A whistle cut through the air, and within seconds Toshinori had already pulled four more civilians from the hellscape of rubble. There was no pause, no rest: every jump, every drag, every blow that pulverized the concrete falling from the arena's explosive combat was one more life snatched from death's jaws. He had no intention of stopping. He didn't want to.
The pain from his wound no longer mattered. It was as if it had been erased, as if it had never existed. Every muscle responded with renewed strength, every movement made him feel more alive than ever. It was as if he'd been reborn in the middle of the disaster, and that feeling pushed him on with an unstoppable ferocity.
But he wasn't the only one who seemed to be enjoying it. Beside him, Might also seemed to overflow with power. His strength was brutal, so much that he lifted several people at once as if they weighed nothing. Every stride made the ground creak, his speed as devastating as the explosions rumbling around them. Blocks of cement fell in a chain, like giant blades ready to split everything apart, but his body slid with savage agility, dodging and shattering every obstacle with his whip moving with unmatched precision.
It seemed they had the situation under control, but the disaster didn't stop. The stadium shook as if it might collapse at any moment. The roars in the background grew more violent, and Toshinori felt a chill thinking about how much longer those walls would hold. The Nomus, those abominations imitating his students, carrying the quirk he thought impossible to steal, and the villains behind that strange cultivation situation fought as if chaos were all they knew.
—¡¡BOOOOM!!
There was no time to think. Toshinori threw himself into the rubble, lifting blocks with the same ease as someone brushing papers off a table. Underneath, several civilians trembled, trapped, and as soon as he opened a gap, he carefully pulled them to safety. He was just about to get them out when something froze him.
From a dark crack, amid the dust and broken concrete, twisted, sharp metal jacks emerged, suddenly wrapping around the body of a woman trying to escape. She screamed desperately, clawing at the ground with bloodied nails as she was dragged toward the blackness.
—No!— Toshinori roared, but he couldn't move; his arms were loaded with debris, no chance of quick movement, and several innocents frozen with terror around him.
The smoke parted and a gigantic silhouette emerged from the crack. A Nomu. Its jaws opened, revealing a grotesque interior, a pit of flesh and jagged teeth dripping with saliva. The creature advanced slowly, savoring the panic it caused, as the woman was pulled toward its mouth. Her tearing shriek pierced the air, a sound that even froze the hero for an instant.
Toshinori tried to shout, to call for help, but before he could react… everything changed. In the blink of an eye, the Nomu was gone. The woman was still there, trembling, breathing through sobs, still caught by the jacks… but they had been cut clean through, as if an invisible blade had sliced them apart in a single stroke.
Toshinori quickly ordered the others out, cleared the debris, and rushed down to help her. That's when he noticed it: the hole where the Nomu had emerged was covered in deep gouges, the walls scraped as if something had been violently dragged inward. From the edge dripped a thick, black liquid, oozing nonstop, filling the air with a metallic, nauseating stench.
The hero took a step back, his eyes wide.
—What the hell just happened…?— he murmured, with a fear and an unease too uncomfortable to hide.
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—¡¡DEKUU!!— the Bakugo Nomu screamed in fury, readying a massive explosion.
The blows collided one after another, each impact throwing up rubble and tearing up the ground as if the earth couldn't withstand it. The clash of forces wasn't a simple fight, it was a miniature cataclysm. Izuku, muscles tense, black whips vibrating around his body, was about to unleash another devastating blow when an arrow passed within millimeters of his eyes and exploded against a wall, blowing it into a thousand pieces.
Izuku turned his gaze and saw the Momo Nomu, holding a monstrous bow and already loading another arrow. He didn't wait. The projectile shot out breaking the sound barrier with its speed, but Izuku caught it with a sharp motion and, without stopping, sent it straight back at her. The impact was brutal, the explosion throwing her back and wounding her fully. Before he could press the advantage, the ground shook: the rest of the Nomus charged straight at him, a massive assault from every side.
He reacted immediately. He caught the Bakugo Nomu's arm effortlessly, stopping a massive explosion that didn't even tickle him and, in a brutal throw, lifted it off the ground and used it as a living projectile against two Nomus trying to surround him, throwing them like rag dolls. The impact kicked up a cloud of debris, but he couldn't relax: he was already guarding, arms crossed in front of his face. The impact was so brutal that the three of them tore through a pile of rubble, kicking up a cloud of dust and shattered rock without end.
