Notes:
There's going to be some abstract imagery going on here, so I'm leaving this link for a rough visual reference.
.gov/collection/art-object-page.
Warning: Extreme Violence and Gore ahead.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
"Will do. Thank you, my boy." Toshinori swelled into All Might, then turned to Aizawa. "Care to go on a bit of a field trip, Eraser Head?"
Aizawa aimed a flat look All Might's way, then sighed. He slung the duffle bag to Izuku, which he caught easily. "Fine then. How are we doing this?"
Alert Level: Crimson
Tartarus has been compromised by an attack from within. A pink fog rapidly filled Level B3, and has since spread as far as B1 and B5. The villain of origin has not yet been identified, and it is unclear how Quirk use of this extent is possible despite heavy Quirk Suppressants. Initial response systems have failed to stop continued fog production.
Individuals who breathe the fog have undergone a transformation, resulting in white skin and empty black pits in place of eyes. The resulting entities will henceforth be referred to as zombies. They move in a slow, shuffling manner until they encounter an uninfected individual, at which point they become highly aggressive and attempt to attack them. If a bite or other infecting event occurs, the subject rapidly undergoes the transformation as well. Sporadic Quirk use has been identified among the zombies despite Suppressants.
The situation within Tartarus is rapidly degrading. Local Heroes and Security teams are mobilizing to prevent escapes from the upper levels, however zombies are working their way deeper into the prison, spreading the infection. Report to Tartarus immediately. Requisition any assistance you can on the way, so long as doing so does not slow your arrival. Other ranking heroes with the appropriate clearances have been contacted and will be transported as quickly as possible.
The Head of the Military and the President of the HPSC have recognized the severity of the situation, and have determined that it falls within the purview of the Catastrophe Prevention Empowerment Protocol. You are hereby given authority as Judge, Jury, and Executioner while acting in the interests of Japan and her people. May the Gods be with you, All Might.
The lights of Musutafu blurred past underneath him as Toshinori flew overhead, body buzzing with energy. On his back, Aizawa rode piggyback, much to the man's extreme displeasure. He'd had to fasten himself in place with his capture scarf, dignity sacrificed in favor of additional safety. Toshinori had handed over his phone before they'd set off, knowing that his own voice would be lost in the wind if he tried to explain.
Toshinori hoped that he'd managed to keep the concern off his face when the Crimson Level Alert went off, especially in the moment when he'd realized what the emergency was. Young Izuku would probably find reasons to worry regardless, but it would be far worse if Toshinori had let through any hint of how unnerved he truly was.
He arched downward, guiding his descent with outstretched hands to ensure he landed somewhere that wasn't occupied by people or vehicles. He struck asphalt amidst traffic that, to his eyes, crawled through the streets at a snail's pace. He absorbed as much of his impact as possible to minimize damage, then leapt again. This leap, just as blurringly fast as the first, took him beyond the city limits and into the woodland surrounding it.
Which meant he could finally stop holding back so much.
A few jumps later, Toshinori launched himself over Tokyo. He scanned the city below, hoping he'd be able to pick out the person he was looking for. They tended to stand out, on account of being on fire most of the time. Sure enough, he spotted Endeavor on the roof of his agency, herding his sidekicks into an idling VTOL aircraft.
Toshinori kicked the air to bleed off some of his speed, then guided his descent to land a safe distance from the whirling propellers. Endeavor glanced at him as he all but bodily threw Kido into the vehicle, and a complex series of expressions briefly fought a turf war across his features. Then, with a brief flare of flame, Endeavor turned and shouted into the aircraft. A helmet was tossed out to him, and Endeavor slammed the door. That done, he stomped towards Toshinori, a scowl on his face as the blades above him began to accelerate.
"What indignity am I going to be subjected to?" Endeavor growled over the roaring air, which was an impressive achievement.
"Either I can carry you, or you can join Eraser Head."
"Like hell he can." Aizawa grumbled.
"Just get us there before my Sidekicks arrive, or this will have been for nothing." Endeavor spat as his eye twitched. His flames flickered out, and he jammed the helmet onto his head.
Toshinori zipped forward, scooped Endeavor up with an arm under his legs and another under his shoulders, then leapt from the edge of the building. He took a run up down the length of the Endeavor Agency's rooftop, then flung the lot of them into a high leap off the far side. Once they were high enough, he kicked against the air once more, which propelled them towards the city limits.
Once he touched down on the far side of Tokyo, he adjusted course slightly. He'd made this trip more than once over the years, enough that he now had his barings. It took him a few minutes to cross a full half the length of Japan, a trail of vapor cones left in his wake as he continued to accelerate.
The trip took him longer than he would have liked. Granted, by the standards of anyone without the highest echelon of mobility Quirks, his speed would have been breathtaking. All the same, it was unquestionably slower than he'd managed in his prime.
Toshinori struck the ground of the Shiretoko Peninsula, just outside the military city of Narkina, then broke into a run from there. Each footfall left another small crater in his wake, even as he blew past the Bronze Gate and onto the Pylai Haidou Bridge. The damage would be costly, but inconsequential if they needed to collapse the whole thing regardless.
He really hoped it wouldn't come to that.
Thankfully, it seemed his haste had been sufficient. He reached the single entrance to the artificial island to find a small crowd of Heroes surrounded by Tartarus staff. Almost all of them were decked out in tactical armor and full-head gas masks, tubes running to armored O2 tanks on their backs. The tension was so thick that it might as well have been another security wall around the prison.
"I AM HERE!" Toshinori announced as he set Endeavor on his feet, though the man almost pitched over the moment Toshinori let go. Many heads swiveled in his direction, as did more than one gun. A second later, a visible wave of relief ran through the crowd. Aizawa shambled around to stand next to Toshinori on shaky legs, having managed to escape his capture weapon cocoon.
"WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE? HAS THE OUTLINED SITUATION CHANGED?" Endeavor roared as he ripped off his helmet. One of the security team stepped forwards and pulled off their helmet with a series of clicks and hisses. Beneath was a pale face, lank purple hair plastered to their forehead by sweat.
"Lieutenant Colonel Shishikura, sir. Thank you all for your swiftness. We've reclaimed Level B1, however the zombies have managed to breach all the way down to B7, and we're seeing signs that at least one of them is burrowing into B8. The zombies seem to have a comprehensive physical enhancement, alongside some ability to ignore what should be debilitating injuries, which is why so many are surviving the Auto-Turrets. The transformation seems to have a 5 minute duration, after which they begin to convulse as they transform back. Most of those that have finished that transformation have died from their wounds, but nearby zombies usually bite them before they get that far. That seems to renew the transformation and keep them going. Those who survive turning back are hunted down and turned as well. The CPE Protocols remain in place."
