~CONTENT WARNING~

-GRAPHIC INJURY

-Mental Breakdown

Myla Grimm, goddess that she was, had made a significant miscalculation…

Shear was probably the kindest bug she had ever encountered, or at the very least he was the kindest bug that she remembered. Sickeningly so in fact. More than once she had nearly snapped at her new roommate because of it, and every single time he acted like it was his fault for overstepping, only serving to stoke that flame of anger even more. It confounded her that he didn't want to move out because of it, but deep down she knew the reason why. It was the same reason that she tolerated him despite the many ways he angered her… Despite their adaptations, they were not meant for this world. Shear was kind, but he was still a product of Deepnest. It showed in the way he still looked over his back, how he still regarded Myla's neighbors like one would regard a neutral enemy. And Myla? Well, she had already gone over why she didn't belong in this world of fragile peace.

She had miscalculated…

Shear was kind and gentle, but The Infection cared not, and he was still a product of Deepnest. Myla reacted on instinct and leapt backwards, throwing up a barrier that separated the rook in half. Shear railed against it in an attempt to get to her, muttering incoherently and crying tears of Essence. The goddess blinked at a wet sensation on her face, and winced when she touched the bridge of her nose. Shear had sliced a neat line from her lower right cheek to just under her left eye, crossing the bridge of her nose and nearly cutting through it. If she hadn't reached when she did, she'd probably be missing half of her head.

Shear was a Weaver, an apex predator of Deepnest. The small Weavers of this world could lift up to fifty times their own body weight, considering how upscaled Shear was in comparison? It may not be fifty times specifically, but he could probably lift a semi truck with little issue. All of that strength wasn't just for moving things around, but also moving himself around as well. That strength lended itself to explosive speed, and combined with natural weapons and a very tough exoskeleton he was probably stronger than most pro-heroes without a human body.

She had miscalculated… because she had gotten used to how unbelievably gentle he was when handling just about everything around him. She wouldn't make such a miscalculation again. Holding her hand out she gathered enough Essence to put down the Weaver, his documents weren't finalized and a disappearance would be easily explainable. But as she got ready to fire she… hesitated. He wouldn't dodge, he wouldn't suffer, it would be quick and his mind was probably shattered enough that pain wouldn't be registered. So why couldn't she fire?

Myla sighed, already knowing the answer. Shear was still alive. When the little damnable Ghost invaded the fallen kingdom it mainly fought against husks; the undead. Rarely did it fight living creatures unless it entered the Fungal Wastes. Shear was still alive, and because of that Myla got a firsthand experience of the early days of the Infection.

"My foulest sin, before my very eyes…" How many bugs were forced to kill their friends? Their loved ones? Because if they didn't their friends and family would kill them instead. Simply because the bugs were powerless to do anything else to survive. When Shear entered this world he had probably already contracted the Infection, but the gestation period was never set in stone. Stress was a powerful trigger, and being in a new world was certainly stressful. Ironically, being the source of the Infection made her largely blind to it. The shock of a sane bug was enough of a shock that she took it at that. And now that kind, (she would never admit her fondness) bug was just another victim of her folly and her own madness.

She lowered her hand with a maddeningly blank expression. "Killing you is just the easy solution… I'm not powerless…" The Radiance was the source of the Infection, she was the cause and the creator. It was hers. Every living being entered Her Dream when they slept, and in the waking world she was able to enter the Dreams of others unconditionally. If she wanted to, she could start the Infection anew at any point. Shear's mind was being suppressed and broken apart piece by piece as time went on, because of her own insanity.

She hesitated…

She could, theoretically, enter Shear's mind and… calm the Infection. And then she could remove it entirely. The problem was… that the Essence with Shear was corrupted. It was a leftover from The Radiance from before. Repairing Shear's mind meant interacting with it, and…

Something foreign welled up within her, something ugly and so decidedly human that it was confusing at first more than anything. It was an emotion, a chemical response sent directly from her brain attempting to process a reaction from the prospect of the interaction… It was Fear…

"How far have you fallen, that your own power frightens you?" She asked herself. It was an excuse, that she stayed her hand for as long as she did because of fear. She was a Higher Being, one of the oldest and most powerful, and yet the prospect of entering someone's mind frightened her. The mind, the Dream, was her Domain. She was afraid of it?