He didn't get to turn before a gigantic shadow rose in front of him. The Sato Nomu, its monstrous body, brought down a punch like a hammer. Izuku crossed his arms to block it. The blow pushed him back, the stones splitting beneath his feet, but he didn't give ground. He grabbed the colossal arm with both hands, yanked it downward and deflected it with a brutal pull, then unleashed a barrage of sharp kicks into its torso. Each blow rang out like cannon fire, caving in flesh and shattering bone, until the Nomu's abdomen split open in a grotesque, bloody gash. The monster went flying, tumbling through the rubble with its body torn and staggering.
At that instant, a hardened fist came down from above and a leg tried to shatter his ribs from the side. Izuku raised an arm, blocking the Momo Nomu's attack, and at the same time turned his leg to stop the Kirishima Nomu's kick. The ground exploded into cracks under the pressure of the three bodies colliding at once.
Izuku smiled. He turned his torso and, with a black whip, struck the Momo Nomu in the abdomen, hurling her against a wall with a dry crash. With his other hand he caught the Kirishima Nomu's hardened leg, lifted it as if it weighed nothing, and slammed it onto its back against the ground. The blow was so violent that for an instant he thought he'd split it in two, but the creature got up, still intact. That Nomu was far tougher than it looked.
—This… is getting a lot more interesting —Izuku murmured, his eyes shining with excitement.
Suddenly Izuku saw a small piece of debris shoot toward him. Before he could react, the chunk grew unnaturally, multiplying in size until it became a massive slab that shoved him into the air with overwhelming force. Midway through the thrust, he noticed it wasn't just the weight of the material; the Uraraka Nomu was easily manipulating that mass, hurling it as a projectile at monstrous speed straight at him.
Izuku tried to move, but multiple floating metal limbs seized him at once, like living iron shackles compressing him in midair. An instant later, a distorted mouth appeared right behind him, with a macabre smile and a familiar voice, twisted into inhuman echoes.
—This is going to hurt you… —the mouth said, in Shoji's warped voice.
Izuku barely turned his neck and his lips curved into a defiant smirk.
—It won't hurt me… but I hope this does, to you.
With a single motion of his hand, he shattered the mouth into a thousand pieces, pulverizing it instantly. However, he had no more time: the enormous slab slammed into him fully, creating an explosion that tore up dust and rocks in every direction. The roar shook the ground like thunder.
The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds. From the cloud of dust and rubble Izuku emerged, his silhouette marked by black whips vibrating violently, his eyes glowing with a light that cut through the gloom. His body was unharmed, but as he took his first step he noticed one of his legs wasn't responding. He looked down and saw the trap: a shiny, viscous ball anchored him to the ground, stuck with such force it seemed fused to his own flesh.
—Tch… clever move —he said calmly.
Around him, seven silhouettes began closing in, surrounding him like predators. Izuku didn't tense; he smiled.
—Impressive… you all really are clever. The Shoji Nomu isn't just using its own quirk, but two more from Class B: Autotomy and Steel… a combination as versatile as it is durable. And the Mineta Nomu with the Pop Off quirk… —he cracked his knuckles, the dark aura of his whips expanding— …a real nightmare, those quirks mixed with One For All.
Izuku fixed his gaze on the Sato Nomu: its abdomen, which had been torn open minutes earlier, was now closing with grotesque speed. The flesh tightened, the fibers knitting together with wet snapping sounds, until the wound vanished completely as if it had never existed.
—Whoever created you… really wanted to see me good and dead —Izuku said in a firm voice, clenching his fists as the dark whips crackled around him.
The air grew tense as a different voice rose among the group. The Momo Nomu stepped forward, its deformed eyes glinting with unnatural intelligence, its mouth moving with difficulty until it forced out the words:
—You are… a new threat to the plans… of the organization. We… cannot allow… more beings… of the "one in the white mask"… to appear.
—¡¡YOUR DEATH IS GUARANTEED, DEKU!!— the Bakugo Nomu bellowed, its palms bursting into explosions that lit the air like artillery shells. Its voice, thick with hatred and madness, rang out like an animal's roar. Despite having become a grotesque abomination, it still called him "Deku" with the same rage as always. That stubbornness gave Izuku a pang of pity.
Izuku didn't back away. He smiled, tilting his head slightly.
