THIRD POV
"I'M HERE!"
The roar didn't just echo; it reshaped the atmosphere of the USJ. Such was the the presense of the man who had just arrived, All Might, the symbol of peace. He stood at the top of the stairs, his golden hair windswept and his frame looming. But the iconic, reassuring smile was gone. In its place was a mask of cold, concentrated fury so primal that even the low-level thugs felt their survival instincts scream.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished. A sonic boom followed a microsecond later. Before the villains holding the student hostages could even register the movement, they were unconscious on the floor. All Might reappeared twenty yards away, a blur of motion as he gently set the rescued students down.
He moved to strike again, but Shigaraki's raspy voice cut through the air.
"ALL MIGHT! Finally... I've been waiting for you, you symbol of hypocrisy!"
"Villain," All Might spoke, his voice vibrating with a bass that shook the floorboards. "Your time has come. Surrender now, and no more blood needs to be spilled."
"Ah... sorry, I have to reject the offer," Shigaraki scratched his neck, a manic glint in his eyes. "You see, we didn't come here to talk. We came here to KILL you."
"If your goal is me, leave my students out of this!" All Might countered, stepping forward. "Let them go."
Shigaraki tilted his head, stepping toward Bakugo, who was still pinned by a Nomu's heavy foot. "Oh, I would've... but if I did, they'd just get in the way. Too eager to prove themselves. But, I'll promise you this: I won't use them for blackmail. Where's the fun in winning a rigged game?"
"I'll hold you to that," All Might growled. He vanished again, appearing an inch from Shigaraki's face, his fist wound back for a finishing blow.
However, he never landed it. The original, brain-exposed Nomu intercepted him mid-swing, its shock-absorption quirk soaking up the force of a blow that would have levelled a skyscraper.
.
.
.
.
The battle that followed was a blur of supersonic impacts. All Might realized quickly that this creature was engineered specifically to kill him. Every punch he threw was absorbed; every bone-crushing slam was negated. The shockwaves from their exchange sent tremors through the entire facility, cracking the dome's glass and turning the plaza into a graveyard of shattered concrete.
All Might pushed himself, his movements becoming more frantic as he felt the embers of One For All flickering in his chest. He was running out of time. He needed to end this before his limit was reached. He surged forward, grabbing the Nomu and attempting a suplex, hoping to bury it deep enough to buy a moment's reprieve.
But as he moved, a new chill ran down his spine. He felt a presence behind him, not small, but something massive. He leapt into the air, creating distance, and looked down.
Standing beside nomu he was currently fighting, was a second monster. It was even larger than the first, its body covered in jagged, obsidian-like armour plates and protruding bone spikes.
"I call it the Behemoth Nomu," Shigaraki shouted over the wind. "Go ahead, All Might. Do your best."
All Might gritted his teeth. He vanished mid-air and reappeared behind the Behemoth, delivering a California Smash with enough force to turn a tank into scrap metal. The blow landed with a sickening thud, but the Behemoth only slid a few feet back. Its armour chipped, but it didn't shatter.
No shock absorption on this one, All Might realised, blocking a blind swing from the original Nomu. Just raw, impossible durability.
He was being double-teamed by the duo Nomu, both capable of holding their own against him.
The longer the fight raged on, the more they fought, the bigger the trail of destruction that they left behind, the students watching their fight were left paralysed with awe and terror. All Might was being pushed. Blood trickled from his mouth, and bruises began to bloom across his ribs.
"Soon," Shigaraki muttered, watching the Number One Hero struggle. "...Soon"
All Might knew he had to gamble. He drew in a breath that felt like fire, channeling every remaining drop of One For All into his right arm. He ignored the Behemoth and focused entirely on the first Nomu. He began a barrage of punches...not just fast, but faster and stronger than his usual.
"A Hero... can always break through a wall!" he roared. "PLUS... ULTRA!"
With a final, devastating uppercut, he struck the original Nomu so hard that the top half of its body simply ceased to exist, disintegrated by the sheer atmospheric pressure of the punch. The remaining lower half of the creature was all that was left.
All Might stood panting, his steam-shrouded form trembling. One down.
He turned toward the Behemoth, which was now beginning to hiss. Steam poured from the gaps in its armour, and a faint red glow began to emanate from its chest. Suddenly, electric cracks, jagged arcs of red energy, sparked around its frame.
All Might didn't wait. He lunged, delivering a flurry of blows to the Behemoth's chest. The armor cracked, pieces of obsidian-skin flying off like shrapnel, but the red glow only grew brighter. The monster wasn't fighting back; it was absorbing.
Before All Might could land a finisher, a wall of purple mist engulfed the Behemoth, warping it away to safety. All Might spun around, eyes burning with fury, facing Shigaraki.
"Forgive me," Shigaraki said, his voice dripping with mock apology. "Couldn't let you destroy the Behemoth so soon. Oh, and I hate to point this out, but the first one? It's still alive."