But if there was one singular driving force in Myla's life, it was Spite. So before she could give herself a chance to back out she dove into Shear's mind.

THE LIGHT WILL NOT BE CONSUMED!

And found herself in a hurricane of hatred and despair. It was a perversion of her Dream, something so terrible and sickly it nearly consumed her as well. The horizon was a glaring and sickly orange as opposed to the gentle golden hue it was supposed to be, and the gray-silvery clouds were a deep black caught in a torrential rain of Essence. The wind nearly made her stumble from her crumbling platform, the gale whipping about her ears with the faint sound of a maddening cackle. It was haunting that this was what her Dream had been reduced to. It was practically a hellscape to her, and somehow she was supposed to calm this and find Shear. As soon as she took a step forwards she was bombarded with nonsensical and maddening whispers, clawing at the darkest parts of her soul in an attempt to drive her insane. Her own voice mocked her, voicing her failures and her regrets. She hated the result? Then why was she so weak in the first place? Why even care about bugs lesser than her? Why care about those that had betrayed her? Why regret anything? In fact, why not start it all again in Japan? She was annoyed at her classmates, right? Instead of killing them, why not drive them insane enough to kill each other? YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT!

"ENOUGH!"

Closing her eyes she held her hands up before slamming them together in a deafening clap; hands facing upwards. Pulling them apart she formed a unique Glyph, a shape that she had despised in her madness. She formed a dreamcatcher, an annoyingly useful placebo that staved off madness by catching her Dreams before they infested the minds of those it protected. Infusing as much power into it as possible, watching it rotate in the space between her hands. Tilting it until it was perpendicular to herself she spun it, watching it grow in shape until it surrounded her. Bringing her hands back together, her entire body glowed along with the glyph before she threw her arms outward with an enormous expulsion of her power. The glyph expanded against the raging storm, creating a mirror within its barrier that showed how the Dream was supposed to look. Realizing what she was trying to do, it felt like the entire storm attempted to target her specifically. But the dreamcatcher did its job, and because of her special design it took in the energy of the storm and purified it, continuing its expansion.

Bringing her hands back together she repeated the process, this time forming the dreamcatcher vertically and sending it out to join its sibling. It was a strange sight, watching the mirror rotate between her Dream and its corrupted state. She began the process again when something blinked in the corner of her eye. It was as the dreamcatcher passed, but it looked like… an arm? She narrowed her eyes as the dreamcatcher followed its rotation, and when the corruption appeared again her eyes went wide. Someone else was here with her, blurred by the storm. In her Dream? How? Dropping her hands to her sides she kept her eyes on that spot again, and when the corruption showed up again everything went silent.

It was her, she was looking at herself. But she looked wrong.

She was wearing a white robe similar to what she formed for herself when she first arrived in this world, she had the same hair, antennae, build, height… It was a perfect clone. But her eyes… Her clone's eyes were a putrid orange, and instead of the usual serene look Myla tended to wear her clone had a completely manic smile on her face that only grew when they noticed each other. The rotation completed again, and she had to wait for it to come back around. When it did her clone moved! Familiar hands found themselves wrapped around Myla's throat in a stranglehold and she was sent to the ground with her clone laughing as she straddled her. She couldn't break the grip, she didn't even try to. Instead with the oxygen left in her brain she formed a dagger in her hand and drove it into the throat of her clone who didn't even try to block it. Without hesitating Myla wrenched it across her throat, nearly going blind from the waterfall of corrupted Essence drenching her face from her clone's mouth and jugular. Blinking through the orange sheen she saw her clone's grin only widen and her grip got even tighter.

The mirrored Myla began cackling wetly as Essence bubbled from her throat and mouth, and Myla's vision darkened as her oxygen reserve dwindled. Acting on instinct she plunged her dagger into her clone's heart before dispelling it and shoving her hand into the wound, detonating an orb of pure Essence, blowing out a significant chunk of her chest cavity and covering herself in gore and corrupted orange blood. Her clone's grin grew until it was nearly splitting her face and her eyes maniacally bored into Myla's own. As her grip on reality weakened she formed another small dagger and cut her clone's hands off, folding her legs and kicking as hard as she could until they finally separated. Air rushed back in her lungs along with the wretched taste of corrupted blood and Essence. She could barely move, but she forced herself to her feet and caught her clone who had sluggishly charged her before reversing their position from before. Forming another dagger she plunged both through the stumps of her clone's forearms, pinning her to the ground. She didn't attempt to injure her further yet; both wounds were catastrophic and she was still moving.