Toshinori suppressed a grimace. He'd had to kill on the job before; Sometimes, the villain was simply too dangerous to civilians to risk letting them get back up. Before his injury, Toshinori had been so overwhelmingly powerful that he could simply drop an opponent with little issue and next to no resistance. In the years since, however, there had been a handful of times where he hadn't had the luxury of simply knocking them out with a precision blow too fast for them to avoid. Even as he grew weaker, the villains seemed to grow stronger.
This would be something else entirely, though. This would be a massive number of enemies, each of whom presented a potential catastrophe by virtue of whatever Quirk contagion they carried. He wouldn't be able to afford mercy.
Shishikura's sudden flinch snapped Toshinori from his moment of regret. The Lieutenant Colonel snarled, then waved aggressively at another member of the Security team who was approaching with masks. "B8 has officially just been breached. All Might, your job is to get to the bottom and work your way up. Orders from the top are to avoid entering the fog for as long as you can. With Endeavor and Eraser Head on hand, and Hawks about four minutes out, they should be able to handle the upper floors alongside the security personnel."
Toshinori nodded as he shrugged on the oxygen tanks as best he could given his broad frame. "I'll need the security shields open for a second so I can launch myself down."
"They'll open them in 10 seconds."
"Make it 5." Toshinori replied, pulled on his helmet and broke into a run. He entered the Ground Level of the prison in a blur of movement, blew past the security checks, and navigated his way to the elevator shaft. The doors were open for him, which let him look down at the first security shield about 40 feet below him. He kept a mental count of the remaining seconds as they passed, then jumped and flipped to plant his feet on the metal ceiling of the shaft.
Below, the security shields irised open with a sharp hiss.
Toshinori kicked off, cratering the metal and shooting himself downwards. The flashing red lights that adorned the elevator shaft streaked into a line as he passed through a thin patch of the pink fog, then there was cursing from his headset and a strange distortion of the air ahead of him-
It felt like sliding through a foot thick layer of gelatin, and as his head passed through the other side, his sense of orientation went completely haywire. He tumbled through the air as he tried to adjust, and only just barely managed to reorient himself before he stumbled to a stop on a narrow strip of wall… or, he supposed, floor. That was the floor now.
Something nearby howl-gurgle-screamed, and Toshinori turned to face it on instinct. The zombie before him was a massive humanoid crocodile mutant, its eyes black pits and scales a pale white. Its chest was a pitted landscape of blood and cracked scales, several bullets still visibly lodged near the surface while he could see light through other holes. That grizzly oddity barely registered, however, given it somehow stood upside down on the underside of a balcony only about 12 feet away. The zombie unleashed another resonant howl from its bloody jaws, then flung itself towards him.
Then proceeded to fall downwards… upwards? Away, in any case, its howl tapering off until it struck something far beyond with a sharp crack and an even louder screech.
Tentatively, Toshinori looked over the edge, and his sense of balance threatened to abandon him. The world below was a vast environment of gray structures, far larger than could have fit within the prison itself. It was an architect's nightmare of nonsensical buildings interconnected by stairways, walkways, plazas, offshoot structures, and other features that might not have had actual names. Rather than leading to one another in any way that could be called sane, however, they twisted and fed into one another and themselves in ways completely at odds with the laws of nature. Walkways were supported by pillars, which were in turn supported by other structures that all logic dictated they couldn't be connected to. Floors transitioned into walls with no point of distinction. Some stairways led back to the same floor without appearing to change direction, while others managed to span vast distances with only a few steps.
The entire panorama made his brain hurt. Every inch of it was fundamentally wrong. It felt like he was simultaneously looking at something distant and nearby, something above and below him, something moving and still. The sense of vertigo was a nightmare in and of itself, made all the worse by the sight of at least a hundred different zombies shuffling their way through the mind-bending structure.
"All Might, do you read? This is Operations Command."
Toshinori took a wobbly step back from the edge, then looked back the way he'd come. On the far side of the ledge he stood on, there was a dark corridor that ended in a closed security shield.
"I read you. Something happened as I was going down the elevator shaft, and I'm in… I don't even know how to describe it. It's like a mind-bending optical illusion I can physically interact with.
"Whatever burrowed into B8 turned Escher, and her Quirk activated almost immediately. It caught B7 through B9 in its area of effect, as well as part of the elevator shaft. You'll either have to find the other end of the elevator shaft in there, or find Escher herself and take her down to break the effect. In the meantime, be careful. You're in there with everyone from those Levels."
"Any chance you can get some idea where Escher is in this mess?" Toshinori asked as he broke into a run along the platform, searching the migraine-inducing environment around him as best as he could. "I can't imagine there isn't a tracker somewhere in the prison uniforms."
"It won't be helpful. Escher's Quirk turns the insides of buildings into what you're seeing. It's like a halfway point between a pocket dimension and a reality alteration ability. Space is so twisted that our sensors are picking you up in entirely different locations each second. To us, it looks like everyone inside is constantly teleporting from one position to another."
'Young Izuku would probably have a field day studying that.' Toshinori resisted the urge to sigh, then absently swatted away a zombie as he rushed by it and up a flight of stairs. About half way, his perspective flipped so that he was running down the stairs instead, and he nearly tripped over his own feet at the abrupt transition. "If it's similar to a pocket dimension, is the inside isolated from the outside? Could I smash my way through until I subdue all the zombies or take out Escher, or would that run the risk of destroying the island?"
"Negative on the destructive path, unless there are no other options. Anything you do to an outside wall will transfer into normal space. If B10 gets infected someone might blow a hole in the island anyway, but we have no idea if drowning will stop these things. Or, gods forbid, if they can infect fish."
And wasn't THAT a horrifying thought.
"Understood." Toshinori ducked a stream of what looked like blue lava, then jabbed a fist in the direction it had come from. The zombie screeched as it was thrown away by the wave of displaced air, tumbling up another staircase and through a sideways door in what Toshinori had previously thought was the ceiling. The lava stream continued out into the distorted world beyond, twisting and contorting as whatever served as gravity pulled it in different directions. "Escher is a short woman with black and white hair, correct? I think I remember a bit about her from the headlines after Jeanist brought her down."
"Yes. A short woman with very long hair, given that she threatened to try and set off the turrets if anyone tried to cut it."
