So here we go, what a lot of people have been waiting for, the start of the fight against the hero killer himself.
How will things be different? Well, you'll just have to look and find out!
and we are coming up onto the 50th chapter of Bearer of the Light! HOLY smokes!
So enjoy this latest chapter, and be sure to leave comments and reviews! I always like hearing from the readers :D
Review Time:
Guest: Thank you, hope you have been enjoying this story :D
fallendemon248: It's finally here, and oh boy is this going to be a dozy :D
M. god of heroes: While I agree with this, remember that Tenya looked up to his brother, and while that yes, he is still alive, this was something Tenya never had to deal with before, so I can understand his viewpoint of the little brother seeking revenge against his brother's "killer".
InfinityMask: While I have stopped answering questions from chapters long in the past, I will say this. It's been established in FFXIV cannon that while white magic is pretty fucking powerful, it cannot heal everything. In fact, one such injury that couldn't be healed was a man who was paralyzed from the waist down due to being attacked by a primal.
Granted, white mages and similarly as powerful healers are bloody rare in the world, but they have their limitations, and in regards to All Might? White magic cannot simply "regrow" body parts, it doesn't work like that.
Morbious20: Thank you! and please see the previous response in regards to healing :)
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to My Hero Academia and Final Fantasy XIV, they belong to their copyright holders.
Chapter 48
One's Justice
Tomura Shigaraki was feeling pleased with himself.
Well, more pleased considering the shitshow his day had been going. His recovery when it came to his reattached hand was still ongoing; even if it had fully healed back and his quirk returned to him, there were still moments of residual aches and pains that either caused him to barely get any sleep or worse yet, drop a controller and nearly breaking the damn thing because of the fall and those were expensive to replace!
And they called him a 'villain'.
Regardless, the pain had returned in full force that morning and just so happened to linger throughout the day. Typically, Shigarki would just ignore it as best as he could, but that pain had almost caused him a premature death at the hands of the foolish hero-killer, Stain.
The gray-haired man huffed to himself, thinking over Stain's asinine little speech back at the bar. Telling him that there was no point to his methods, that they were childish and naive.
Though, as he thought about it, perhaps speaking about how All Might was going to die at his hands and with no actual plans afterward was a bit foolish on his part, granted the 'leader' of the League of Villains had no idea how much Stain looked up to the number one hero.
Fucking fanboys.
The screams and cries of both the heroes fighting his Nomu's as well as those caused by the fleeing public brought Tomura out of his deep thoughts, his eyes squinting behind the hand of his father that was held over his face while he watched one of the Nomu breath fire out onto a few of the idiot heroes, "Kurogiri."
"Yes, Shigaraki?" the sentient shadow spoke from his spot behind the pale man before him.
"Sensei didn't tell you what quirks these Nomu possessed, did he?"
The yellow slits for eyes squinted slightly as if in thought, before opening them back up to their original size, "Two of them had strength quirks and some very minor regenerative ones added in, while there was the flier that had been given a strength booster quirk as well, why do you ask?"
"One of them can breathe fire, apparently."
Upon hearing Shigaraki saying this, Kurogiri had slinked his usually gentlemanly way beside the young man before peering down to look upon the fiery carnage below, "Interesting, the master did not mention he had a spare that could do that as well."
Shigaraki turned his head to his guardian/subordinate, his eyes giving off a hint of curiosity, "Spare?"
"Yes, there was one Nomu that had a minor fire breathing quirk, but that was appropriated by the master's new ally for some kind of experiment." The shadow said, looking towards Shigaraki, "It looked similar to the other overly muscular lesser Nomu's in the beginning, but its features drastically changed because of what the Ascian had done. But whatever that is now, it doesn't look like that Nomu down there."
The screams from down below caught both their attention again, as from under the pale hand gripping his face, Shigaraki was slowly beginning to smile, "Well then… I'd say things may have gotten much more interesting…."