All Might turned just in time to catch a fist from the regenerated Nomu he thought he'd killed. Kurogiri had warped it back, and the creature's high-speed regeneration had already mended the damage. All Might was back to square one, now with the added interference of Kurogiri's portals.
NARRATOR
At the edge of the plaza, Shigaraki stood over the Behemoth. The monster was bleeding, its armor shattered, but the red veins in its skin were pulsing like a heartbeat.
"That's right... grow," Shigaraki grinned. "Grow stronger, Behemoth."
The monster began to emit a thick, black smoke that smelled of sulfur.
Watching from the sidelines, Bakugo's eyes narrowed. He could see the energy building. "We have to kill that thing now while it's weak," he hissed to Todoroki. They shared a look, a rare moment of perfect understanding.
Bakugo didn't wait for permission. He threw himself into the air, twisting his body to slip the restraints around his legs mid-flight. He landed in front of a shark-headed villain, shoved his bound hands into the man's open maw, and triggered a massive explosion. The force shattered his own bindings and sent the villain into a coma.
"Out of my way, extras!" Bakugo roared, clearing a path toward the Behemoth.
Todoroki followed, unleashing a wave of ice that froze the surrounding small-fry villains in their tracks. Kirishima and Shoji broke free next, inspired by Bakugo, joining the charge. Their aim was the Behemoth, currently cocooned in its own evolution.
The battlefield shifted into a desperate race against time. While the "rest of the students" dealt with the fodder villains, the trio of Bakugo, Todoroki, and Kirishima focused entirely on the smoking giant.
"Charge your biggest shots!" Bakugo commanded, his palms crackling with orange sparks. "I'll blow the armour, Todoroki freeze, Kirishima y-you shatter the whole damn thing!"
Todoroki's left side ignited, a pillar of flame swirling around him as he prepped a maximum-output blast. Behind them, Shoji and Ojiro moved through the fray, snapping the restraints of the remaining students.
But in the heat of the counter-attack, the students forgot Shigaraki Tomura
A shadow flickered. A pale, vein-streaked hand reached out from the gloom, its fingers splayed. Shoji, who had just freed a crying classmate, didn't even see him coming. The hand clamped firmly around Shoji's throat, while the other grasped one of his tentacle-arms.
"So irritating," Shigaraki whispered, his voice cutting through the sounds of explosions.
Shoji's eyes widened. A sickening cracking sound filled the air as the skin on his arm began to grey and flake away like burnt paper. The disintegration spread rapidly, turning muscle to ash. Shoji let out a harrowing scream of agony that brought the entire plaza to a standstill.
Bakugo and Todoroki froze, their charged attacks flickering in their hands. They turned to see Shigaraki standing over their friend, holding his life in his hands.
"I thought I told you guys to stay out of the fight," Shigaraki said, his voice flat and devoid of empathy. He squeezed Shoji's neck, and the giant student fell to the ground, unconscious from the shock and pain. "See? See what happens when you don't listen? Now... get away from the Behemoth. Come here and surrender like good little students."
Bakugo's face was a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. His teeth were bared, his eyes bloodshot. He looked at Shoji, then at the smoking Nomu.
"Like hell!" Bakugo screamed. Instead of turning toward Shigaraki, he lunged at the Behemoth. "DIEEEEE!"
"Of course you would," Shigaraki muttered, showing no surprise.
Todoroki followed suit, releasing a torrent of fire that turned the smoke into a firestorm. To end the sequence, Kirishima....now in his "Unbreakable" form, dove headfirst into the inferno to deliver the final, crushing blow to the Behemoth's head.
The rest of the students held their breath. Villains and heroes alike stared at the swirling wall of fire and dust. For a few seconds, there was silence.
Then, a body was launched out of the smoke.
Kirishima hit the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, his hardened skin scorched and bleeding. He was out cold.
Red electricity arched through the smog, stinging the air. From the center of it rose a figure that made the original Nomu look like a toy. It was nearly eighteen feet tall. Its chest didn't just glow; it pulsed. The Behemoth had shed its armour, revealing a body of corded, glowing muscle that hummed with energy.
It stood tall, a true titan of ruin.
Bakugo was the first to move, his rage overriding his survival instinct. He launched himself at the monster's face, palms screaming with fire. He hit the beast with a point-blank blast, but the Behemoth didn't even flinch. The spot where Bakugo struck simply glowed brighter, absorbing the heat. With a casual backhand, the monster swatted Bakugo away like a fly.
Todoroki lunged next, slamming his foot down to create an ice glacier meant to entomb the beast. The ice rose, encasing the Behemoth in a mountain of frost.
But the victory lasted only seconds. Red currents of electricity began to dance over the surface of the ice. Steam hissed as the temperature spiked. With a sound like a mountain shattering, the ice began to crack and melt, dripping away to reveal the monster underneath, untouched and radiating a heat that began to blister the air.
The students watched in total despair as the monster stepped forward, its footfalls shaking the very foundation of the USJ.
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