like that using only his bare hands. Yet again, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Could the innocence have been protecting me?" the boy continued as his eyebrows narrowed. It wasn't unheard of for God's crystal to go berserk without the accommodator's direct intervention—heck, his Crown Clown was one of the best examples of this. Lenalee's, on multiple occasions, formed a protective barrier—which also harmed any approaching non-exorcists—whenever her life was put in explicit danger. However, according to the reports, this never resulted in the direct death of an enemy. "Perhaps it's because I'm the last living apostle?" It was only a theory, but there was a chance that the innocence was simply doing it's best to ensure it's own survival. However, if that was the case, then why didn't this happen earlier? "Could my innocence be growing stronger?" Allen thought as he stared at his left arm. With no other ideas available to him, he had no choice but to run with this feeble hypothesis.

"Hey, kid, watch where you're going!" Metal Meister yelped as the hero yanked him out of the way of a sharp, jagged boulder. "You were about to impale yourself," he continued as the both of them neared the bottom of the mountain. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"What?" Allen started as he hastily returned his faux smile to his face. "Oh, yeah, don't worry about it. I'm just angry at myself for not being able to capture Chin-Mae alive." And that was the truth. He desperately wanted to personally drag the villain to court to face charges, but now that was little more than a fever dream. At his words, Metal Meister couldn't help but let out a sad sigh. Truth be told, he was actually happy that Chin-Mae met his end here. Now neither of them would have to worry about federal police or heroes getting involved in the slums. He knew that Walker wanted to hand the man over to the proper authorities, but it simply wasn't in the cards.

"Look on the bright side," Metal Meister mumbled as he patted Walker on the back. "At least now you don't have to worry about some psychopath going after your friends." At that, Walker chuckled and shrugged.

"True," he whispered as he pursed his lips into a razor-thin line, "if there are any left, that is." Walker initially meant to keep that last part to himself, but before he realized the words had escaped his mouth, it was already too late. Metal Meister did his best to ignore the boy's statement, but the damage had been done.

"Damn, why did I even bring that up?" the corrupt hero thought as he stared at the cityscape which was sprawled out before them. He knew damn well how poorly treated Walker was back at U.A., pretending that Chin-Mae's death would aid the boy in any noticeable manner was simply laughable. For the boy was right. They might've cut off the snake's head, but the damage had already been done. "Knowing his class, even if he makes a complaint, I doubt anything would change." It wasn't like they could force the students to get along with Walker, after all. Since he killed that villain a fundamental wedge had been driven between Walker and the rest of U.A.'s trainees. Of course, from a professional standpoint, the boy was completely in the right to do what he did. But his classmates were still children. No matter how many people they lost during their time as heroes—even if it were their own parents—the path to understanding the necessities of battle was long and arduous. "I should probably try to cheer him up," Metal Meister whispered to himself as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "But how do I do that? I don't exactly have the most experience in taking care of brats." During times like this the crushing reality of Walker's station always came back to bite him. "It's hard to believe that this kid is a student," Metal Meister continued as they finally neared the main road. After what felt like hours of pondering his options, the corrupt hero smiled and snapped his fingers together. "Ah, I got it!" he exclaimed as he turned back to Walker—who also appeared to be deep in thought. "Why don't you and I go celebrate our victory at a steakhouse or something? I'll pay," the corrupt hero offered as he tried his best to put on a happy face. Uncharacteristic as his expression was, thankfully, it worked wonders. The second he brought up food, Walker seemed to completely forget his troubles and snapped out of his trance.

"Are you serious?!" the boy cried, almost as if he were a child being told that Christmas had come early. At the student's reaction, Metal Meister let out a breath and nodded. And, for that brief moment, it truly felt as if he were dealing with a normal high schooler. Without uttering a word, Shoji nodded and led Walker back into the city. Even though these two men were both covered in mud and grime—almost as if they'd been through a war—those momentary expressions on their faces were ones of pure bliss.


Izuku sighed as he stretched back into his dorm lobby's couch. Surrounding him was the majority of his classmates, who were all enjoying some well-earned relaxation. After their final performance, they all took a few hours to explore the closing half of the festival. Their sister class, 1-B, had setup an extravagant play that they heard was quite enjoyable. Sadly, not many of them got the chance to see it, but he heard it was a roaring success. "I can't believe that Nejire won the beauty pageant earlier," Mineta said from a neighboring seat as Kaminari nodded.

"I know, right?" the blonde classmate added as he scratched his hair. "I thought it would be a closer match thanks to all the hotties that showed up, but I guess that's fate. I mean, when it comes to pageants, isn't Nejire a titan?" At that point, Izuku started to ignore the energetic pair's conversation and turned to Ochako—who was texting in a neighboring seat.

"This festival was pretty fun, don't you think?" he started as he shyly stared at the floor. Since this was his first year doing this, he was still struggling somewhat to instigate conversation with his friends. Thankfully, all of them—especially Ochako—understood his disposition and took it in stride.

"It was!" Ochako laughed as she gleefully waved her arms through the air. "Especially the party our class threw! You did amazing, Midoriya!" As the two of them laughed, Iida walked over and joined them on the couch. "Oh, Iida, how's it going?" the girl asked their class representative.

"Great, all things considered," he started as he jotted down a few notes on a small leaflet, "I'm just finishing up the final touches on my report to Mr. Aizawa. You two don't have any issues with it, right?"