Toshinori skidded to a halt, his path a dead end. There was a platform a good 50 feet away that he could easily reach, but with what he'd seen so far, it would probably be harder to get to than it looked. He could aim for what turned out to be a ceiling and sail off into the void if he wasn't careful. While that might not be harmful to him, it could absolutely damage his mask and tank. He couldn't afford to risk that, even if they thought the fog hadn't made it that deep yet. A zombified All Might could be orders of magnitude more disastrous than the entire prison population escaping. Scowling, he turned to look for an alternative route when his foot caught on something.
A doorknob, for a door set into the ground.
He stomped it, sending it flying off its hinges and back into the area beyond. A flash of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. On further inspection, it proved to be the door he'd just kicked, flying through the air in the distance. He followed its trajectory for a moemnt, then glanced towards where he thought it might have come from. Sure enough, he saw his own foot protruding from a hole in the ground-
He yanked his foot back a moment before a zombie snapped multiple sets of mouths closed on thankfully empty air. Toshinori shot his foot back downwards and into the zombie's chest, sending it flying away on a trajectory similar to that of the door. A moment later, he crawled through himself, his sense of orientation adjusting as he moved through to stand on the other side. Faced with an entirely new set of nonsensical options, he set off in a blur one more.
Zombies all around the space were screeching now, the hoard having evidently noticed his presence. While most seemed to keep to the paths, others were flinging themselves into open air in an attempt to reach him faster. The majority veered off as gravity snatched them away, but some managed to stay on course. Most of those were zombies with some manner of flight Quirk, though the ones who relied on wings were only marginally more successful than the ones with no flight abilities at all.
Even so, the constant assault of ravening zombies quickly proved frustrating. Ordinarily, even this many opponents wouldn't have proved too difficult for him to address, especially when their Quirks weren't a consistent factor. The problem was, he couldn't risk them getting close enough to bite him. The vast majority of them wouldn't even be able to dent his skin, but nobody had a clear idea of what it actually took for the zombies to turn someone. As such, he was forced to knock them all away with pressure waves.
But therein lay another problem. Generating pressure waves strong enough to do the job took far more effort than an equally powerful punch did. He was burning through more of his remaining power than he would have liked, and was straining his body in ways that were growing more and more painful despite Boon. He didn't have long left, and still hadn't managed to do what he'd thrown himself down here to do in the first place.
"ALL MIGHT! THE B10 SECURITY SHIELD IS TAKING DAMAGE! STATUS?"
'FUCK!' Toshinori snarled silently as he spun sharply, a wave of displaced air blasting an oncoming hoard off a ledge. On one of the buildings above, a zombie's hands turned silvery, then fired off like rockets. They swerved through the air as they homed in on Toshinori, but with two quick flicks he was able to make them detonate midair. "Still trying to find-"
One of the falling zombies turned into a rock monster at least three times Toshinori's height just as he tried to launch it away with a wave of his hand. The pressure wave broke across it ineffectually, and it lashed out with a strike of its own. Toshinori easily swatted the blow away and drove a full punch upwards, which flung the transformed zombie off to swerve into a distant structure with an echoing crash.
Unfortunately, Toshinori had been running across one of the thin staircases between impossibly connected structures at the time, and the force of the blow had shattered it beneath his feet. He fell, the vertigo coming back with a vengeance as he tumbled through the air at the fickle whims of Escher's reality and the force of his own punch.
Toshinori kicked out with one foot, just enough to launch him towards a large section of what he hoped would be floor. He slammed into it, then had to drive his fingers into the strange material to hold himself in place when it turned out to be a wall. If nothing else, it at least offered him a better vantage of the brain-melting area below him than he'd had previously. Vertigo made his vision swim and bile churn in what was left of his guts, but he forced himself to focus. Escher or the other elevator shaft. Either would do.
'Short, white and black hair. Short, white and black hair. Short, white and black- THERE!'
Several unconnected buildings away.
Escher was hardly visible, but all those years of unchecked hair growth proved to be his savior; Long black and white streaked hair trailed behind the zombie, clearly visible even at this distance. She was shuffling along a balcony full of offshoots that lead to who knew where, each a potential way to lose her for another minute he couldn't spare. He had to get to her, but he couldn't afford for the insanity of this place to screw up his course and let her escape.
Toshinori plunged his other hand into the wall and heaved. With a crack, the side of the wall peeled up, and he was left with a warped chunk about the width of his torso. Toshinori twisted, despite the way his chest screamed in agony, and whipped the chunk towards Escher. Even in spite of its speed, the chunk swerved into a structure before it could reach its mark.
Toshinori repeated his experiment as he kept a close eye on the lone zombie. Each projectile veered off or struck something else, but he was getting closer with each throw. He could probably make it if he adjusted course a few times-
"B10 IS BREACHED! I REPEAT, B10 IS BREACHED! ALL MIGHT, DO YOU READ ME?"
Toshinori launched himself as hard as he dared, cratering the wall but hopefully not destroying any kind of vital structures outside the distorted bubble of reality. He streaked through the air, forces yanking at him as he went. He felt himself start to drift off course, as most of his test shots had, and lashed out with a kick to shift his trajectory. That caused him to swerve sharply, entering a pocket of space that tried to swing him upwards. He kicked off again, but once more started to drift. Again. Again. Again-
Toshinori hit the structure below the walkway hard enough to make his teeth rattle, but at least he'd made it. He dug in his fingers as gravity tried to pull towards the side, then heaved himself towards the walkway Escher had been standing on. He crested the lip just in time to see her step towards one of the doorways, and punched-
Suddenly, he found himself falling in relative darkness. He flailed in confusion and disorientation briefly, but his fall only lasted a second before he landed on his side. The sound of his impact rang out, and he stared blankly at the large blocky 8 on the wall before he registered where he was.
The elevator shaft. He was back in the elevator shaft.
"I'M OUT!" Toshinori roared into his mic even as he flipped to rip open the security shield below him. He pulled himself through, then kicked off to plunge towards the depths of the pit once more.
Shota squeezed his eyes shut and rolled them in their sockets, desperate for some scrap of moisture. They were dry and gritty, but he couldn't exactly put in eyedrops while he was so deep in the fog-shrouded Level B3. Not for the first time, he resolved to ask Power Loader about some kind of support item that could mist his eyes behind his goggles.
His small strike team had pushed further ahead of Endeavor's assault force. Where the Flame Hero's job was to accelerate the process of retaking the floors as a whole, Shota had a more specific goal; Find and disable the origin of the miasma that still shrouded the upper floors. Once Endeavor's team had made a foothold on Level 3B, Shota and his team had forged ahead on their own.
