The throne room of Layer 3 was a mausoleum of silence, the last echo of Gasper Vladi's scream still clinging to the vaulted ceiling like frost.
Izuku Midoriya stood alone in the center of the blood-slick marble, his green eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.
The vampire lord's corpse had already crumbled to ash; the Forbidden Balor View, once a cataclysmic eye that could freeze time itself, now lay inert in the hollow of Gasper's skull.
Bound by the unbreakable contract of defeat, the Dhampir knelt at Izuku's left-pale, silent, and utterly loyal.
Around them, the dungeon's final illusion flickered and died.
The endless night sky painted across the dome peeled away in strips of black velvet, revealing raw stone veined with crimson runes. The air tasted of iron and ozone.
Izuku's lungs burned with every breath; the Saiyan blood in his veins thrummed at a hundred percent, but even Legendary physiology had limits when the soul was scraped hollow.
He raised one trembling hand. The twelve skeletal thralls-remnants of Layer 1's swarm-clattered forward on broken joints, their empty sockets glowing with necromantic fire.
Denki Kaminari's ghost hovered above the shoulder of the tallest skeleton, crackling with residual electricity.
Yuga Aoyama's spirit shimmered beside him, a constellation of navel-laser sparkles.
The elite vampires they had possessed lay in pieces at Izuku's feet, throats torn out by their own kind in the final melee.
Possession required a vessel; with the vessels destroyed, the ghosts were homeless.
"Return," Izuku whispered, voice raw.
The necromantic sigils branded into his palm flared sea-green.
Dimensional storage-an unspoken perk of the Sacred Gear Ocean at eighty percent mastery-yawned open like a tide pool between realities. One by one, the servants stepped into the void:
1. Gasper Vladi, crimson eyes downcast, wings folded tight.
2. Denki's ghost, saluting with a static-charged grin.
3. Aoyama's spirit, blowing a theatrical kiss.
4. The twelve skeletons, collapsing into neat stacks of bone and rusted armor.
The portal sealed with a sound like a wave receding from shore. Izuku was alone again, truly alone, for the first time since entering the dungeon. The silence pressed against his eardrums.
Then the floor lurched.
Runes flared white-hot. The throne beneath the ash pile detonated into shards of obsidian. A single line of text burned itself into the air, written in a language older than quirks:
LAYER 3 - FINAL CLEAR. RETURN AUTHORIZED.
The dungeon did not ask. It simply took.
Space folded like wet paper. Izuku felt his atoms unspool, thread through the needle-eye of a dimensional gate, and re-knit on the other side.
Gravity reasserted itself with a slap. He landed on his knees in the U.A. dorm common room, moonlight striping the tatami through half-open blinds.
The clock on the wall read 04:02 a.m.-exactly the same minute he had vanished from the real world. Dungeon time dilation: 1.5 hours inside, zero seconds outside.
His uniform was shredded, skin crusted with dried vampire blood, but the dorm was silent. Everyone asleep. No alarms. No questions.
Yet.
Izuku's legs gave out. He crawled to the couch, every muscle screaming. The Sacred Gear Ocean pulsed once in his chest, a warm tide that mapped every heartbeat within a city block-classmates dreaming, night staff dozing, the distant thump of a janitor's mop. No threats. Not yet.
He needed to think. Needed to plan. The training camp was in eight hours. Aizawa would herd them onto buses at noon. If the League of Villains had eyes inside U.A.-
His thoughts fractured. Sleep dragged him under like an undertow. But the universe, capricious as ever, had one final transaction.
As Izuku's consciousness slipped, a presence brushed the edge of his mind-not the dungeon, not Ocean, but something older.
The same cosmic ledger that had accepted the Dimensional Blade to seal a multiversal wound now opened its pages again.
A voice without sound, words without language:
Sacrifice to receive. Five souls for five absolutes.
Izuku's eyes snapped open in the dark. He was still on the couch, but the room had changed.
