Location: Secret Sub-Level – Unknown Research Hub
Timeline: Three Months Prior
Hummm. Whirrr-click.
The air in the subterranean vault was heavy with the sterile metallic scent and the rhythmic breathing of high-capacity server racks.
Dr. Kyudai Garaki sat hunched over a master console, his thick spectacles reflecting cascading waterfalls of biological data.
He wasn't just observing; he was vibrating with a manic, obsessive energy, his fingers trembling as he scrubbed through the raw frames of the Ota Ward "Blackout" incident.
Click-clack.
"No"
Tap.
"That's not it"
Zoom.
"It doesn't make sense, Master!" Garaki's voice was a shrill bark that echoed off the reinforced concrete walls.
"Look at the thermal displacement during the 'Snap.' I have mapped the biology of every quirk for a century. There should be a heat bloom—a caloric exhaust! But here? Zero."
Garaki tapped a key, expanding a cellular-level simulation of Hero X across the wall.
"He isn't 'using' a quirk in the way we understand it," Garaki hissed, his mustache twitching in a frenzied dance.
"A quirk is a tool—a biological lever. But this entity... it's as if the world's physical ledger is simply being corrected to suit his presence. No ATP depletion. No glycogen burn. He doesn't move through space; he edits himself into it. He is a biological impossibility! Reality manipulation quirks should not be this incomprehensible. The quirk, New Order on America is a baby compared to this."
All For One sat in a high-backed chair, draped in a simple, dark suit.
He was in his biological prime, his face symmetrical and calm, but his presence had shifted.
He was no longer the theatrical showman who loved the sound of his own voice; he had become a silent, predatory academic.
For the past thirty days, he had been a vacuum of information.
He had activated and layered every high-tier Intelligence and Cognition Quirk in his arsenal—Hyper-Intelligence, Parallel Processing, Mnemonic Storage, and Synaptic Acceleration.
He hadn't just studied medical textbooks; he had absorbed the collective knowledge of centuries of genetic engineering and cellular biology, merging his centuries of experience with a cold mastery of the "Singularity" theory.
AFO raised his right hand—the one that had touched Hero X's sleeve during the peak collision.
He slowly rubbed his thumb against his fingertips, his eyes distant and calculating.
"I have held the strings of this country for a hundred years, Kyudai," All For One said. His voice was a steady, clinical baritone. "I have reached into the souls of thousands. I know what power feels like when it is anchored to a human body. It has weight. It has friction. It has a genetic scent."
All For One paused, his hand tightening into a fist.
Creak.
The leather of his chair groaned.
"But when I reached for him... I found a nothing. Reaching into him was like reaching into a pitch-black room and realizing there is no floor, no walls, and no air. I hit a vacuum. There was no 'handle' for my power to grip. No biological mechanism for me to hijack. He is the Quirk Singularity—the point where power has evolved so far that it has discarded the human vessel entirely. He doesn't have a quirk; he a the concept manifest."
All For One stood up and walked toward a massive, pressurized gestation tank.
Inside, suspended in a translucent, neon-green nutrient bath, was the Type-Zero Prototype, Nomu.
It wasn't a completed being yet; it was a mountain of grey, unformed muscle, its four limbs twitching erratically as its nervous system was force-fed the tactical data harvested from the Ota Ward files.
"We have spent this month perfecting the specimen's 'Logic,' Kyudai," All For One continued, his eyes reflecting the bubbling fluid.
"We are no longer building mindless beasts. We are building biological weapons that can calculate the 'Friction' of the world. This prototype must be the first of many. It is a needle designed to probe Hero X...
No.. the Singularity..."
_-_-_-_-_
Present Day
The flashback dissolved into the present-day chaos.
From his hidden command center, All For One watched the live feed from Number 6's visor.
He looked at the screen with the detached gaze of a scientist observing a chemical reaction.
He tapped a communication link to Dr. Garaki, who was stationed at a secondary mobile lab.
"The gestation is over, Doctor," All For One commanded. "Deploy the instructions to our primary agents across the sectors. We need simultaneous data points from different environments. But for Naruhata... let Number 6 have his 'test.' He has been desperate to prove his speed is superior to the 'original.' Let him learn the difference then."