—Then… —and in the blink of an eye he was already in front of it— try to make it happen.
A brutal uppercut shattered the Bakugo Nomu's jaw. The impact was so crushing it launched it skyward like a projectile, tearing through layers of air at an absurd speed, ripping through clouds in its path as if they were wet paper.
In an instant, Izuku appeared in front of it, gripping its bare, damaged chest with one hand. A violent burst of energy grazed past Izuku, but he didn't look away.
The Nomu tried to fight back. It moved its arms… but it didn't have any. It moved its legs… and those weren't there either. Only frozen stumps remained, covered in frost that was cracking apart. Izuku had carried it up to the exosphere, thousands of kilometers above the surface. Up there, the monster's desperation turned grotesque: trying to scream in fury, but no sound came out. Only a mute roar, an absurd rage in an airless void. It thrashed desperately, burning through the last seconds of air left in its lungs. The scene was grotesque: even mutilated and on the verge of suffocation, its hatred for Izuku remained intact.
Izuku watched it in silence, analyzing. He had destroyed the Iida Nomu before and had seen how the Sato Nomu regenerated its shattered abdomen. The conclusion was clear: regeneration had limits. Large wounds took longer to close given the environment… too much dust didn't help proper healing. And… if their heads were destroyed, there was no coming back.
His fist tensed, ready to punch straight through its head in one motion. It was the only thing needed: one more blow and the Bakugo Nomu would be gone for good.
But out of nowhere a metallic glint crossed his vision. A metal fist appeared at full speed and struck him in the face. The impact didn't move him or hurt him in the slightest, but it distracted him just enough to break his focus for that instant. A fraction of a second, and it was already too late. Another metal limb emerged with a knife, slicing through the piece of flesh where Izuku held the Nomu.
The Bakugo Nomu plummeted, dragged down by gravity. Only to be caught by a pair of giant hands: they belonged to the Momo Nomu, who also carried Kendo's quirk. How interesting.
At that point Izuku noticed clearly how she, along with the other Nomus, stood atop an enormous mass of concrete, the size of the sports festival stadium, floating in the void like a dead island. The entire block hung suspended thanks to the Uraraka Nomu's distorted quirk, which manipulated it efficiently without any fatigue.
Izuku, floating a few meters away, didn't rush. He simply extended a whip and shattered the floating limbs still circling him, disintegrating them with a dry crack. The cosmic dust dispersed in silence.
Then he looked at them. One by one. Green eyes, bright, fixed on those abominations. Seven twisted figures, each with combined quirks, each with a single purpose: to finish him off.
A smile escaped him.
—("Heh… all of you against just me. So many abominations working together just to kill me. I really do seem like the final villain in this situation.")
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—¡HAHAHAHA! You all really are interesting, you bastards —the evil Izuku let out, twisting his torso in a sharp motion to dodge Endeavor's flaming fist. He barely avoided the impact, and immediately shoved the hero back with a burst of force, putting more distance between them—. This Izuku they ordered me to kill has some very curious tricks… boosting his allies' quirks. But there's something that bothers me… My Shoto, the one who claimed to have destroyed an empowered Izuku, can't even land a clean hit!
The air trembled as an explosion of ice burst in the distance. The evil Shoto emerged from the frost, dodging his counterpart's attacks with elegant movements. He glided like a specter, always one step ahead, but never managing a decisive strike.
—I don't know what that bastard did to me —the evil Shoto growled, eyes burning with fury—, but my quirk is reduced to less than a quarter of my real power. I have more experience… but this brat has far more power. That pisses me off!
A flaming fist struck him square in the face, sending him flying through shattered ice. He landed on one knee, smoke rising from his burned skin. His expression twisted with pure rage.
—How I hate that damn quirk of dad's…
—¡Shoto!— Endeavor thundered from behind—. Land the hit properly, hold it, and raise the heat so the wound doesn't heal. Learn, if you want to surpass me!
The advice landed like a poisoned dart. Shoto's lips trembled with anger at hearing his father, but he had no time to reply. He roared with fury and released a brutal blast of ice, spreading it into multiple columns that shot toward his counterpart.
The evil Shoto didn't retreat. With a cold, precise motion, he materialized an ice sword in his hands so dense it gleamed with a translucent edge. With it he cut through every attack as if they were mere sheets of paper, breaking apart the icy storm into a shower of glittering fragments.