They'd sent him because he could make a small team of Security personnel far more effective by eliminating the Quirks of any zombie that got close enough for him to see it. There had already been many cases where his mere glance had shut down a Quirk that was only just keeping a zombie functional, further easing the team's job.
A resonant screech rang down the hall, and Shota snapped his eyes open once more. A figure stood in the mist, its dim outline implying a large zombie covered in thorns. Of course the damn thing would wait until just after he blinked. The figure lunged, and Shota caught a flash of white carapace with green tipped spines as it tried to pounce on a member of the Security team.
'Armored, likely a Mutant Quirk. Green spikes might be poisonous, or could just be coloration. Avoid them regardless.'
Shota slipped past the guards, capture scarf snapping out to wrap around the mutant's head. He pulled it taught, and heard the zombie's jaw snap closed harshly even as it tried to bite the person in its grasp. Instead, it merely headbutted the man in his tactical armor, spikes shrieking against the metal. One of the other guards stepped in close and jammed the tip of their rifle underneath the zombie's arm and opened fire. The zombie screeched and thrashed, knocking both guards away while yanking on Shota's scarf.
Shota let himself move with the pull and whipped out his tactical knife. Just before he struck, Erasure recovered from its previous uses, and Shota turned his crimson gaze on the zombie. The green hue of its thorns faded even as he planted a foot in a smooth section of its back and drove the zombie to the ground.
It shuddered and screeched weakly beneath him, some combination of the guard's fire on a weak point and Erasure evidently enough to make the damage meaningful. Shota was already in motion however, ensuring the zombie stayed down with a forceful stab of his knife into a chink in the armor at the base of its neck. The zombie fell still, its howling tapering off into a faint hiss as air escaped unmoving lungs. Slowly, color bled back into the zombie's carapace until it was a bright yellow.
"Status?" Anaguma, the Squad Leader, asked into the ominous silence that followed.
"I'm fine." Shota hissed harshly, pulse still thumping in his ears and guts roiling. He'd already doubled his kill count in the mere minutes he'd been in the prison, but each slain zombie still made him sick all over again.
"Ditto here. Thanks for the save, Eraser Head, Takahime." Kanmuri, the guard who'd been grabbed, grunted.
"Fucker got one of his spines into my arm." Takahime, bit out in a strained voice. "Lucky shot at the elbow joint."
Shota's stomach dropped, and he immediately flicked his capture scarf out to bind the woman even as several others of the team turned to face her. The means of infection was something that hadn't been entirely narrowed down yet; A bite would definitely do it, but scratches and puncture wounds were inconsistent.
If she started to turn, they'd try their best to disable her without lethal response. A blow to the back of the head to knock them out mid transformation if they could manage it, or bullets to the shoulder and hip joints if not. The latter would be a deeply unpleasant way to manage it, but with specialty Quirk treatment they'd at least have a potential route to recovery if they survived long enough to get it.
The original team that had reclaimed Level B1 had shared those methods with them, though their success had been mostly due to a member of the Security team with a binding Quirk. Without that, any who were infected likely faced a far more grim fate. Shota hadn't been forced to deal with that so far, though he'd only been on the scene for a few minutes. He desperately hoped he wouldn't have that weight added to his conscience by the end of the day.
Takahime cocked her head to the side after a moment. "The puncture burns like a sumbitch, but I'm not feeling particularly hungry for brains. I think I'm just the normal kind of poisoned."
"We'll get you to a medic team as soon as we can." Anaguma grunted. "Kanmuri, keep an eye on her. Taiyō, watch the end of the hall for any others that find us. Everyone else, we sweep this block."
They only encountered two other zombies capable of putting up any kind of a fight. One was unharmed from the turrets, likely due to its ability to turn into water. It had proved far more vulnerable to bullets under Shota's gaze. The other was a bulky individual who'd literally punched through its cell door, and still had the metal barrier stuck around its wrist like an improvised shield. Once Shota had managed a clear line of sight, however, it had shrunk down and dropped dead. The rest were either too weak or injured to escape their restraints, or had simply died from their injuries despite whatever enhancements the transformation afforded them.
Naturally, they found the orchestrator of the entire catastrophe in the last cell they checked. The blast door had been warped and distended, the fog pouring out in volumes that created a strong breeze. One of the Security team had to wrench it entirely off its track to get it open, while the rest had trained their weapons through the opening. They could hear a faint growling from within, but the fog was too thick to see much. The moment Shota had stepped into the cell, however, the growling had cut off, as had the flow of the fog.
Through a sudden gap in the pink miasma, Shota saw a zombie still partly within its restraints. One arm had been pulled free of its straight jacket, the skin of the wrist and hand shredded and partly still stuck to the metal bands that spanned their chest. Their chest and abdomen was a mess of gore where the turrets had done their work, yet the figure still twitched with life. However, rather than pure white, large sections of the Zombie's skin were a sickly purple-red-black, sloughing off to reveal discolored flesh and bone beneath. Rivulets of the stuff ran from the empty black pits of the zombie's eyes like tears.
Shota was about to activate Erasure and end the creature when its head turned to face him. Its jaw worked, more of the horrid putrescence spilling from its mouth, and it spoke.
"My… God…?" The zombie rasped, voice resonant in the same way the other zombie's howling screams had been. "Have… have you… come for me? To… save me? Your blessings… they burn… But I have done as you commanded. Please…"
The words were like a bucket of ice water poured on Shota's soul. Behind him, one of the guards cursed, and Anaguma stepped forward. That seemed to alarm the zombie, who twitched violently, then went utterly still in a way that was somehow more unsettling. "...No… You're not…"
The zombie's empty sockets stretched wider as it unleashed a horrific shriek that echoed within the tiny cell. It lurched and strained in its bindings, and with the sound of tearing flesh and a splash of blood, its elbow tore free from the forearm still bound to its chest. The fog began to pour out once more as the zombie bucked against its metal bindings, a wind picking up. "Heathens! Degenerates! You will not stop me from completing my divine purpose! My God's will shall be done! You won't-"
The horrid voice cut off as Erasure activated. The figure spasmed and thrashed for a moment, its scream stuttering, then the zombie dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Shota kept his luminous gaze firmly locked on the zombie, even as what was left of it shifted back into a human in death. The skin was still pale, but it was the unhealthy shade of a person locked away from the sun rather than the impossible white it had been. The discolored corruption remained, like bruises that had turned fluid.
After nearly a minute, Shota was finally forced to blink, the burning agonizing itch in his eyes overwhelming his need to ensure the zombie would not be getting back up. Even with his eyes closed, however, he could still see the nauseating corpse burned into his vision. He took a deep breath, adamantly refusing to vomit while he had a helmet on.