"A-Are you sure, sir?" Izuku asked, looking flabbergasted while seated next to the old pro hero, both riding the local train towards Hosu all suited up. Sure, the whispers and looks from the passengers had caused Izuku a little bit of embarrassment, but it was to be expected since they couldn't just run all the way to Hosu from where Gran Torino lived.
Izuku felt a little guilty if he had given the heroes in the past the same feelings when he used to go out and write down information in his notebooks when he was younger.
The grizzled smaller man huffed as he looked up at his pupil, "You losing yer hearing as well? I said, you have permission for full use of your quirk. This isn't some dinky little training spot or gym we are going to; this is the real world. Holding yourself back is just asking for trouble."
Gran Torino shifted in his seat, idly stretching out his back muscles, "Besides, it makes it less of a hassle for me to just shout that in the middle of a fight."
Izuku hung his head down as the older man cackled to himself, possibly at some sort of joke not privy to the young hero student. The train shifted and jostled as the lights out of the outside world revealed themselves out of the windows since the train had been traveling the last twenty or so minutes in a tunnel, and just as Izuku was about to ask Gran Torino another question in regards to their patrol, that is when all hell broke loose.
A crash and massive tilt in the car that housed not only the two heroes but also some passengers as well nearly brought everyone down to the floor as within the wreckage laid a pro hero, unconscious and bloody, with a giant beast of a person looming down at him with a large foot pressing against the hero's chest.
Izuku was the first to recover, his eyes going wide in horror as when he looked upon the giant villain before him, he could see an exposed brain with a crooked, twisted smile, "N… Nomu!"
The beast was about to roar upon hearing its name before Gran Torino launched himself and kicked the Nomu in the side of the head, throwing it back out of the train car as the old-timer landed on his feet, looking back to Izuku, "Check on the passengers and then head towards the fires! Rescue ANYONE you can, but don't go start picking no fights!"
And before Izuku could even ask what his mentor was going to do, the old-timer leaped out of the hole where Izuku dashed up to the exit and could see Gran Torino lead the Nomu away from the stopped train, before his emerald eyes could look up and he gasped out gently.
The sky was ablaze like the setting sun on a warm summer evening. However, the odd thing was that it was nighttime now, and that massive ball of glowing orange was not the setting sun. Though he remained motionless for a few moments, a groan coming from inside of the train car he was in caught his attention. Remembering his mentor's words, the young hero Azem looked on with a determined and serious look on his face as he began to assess the task before him before immediately starting his work.
It had taken a reasonable amount of time to finish with the passengers; thankfully, he had help from a few of the non-injured people as well as the conductor who had made it back towards the car they were in as Izuku had taken to the skies, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in the guise of his dragoon kit.
The red glowing eyes of his lowered mask scanned the streets and alleyways for any stragglers fleeing from the carnage of the fires and Nomu attacks. While he had yet to see any other ones aside from the one Gran Torino kicked off the train, the fires and screams of monsters from the crowds gave him the impression that there were multiple.
A mixture of shouts that sounded like commands and directions caught the dragoon's gaze as he landed on a rooftop to take a peek at the scene before him. Moving quickly to the edge, he looked down to see a peculiar sight.
There was Manual, directing other minor heroes to open fire hydrants and then using his quirk to begin dousing the areas far from the inferno before them; the dragoon squinted his eyes as he could hear the pro hero down below, "I need more hydrants open! We need to contain that advance of that inferno! Dammit! And has anyone seen Iida?!"
That last sentence caught the young hero off guard and instantly knew where Tenya had run off too.
He went hunting down Stain.
Cursing under his breath, Izuku had turned from the edge and was about to leap off and begin his search for his wayward classmate only to gasp in pain, falling to one knee as his head began to throb and ache before hearing the ever lovely, at most times, of Hydaelyn's voice echo in his head.
"Dammit, not now!" Izuku hissed out as he slowly began to pull himself back up, heading towards another edge only to be met with another sharp jolt of pain to his head that caused him to revert back to his normal costumed self.