"Initiating field test protocols," Garaki's voice crackled through the comms. "Number 6 is clear for engagement. The Nomu, Type-Zero is active."
_-_-_-_-_
Location: Naruhata Park – Fairgrounds
Swoosh
The Type-Zero Nomu didn't just move; it restructured the environment.
Its first step into the crater pulverized the remaining asphalt into grey flour.
To the Pro-Heroes watching , the creature was a vertical blur of hairless muscle and obsidian claws.
CRA-AACK.
The sound of the impact wasn't metal hitting flesh; it was a biological tank hitting a stone wall.
Cracckle-swiish
Ingenium engaged his Recipro Burst to intercept the creature mid-lunge, his exhaust ports screaming blue fire as he delivered a high-speed kick to the Nomu's ribs.
BAAAM
The Nomu didn't even tilt.
It absorbed the kinetic energy into its braided muscle fibers and used two of its lower arms to anchor itself to the ground while the other two swiped in a savage, uncoordinated arc.
Ingenium barely had time to raise his forearms.
WHAM.
The force of the strike shattered the silver plating on Tensei's side and launched him fifty meters across the park.
"Ugh!"
He skidded through a game stall, a cloud of stuffed animals and splintered wood exploding around him.
"Ingenium!" Midnight screamed.
She swung her whip, the leather lashing out to catch one of the Nomu's four wrists, but the creature was too heavy.
Tksss. Skkkrt.
It didn't feel the pull; it simply walked forward, dragging Midnight across the dirt until she was forced to release her weapon.
Near the crater's edge, Shota Aizawa stood with his hair defying gravity.
His eyes were a lethal, bloodshot red, his Erasure quirk locked onto the creature's exposed brain.
He was erasing everything—the regeneration, the latent quirks—but it didn't matter.
The Nomu's base biological density was so high that it remained a three-hundred-kilogram slab of lethal speed. It was engineered with structural mutations.
"It's not a Quirk problem!" Aizawa shouted over his shoulder, realizing something wrong. "Enigma, pin it!"
Enigma, Ingenium's giantess sidekick, lunged forward.
She grew twenty feet in a second, her massive hands slamming down on the Nomu's shoulders.
BOOM
The ground groaned under the combined weight.
For a second, the monster was pinned.
Then.
SHINK.
Stendhal didn't wait.
He didn't care about the Pros' plan. He moved with the "No wind-up" style, his katana a silver whisper aiming for the Nomu's neck.
He was looking for the "Logic"—the predictable intent of the kill.
But as his blade bit into the grey hide, he felt a sickening lack of resistance.
The Nomu had no ego. No "Logic." It was a mindless, multi-limbed void.
The Nomu twisted.
It used its four arms like industrial pistons, prying Enigma's massive fingers off its torso and headbutting the giantess in the shin.
As Enigma stumbled, the Nomu's obsidian claws caught Stendhal across the chest.
Sli-ict.
Stendhal's fractured mask flew into the smoke.
He was sent sprawling back into a pile of rubble, his breath coming in jagged gasps.
They weren't fighting a villain; they were fighting a biological weapon that didn't know how to stop.
_-_-_-_-_
Fifty meters away, the park was a vision of absolute terror.
"Crawler! The Ferris wheel!" Pop★Step screamed from the top of a ticket booth.
The iron frame of the Ferris wheel was groaning, the bees having jammed the gears while the Nomu's earlier shockwaves had loosened the bolts.
A single cabin, carrying two toddlers who had been separated from their parents, was dangling by a single, twisted strut.
"I've got them!" The Koichi shouted.
Zppttt.
He zipped across the ground on his palms and knees, his hands glowing with blue light.
He was a low-profile interceptor, sliding under a falling timber to catch an elderly man before zipping toward the base of the ride.
Pop★Step didn't wait. She jumped.
BOING.
She used her quirk to launch herself fifty feet into the air.
She caught the dangling cabin just as the strut snapped.
UWAAA. UWAAA
She tucked the two toddlers under her arms, their small faces buried in her soot-stained costume.