He turned away and opened his eyes once more, observing the way the fog was behaving. It still hung in the air, but it seemed to be dissipating supernaturally fast. Perhaps it was due to its creator's death. Perhaps it was just how the fog worked; If it had a very limited amount of time it could last, that might explain why it never managed to spread beyond the 5 floors it had filled.
"Anaguma reporting in. The prisoner in Cell 587 was identified as the origin of the fog, and has been eliminated."
There was a long pause. "Cell 587?"
"Correct."
"Was there another zombie present producing the fog?"
Shota frowned, a spike of annoyance arcing through his strained mind. "No. They were definitely the source, given it was cut off the moment I used Erasure."
"Affirmative." Anaguma continued. "They were transformed as well, but seemed capable of conscious thought. They were badly degraded, however, even beyond what could be explained by the wounds they received from the Auto-Turrets. Erasure finished them off."
This time, the pause was longer.
"The inmate in that cell was a man named Otoreru Shissei. His Quirk was registered as an air manipulation ability, albeit one that let him reach into people's lungs if there was an unbroken conduit of air to follow. Even if he somehow experienced an awakening of some sort, this is… far beyond any recorded alteration to a Quirk through those means. Perhaps a combination of a Quirk evolution and Trigger, though that simply leads to more questions." Shota could hear a rapid series of keystrokes across the connection. "Endeavor's team started pushing further into Level B3, and should be at your location shortly. Do any of you have injuries?"
"Takahime took a spike from a zombie with yellow carapace, but that's the only one who's had broken skin." Anaguma reported, then looked towards Aizawa.
"I'll need a chance to return topside and use some eyedrops if I'm going to join the main fighting force." Aizawa said after a moment of consideration.
"We'll send down a team to replace you once Endeavor's secured a path. For the time being you're all on guard duty. Nothing gets to that body, no matter what."
"Understood." Shota grunted, in near unison with the rest of the team. Much as he wanted to help clear the prison, guarding this particular body was vital. Years of experience were screaming that there was far, far more to this tragedy than they yet knew. He was inclined to trust them.
Toshinori streaked past the final barrier, which had been torn to ribbons, and landed on the deepest level of Tartarus with a crash of warping metal.
It was almost loud enough to cover the screams, a mix of zombie howling and human voices crying out in fear.
The hall before him flickered from damaged lighting, which made the scene unfolding in front of his eyes all the more alarming. At the far end of the hall, the cannibal Moonfish stood hunched, his teeth-blades extending from his mouth and into the walls. Saliva dribbled down his chin and trailed along the blades, dark like tar.
The zombie never even had a chance to react before Toshinori lunged forward and lashed out with a punch. The point blank pressure wave struck the zombie like a bullet train, and it was blasted down the remaining length of the corridor in a shower of shattered teeth and blood. A fraction of a second later, it struck the far wall with a sickening crunch, then collapsed to the ground bonelessly.
For the barest of seconds, Toshinori let himself hope he'd been fast enough.
Then, the human screaming within the cells shifted, became a resonant shriek like the rest of the zombies had been. There was a sudden overwhelming sound of gunfire as the auto-turrets activated. Many voices went quiet, but an alarming number only grew louder.
'Of course stabbing them with sword-teeth counts as biting them.'
All across B10, the sounds of metal shrieking rang out as zombies began to break out. Several blast doors near him were beaten down, the screams growing all the louder as cells were breached fully.
A few cells down, one of the blast doors began to glow. Toshinori immediately raised a hand to shield his eyes as a wave of bright white-blue light and heat rolled through the hall, so bright he could momentarily see his bones outlined through his skin. The light faded, leaving Toshinori's vision dim and washed out. Despite that, he still managed to pick out the zombie of Badaboom shambling out of the still glowing crater he'd just blasted in the prison. The zombie fixated on him, then flung itself forward, stoot-colored hands grasping.
They were, unarguably, the highest priority zombie in the prison. Badaboom could instantly convert matter between states, which usually meant turning objects or people into a gas or, as he'd just witnessed, plasma. They were among the few inmates who weren't just a threat to the prison, but to Toshinori himself. His durability meant nothing when one touch could sublimate him just as easily as it could a massive chunk of the prison.
As such, Toshinori crushed his reservations and shot forwards. One swift punch reduced Badaboom's torso to a chunky red paste, the impact of it raising a molten wave from the crater in front of him. In the same motion, Toshinori spun to face another zombie as it lunged at him. He slapped one of Asura's six hands out of its sutra, shattering it and dispelling the red glow it emitted. He continued the spin, sweeping the side of his other hand through Asura's neck, severing the head and sending it tumbling down the hall. As he did so, Toshinori felt something snag the leg of his pants, and he hopped into the air. He looked down, and even with his vision still dim and distorted from the blinding light, watched as the needles forming from a pool of blood underfoot continued to converge where his leg had just been.
He knew that Quirk, even if Edgeshot had been the one to take the villain down. Trypanophobia or somesuch. They were a truly nasty piece of work, and had been one of the most lethal close range combatants in the world.
Near instantaneous exsanguination was another thing Toshinori didn't particularly want to test his luck against. He couldn't see them in the hall, but they had to touch the blood to control it, which meant… there. A tiny rivulet leaked between the warped edges of the blast door next to him.
Toshinori planted a foot against the far wall as he slapped a hand into the door, which ripped the metal free of its housing. As it struck the far wall of the cell within, a spray of blood burst out around it. A glance down confirmed that the needles were losing their shape, the zombie's control on them broken.
Something clicked a few feet away, and Toshinori's attention snapped to it. Lady Nagant screamed silently at him from a nearby intersection, her only wound a gnarly chunk ripped out of her neck and shoulder. Her riffle was fully extended through her torn straight jacket, the muzzle unpleasantly close to his face. Her head bore only stubble, so he doubted she'd been able to load it, but that didn't make the experience any less alarming.
Next to her, a zombie that looked like a humanoid Manticore was in mid lunge towards him, clawed hands reaching forward, its mouth open wide to reveal jagged teeth coated in black and red. If Nagant looked ironically bullet wound free, the horrific state of the Manticore clued him in on where those bullets might have gone.