"What are you?" She snarled. Her clone just kept laughing.

"Can't recognize your literal flesh and blood? I'm hurt~" Her clone answered in a twisted mockery of her own voice. Myla frowned further. "I'm you, the real you~"

"You're insane…" Myla muttered.

"You got that right!" Her clone laughed, trying to lean up.

"You're a twisted perversion of what we're supposed to be."

"No, I'm the perfected version, look around us! Can't recognize your own artwork?"

"Artwork?!" Myla was aghast. Shaking her head she pressed on. "You're the source of it, right? Killing you will fix Shear's mind."

"Sure, sure~ But you won't kill me~" Myla ignored her, gathering an obscene amount of Essence and forming a glyph above them. She didn't need to hold back here, in her own Domain she could use as many attacks as she wanted. Standing up she stepped back and called down one of the largest Beams she had formed since coming here. But through the raw energy a voice echoed in her mind. "I'm a part of you, Myla~ Lock me away as much as you want but I'll always be a part of you~" And with a deafening boom the Dream flashed before returning to its natural state. The viscera and gore was gone too, but the taste of it remained.

Now that it was purified she found Shear easily, and with an errant thought she was right next to him. The Weaver was curled up in a fetal position, mind in a hundred pieces. It was pitiful, and it was heart wrenching knowing that at the end of the day, she was the cause of this. At least as hard as it would be, she intrinsically knew how the shape of someone's Dream was supposed to be. As unique as they came, it was just something she understood. It was the reason why she could so easily invade and shatter minds, and in this case it would be the reason why she was able to piece Shear's mind back together. But somehow this was almost worse. As the puzzles fit themselves back together under her gentle watch she was forced to witness Shear's life play out; his memories, thoughts, desires, hopes, wishes, fears, all of it. It wasn't like with the villain where she was searching for information by picking and choosing. This was the ultimate invasion of privacy, because unlike before it wasn't rushed. She felt disgusted, literally having the essence of Shear's being in the palm of her hands. Before she wouldn't have cared about it, but after everything? She just frowned and continued the long process of piecing Shear back together, feeling herself break apart as she did so. Finally though, she was done.

With a ragged sigh she pulled herself out of Shear's mind, knowing in her heart and soul that he was well again. As she saw him slumped against the couch a sudden bout of nausea washed over her and she stumbled to her bathroom. There was a chance it would pass, but in the entrance to her bathroom she paused in frozen despair. Her neck was marred purple by bruises, and then the pain hit her all at once. Breathing was harder than before, and she couldn't force a word out. But then her pupils shrank in terror as she saw her clone behind her with that same manic grin, she felt her lean against her back and her hands physically wrapped themselves around her throat, and then she blinked. Her own hands were around her throat and bile forced itself up her throat. She all but collapsed, vomiting Essence, blood, and acid before she broke down into sobs as the weight of everything rushed her all at once.

"I'm a part of you, Myla~ Lock me away as much as you want but I'll always be a part of you~"

Even worse, four limbs steadied her with a comfort she didn't deserve, and she only sobbed harder. Shear knew, there wasn't any way he didn't, and he was still trying to comfort her. Even if she could speak she wouldn't even know what to say. Was this seriously what she was reduced to now? How much of her was the Radiance and how much was Myla at this point? Was there a difference at all? Eventually she was just dry heaving, there wasn't anything left to come up other than blood from her ruined throat. Eventually there wasn't anything left and she just sat there, breathing raggedly. They knew more about each other than any other being in either world at this point…

Shear had helped to clean her up, but at that point Myla was so far beyond humiliated by everything that she was just exhausted. Neither of them said a word, her being completely unable to and Shear probably just processing everything. She caused his condition, and she was the one who restored him, and she even did it after being attacked by him. He probably had a lot to think about. The next few days were spent in awkward conversations as the two foreigners slowly came to terms with everything that had happened. Shear was… understandably consternated about sharing an apartment with a goddess—and especially the one responsible for every recent tragedy he had experienced before and after coming here. However, when she viewed his memories there was some bleed through, and he got the general gist of what had happened. In his typical fashion he… forgave her for everything she had done. His reasoning was that the Radiance from before and Myla were technically two different people, and that even if Myla was truly responsible her faculties were all but destroyed. Using the same rationalization for herself was… not as easy as it was for him. The last assurance she forced on him was that any worship directed at her was off the table. She wasn't… she wasn't worthy of it, and his belief in her existence was enough.