CREEEAK-SNAP.
The cabin fell away, crashing into the game stalls below.
Kazuho was at the apex of her jump, sixty feet in the air, with no surface to "Boing" against.
She was suspended at zero-gravity for a terrifying heartbeat.
On the rooftop, Number 6 stopped watching the Pros.
He saw the girl in the sky. He saw the children. And he saw the Knuckleduster looking up in desperation preparing to engage Nomu.
Number 6's grin turned jagged.
Through the tactical link to the Type-Zero, he sent a singular command. 'Kill the girl.'
Then.
The Nomu ignored Aizawa.
It ignored Enigma.
It pivoted on its grey heels and exploded upward.
Whoosh
It didn't jump like a beast; it launched like a projectile.
Its four arms spread wide, obsidian claws shimmering under the fairground lights as it aimed for Kazuho's back.
_-_-_-_-_
"Noo!"
Knuckleduster stood in the center of the park. He saw the world falling apart. He saw Ingenium bleeding. He saw Stendhal broken.
And now, he saw Kazuho—the girl who had he mentored, the daughter-in-spirit he had come to care—about to be erased.
His heart didn't just beat; it detonated.
THUMP-THUMP.
The biological "Renovation" Kaito had performed in the quietly of Unit 203—the re-linked nerves in his brain stem—finally caught the spark of pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
SHHH-VRRR-SNAP.
Knuckleduster's vision didn't blur; it sharpened into a lethal, high-contrast grey.
The sound of the screaming crowd, the roar of the fire, and the crying of the children died instantly.
It was replaced by a low, humming silence that vibrated in his very bones.
The fire on the Ferris wheel froze into jagged, orange statues.
The smoke hung in the air like grey cotton.
The Nomu, mid-leap, looked like a gargoyle suspended by invisible wires, its claws inches from Kazuho's spine.
'It's really back.'
Iwao's eyes widened.
He saw the monochrome world—the O'Clock world.
'Not the time for doubts. Not the time for questions. Move, Iwao. Move!'
To the observers—Aizawa, Number 6, and the terrified police—Iwao Oguro didn't run.
FWOMP. Swisshh
A massive displacement of air, a localized sonic boom, knocked the nearby paramedics to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, Iwao was in the air. He didn't just catch Kazuho; he intercepted the Nomu.
He appeared in the creature's path, his shoulder hitting the Nomu's chest with the force of a high-speed locomotive.
BAAAM
The kinetic energy was absolute. He grabbed Kazuho and the children in one arm, and with his free hand, he delivered a singl palm strike to the Nomu's temple.
CRACK.
The Nomu was sent spiraling back toward the earth before the sound of the strike even reached the crowd.
Knuckleduster landed twenty meters away. He put Pop Step and the children down.
His skin was steaming, the air around him shimmering with a visible heat as his metabolism fought to handle the friction of the burst.
"Master?" Kazuho gasped, her eyes dinner-plate wide as she clutched the toddlers.
"How... you just... I didn't even see you move."
Iwao stood tall.
He didn't look back at her. He looked at his hands—the knuckles white, the nerves singing with a frequency he hadn't felt in a decade.
"Stay behind me," Knuckleduster growled. His voice was a low, vibrating rumble that shook the ground.
The "vigilante" was temporarily dead. The Pro Hero 'OClock' was breathing again.
On the rooftop, Number 6 stopped laughing.
His visor flickered red as his heart rate monitor began to scream.
He wasn't looking at a brawler anymore. He was looking at the man whose shadow he had lived in for a lifetime.
"No..." Number 6 whispered, his voice cracking with pure disbelief. "That's not possible. That's my speed!"
_-_-_-_-_
Number 6 stood atop the ruins of the popcorn stand, his visor flickering with erratic red warnings.
His fingers clawed at the air as he stared down at Iwao.
The manic grin he usually wore had twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated denial.
"No... no, that's impossible!" Number 6's voice cracked, sounding like grinding gears. "That quirk was harvested! It's gone! I am the successor! I am the pinnacle of speed! You're just a relic... a old ghost that forgot to stay in the alleyway!"