He gasped as he shook his head, the dull throbbing in his head ever-present as he panted gently before looking about to the city line from his vantage point upon the rooftops. Izuku squinted his eyes as he slowly took deep breaths to calm himself, for when he looked a particular way, the dull throbbing increased.
"... oh, you gotta be kidding me," Izuku said with a small amount of irritation to his voice as he made his way towards the opposite side of the building he was on, stopping a few yards away from the edge as he reached into one of his belt pockets and took out his cellphone, quickly opening up an application and typing something out. He huffed when he closed the device and gripped it in his hand, bouncing on his feet to prepare himself as Izuku spoke softly, "Hope Mei didn't overclock the functions of my boots too much."
Tenya struggled upon the ground, locked in place by some unknown force as his deep blue eyes looked upon the figure standing before him. He growled low in his throat, trying to will himself to stand up and deal with the villain before him.
"My, what a vengeful look upon the face of someone so young…." Stain said bemused as he slowly began to take a few steps forward, the blade he was holding reflecting any light that had crept into the alleyway they were currently in, "I am shocked you were able to hunt me down, boy… but given the current situation and what with the false heroes were planning tonight, it doesn't surprise me someone would spot me."
The older man squatted down to Tenya's level, his red eyes looking deeply into the students before sighing heavily, "Have I slighted you in some way, boy? To make you rush in and prevent me from completing my work?"
"Y-you… monster…" Tenya sputtered out, still struggling to move as his arms, one blood from a cut by the villain began to shake in frustration, "Y-you don't… even remember what you did, do you! Y… you destroyed my brother's life!"
Though it was hard to see, what with the killer's mask hiding his eyebrows, there was a general look of confusion as well as a tilt of his head. It was at this point Stain got a good look at Tenya's outfit before it dawned on the hero killer who huffed, "Oh… is that all this is? Petty revenge because I crippled him?" asked Stain as he watched the ever-growing rage build within the boy.
Slowly standing up, Stain brought the tip of his sword down to Tenya's eyes level, seeing the now hateful gaze begin to show fear, "Seems the message he was supposed to convey had fallen on deaf ears and sent me another false hero to meet their doom."
When Tenya said nothing in response, Stain chuckled darkly, the tip of the blade just poking the student's nose, "Those that call themselves heroes nowadays are nothing but glory and fame-seeking fakes. They do not care about helping or saving the weak, only to further their own gains or goals."
The sneer of the man's lips caused Tenya to feel a chill run up his spine, "Even now it seems that those who are to be our future are on that same path, not to save people and protect the "peace" of our society, but to simply do it for personal reasons."
"I will… take you down, Stain!" Tenya spoke through ragged breaths as he tried to free himself of whatever hold had on him. The villain before him huffed in indignation.
"Clearly, it seems even the hero schools are producing more fake heroes as well, especially those that don't prioritize helping people that need it, isn't that right, Native?" Stain said aloud, a smug smirk creeping onto his lips as the downed Pro Hero was also squirming, though, unlike Tenya, had clearly lost a fair amount of blood, "But it doesn't matter, you have already been corrupted by the ideals of this unjust society… you are nothing but a fake."
Tenya's eyes looked up to see Stain had moved forward some more, fear in the young man's eyes as he watched the hero killer raise his blade up to bring down upon him. The young brother of Ingenium clenched his eyes tightly, waiting for the end to his short life while also thinking about all of those whom he had failed.
His classmates, his teachers, his family, and worst of all, how Tenya failed to avenge his brother.
A sudden 'bing' sound came from the teenager's belt that caught all three people in the alleyway by surprise. Tenya knew that the sound had come from his phone with a notification within the class's group chat.
Stain looked to downed teen, his smile long since faded as he looked at his victim, "What was that so-"
*BANG*
A bullet ricocheted off of the ground near Stain's feet which caused the villain to look up and cry out in shock from the brilliant light that shone for the briefest of moments before an all too familiar voice rang out in the alleyway.