On her day off she made a quick stop at UA even though classes were canceled, and after a… "persuasive" conversation with Recovery Girl her neck and the cut on her face were both gone. Using her ability wasn't what she wanted to do, but after the old heroine's questions became uncomfortable Myla gently influenced her mind and erased any memory of the interaction. Speaking was still difficult, but as time went on it dulled into an uncomfortable sore throat.

Her biggest annoyance, and thankfully the perfect distraction, came in the form of Grimm. His continued existence was an infinite fuel source for her hatred, not just because he was the reason her class nearly died, but because she was bound not to do anything to interrupt him or his ritual. Even worse was the fact that she had to rely on him to forge legal documents for Shear, giving him formal citizenship and an identity to follow. Digging deeper into her debt to Grimm, he also purchased a small alcove in the Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall. In their time off, Myla helped Shear turn it into a boutique and clothing store. It was one step in her penance, helping Shear to finally fulfill his dream as a seamster. This world had no idea how valuable Weaver Silk was, but given time he'd probably make a fortune considering he was the sole source of it.

As the weekend came to a close Myla had yet to see an appearance from her mirrored self, but she still flinched in those rare instances where she caught her reflection on accident. The possibility was one that she didn't enjoy entertaining, because it opened an avenue to a multitude of uncomfortable questions. Her trials in this world were barely beginning, she didn't need to make it worse by adding even more issues on top of them…

"I'm a part of you, Myla~ Lock me away as much as you want but I'll always be a part of you~"

Myla looked out her window, resting her thumb over where she left off in her book. The sun was dipping below towards the horizon, casting the city of Musutafu in a brilliant orange. To most it would look breathtaking and for good reason, but as she stared at the golden orb; long enough that her eyes welled with tears, all she could feel were hands around her neck. Finally she looked away and closed her eyes.

"Who even are you anymore, Myla Grimm?"

""MR. AIZAWA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"" The class collectively asked, breaking Myla from her airheaded state. She almost had to do a double-take to make sure she wasn't looking at a mummy from the movies Shear started watching as of late. Their teacher was wrapped head to toe in bandages with both arms wrapped in a sling, limping to his desk.

Their class representative shot his hand up, "Mr. Aizawa. I'm glad you're okay!"

"My well-being is irrelevant," he said, causing Myla to wince. How familiar did that sound? "What's more important is that your fight isn't over yet." The goddess blinked. Oh yeah, there was a… school fair? Coming soon?

Bakugo narrowed his eyes, "our fight?" he parroted.

Midoriya's anxiety washed over her in a now familiar wave. "Don't tell me…"

She sighed. "No, it's—"

"The UA Sports Festival is about to start." At their teacher's declaration the entire class erupted in a cacophony of excitement for all of five seconds.

Kirishima stood with a yell. "Let's go kick some ass!" Only for Kaminari to push him back down.

"Is it really such a good idea to hold the Sports Festival so soon after the villains snuck inside?"

Following Jiro's sentiment Ojiro continued, "they could attack once we're all in the same place.

Aizawa let out a signature sigh, "apparently the administration thinks that the threat has been handled and our school is safer than ever. Plus, they're beefing up security compared to the past years." Like any of that would mean a thing if Grimm decided to attack… Or if he decided to do anything at all, really. "This event is a huge opportunity for all students at UA, it's not something we can cancel because of a few villains."

Myla tilted her head, "it's just a festival though, right? Like a fair? Are games and food really that important?" She was using Hallownest's fairs as a reference and as grand as they were, they weren't very memorable to the bugs who had and visited them. She didn't see the appeal…

"Huh? You don't know about the Sports Festival Myla?" Midoriya leaned out from behind Bakugo, drawing a glare from the mantis in human form.

"Not really? I know it happens and that people watch it, but that's it." She drew some odd looks but they didn't faze her. She had made a mistake, but she had a contingency for a situation such as this! "I'm not originally from Japan, so I guess it's just not televised where I'm from," she stated before looking back towards the front.