Toshinori once more twisted in the air, side aching sharply, to bring a foot up into the underside of the Manticore's chin. The blow obliterated its head and peppered the ceiling with razor teeth and blood. He continued the spin his momentum sent him into, then lashed out with a punch. The pressure wave blasted the decapitated zombie and Lady Nagant backwards to slam into the far wall, while it also threw Toshinori in the opposite direction. As he went, he continued to deal out death to the zombies that stumbled into the central corridor from the blocks to either side, putting the walking corpses to rest as swiftly as he could.
As he touched down, once more near the elevator shaft, he felt it. A vibration in the floor, a thrumming that he could feel in his teeth.
'Shit. One of them got Tectonic.'
The villain was, technically speaking, less of an immediate threat to Tartarus than Badaboom had been. Despite their name, they didn't have a Quirk explicitly linked to geologic activity. They had the ability to make inanimate solids vibrate, which wasn't a particularly uncommon ability. The amount of time it took the vibrations to build up was rather slow as well, compared to most others.
Except that the vibrations could eventually reach catastrophic heights, and the area he could affect was absolutely massive. The vibrations Toshinori felt would definitely reach the surface of the prison, and probably most of the way to the mainland through the bridge if it stayed standing.
No, Tectonic didn't have a Quirk that specifically affected geological activity. That hadn't stopped him from mimicking earthquakes across Europe and Africa for fun. He'd even managed to set off a real one that had been brewing in the Philippines. The only reason he hadn't been executed after Miruko caught him in Nagoya was because so many parts of the world were fighting for the right to do so themselves.
Toshinori raced back down B10's cellblocks, striking down zombies and punching open cell doors as he went. The vibrations were probably already strong enough to have damaged sensitive equipment, and were getting stronger by the moment. It wouldn't be long before they started causing structural damage to the facility.
Thankfully, even if he had to move relatively slowly so as not to destroy the prison himself, it didn't take more than a few seconds to find Tectonic. The zombie had almost been struck down by the auto-turrets and Moonfish himself. Tectonic's chest was a mess of bullet holes that wept blood sluggishly, while a broken length of blade-tooth protruded from his collar bone. He hadn't even made it entirely out of his restraints, and barely managed to gurgle at Toshinori when the doors to his cell were ripped open.
Toshinori ended the zombie's suffering, then assessed the situation as his headset crackled to life.
"ALL MIGHT, WE'RE DETECTING VIBRATIONS! WHAT'S-"
"Tectonic is down, as are Badaboom and a majority of the other potential threats to the prison. Do you have a read on-"
An engine roared.
Toshinori leapt back and through a wall into a neighboring cell, one occupied by a corpse that had taken the bullets even worse than Tectonic had. Opposite him, a massive rotating blade of pale green crystal ripped through the wall of Tectonic's cell, the metal around it sparking and sizzling. Then, the blade began to melt and deform into a gelatinous liquid, more of it flowing through the gap with a hiss of dissolving metal until all of it congealed on the floor. With a slurp, the ooze reformed into the zombie of Toxic Chainsaw.
Naked, albeit with all the realism of a Ken doll.
Toxic Chainsaw screeched as he lunged forwards, body stretching fluidly to give him extra reach. Toshinori leapt back again, grimacing as the zombie moved directly through the front of the restraint chair that still contained most of Tectonic. He was treated to the sickening sight of Tectonic's legs dissolving along with the chair beneath them as Toxic Chainsaw flowed forward.
Toxic Chainsaw was a horrendous matchup against brute force types. His body was formed from an extremely dangerous acidic gel that could pose a threat even to Toshinori's own immense durability. Furthermore, Toxic Chainsaw could harden sections of his body into functional crystalline weapons, then turn them back at a moment's notice. Toshinori had suspected the villain was one of All for One's minions, given the odd disconnect between his slime body and ability to create a functioning chainsaw, but had never found conclusive proof.
When Toshinori had beaten him before, it had been by blasting him out of the city where they'd started with a pressure wave, then repeating the process back and forth across unpopulated sections of Japan. Toxic Chainsaw's body had held together incredibly well under the blows, warping and distorting with the impacts but never coming apart. It had taken almost 10 minutes before Toxic Chainsaw stopped getting back up, a remarkable feat when compared to Toshinori's old track record of putting foes down in seconds on the slow end.
If memory served, Tartarus had needed to suspend the villain in literal tank of suppressants and sedatives, effectively putting him in a medically induced coma. If that had been destroyed, and if Toshinori couldn't go all out, he genuinely wasn't sure he had a way to take the zombie down. Even worse, he was definitely on the edge of his limit now, the familiar feeling of blood tickling his lung despite Boon's best efforts. He needed to finish off the zombie somehow before he ran out of time or Toxic Chainsaw recovered from his transformation and decided to just burrow his way free of the prison. Given the fluid state of his body, he could probably survive the deep sea pressures well enough to escape.
Toshinori burst back into the hall, striking down a hulking oni-like zombie as he went. "Toxic Chainsaw was turned. What's the status on the other heroes?"
"Endeavor has just taken Level B3 back alongside the local ones. Eraser Head has neutralized the zombie producing the fog, but was assigned to ensure nothing could reach the body. Hawks is almost here, but has not arrived yet. We can reassign a team to come assist, but it may take some time."
"Please start on it." Toshinori flicked a finger at Toxic Chainsaw, and the zombie's body rippled as the pressure wave struck it. He flew back and through a cell wall, deforming briefly before snapping back into shape. A split second later, the metal panel Toshinori had flung after them struck edge first. Unfortunately, the metal melted as it broke through the skin, cutting itself in half on Toxic Chainsaw's body while only making the zombie stumble. "If you can free up Endeavor, he's probably our best bet."
"We'll make it happen."
The operator didn't sound particularly confident in that statement, but Toshinori had greater issues to focus on. Namely, the fact that Toxic Chainsaw had reformed his namesake weapon and was charging again. The zombie swung wide, the structure of the weapon softening and stretching to rip its way through several nearby walls and the zombies beyond them as Toshinori ducked. The weapon returned to its original shape, blades still spinning as Toxic Chainsaw lunged forward again.
Toshinori ripped another metal panel free from the wall next to him, then hurled it at the chainsaw itself. It struck in a shower of sparks and a harsh crack, the force of the impact sending the weapon flying back down the hall. The zombie's arms stretched comically before his body was dragged along behind it, rebounding like stretched elastic. The chainsaw ripped a jagged line through the ceiling as the zombie slid along the wall, and Toshinori tensed. He wasn't completely sure what occupied the space between the Levels of Tartarus, but he doubted it was all solid metal. He didn't think the zombie would attempt to run, but it would be disastrous if Toxic Chainsaw managed to make it into a crawlspace or some pipes.