"GET AWAY FROM THEM! CORPS-A-CORPS!"
Tenya strained to look up to see Izuku plunge himself down at the villain, striking out with the rapier and expertly swinging and stabbing the blade tip at Stain, forcing him to backpedal from his two fallen victims until they were a good couple of yards away when the gaudily dressed newcomer suddenly flew back, moving his arms in a way to hear a click sound coming from the boy's weapon, holding the rapier-like a staff of all things.
"ACCELERATE! VERAERO!"
The crystal at the pommel of the upside-down rapier shine brightly for a moment as a sphere of concentrated winds burst out of it, hurtling itself towards Stain before he could react and sent the hero killer far down the alleyway and into the street, colliding into a parked car before bouncing off and over it.
Izuku took a deep breath, staring out into the street for a moment before turning his attention to Tenya and Native, "I'm sorry I couldn't get to him quicker, but I had to send out our location."
"What are you… doing here… Midoriya?" Tenya asked, watching as his classmate looked him over and the injuries he had taken, feeling the wash of magic envelop his body as Izuku muttered out a 'vercure'.
"What do you think?! I was worried about you! EVERYONE is Tenya!" Izuku uncharacteristically snarled at his class president, "I know what happened to your brother is devastating, but seeking revenge is not something you should have done!"
Tenya's own face twisted into righteous anger as well as he pushed past his immobility to look at his green-haired classmate, "But because of that monster, my brother can no longer be a hero!"
"And would getting revenge fix that?!"
Both boys were staring hard at one another, although that sudden revelation said by Izuku had caused Tenya to lose the angered look across his face. As Izuku turned away from his fellow classmate to cast another 'vercure' upon the fallen pro hero, he cried out when a sword flew past his arm from behind him and struck his arm.
As Izuku clenched his arm and cried out from the pain, Tenya struggled to turn his head towards his classmate as Native clenched his teeth, seeing the student hurt from the surprise attack.
"Midoriya!"
Movement of red from above the three caught their attention as Stain had flipped over and landed further down the alleyway, picking up the blade that had some of Izuku's blood, "Interesting, to think I would meet the infamous Izuku Midoriya."
He quickly shifted himself into his paladin kit, covered head to toe in thick body armor as Izuku brought out his shield and sword, standing between the villain and the two bodies on the ground. With his protection raised up, ready to strike should the hero killer even so much as move forward, Izuku kept his eyes trained on him as he spoke from within his helmet, "Infamous?"
Before giving the boy a rebuttal, Stina had licked the blade clean of the blood with his grotesque elongated tongue, with Izuku found himself unable to move and was now struggling to do so similar to Tenya and Native, "Yes, infamous…." Stain spoke as he slowly began to make his way towards the three people before him, "It's not every sports festival that outside interference causes such a ruckus, and to have one of the competitors demonstrate a forgotten act of true heroism… self-sacrifice."
"But that wasn't the only time, was it Midoriya?" asked Stain as he stood before the still defensively posed teenager, looming down at him with a look of cold logic, almost similar to the homeroom teacher the students all looked up to in some sort of way or another, "The slime incident from nearly a year ago, where a young boy rushed out past idling heroes, including All Might when he was about to enter the fray. That is what is missing from today's heroes."
The hero killer began to walk past him, drawing out a rather large blade from behind him as he made his way towards Tenya, "Unlike your friend here, who's already been corrupted by the failures of our society that he must be made an example of. No more glory-hogging, fame-seeking fake heroes will be tolerated."
Stain stood in front of Tenya now, his silhouette hiding the front part of his body except for the beady red eyes of the villain as he slowly began to bring the blade up into the air, letting what little light shine against its surface and reflect down onto the frightened look of the hero student, "This is to end the cycle, this is for true heroism and justice!"
A flash of light caught the corner of Stain's eye as he whirled around, sword raised to block an incoming attack but instead was left with a more peculiar sight.