"Our Sports Festival is one of the most-watched events in the entire world, but apparently not everywhere. In the past everyone obsessed over the Olympic Games, but then Quirks started appearing. Now the Olympics have been drastically in terms of scale and viewership. For anyone who cares about competition; there's only one tournament that matters. The UA Sports Festival."

"Ah," she nodded, leaning back. Externally she put on a passive but understanding expression, but inside she was growing wary. A Competition? That… wasn't good… She listened idly as her class discussed how Pro Heroes would be watching and that it was a great opportunity to be scouted. For an up-and-coming Pro Hero this was great, but in Myla's case the problem was herself. The Sports Festival was a Competition, and The Radiance was a Higher Being. Her kind were conflictive and competitive by nature, apex predators all trying to prove their dominance over the rest. Rarely did two Higher Beings meet without some form of conflict, often ending in fights to the death. It didn't matter if it was the Pale Light himself or a fellow classmate, it was in Myla's nature to do anything possible to win and prove that she was the strongest. Not only would she be fighting her classmates, but she'd also be fighting her own violent impulses.

That was all she could think of as they went through their classes for the first day, because already she could feel her nature singing at the opportunity to show humanity what she could really do. She would have to train both in mind and in body if she wanted to win. Considering how… fractured she had been recently that would be easier said than done. And, knowing her brother, Grimm would definitely come to watch. Not to be supportive of course, but because he knew that his presence would be a constant source of irritation that would distract her and keep her off of her game.

The general excitement was refreshing though, it helped to clear her mind. The emotions of her classmates had an effect on her empathic abilities, both the positive and negative ones. With the USJ and her clearing of Shear's mind she had been in a rather negative state of mind, especially with her… mirror. She still didn't have an answer, but as more and more time went on without an appearance she wanted to believe that it was a remnant of her own insane state spawned as a defense mechanism against her attacks. Seeing her in the mirror was probably a result of her own wavering mind after the confrontation. At least, that was what she chose to believe for now. If she didn't make any more appearances? Then that was that and she'd be able to sleep better at night. Myla was… she didn't like being unsure of her own Dream…

"I'm a part of you, Myla~ Lock me away as much as you want but I'll always be a part of you~"

She shuddered, but at least she was regaining her confidence bit by bit. Lunch was an uninteresting and relievingly mundane affair with one exception. As she set down her bowl of ramen Mina slammed her own tray down in front of her, drawing an undignified squawk from the disguised goddess.

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't from Japan?!" Her friend yelled dramatically, drawing a raised eyebrow from Myla as she broke apart her chopsticks.

"Is that a problem?" She asked passively. Half of her attention was drawn away as she noticed Midoriya break apart from his trio and leave with… All Might? They were behind her and two hallways over, so she didn't outwardly react. And now that the two of them were right next to each other Myla actually paused. Their energies weren't similar, they were identical. If she weren't trying to lay low she would take both of them and dredge the reason from their minds until she had her answers. Midoriya was thoroughly the most interesting person in Japan by far.

"Yes! Well-no, but," Mina floundered before seeing Myla's small smirk. "Agh, you know what I mean! Meanie…" The pinkette pouted before shoving a slice of her katsudon in her mouth.

"I never said I was foreign because it was never relevant. If you must know, I grew up in Northern Iceland." She had done research when flushing out her identity. Myla Grimm was half Japanese/half Icelandic, growing up in a small coastal town before moving to Japan with her brother. Her animosity could be explained because he dragged her so far from the comforts of home. The language wasn't difficult, surprisingly. It was similar to the language of The Hive, with scatterings of different words but a similar syntax.

"Really?! Your Japanese is flawless! Though now that I'm paying attention you do have an accent." Japanese was very similar to the spoken language of the Higher Beings, and her accent came from— Before she could recall the information a sharp lance of pain shot through her brain. She didn't remember, it was locked behind her suppressed memories. Information she chose not to remember… The rest of lunch passed smoothly with idle but pleasant conversation and the rest of her classes went without issue. It was the end of the day that brought the real problems.

Myla Grimm furrowed her brow as a very large, very nosy group of students crowded out in front of the door to Class 1-A's room. All of their focus was directed at them, all of their curiosity, wishes, confusion, and resentment. It was grating heavily on her nerves, overstimulating her mind, and putting her in a rather unpleasant mood.

"U-Um, why the heck are all of you here," Uraraka asked the crowd, going ignored.