Toshinori returned his attention to the zombie themself as they once again snapped back to a fully humanoid shape. Except something was different. There was a gash in one of Toxic Chainsaw's arms, though it sealed up after a moment. Toshinori was half way convinced it had been a trick of the light until he noticed something else; There were greenish streaks on the partly dissolved wall Toxic Chainsaw had struck that were still sizzling. Toshinori knew for a fact that the wound hadn't come from anything he'd done, and he'd already established that the metal of the prison melted before it could do much, so what had…?
'There. Near where he first hit the wall, there's some kind of white spike. It's in remarkable condition if he actually hit it. What is…' Toshinori blinked as realization struck him. 'It's one of Moonfish's teeth. If they can survive a second of contact with Toxic Chainsaw's body… then I can use it as a weapon.'
Toshinori quickly scanned the hall around him. It had been ravaged by the fights held within, despite the Quirk-derived metal it had been constructed from. Ruined bodies were scattered down its length, and blood was absolutely everywhere. Intermixed with that destruction, however, were more pieces of tooth. Some lay scattered across the floor around Moonfish's corpse. Others he could see still piercing through cells down a nearby block, partly broken by the doors Toshinori had blasted open in his hunt for Tectonic.
He darted over to a longer piece nearby, then grabbed a chunk of metal from the ground at his feet. Carefully, Toshinori used the metal like an oven mitt to pick up the tooth; Moonfish had managed to turn the other inmates by stabbing them with his teeth, so Toshinori sure as hell wasn't going to touch them directly. The end result was… not particularly encouraging, but probably better than continuing to punt Toxic Chainsaw back and forth across B10 until he ran out of time or Endeavor arrived.
Toxic Chainsaw screamed as he once more lashed out, his weapon ripping a wide gash through several walls as it arced towards Toshinori. Rather than backing away, however, Toshinori leapt the slash, then swept his makeshift sword downwards. With an angry hiss, the tooth met slimy flesh and sliced through. Pale green liquid splattered out as the arm spun away, and Toshinori had to transfer his momentum into a twisting somersault to avoid being splashed with the stuff. The maneuver further irritated his old wound, however, and a suppressed cough brought the familiar taste of blood to the back of his tongue.
Toshinori didn't let himself slow down, however. He leapt back over Toxic Chainsaw as the zombie lunged to follow him, lopping off the other arm as he arced over it. Toshinori landed behind him, then spun once more to rip the blade through Toxic Chainsaw's torso. Unfortunately, that proved too much for his weapon; About half way through, the tooth finally snapped as the acrid slime ate through it. The wound gaped open for a moment, a flood of acid pouring out, then began to close. Toshinori danced away from the spray while staying close, then reached for another chunk of tooth protruding from the wall with his metal glove.
There was a squelch, and a burning pain in his left wrist. Horror momentarily flashed through Toshinori's mind as his eyes snapped back to Toxic Chainsaw. Where before there had been nothing but a stump, a new arm had formed and clamped its fingers around his wrist.
'Shit. He can regenerate?'
The zombie lunged, mouth agape, but Toshinori ripped his hand free in a spray of acid and leapt away. Toshinori cursed inwardly as he shook the acid from the destroyed fingers free of his wrist, then inspected it as best he could without letting Toxic Chainsaw out of his sight. The zombie's hand had burned through what was left of Toshinori's jacket sleeve, and had worked its way through the sleeve of his costume as well. Most areas of his now exposed skin were irritated and raw from the contact, though the place where the acid had stuck to him had burned down to reveal muscle.
'Sloppy.' Toshinoir admonished himself, then inspected the zombie as it stumbled towards him. Even as he watched, the second arm he'd cut off was reforming as well, though… it looked as though the slime that made up Toxic Chainsaw's body was flowing towards the stump. So, perhaps not regeneration, but the ability to redistribute his body. That wasn't good, but it was a hell of a lot better than outright regeneration. This, at least, he could work around.
He moved quickly, gathering two more blades of tooth as he went, then turned to rush the zombie once more. Metal cratered underfoot as he pushed himself a bit faster. He risked more damage to important structures that way, but Toxic Chainsaw was already ripping the place to shreds. Excess caution would likely end with more damage done so long as Toxic Chainsaw remained a threat.
A new chainsaw was forming from the zombie's hand, so Toshinori's first course of action was to once more sever the limbs. The next target was to finish his cut through the zombie's torso, which he made with a fresh section of blade closer to his makeshift handle. This time, the blade finished its cut mostly intact. Toshinori stepped back slightly, just out of range of the splash of acid, then inexpertly thrust his blade forward to pierce what was left of the zombie's upper body.
The tooth didn't support it long before it melted and broke, but it let the lower section of the zombie's body fall away. Given Toxic Chainsaw had displayed the ability to reform body parts, Toshinori didn't want to run the risk that he could re-incorperate severed pieces if they touched. Moving quickly, Toshinori cast aside his broken tool, then flicked a finger at the now falling torso. The blast of wind threw it down the hall, where it struck the floor and deformed once again.
Toshinori leapt the zombie's collapsing lower body, then tossed his remaining blade to his good hand as he caught up to the upper quarter. He struck out, swiping the blade through the deformed blob and cutting away another chunk, then another, and another. Then he waited, eyeing the pieces.
All four started to squirm.
Toshinori skewered a piece and flicked it away, then did the same for two more. They continued to squirm, then began to roll towards one another. He let two blobs meet, and they melded together and reformed into most of Toxic Chainsaw's head.
It screeched at him.
Toshinori cut it in half again, the end of his second blade breaking down in the process, then glanced behind him. Sure enough, the mass that had been legs and most of the body's abdomen was rolling slowly down the hall, followed by another lump that Toshinori guessed was probably one of the severed arms. He waved a hand in their direction and sent the lumps sprawling back the way they'd come in a rush of air, then sighed.
The sigh turned into a harsh cough, and he felt blood spill past his lips. His body ached all over, but his wound outshone his other pains by an order of magnitude. He glanced around, spotting the shattered remnants of several cameras, none of which looked like they'd be functional. He was dearly tempted to let himself relax and conserve the minutes he might have left for when it was truly necessary.
Then, from the elevator shaft, he heard a metallic thunk, and the distant roar of flames. Light shone from that direction for a moment, then a wave of fire rushed outwards as Endeavor slammed down into the crater Toshinori himself had made with his arrival. The Flame Hero stalked forward, hands alight and masked head on a swivel until he stopped, staring at what Toshinori held in his hand, then at the ground just before his feet.