Still set in that same defensive position, where once was a paladin, now stood the hero student Izuku, still frozen as Stain squinted his eyes, untrusting of what the boy was planning.
"Justice?" was the one word spoken from Izuku that seemed to echo off the walls of the tight alleyway the small gathering of people were in.
"Yes! Justice! Justice for those victims of the fake and false heroes that profit off of their misery, or those who commit their own crimes while having the entirety of it being swept under the rug because of "popularity"."
"So, killing them, never to be made to face actual justice, to repent for their sins and crimes." Izuku spoke with a hard edge to his voice unheard of before between the three people, especially Tenya, "That is the only way?"
"There is none for the fakes!" Stain shouted out, watching as the boy began to slowly stand up, still with his back turned away from the small group, "They will never learn from their crimes, nor will they ever repent! To change the current system, there need to be extreme measures taken!"
"So that's it?" Izuku asked, causing the hero killer to shift back slightly with the drawn blade still raised in a defensive way, "The ends justify the means?"
With no response back from the hero killer, Izuku sighed gently, his fists clenching up as he spoke once again, "Stain, I am not going to try and say that all heroes aren't like how you say they are, I'm not naive to believe that. You see some of the most outrageous examples every day on the Hero News."
Izuku tilted his head back, turning his head ever so slightly to see the villain from the corner of his emerald eye, "So, while I agree with your ideals to a point, that those that have broken the law need to face justice for what they have done, your methods are equally as wrong as those so-called 'fakes' you have murdered."
Stain began to sneer at the boy before him, clearly taking offense to the judgment passed on him by a child nonetheless. However, before he could retort or possibly toss a weapon at him, the entire alleyway was filled with a blinding light, catching the hero killer, pro hero, and fallen hero student off guard.
The light shot out to the open night sky, a pillar similar to that of a beacon for all to see.
Shoto slid across the ice he was creating, speeding along between the various empty streets and alleyways as he looked down to his phone for a brief moment to check the GPS app he had open.
It was a strange occurrence to be sure for Izuku to just post a set of coordinates in the class group chat; many of his fellow classmates were confused at the cryptic message until the half-hot, half-cold teenager had a hunch what it could possibly be. When said hunch proved correct that the numbers the green-haired boy had posted to be the longitude and latitude of an alleyway within the Hosu area, well, it didn't take long for the son of the Number two hero in Japan to connect the dots.
Warning his father, as well as that strange older man who zipped around the battlefield while fighting what seemed to be a far weaker Nomu creature from the one at the USJ of the message, he immediately took off to locate his classmate.
A shining light caught his attention as he slid down to the sidewalk to gaze up at the bright pillar of light shining from a location not too far from him. Shoto squinted his eyes and began his journey once again at an expedited pace, trusting in that gut feeling that light was clearly being made by Izuku.
Being blinded by the damn thing a couple of times before the events unfolding before him further convinced the stoic boy to 'trust his gut' once more.
"No, please! STOP!" Manual shouted out as he laid upon the ground, heavily bleeding from his broken arm and injured head as the fire-breathing Nomu stood above the fallen hero.
It hissed out a sickening sound from between its lips as bouts of fire sputtered from its orifice, its bulky arms slowly brought up, and its fists clenched together to smash the 'normal' hero into a fine paste against the heated pavement of the road they were on.
Just as the beast was winding up to deliver the deadly and final blow, it suddenly stopped as still as a statue, quickly looking up and searching for something that it had picked up and when it spotted that blazing and bright pillar of light amongst the rooftops, the beast let out a horrific sounding roar that sounded like no animal or person could ever make before jumping over the top of its former prey, clearly seeking out its new target, as well as being followed from the rooftops by its 'master' and his shadowy companion.
And as Manual struggled to right himself up to see the villain running and leaping away, while also seeming to begin to morph its body most peculiarly, becoming more larger than before, but its mass decreasing and becoming lither in its appearance. What happened next would forever haunt his nightmares as the creature shouted a word with its monstrous voice.