Iida aimed his hand outward, "do you have some sort of business with our class?"

"Why are you blocking our doorway? I won't let you hold us hostage!" The maggot of their class yelled. Even with the building annoyance, the situation was redeemable. Given enough time and they'd move on, or a teacher would move them, it was a simple formula. Unfortunately there was a snag in that possibility, and it was named Bakugo.

"They're scouting out the competition, idiots." Myla's antennae twitched. The attitude was shifting. "We're the class that survived a real villain attack, they just want to see us with their own eyes." As he approached the crowd his intensity caused them to take a nervous step back. "At least now you know what a future pro looks like, now move it extras." Myla sighed as Midoriya's trio floundered, but ultimately did nothing to assuage the worsening situation. All of the increasing negative emotions were having an affect on her.

"So this is Class 1-A," a new voice stated. "I heard you guys were impressive, but you just sound like an ass. Is everyone in the hero course delusional, or just you?" He asked Bakugo directly. The newcomer pushed his way to the front, finally drawing Myla's eyes to the unfolding situation. He was tall, probably a bit taller than her, with a lanky build. He resembled Aizawa with how tired he was, except his messy hair was purple instead of their teacher's black. Purple eyes regarded them with acute distaste, showing a bare hint of the resentment he held for them. "How sad to come here and find a bunch of egomaniacs. I wanted to be in the hero course, but like many others here I was forced to choose a different track, such is life. I didn't cut it the first time around, but I have another chance." He pulled his hand away from his neck, "if any of us do well the teachers can decide to transfer us to the hero course. And they'll have to transfer people out to make room."

His eyes swept over the room. "Scouting the competition?" He parroted Bakugo's words. "Maybe some of my peers are, but I'm here to let you know that if you don't bring your very best I'll steal your spot right from under you. Consider this a Declaration of War." And Myla, who had been sitting quietly and trying to ignore the events, heard a very audible snap that only she seemed to hear. The Radiance stood from her desk and slowly began approaching the doorway as well, with no intention of making the situation any better.

"Hey you!" Another newcomer yelled, "I'm from Class 1-B next door to you! We heard you fought some villains, and I came to see if that was true! But you're just a bunch of brats who think they're better than us!" The entire crowd now shared the resentment of the purple haired boy, only fueling Myla's rage even further. "Talk all you want, but it'll be even more embarrassing when you're KO'd—Hey! Don't you ignore me!" He finished as Bakugo simply left.

"Let me ask you, all of you, a simple question…" The Radiance's voice was soft, but it swept over everybody like thunder, silencing the entire hallway. All eyes were on her, negative in front of her, and pensive behind her. "How many of you tried out for the Hero Course? Your voices mean nothing, raise your hands to answer." The hatred of the crowd of humans was stalled by the sheer intensity the Higher Being was exuding. Over half of the crowd raised their hands. "And obviously you failed. How many of you, after receiving the letter of denial, stopped trying?" The negativity abated slightly as they took in her words. "No need to answer, it's obvious. All of you gave up. You tried, and when you failed you threw up your hands and said "I gave it my best" before settling for General Education. You never tried to better yourself, you never trained to do better, you simply convinced yourselves that that was all you could do. And now you'll live out your lives in pathetic obscurity while blaming the people that tried for your shortcomings. Pathetic," she snarled. No one could refute her, due to their own shame or the intensity she was still exuding.

"You," she bared her proverbial and literal fangs at their fellow hero-in-training. "How dare you make light of a Life or Death situation? Because you see it on TV all the time, that makes a villain attack on your fellow classmen a joke to you? Something to make fun of and call us brats? In order to save our Homeroom Teacher I pushed my Quirk so hard it nearly killed me, facing a villain that was designed to kill All Might. If I wasn't rushed to the hospital I would have died, but I am still here. All of us have faced adversity you can scarcely imagine. So know your place you worthless insect!" She spat, causing the cocksure boy to recoil.

Finally, finally, she took a look at the boy who had started it all. Her horrified classmates, even the shocked Bakugo, and the culled crowd all watched intently as the two titans faced down each other. To his credit, he didn't back down. "You've given us a declaration of war? Prove you know the meaning," she lowered her voice so only he could hear, "because you seem to be the only one worth a damn." She looked at the crowd again, regarding them with less respect than the dirt beneath her feet. "Before you blame others for your shortcomings, take a long hard look in the mirror first… And if you think you actually have a chance? Prove it. Or else you'll prove everything I've told you right." With a sigh she walked forward, the crowd parting like a sea in front of her.