The moonlight was gone; instead, a silver balance scale hovered in mid-air, one pan empty, the other holding five flickering embers-his skeletal thralls, souls tethered to necromancy, now offered up.
He understood instinctively. The dungeon had been a crucible. Layer 3 was the exit fee. To leave with his gains intact, he had to pay.
His hand moved without conscious thought. Five fingers splayed. Five thralls dissolved from dimensional storage, re-manifesting as translucent silhouettes.
They did not resist. They had never been truly alive; they were echoes of death given purpose. One by one, the skeletons bowed-clattering femurs, hollow skulls-and stepped onto the scale.
The ember-souls winked out.
In their place, five spheres materialized in Izuku's palm. Perfect, seamless, heavier than they had any right to be.
Master Balls-not the Pokémon kind, but something far more absolute. The cosmic ledger had rewritten the rules: capture any being, living or dead, willing or unwilling, quirk or sacred gear or god. One hundred percent success. Permanent obedience.
Izuku stared at them until his vision blurred. Five thralls gone. Five balls gained. The balance scale dissolved into starlight and was gone.
The dorm clock ticked to 04:03 a.m.
He was too tired to question the morality. Too tired to wonder why the universe demanded blood for every gift.
He tucked the Master Balls into the inner pocket of his ruined jacket-against his heart, where Ocean thrummed-and let the darkness take him.
___________________
Dreams came in fragments.
He stood in a forest of black pine, moonlight bleeding through the canopy. Mina Ashido walked ahead of him, pink skin luminous, horns catching starlight. She turned, smiled, and her lips were stained crimson.
Behind her, Momo Yaoyorozu unfolded a map that showed U.A.'s training camp in perfect detail-security grids, patrol routes, blind spots marked in red.
Midnight's silhouette drifted between the trees, trailing violet mist that smelled of sleep and betrayal.
Izuku reached for them, but his hands passed through air. Mina's laugh echoed, distorted. You're too late, Deku.
He jolted awake on the couch, sunlight stabbing through the blinds. The dorm was stirring-distant clatter of breakfast, someone yelling about toothpaste.
His phone buzzed on the coffee table: 11:47 a.m. He had slept seven hours. The training camp buses left in thirteen minutes.
His uniform was still shredded, but a spare hung neatly on the back of the couch-someone (Ochaco?) had left it. A note in her handwriting: You came back late. Saved you a seat on the bus! ♡
Izuku dressed in a blur. The Master Balls were heavy against his chest, colder than steel. Ocean whispered a new range: two city blocks now, blood sense sharpening with every heartbeat.
Gasper, Denki, Aoyama, and the seven remaining skeletons waited in dimensional storage, patient as the grave.
He stepped into the hallway. Class 1-A milled about in track suits, backpacks slung over shoulders.
Ochaco waved frantically. Iida chopped the air about punctuality. Bakugou snarled at a vending machine.
Mina Ashido leaned against the wall, arms crossed, smile sharp as broken glass. Her eyes flicked to Izuku-lingered a fraction too long.
Momo stood beside her, expression serene, fingers twitching as if sketching invisible blueprints.
Midnight yawned in the corner, cat mask pushed up like sunglasses, but her gaze was too alert for someone who should still be asleep.
Izuku's hand brushed the Master Balls. Five empty absolutes. Five potential cages.
He smiled back at Mina, small and tired. "Morning."
"Morning, hero," she said, voice honey over venom. "Big day ahead."
The buses hissed outside. Aizawa's voice crackled over the intercom: "Move it, problem children."
Izuku boarded last. Ochaco patted the seat beside her. He sat, window cool against his temple. As the bus pulled away from U.A., he watched the dorms shrink in the rear-view mirror.
Somewhere in Mina's room, Mineta's ashes were hidden beneath a floorboard. Somewhere in the forest ahead, the League waited.
He closed his eyes. The Master Balls pulsed once, like a second heartbeat.
Sacrifice to receive.
He had lost five thralls.
He had gained five chains.
The training camp had not started yet.
But the war already had.