"I was under the impression you had urgent need of backup." Endeavor growled, his voice coming over the radio. "You seem to have the situation quite well in hand-"
Two of the blobs at Toshinori's feet pulled together, which formed half a head and a chunk of torso. It still somehow managed to start screeching at him again. Endeavor startled at the sudden sound, the flames in his hands flaring for a moment.
"...Ah." Endeavor grunted. "Is… this the last of them?"
Toshinori hesitated, then sped back through Level B10. Many had died in their restraints, either from being impaled by Moonfish, or by the Auto-Turrets. Others had been crushed when Toshinori had blasted open cells in his hunt for Tectonic. Those that hadn't were likely among those he'd had to kill directly, or who had fallen to Toxic Chainsaw's wide area slashes.
Within seconds, he was finished, and had returned to the entrance of the elevator shaft. The heat from Endeavor's arrival hadn't even finished dissipating. "We're clear."
"Good." Endeavor grunted. The zombie's head had fully reformed, and was once again howling in fury. The larger mass of his body had made it most of the way back as well, now only a few feet from the head. Endeavor raised flame-shrouded hands, and a low roar began to fill the corridor. "I'll deal with what's left of Toxic Chainsaw. Be on your way, All Might."
"I appreciate the backup, Endeavor." Toshinori said, then crouched down in the still sweltering elevator shaft. The heat had momentarily been soothing on his various achs, but the temperature had rapidly become uncomfortable, even for him. "I'll see you topside."
Toshinori leapt upwards. His time was limited. He'd damn well make it count.
Enji cut off his torrent of flame, sweat pouring down his face within his mask. He'd been limited in what he could do, given he hadn't wanted to punch a hole in the bottom of the prison, but he'd still reduced the area where Toxic Chainsaw's screaming remains had lain to slag. Along with much of the area around them.
The smouldering pit of liquid metal distorted the air with its heat, but even so he could see the destruction wreaked on the hall beyond. Walls destroyed, metal cratered and warped, blood and what remained of bodies everywhere. The sight was sickening on a multitude of levels, both in the conventional horror in the face of death, and a way tailor made for him.
All Might had taken on many of the strongest criminals the prison had to offer, and had managed to do so nearly unscathed despite being catastrophically restricted in how much of his power he could actually use. The only zombie he'd been stymied by was quite literally an opponent that should have been impossible for a brute force type like him to even meaningfully touch, and he'd still found a way to effectively win the fight.
And he'd done it all in less than 5 minutes. After fighting his way through Escher's gauntlet, which had been filled with the occupants of three other floors.
Enji had worked himself and Shoto to the bone, and drove his entire agency nearly as hard, all in an effort to surpass All Might. While he might have succeeded in regards to cases solved, it was at times like this that he was reminded all over again just how wide the gulf between them still was. The knowledge sat heavy in his gut, the feeling of furious, maddening desperation tearing at him.
They all had so much further to go if any one of them were to hold a mere candle to All Might's bonfire.
Enji turned from the carnage and stepped back into the elevator shaft. "Toxic Chainsaw has been eliminated. Orders?"
"Hawks brought Best Jeanist, and they're making quick work of the zombies that remain on Level B5. All Might has cleared Levels B9, B8, and is working on B7. This will likely be over soon. Do you have a means of getting back up?"
Enji grit his teeth. "I do."
"Return to B5 and resume the push. Security shields opening in 5, 4…"
Enji gathered fire at his hands and feet, carefully ramping up his output. He wasn't terribly good at his makeshift flight yet, but he'd been working at it furiously ever since his shameful display in Hosu. That Nomu had no business getting away from him like that. He'd sure as hell never let something like it happen again.
The security shield above him irised open, and Enji flew back towards the battle above.
Kurogiri firmly affixed the coordinates within his mind, then pressed a small piece of himself through reality to appear there. Quickly, he popped a tiny device through that portion of himself, then glanced towards Dr. Garaki. The rotund man executed a swift series of keystrokes at his computer, then began scanning through the data that streamed onto the screen.
This wasn't Kurogiri's first venture into Tartarus. It was, however, the first time he'd ever been able to access anywhere other than the inside of the cremation oven. The mortician had been under All for One's thumb even before Kurogiri had been brought into being, and had smuggled more than one sample out of the prison over the years. Once Kurogiri had entered the picture, however, All for One had used the man to get a specially modified oven installed, one which blocked the effects of Dimensional Frequency Resonators when in use. Within that pocket of space, Kurogiri had snatched up countless corpses before they'd so much as started to blacken, and delivered them to Dr. Garaki to be turned into horrors like Kurogiri.
Now, however, things were different. The Mortician had been responsible for retrieving bodies from prison cells throughout Tartarus, which had let him gather the position data necessary for Kurogiri's Quirks to function. That had done them little good while the Resonators had been functional, but that had simply been a temporary inconvenience..
The original plan was to drop a high power EMP out of the cremation oven and let it shut down a swath of the facility. Tectonic, however, had accidentally done the job far better than they could have managed. The DFR devices were fragile things, and one good blow was often enough to destabilize them and force an emergency shutdown. Within the first few seconds of Tectonic's Quirk being used, the devices throughout the prison had been either ruined or disabled, which had offered them up a golden opportunity.
"All scans indicate surveillance on Level B10 is down!" Garaki said gleefully, though his enthusiasm soon ebbed. "Unfortunately, it looks like many of the most interesting specimens have been ruined. Some may still be salvageable, however. Kurogiri, if you would?"
Kurogiri pressed more of himself through the dimensional wall, and soon saw first hand what the Doctor meant. Few bodies were even close to fully intact, which would make salvaging Quirks from them difficult. He'd snatch some of the more intact bodies, then take samples from the rest before doing the same on other floors.
Even if the thought of what they'd be used for made the voices within scream in horror.
Notes:
Zombie Virus from the OVAs is the kind of horrifying power that AFO and Garaki would want to get their hands on no matter what. The sheer shock and horror of a zombie outbreak in Tartarus is exactly the kind of thing an ancient Machiavellian Supervillain would do to simultaneously get the big old pile of corpses he wanted, as well as cause a huge amount of stress on the country's heroes.
This is the threat level All for One poses to the world. This is the walking nightmare every One for All user has fought against. A man capable of setting this up, then biding his time to ensure it does as much damage as it can while providing him the biggest reward.
Admittedly, I'm nervous about this chapter. It's a big tone change, even with the hints at just how cataclysmic All for One's moves have been in the past. Hopefully it was still an interesting chapter, despite the grimness. While this'll definitely have a big impact on the story going forward, the lighter tones will return quickly.