"It's your given right to Dream, but only you can make those Dreams a reality." She ignored everything else, and as she turned the corner she slumped forward with a resigned sigh. "Great… Good going Myla, this is exactly what I was worried about…" The purple haired kid stoked the fire and her nature answered with gusto. If she couldn't even handle some goading from lesser classmates without resorting to something like that, then what the hell was she going to do in the actual Sports Festival? When she actually had to compete?

"What a pain…"

I was originally supposed to post my other story but I've run into a bit of Writer's Block so I went with this instead. It'll come after this, or you can expect another chapter for The Dragon and the Fox. The schedule will resume normally when I manage to get through that brief patch. Also sorry for the wait! I was abroad internationally and I didn't really have time to write anything, and then on top of that I was sick! I'm a lot better now but I just couldn't get anything out.

And oh boy is this one a doozy! Definitely more intense than what I was planning, but I actually like the result. I felt like giving a Content Warning would be a good idea, since I don't think two scenes are worth changing the rating to M, at least I don't plan on it anytime soon. If her reaction to the Corrupted Dream seems confusing, remember that intellectually she knew what the result was, but she never actually had to confront it. And now she knows genuinely what she caused for an entire kingdom of people, after already regretting what happened. Likewise she was also confronted by a figment of her own insanity from before coming to MHA, showing exactly what she had become. Something during that sequence was very important, but nothing will be revealed until far later~

Aren't existential crises fun? :D

Apex Predators, and Higher Beings, are very competitive. As intelligent as they were, they were still at the top of the food chain. The Pale King initially was conflictive with the Root, the Hive and Hallownest never unified, and we all know what happened with The Radiance. So here you go, you also get to see Higher Being Radiance in action, fully embracing her goddess-complex! If you think it's going to get any better, that'll take awhile~ She may look human but Myla is very much still The Radiance.

Now for reviews!

Death of Snipers: To be completely honest that completely slipped my mind. That's an avenue I'll explore; at the very least the souls may not be compatible but I haven't made a decision yet. And there! You have your answer, your very messy answer!

James is bored: And continue it shall~

Darkromdemon: Bingo, but things are rarely as simple as that~

Ultima-owner: He definitely joined to shake things up, and who knows what his goals are regarding the ritual~

Zerkil: A pure vessel is everything described. No mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry suffering, born of god and void. But THK/Pure Vessel is not pure. He never was, and that was the single greatest mistake the Pale King made. THK looks back at you in the Abyss, he stands next to his father in the Path of Pain. The plan to make a Pure Vessel failed, but nobody knew that until it was too late. In the ending where the Knight takes the role we think everything will be fine, but with the relationships we made and the actions we took, are we pure? Did you give a flower to Elderbug? Did you spare the dead dreams? Vessels were designed to contain, but they're a new form of life that no one understands. And I've listened to all of Man on the Internet's Hollow Knight tracks! They're awesome! I'm thinking of adding songs and timestamps to the story when certain fights or events happen, maybe I'll add the ones you've suggested : )

Vigriff: Glad you're caught up, and literally? I just forgot… No plot point that you missed, I forgor :/ I'll come up with some explanation like I told the other reviewer. And AFO didn't succeed. I think I said "The Pale Light's aberration was infinitely better in its design," and that AFO was meddling with things beyond his comprehension. It took The Radiance a long time to break out of THK, and it took her barely any time at all to break out of the Nomu.

Maskedkeeper: We'll see more of Grimm as time goes on, and likewise everything with THK will be revealed in good time~

A random dragon: I'm glad you're enjoying it! And whoever said The Radiance was cured~ She's restored certainly but as we've seen here there is much about The Dream we don't know. (Well, I know XD) And I enjoy you like Grimm and THK's portrayal. They'll have much larger roles as time progresses. And yeah, Grimm's intentions aren't 100% clear but your assumption of his end goal is correct. We don't know who was chosen for the ritual, but I can assure you that it wasn't Midoriya. Thanks for reading!

Thanks as always for the reviews!

Next in the Rotation: Mariana, the Abyssal Hero! or The Dragon and the Fox

See you soon!~