Knuckleduster in the ground rotated his shoulders, the sound of his joints popping like small-caliber rounds.
Crack-crack-pop.
He felt the world slowing—not just the people, but the vibration of the air itself.
He didn't talk
He moved.
It was the pure acceleration—speed so absolute it became a physical weight.
Knuckleduster didn't just run; he displaced the atmosphere.
To the observers, there was no transition. He was simply everywhere at once.
BOOM.
The first sonic boom shattered the glass of the nearby ticket booths.
Knuckleduster hit the Nomu's chest, but he didn't stop to check the damage. He was already behind it.
THUD. THUD. THUD-THUD-THUD!
He struck with the surgical precision of the O'Clock world—short-range explosions of force aimed at the Nomu's high-density nodes.
Each strike was a dry, percussive thwack that rattled the creature's internal organs.
He hit the primary tendons behind the knees. Snap. He hit the nerve clusters in the lower arm.
Cr-crack.
The Nomu, a biological weapond designed for high-speed calculation, tried to respond.
It swung four arms in a perfect defensive radius, its obsidian claws carving black lines into the air with a terrifying whirr-shink.
Iwao wasn't there.
He was a silver-and-black storm circling the grey giant.
He moved in a continuous, looping orbit, hitting the Nomu from forty different angles in the span of three seconds.
WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP
Each impact was a sharp, rapid-fire clat-clat-clat that echoed through the park like a machine gun.
CRACK-POP-SNAP!
The Nomu's head snapped back as Iwao delivered a flurry of thirty fist-strikes to its chin.
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!
Before the creature could tilt, Iwao appeared at its side, his heel driving into the creature's primary elbow.
CRUNCH.
The fight spilled onto the ground, becoming a gritty, high-velocity brawl.
Knuckleduster used the friction of the floor to drift like a rally car, his boots making a high-pitched
SCREE-CHIRP
against the stone.
He dove low, sweeping his legs with a heavy SWISH-THUMP
The Nomu's legs went limp, the joint reversed by the sheer velocity of the impact.
The creature staggered, its four eyes darting frantically to track a target that existed only as a distortion in the chemical smoke.
Hsssssssss.
"KILL HIM!" Number 6 screamed at the distance, his visor sparking.
He raised his hand, firing Bone Bullets in a wide, desperate spray.
Pew-pew-pew-pew!
The shards whistled through the air, but they only hit the Nomu's own hide.
"ACCELERATE! TEAR HIM APART!"
The Nomu's brain pulsed a violent purple. It ignored the damage, its muscles swelling as it attempted to match Iwao's frequency.
It lunged, a four-armed pounce that should have been unavoidable.
Screeee-ch!
Knuckleduster didn't dodge.
He slid.
He dropped to one knee, the momentum carrying him forward.
He passed under the Nomu's lunge, grabbed the creature's lower right arm, and used the monster's own kinetic weight against it.
WHAM!
He slammed the Nomu face-first into the concrete pavement with enough force to liquefy the asphalt.
BOOM!
A crater three meters wide erupted. Dust and debris were thrown sixty feet into the air.
Clatter-shatter.
Knuckleduster didn't wait for the smoke to clear. He was already on top of the creature, his hands moving so fast they were a blurred veil of white-hot heat.
He delivered a series of rapid-fire strikes to the Nomu's exposed brain—each hit timed to the creature's regenerative pulse to nullify the healing.
BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM!
Nearby, Shota Aizawa watched from the shadows of a collapsed pylon, his hand frozen on his capture scarf.
He was an expert in combat analysis, but this... this defied his data.
'He's so fast, and he's moving like that speedster villain' Aizawa thought, his eyes narrowing as he watched the silver blur.
'That frequency... it's familiar.'
A memory flickered—a legendary speedster from a yea ago who had vanished from the record.
A man who had been the "Clock" of the hero world.
Number 6's screaming became a guttural roar of frustration.
He launched himself off the popcorn stand, his own Overclock quirk flaring as he tried to join the fray.
Vrrr-zip!
