The air between them was thick with the stench of rubber and blood. A metallic haze clung to the back of Midoriya's throat with each ragged breath. His left eye had swollen nearly shut from their last exchange, the skin around it pulsing an angry purple with each hammering beat of his heart.
Blood, his own he realized distantly, it dripped from his split upper lip, spattering onto the cracked concrete between his boots in fat, crimson droplets. One For All thrummed beneath his skin, that familiar electric burn, but something darker coiled within it now, something that made his teeth ache with the need to bite and tear.
Across the ruined street, Muscular rolled his shoulders with a sound like tearing canvas, his grotesquely enhanced physique glistening under the flickering emergency lights. Veins stood out like cables beneath skin stretched taut over bulging muscle.
"Y'know," Muscular mused, his voice dripping with the same casual malice as a butcher discussing cuts of meat, "I used to think you heroes were worth the effort." A half step forward made the street buckle under his weight. "But you? You're just a pest looking for a fancy title. No wonder the League wants you dead." His tongue swiped across yellowed teeth. "Tell me 'Champion', does it hurt knowing your precious mentor is gonna die today?"
What?
All Might.
Midoriya didn't even think of All Might. He was the number 1 hero, the strongest hero of recorded existence. There was no way he would die. Even to All For One. Midoriya didn't know the legendary villain but he still didn't believe All Might would lose. But the fact that Twice has been making clones of multiple members of the League then there was always the chance that even the number 1 hero could be caught off guard.
A pit of worry grew as he wanted to smack himself for worrying so deeply about All Might. He needed to have faith.
He couldn't temper the anger and adrenaline though. In his mind's eye he saw Uraraka's face, the way her head had lolled against shattered brick, the slow creep of crimson through chestnut bangs, the awful stillness of her fingers where they'd lain curled against her stomach. If Muscular walked away from this, he'd do it again. And again. And again.
The realization settled in his chest like molten lead.
Then the world narrowed to this - the staccato rhythm of his own heartbeat, the coppery tang flooding his mouth where he'd bitten through his cheek, the way Muscular's smirk widened as he scented the rage rolling off him in waves.
Midoriya exhaled.
And erased the distance between them.
Muscular's fist met his in midair with a detonation of force that shattered every remaining window on the block. Glass rained down in jagged hail as their knuckles ground together, tendons screaming under the pressure. Midoriya felt something give in his hand, a metacarpal, maybe two, but he didn't pull back. Instead he dug in, fingers clamping around Muscular's wrist with crushing force, and yanked him forward off-balance.
For one glorious fraction of a second, surprise flickered across Muscular's face.
Midoriya's knee caved into his ribs with a sound like splintering oak.
"Fifty percent," he gasped, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone beneath the impact.
Muscular's grin didn't falter. He laughed, blood spraying from his lips in a fine mist, and swung his other fist in a haymaker that warped the air in its wake. Midoriya tanked it, let the blow connect square with his temple in an explosion of white light and ringing silence. His vision swam, his knees buckled, but he didn't fall. Couldn't fall.
Because if he fell, Uraraka being slumped out with blood leaking from her head meant nothing.
If he fell, Muscular would walk away and do this to someone else.
If he fell-
Muscular's next strike never landed.
Midoriya's left fist, the arm Muscular had dislocated three minutes prior with a vicious wrench that still made his shoulder scream, it slammed into the villain's exposed shoulder with enough force to pop the joint from its socket. The crack of breaking bone was obscenely loud in the sudden stillness between them.
Muscular roared, his remaining arm flailing wildly, but Midoriya was already moving. He drove his forehead forward in a savage headbutt that crumpled Muscular's nose with a wet crunch, hot blood exploding between them in a grisly spray.
Then the pain registered. It was sharp and sudden. Muscular's teeth sank into his scalp.
Midoriya jerked back with a strangled gasp, feeling skin and hair tear free as Muscular's jaws snapped shut on empty air. Blood sheeted down his face, hot and sticky, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His boot lashed out in a vicious arc that connected with Muscular's knee at precisely the wrong angle.
The snap echoed like a gunshot.
Muscular collapsed with a wordless bellow, his leg bending inward at a nauseating angle, but Midoriya followed him down, driving a knee into his gut hard enough to force air from his lungs in a whistling rush.
"You don't," he gasped, driving a fist into Muscular's jaw with enough force to shatter teeth.