"With the meeting? No, of course not," Midoriya said as he nervously waved his hands in front of him. "My mom is perfectly fine with it, she's just confused as to why it's happening now." Once they were finished cleaning after the festival, Mr. Aizawa showed up and told them to prepare for an early parent-teacher conference. It caught everyone a little off guard, and required a change in some of their schedules, but it wasn't anything too drastic.

"Yeah, my folks are confused too," Iida added as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "But there's nothing we can do about it. Our only option is to just wait and see what happens when we get there." Spoken like a true professional.

"Hey, you guys, what're you talking about?" Ashido asked as she, Yaoyorozu, and Jiro made their way into the lobby. The three of them had obviously just gotten out of the shower, and were no doubt ecstatic about the results of the festival. Ashido, who was still riding the high of the party, was still exploding with energy. "No, wait, let me guess," the girl continued as she scratched her chin, "you're talking about the beauty pageant, aren't you?"

"Bingo!" Kaminari yelped from the other end of the room.

"No," Iida sighed, "we were actually conversing about the upcoming conference. You three don't have any problems with it, right?" Iida asked as his three classmates shook their heads. "Good," he continued, "that's everyone in the class accounted for. Well... except one person in particular," he thought. While 1-A's representative mentally put the finishing touches on his report, Ashido, Jiro, and Yaoyorozu joined them all around the lobby's coffee table.

"Guys, come over here and look at this!" Ashido said—her voice giddy—as she held up her phone for all to see. "Some students posted a video of our event online and it's getting tons of likes! We even have a new hashtag named after us!" It was easy to forget how famous U.A. was as an institution. For such a little fling to be so popular was unusual, but, also, in some strange way, quite uplifting.

"It's good to know that we're actually getting some positive press for once," Jiro laughed as she sat down next to Yaoyorozu. With the constant attacks from villains and worries about internships taking up all their attention, sometimes it was hard for them to simply sit back and enjoy their school life. "Did those students post anything from the other classes?" she asked.

"I think so," Ashido mumbled as she furrowed her brow, "let me check." As she scrolled through her phone, Midoriya got up and made his way over to the television. Since they were all here, he thought he might as well turn it on. As usual, the default channel was the evening news.

"That fire's sure gotten big, huh?" Yaoyorozu added as she watched the broadcast from her spot on the couch. "What do you think caused it?" Wildfires weren't exactly uncommon, especially in dry seasons such as this, but for such a blaze to spring up out of nowhere was unusual.

"Maybe it was an arsonist," Kaminari joked as he sprawled his body over the lobby's carpet. "Although, considering that half the forest is torched, that's probably not it. You'd have to have some crazy combustion quirk to do that much damage." Everyone nodded in response to the boy's quip. If these fires were the result of some villain's intervention the news would've mentioned it.

"Some camper probably just threw a lit cigarette in the underbrush, it happens all the time," Mineta added as as he fervently flipped through the latest model magazine. "I wouldn't recommend worrying about this sort of disaster. You'll go bald if you distract yourself with every little event that goes on in this city. Nobody died, so it's all good."

"He's right," Midoriya thought as he let out a sigh. He had a bad habit of getting overworked whenever bad news reached his ears.

"Would you look at that!" Ashido yelped right as he was about to change the channel. "The school made an archive of all the recordings! They even have the smaller engineering events in here, how fun!" With the depressing backdrop now out of the way, everyone was free to turn their attention back to their peppy classmate. "There's even a little poll on here where people voted for their favorite event! And it looks like we're number one!"

"Well that's to be expected, we kicked ass, after all," Kirishima—who had just arrived with Bakugo—added as he opened the lobby's fridge. Since it was nearing dinner time, everyone in class 1-A was slowly starting to funnel into the room. Most of them had overheard what Ashido was talking about, and several were extremely curious to see how they had ranked alongside their sister classes.

"Of course we won. Why would we lose to a bunch of extras?" Bakugo hissed in his usual angry tone. However, even though Bakugo was acting as distant as usual, every person in the lobby could tell that their explosive classmate was extremely pleased with the results. And just like that, a strange feeling of bliss momentarily filled the students of 1-A's hearts. However, this feeling was short lived and was soon replaced by a lingering sense of confusion.

"Huh," Ashido started, breaking them all out of their trance, "what's this?" she asked.

"Is something the matter, Ashido?" Yaoyorozu added as she scratched the back of her neck.

"Oh, no, it's nothing," their classmate continued as she raised up her phone for all to see. "It's just that there was another event at the festival that I didn't know about, and it was pretty popular. Look, it got third place in the rankings, but it doesn't have a class connected to it." At her words, every person in the lobby raised a collective eyebrow.

"Huh?" Iida thought as he squinted to read Ashido's post. "Third place was the... clown? What?" And just like that, the topic of the night shifted from class 1-A's amazing party to the mysterious, unknown event.

"Is that... Walker?"


Author's Note

Hello all and welcome back to my author's note. Again, sorry about being a week or so late, I've just been busy working/editing my book (which is nearly done now thank god. The pandemic put a giant spoke in the middle of all of my stories so its good that I'll finally have more time to work on this soon). Anyways, as you can no doubt tell, I'm starting to ramp up the main plot and all that. Soon, we're going to get into the big joint-training arc in BNHA, which I'm really looking forward to writing. I hope you guys are ready for it cause I've got a lot planned for that little arc. Finally, thanks to everyone who left a rating and a review over the past few weeks, they really helped me learn how to improve and work on my story in a meaningful way! Definitely made it worth putting the time into this! Well, besides that, I'm going to go ahead and close it off here. I hope you guys all have a fantastic rest of your day and I'll see you all in the next chapter of A Tale of Two Endlings!

Chapter Seventeen: Guilt