"I AM THE ONE! I AM THE FASTEST!"
Knuckleduster glanced toward the approaching Number 6 without slowing his strikes on the Nomu.
His eyes were cold, glowing with a faint, high-frequency light.
"You're just copycat, kid," Iwao whispered, the words lost in the sound of the Nomu's ribs finally shattering and the gut of Number 6 was punched so hard.
CR-R-RUNCH!
BAAAM!
_-_-_-_-_
The Nomu's regeneration was working at 200% capacity, but Iwao was faster.
He was suppressing it through sheer, relentless attrition.
"Now!" Iwao roared, looking back at the Pros. "Subdue it!"
Ingenium didn't hesitate. Though he can't believe aside from him, a lot of speedsters are emerging.
He engaged his Recipro Burst, his silver armor glowing blue as he slammed into the Nomu's side, pinning its lower torso.
Enigma, the giantess, lunged forward, her massive hands slamming down on the Nomu's four arms, pinning them to the dirt like iron stakes.
"Got it!" Enigma yelled, the earth cracking under her weight. "Aizawa, capture it!"
Aizawa flared his eyes and unfolds his capture scarf, but as he looked at the Nomu, the creature's body began to bloat.
Its grey skin turned a sickly, translucent orange.
The black veins beneath its surface began to glow with a violent, white-hot heat.
"Back away!" Aizawa screamed, sensing the shift in air pressure.
Dr. Garaki's failsafe had activated.
The Nomu, Type-Zero was never meant to be captured; it was a scorched-earth asset. A consumable product.
The internal chemical Trigger was reaching critical mass.
Ssssssss-hiss.
"Warp Guy! Now!" Number 6's voice cracked with desperation. Blood leaking on his mouth. Although he was defeated by Knuckleduster. He is still sane and knows how to retreat.
Then.
A massive swirl of black-and-purple mist erupted in the center of the park.
Kurogiri emerged from the darkness, his yellow eyes narrow and focused.
He began to expand the warp-gate, pulling in the injured Villain Factory agents—Chuma, Akira, and Kuin Hachisuka.
Knuckleduster's heart stopped.
He saw Kuin—the Bee Queen—being dragged into the mist by a swarm of her own insects.
She looked back for a split second, her eyes vacant and hollowed out by the drug.
"Tamao!" Iwao roared.
He moved at a speed that tore the grass from the earth.
He was a silver streak aiming for the gate. He reached out, his hand inches from her sleeve, desperate to pull his daughter back from the abyss.
Click.
The mist snapped shut.
Knuckleduster's hand grasped nothing but empty air and chemical smoke. She was gone.
"NO!"
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Hosu City – Kaito's Car
Kaito Arisaka sat in the driver's seat of his car, the engine idling with a low, steady thrum.
Kaito leaned back, his eyes closed. He didn't need a monitor. He felt the Naruhata Ward as an extension of his own nervous system. He felt the fifty 'glitches' igniting—the suicide bombers—like hot needles pricking his skin. They were a mess. An inefficiency
He sat with his eyes closed, leaning his head back against the headrest, letting his awareness stretch across the city lines.
Kaito felt the ward. He felt the frantic, high-velocity heat of Iwao's heartbeat as the old man pushed his quirk its absolute limit.
He then felt the fear of the crowd, a thick, stagnant energy that sat heavy in the air. He was sensing every structural flaw and every erratic movement.
Then, it turned into a scream.
Kaito felt fifty distinct ignitions. They weren't just explosions; they were malicious spikes in the very bones of the park.
Number 6 had rigged the exits, the pipes, and the fairgrounds.
It was a "saturation" play—a desperate, petty attempt to burn everything down because he couldn't win the fight.
Kaito's eyes opened.
He saw the math of it instantly. Knuckleduster was fast, but even he couldn't stop fifty bombs going off at the exact same moment across three miles of Naruhata.
The crowd was a second away from being vaporized. And the heroes, Koichi and co are in danger.
"Enough," Kaito said. His voice was a low, dry rasp.
Kaito reached out, his mind locking onto the biological signatures of the fifty bombers as if he were simply reaching into a drawer to reorganize a cluttered pile of papers.
