"Oi!" Bakugo's voice ripped through the haze, raw and unyielding, "It's my turn to fight it now!"
Nagato sighed, the sound almost inaudible against the battlefield's chaos, his hand still raised as the Nomu hung frozen mid-air like a puppet bound by unseen threads, Midoriya too bent awkwardly, straining against the grip of the invisible force until Nagato gently lowered him down beside him, his torn shirt flapping weakly in the wind, chest heaving with exhaustion but the boy's injuries healing as the chakra's warmth spread through his veins.
Midoriya's voice came shaky , "His shock absorption… it's too overwhelming… it feels like a perfect counter to someone with a strength boost quirk… like… like…"
Nagato's eyes glimmered , "Like All Might"
Shigaraki laughed, a broken, scratching noise as blood trickled down his neck from his own nails, "You're right… it was made to kill All Might… don't think you puny NPCs can stop him..."
"NOMUU!!"
The figure suspended in Nagato's aura flickered, its skin draining of colour, its form vibrating violently, then came the sound — crack crack crack — like glass shattering, and the very fabric of space around the Nomu fractured before exploding outward with a deafening boom, the barrier Nagato had imposed collapsing in shards of distorted reality.
"SCREEEEEECH!" The Nomu's roar split the air, primal and bloodcurdling, its predator's gaze locking instantly onto the greatest threat — Nagato — before lunging forward like a missile of flesh and fury.
Aizawa, elsewhere, still fought tooth and nail, his body screaming from exhaustion, his scarf flaring one last time before three villains pounced from behind, claws ready to tear him apart, but in the next breath frost spread across their bodies in jagged veins, freezing them solid, Todoroki stepping forward from the mist of his own ice, his eyes calm and focused, "Sensei, are you alright?"
"Yes… huff… huff… but you students should have left with the others."
Todoroki's gaze hardened, his voice colder than his ice, "And left you here to die, no."
Aizawa glared but the tension cracked into the faintest tired smile, "You kids…"
A thunderclap drew their eyes — the Nomu had broken free again, its prison of frost exploding into fragments of ice that rained down like glass shards — back on Nagato's side the beast's fist shot forward, inches from caving his face in, the air trembling with its velocity — yet Nagato smiled.
"You forgot about me huh… you black and blue bastard!"
BOOOOOOM
The Nomu's body was blown sideways by a violent blast, smoke and sparks filling the air, but the monster stabbed its claws into the ground to anchor itself, body jerking forward again like a rabid hound as it tore through the earth to charge — Bakugo stood there, palms smoking, his teeth clenched in feral determination.
He inhaled sharply, his chest rising as if dragging the entire battlefield into his lungs, then closed his eyes, stillness overtaking his rage for the briefest moment, and when they snapped open again his pupils were gone, replaced by streaking orange lightning that raced across the whites of his eyes like veins of fire, his aura sparking violently, painting his body in incandescent heat.
He smirked.
Then fists collided — Nomu's monstrous blow against Bakugo's raging explosion — the impact tore open a crater beneath them, shockwaves splitting the ground like cracks in glass, dust spiralling upward.
Bakugo's boots grinding backward centimetre by centimetre under the Nomu's raw force until his grin widened, teeth bared, and his voice rang out like thunder.
"Die."
The Nomu's arms detonated in a storm of fire, the flesh ripping apart in bloody fragments before the regeneration could catch up, the monster stumbling backward screeching as smoke poured from its ruined limbs — Bakugo spun mid-air, explosions propelling his body like a comet, before slamming a blazing kick into Nomu's ribs, the impact thundering across the dome, the beast hurled skyward, flailing against gravity's grip.
But Bakugo was already gone from the ground, a flicker of light in the smoke, his body flashing behind the Nomu, palms facing downward as he hovered mid-air for a single breathless instant.
"King's Explosion."
His gaze was calm.
The nitroglycerin sweat pooled across his skin ignited with such precision and force that it compressed into a singular point, chakra weaving into it, amplifying the reaction beyond human limits — heat surged exponentially, pressure building to apocalyptic levels, the world itself seemed to lose its colours for a fraction of a second before the energy released all at once.
SHHHHHHHHRRRRRAAAAAAA
The USJ dome quaked as the upper barriers split apart, beams twisting and snapping like paper, a colossal mushroom cloud unfurling skyward, the explosion birthing a blinding white inferno that consumed everything in its path, shockwaves ripping across the arena with the weight of a descending sun.
Many unconscious villain nearby turned to dust within a fraction of second.
Shigaraki , ear bleeding was hurled back like a ragdoll, screaming in rage and disbelief as the blast swallowed him whole but was protected by Kurogiri, while Nagato and Midoriya stood untouched within the barrier Nagato had conjured in the final second, the transparent shell glowing faintly against the tide of fire and fury.
On the far side of the arena Aizawa and Todoroki braced against the force, the wind like knives tearing across their skin until Todoroki raised his arm and ice enveloped them both, forming a protective capsule, the frost steaming instantly under the sheer heat as if struggling to exist against the miniature star that had been born within the USJ.
The air turned molten, every breath burning, the very ground trembling as if the planet itself had felt the strike, the light so blinding that sight was meaningless, forcing Aizawa to shut his eyes tight, his scarf whipping wildly even within the ice.
And then silence, heavy and suffocating.
The dust began to settle, a wall of smoke rising skyward like a pillar of the gods, fragments of steel and stone raining down, the battlefield unrecognisable, scorched black and cracked like the surface of a dying world.
Midoriya let out a low whistle, his lips curling despite his exhaustion, "Dayum… Kacchan really went all out in that one"
Nagato's eyes lingered on Bakugo's burning silhouette within the smoke, the faintest hint of pride tugging at his lips, "He sure did"
Then his expression shifted, his gaze narrowing sharply as the light caught something moving within the smoke.