"W̷̳̍͝Á̶̞R̵̡̨͎̫̯̳̱̃̓R̸͇͐̅́́͗̚͝I̶͉͔͔̣͈̬̓̌̎͒̃͝O̸̫̟̠͎̤̰͕̽͂̈́̓͆̚͘R̵̡̉̔̌̿͝!̵̧͕͚̓̋"
"Deku-kins? Are you sure he's this way?" Himiko asked as she and her armor-clad protector began running down one of the many alleyways they had been searching for most of the day.
Deku himself slid to a stop at the open alleyway entrance they were running through, careful to check for any patrolling heroes. When news broke out earlier that day that there was to be a hunt for the hero killer tonight and being led by the number two hero himself, Deku knew they had precious little time to complete their task.
Despite the man's relatively poor reputation amongst even hero fans, Deku knew that Endeavor was a mighty hero, as well as a person who always got their target. With so many villains captured under his belt, it would be hard-pressed to say that the walking fireball of a man needed to be avoided, for both Stain's sake as well as their own.
Just as he was about to turn his head to answer Himiko's question, a giant pillar of light shot forth from one of the alleyways not too far away from him. As Himiko rounded the corner, gazing and cooing at the admitted beautiful light shining in the night sky, a crash behind her broke her concentration as she whipped her head around and gasped in shock and worry, "DEKU-KINS!"
Deku had fallen back into some trash cans, panting heavily and harshly as the vampire standing in front of him watched the very shadows seethe and grow more ominous around him, attacking his body and driving deep into his body.
The dark knight looked up to Himiko, who was watching in abject horror as her friend was seemingly consumed by the shadows; he watched as she immediately ran back towards him, tackling against him and trying to bat away the shadows that seemed to engulf and infuse into his armor.
And admittedly, while in the shadow of that pillar of light, for the first time in weeks, whatever was happening to himself, Deku never felt more powerful or alive.
As abruptly as it appeared, the pillar of light suddenly disappeared, allowing Stain to finally open his eyes. What stood there wholly shocked not only the hero killer but also Tenya, whose eyes had widened in complete awe.
Standing before the three people stood Izuku, fully turned around and staring directly at Stain, his usual mess of hair cut short along the sides to give him a rather impressive undercut type hairstyle.
His clothing had changed once again, instead of his all green hero suit now replaced by what looked like ornate but thickened leather armor. The metallic gauntlets and leg protectors he had worn were also missing, replaced by just as beautiful dark cloth and leather, and where his red boots once were now were replaced by toeless zori and a metallic shin guard on his legs.
But those were some of the more mundane differences as on the left side of his body was seemed to be half of a forest green Hori, beautifully stylized and held tightly to his body and armor by various cloth belts and straps. His left hand rested on top of what could be seen sword hilt hanging off of his left hip with majesty sheath hiding the blade within.
And lastly, resting upon the lower half of Izuku's face was a hanbo styled mask to look like that of a laughing demon. But past the devious appearance, Izuku's own lips were far from smiling.
"Stain," the boy called out, his eyes squinting at the man who still looked flabbergasted at what he was seeing before him, "You have murdered many people, innocent or not of their crimes due to your self appointed notion of 'justice'."
Izuku suddenly drew the sword at his side from its sheath, masterfully wielding it in a sudden flourish of swipes before he gripped the handle of the weapon with both hands, its single edge facing the hero killer.
"I must defeat you to not only save those before me but also for any of your future targets! Prepare yourself, Stain!"
This night would forever be etched into Stain's mind, as it was for the first time he would not only face a true hero, similar if not as great as All Might.
But for the first time in centuries, an ancient warrior of Japan's past had appeared before him, one that would often seek out the injustices of the world at the time and cut them down with but a single strike of their swords.
And as Stain began to grin wildly, moving into a stance himself, he was pretty eager to test the resolve of the warrior before him.
For who's justice would ring true in the end, that of the hero killer?
Or the Samurai.