—Pathetic… taking advice from our father to get stronger. —the other Shoto said coldly, beginning his counterattack.
The pressure mounted. Shoto breathed hard, his heart hammering in his chest. Fighting against a version of himself that pushed ice to its absolute limit was tearing him apart inside. It was like seeing a mirror of what he'd never dared try: icy traps with surgical precision, objects solid as pure steel, spikes, walls, swords, shields… and all of it, restrained! What kind of monstrosity was this alternate version?
Suddenly, a sharp sound.
—¡¡BANG!!
The world turned into a red flash. A direct hit to the face knocked him out of his thoughts and dragged him to the ground. The evil Shoto had found a crack in his defense, and had exploited it with a brutality that left no room for doubt.
Shoto spat blood as he got up, wiping it with the back of his hand. The blow had left him dazed, but the look he gave his counterpart burned with contained fury. He gritted his teeth, releasing fire from one side and ice from the other. The air trembled with his energy.
The evil Shoto, meanwhile, advanced calmly. The ice sword in his hand kept breaking apart and reforming endlessly, shifting from spear to whip, from whip to a swarm of sharp blades spinning around him like a lethal dance. Every step of his was sure, calculated, as if he already knew every answer before the questions were asked.
—You're strong… too strong for how young you are. Like I was, when I was young —he said in a mocking tone, extending a hand and raising a small circular wall of ice around him that trapped the original Shoto—. But you lack the most important thing: vision. You throw your power out raw, without thinking. That's not combat, that's desperation! I'm only using small amounts of ice. But… I know how to finish off my enemy.
Shoto roared and gathered a mixed blast of fire and frost that shattered against the wall, breaking it into a thousand fragments. But when he tried to lunge through the gap, a prison of icy pillars suddenly rose up, trapping him again as if he were being toyed with.
—Raw power breaks…— the evil Shoto conjured and brandished his ice sword with a twisted smile. —but experience rules.
The blade came down violently, but was blocked just in time by a wall of fire Shoto improvised in a burst of desperation. The impact melted the sword, generating scalding steam between them. Shoto saw his chance and attacked: a massive blaze that engulfed his double, followed by an avalanche of ice meant to bury him.
For an instant, it seemed to have worked. The battlefield was covered in fire and frost, an explosion of colors lighting up the sky. But the illusion didn't last long.
A whistle.
The ground beneath Shoto's feet cracked, and from it rose a spear of ice that nearly ran him through the torso. He barely managed to dodge it, rolling desperately. That's when he saw it: the evil Shoto had used the steam and the distraction of the explosion to hide that spear and strike him. He was a damn monster!
—See it now?— the voice echoed through the frost—. I'm not fighting you… I'm dictating how you die.
A chain of icy spikes fired from multiple angles, forcing Shoto to dodge clumsily and hastily, growing more and more cornered. Every step he took, the enemy had already predicted, dealing him more damage.
Shoto blasted fire blindly, scorching everything, screaming with rage. He managed to knock down several spikes, but the regenerated ice kept closing off his path. An icy dagger grazed his cheek, another lodged in his shoulder. Blood dripped warm over the frost.
The evil Shoto appeared before him, walking calmly, the sword now shaped into a scythe. His silhouette emerged through the mist like an unbeatable shadow.
—You have power, kid… but without control, power is nothing. I am what you fear becoming… the perfection of a quirk pushed past its limit. And against that… —he raised the icy scythe over his head— …you don't stand a chance.
Shoto tried to answer with desperate blasts of flame and walls of frost that barely kept him alive. He panted, breath ragged, his body marked by shallow cuts multiplying by the second.
The evil Shoto took one more step, and with an elegant flick of the wrist, brought the scythe in front of him. He didn't throw it. He simply let it fall, like the hammer of a verdict. The tip pierced through Shoto's improvised defense of fire and ice, striking straight into his abdomen. The air escaped him in a choked gasp before he was thrown several meters back, rolling until he lay sprawled on the ground, motionless, barely conscious.
—¡¡Shoto!!
Endeavor roared at seeing his son fall. Fire burst from his body in fury, placing himself between the evil Shoto and his son. He unleashed a scorching wave that forced the approaching evil Izuku to retreat, and without hesitation ran to his son. He knelt beside him, gripping him firmly.