He didn't need to be there. He didn't need to scream. He just needed to end it.
He raised his hand. And flick his wrist.
_-_-_-_-_
Number 6's laughter was a jagged, psychotic sound as Kurogiri's mist began to swallow him.
He looked like a man who had finally set the world on fire. "Die! Every single one of you! If I can't have the speed, then nobody gets the ground to stand on!"
Click.
The fifty suicide bombers began appear in every part and started to glow.
In the crowd, the air suddenly turned thick and searing.
A father near the North Gate felt the man next to him begin to hum with a white-hot, orange light.
He didn't have time to scream; he just pulled his son closer and squeezed his eyes shut.
Aizawa threw himself over a group of crying toddlers, his capture scarf wrapped tight around them, his own muscles tensing as he waited for the heat to strip the skin from his bones.
Ingenium stood paralyzed, his engines sputtering, knowing his armor would be a furnace in less than a heartbeat.
Koichi pinned Kazuho to the grass, burying his face in her shoulder, his heart slamming against his ribs in a final, frantic rhythm.
Knuckleduster used his quirk to the absolute limit and carried 10 individuals to safety but. It's not enough.
The world went silent for a microsecond—the terrifying, pressurized silence before a blast.
Then.
SNAP.
It wasn't a roar. It wasn't a blast. It was a crisp, absolute pop—the iconic sound of a thumb and finger meeting with the authority of a god closing a book.
It echoed across the parkand to the entire ward, vibrating through the bedrock and into the very marrow of everyone's bones.
It carried a weight of silent, crushing dominance that momentarily froze the rotation of the planet.
The explosion....the glow vanished.
The incoming heat was simply... gone. Deleted from the air.
In a single, terrifying micro-second, the world buckled.
The failed experiment Bombers were not detonated; they were rewritten. Physics bowed to the sound of the snap.
Aizawa opened his eyes. He expected the afterlife; he found a silence so absolute it made his ears ring.
He looked at the wall next to him and his jaw dropped.
"X?"
The heat didn't dissipate; it was deleted. Aizawa looked at the bunker wall, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The creature who had been a glowing engine of destruction was gone.
In his place, a high-contrast charcoal sketch was etched into the concrete—a two-dimensional nightmare the Bomber frozen in a silent scream. No mass. No heat. Just ink on stone.
It had been reduced to a two-dimensional "graffiti" image—its face frozen in a permanent silent scream.
_-_-_-_-_
"What in the...?" Midnight gasped, her voice trembling and excited. She reached out to touch a tree. On the bark, another bomber was now a 2D painting, his outstretched hand looking like a stencil of black ink.
"Hero X"
_-_-_-_-_
Stendhal, bleeding in the rubble, gripped his broken mask. But have a huge smile in his face
His eyes didn't find the villains or explosion but just drawings and grafitti in the surfaces. He also heard the iconic snap.
"... it's perfect."
_-_-_-_-_
Across the park and in every location, it was the same. All fifty Bombers had become "graffiti."
They were plastered onto the pavement, the walls, and the trunks of the trees like a macabre art gallery of the impossible.
The fire, the chemicals, and the intent had been folded into a single plane of existence and discarded.
Silence fell over Naruhata.
The Type-Zero Nomu, caught in the wake of the snap, didn't even have the chance to regenerate.
It collapsed into a pile of grey, inert ash, its very existence neutralized by the sound.
Knuckleduster stood in the center of the fairgrounds, steam rising from his shivering shoulders as the O'Clock world bled back into color.
He looked at the 2D drawings on the wall. He looked at the empty sky where the mist had vanished.
He knew that sound. It was the same clinical, absolute power that had fought the leader of the villains, All For One and absolutely overpowered him in Ota Ward.
"He's here," Iwao whispered, his voice cracking with awe. "The strongest individual on the planet had just saved us."
_-_-_-_-_
"Done"
Kaito felt the ward stabilize. The enemies had been dealt with. The silence was back. Koichi, Kazuho and the others were safe and sound.
~~~~~~
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(9 Advanced Chapters)