—¡Shoto! You idiot! ¡¡Why didn't you dodge those attacks properly!?— Endeavor said angrily, fixing a stern look on his son.
—How pathetic you look, father. —the word came dripping with venom, from the evil Shoto—. Running to protect a son you never even knew how to raise. What good is your power if you couldn't even shape your "perfect heir"?
Endeavor looked up with rage, his eyes glinting beneath the flames, but he didn't answer. He only gripped Shoto's shoulders tighter, as if that alone could keep him conscious.
The evil Shoto let out a low chuckle.
—Ha. I, with just a fraction of ice, reduced him to this. And you, with all your pride, what have you achieved? Nothing. Except raising a son who hates you as much as I despise you.
He turned on his heel, looking away as if Endeavor weren't even worth his attention.
—You were always a failure as a father… and now you're one as a hero too. —The evil Shoto stopped short, tilting his head as if sensing something. A twisted smile crossed his face—. And speaking of that…
With a brutal leap he launched himself toward the stands, his ice boots cracking the concrete as he took off. He reappeared a second later, dragging someone by the neck who struggled in vain. Shoto, barely conscious, managed to focus his eyes and his heart sank: it was Aoyama. His face was drenched in tears, kicking desperately, his eyes pleading for help.
—Look at this wretch… hiding, watching the fight from a safe spot —the evil Shoto said with palpable disgust. He lifted a camera hanging from Aoyama's neck and crushed it with one hand, reducing it to unrecognizable fragments—. Sending information to your little "boss." That bastard refused to cooperate with the organization… and now you're paying for it.
Aoyama, trembling, fired a desperate beam of light, but it was useless. The evil Shoto dodged it with a minimal motion and with a clean slash of his ice sword split in two the belt regulating his quirk. The device fell to the ground in pieces. Aoyama moaned in horror.
—Not even in your last attempt to fight do you stop being pathetic. —He lifted him like a worthless doll—. But you're still useful to prove a point.
He turned him cruelly, positioning him to face Shoto and Endeavor. The tip of his sword pressed against Aoyama's back, drawing a terrified scream. The boy thrashed with such desperation it looked like he might break his own bones trying to escape.
Endeavor took a step forward, fire roaring around him… but froze feeling a cold barrel a few meters from him. The evil Izuku stood behind him, a gun aimed straight at Shoto's head. His finger caressed the trigger with sickening calm.
The fire hero was trapped. If he attacked, his son would die.
The evil Shoto smiled, savoring every second of the psychological torture.
—So, father… the choice is yours. —He pressed the sword harder into Aoyama's back, making the boy scream in agony—. Will you be a hero and save your son's mere classmate? Or will you be a father and protect your own blood? The choice is yours… —the evil Shoto whispered with icy contempt—. But remember: either way… you'll still be a failure.
Shoto watched his father's gaze fixed on his other half. He didn't look away, didn't look at Aoyama, didn't look at him. That tension, that coldness in Endeavor's expression… said it all. Shoto understood in that instant what the choice would be. He didn't need to hear anything more. For his father, the same thing had always mattered: perfection. And seeing him defeated, humiliated by a dark reflection of himself, the decision was made. There was no saving him.
The weight of that truth crushed him. His shoulders dropped, his strength dissolved. He closed his eyes in resignation, waiting for the inevitable. The end.
What came next arrived in a brutal rush. He felt his father let go of him, as if abandoning him to the void. Then came the sound: a sharp cut, a tearing scream that vanished into the emptiness of the stadium. Shoto felt on his forehead the warmth of a thick liquid, red, running down like a death sentence. For a few seconds, he believed he was already dead. That this was the end: darkness, silence, and pain. But he forced his eyes open… and what he saw left him paralyzed.
In front of him, his classmate lay destroyed. Aoyama was in pieces, unrecognizable, his body reduced to a mangled mass of broken flesh. And beyond that sight, his father looked him straight in the eyes.
Endeavor was smiling. An impossible, twisted smile, as if he had made his choice with monstrous calm. Through his forehead, a hole ran clean through his head, a fountain of blood gushing out. The fire hero's colossal figure trembled one last time and then fell forward, collapsing on top of Shoto, who was left trapped beneath his father's dead weight.
The dull thud against the ground silenced everything. No one moved, no one breathed. Only absolute silence remained, the kind of silence that drags irreparable tragedies behind it.