"Get," another blow, knuckles splitting against bone.
"To," another, his vision swimming with black spots.
"HURT ANYONE ELSE!"
The final punch landed with the sound of shattering glass as Muscular's mechanical eye imploded under the force, fluid and circuitry leaking down his ruined cheek. His remaining eye rolled wildly, unfocused, but his lips, split and swollen, still twisted in that damnable grin.
Midoriya panted above him, his entire body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline. Blood dripped from his mouth, his nose, the ragged wound on his scalp, spattering onto Muscular's ruined face in fat, crimson drops.
"I didn't... want to do this," he whispered, voice raw with something that wasn't quite regret.
Muscular gurgled, pink-tinged spittle bubbling between broken teeth. Then, impossibly, he laughed. a wet, broken sound that rattled in his chest.
"Too... bad..." he rasped, his remaining eye rolling to focus on Midoriya's face. "All Might... dies... today."
Something in Midoriya's chest shattered.
He reared back, fist cocked back for the killing blow, a scream building in his throat-
A hand clamped around his wrist like a vice.
Midoriya twisted, ready to fight-
"That's enough Problem Child."
Aizawa stood over them, his capture scarf coiled tight around Midoriya's arm, his quirk active. One For All flickered out like dying lightbulb, leaving him hollow and shaking.
"He... Uraraka..."
"She's alive," Aizawa said, voice calm but firm. His free hand came up to grip Midoriya's shoulder, fingers digging in just shy of painful. "Medics have her. She's stable."
Midoriya's breath hitched, his entire body going slack with relief so profound it hurt.
Aizawa hauled him up, grip unyielding. "You're done here."
Midoriya looked back.
Muscular lay broken but breathing, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged bursts. Blood pooled beneath him in a slow, spreading circle, mingling with the shattered remnants of his mechanical eye.
"He's not dead," Aizawa said, dragging him away from the wreckage. But Aizawa was left thinking in shock.
Midoriya was one of the brightest students in his class. Sure he has his problems, but he never believed he could do so much damage to another, Muscular was sure to have died if things had carried on the way they did without his interference.
It frightened him.
He never taught his students to kill. He had went over death in the field and even scenarios where they would have to kill. But still, all those smiling young faces, some that still had the regular youthful fat on their cheeks, he never imagined that any of them, least of all Izuku Midoriya, being capable of something as brutal as what he had done to Muscular just now.
Well, after tonight's terrible operation they would be back in class. And then he can start looking at them again. In a new light, instead of looking at them as the children they are supposed to be he needs to start looking at them as capable heroes.
He ruffled the hair of Midoriya... "You done well fighting for your classmate, Champion."
***
The ruins of Tokyo Tower groaned under the weight of their presence, steel girders twisting like broken bones as All Might and All For One faced each other across the shattered battlefield. The air itself seemed to recoil from them, warping under the pressure of their power.
All Might's golden aura blazing like a dying star, All For One's presence a yawning void, a darkness so complete it swallowed the light around him.
All Might struck first.
His fist tore through the distance between them, the shockwave ripping the ground apart before he even made contact. The sound was deafening, a thunderclap that shattered every remaining window for blocks, glass raining down in glittering shard. All For One didn't dodge. He raised a single hand, palm open, and the world inverted.
All Might's punch, meant to cave in a mountain, landed like a feather.
His eyes widened as his knuckles connected with All For One's palm, the force dissipating into nothing. The pavement beneath them, once solid, turned vicious, swallowing his boots like quicksand. The air, once thin, thickened into syrup, slowing his movements to a crawl.
"Inversion," All For One mused, his voice smooth, almost amused. "What is hard becomes soft. What is soft becomes hard." he tilted his head, the jagged scars of his face twisting into something resembling a smile. "A concept so simple could make even a powerhouse nothing more than an ant. A bug to be stepped on."
All Might gritted his teeth. He had fought All For One before. He had felt the weight of his cruelty, the depth of his malice. But this... this was different. This wasn't brute force. Not like he was used to.
He wrenched his leg free from the liquified ground, muscles screaming as he forced himself through the thickened air. If inversion weakened his strength, then he would just... Break The Scale!
His next punch wasn't just power.
It was meant for annihilation.
One For All surged, not at 100%, but beyond, a force so concentrated it warped the air around his fist into a vacuum. The ground beneath him splintered, not from the impact, but from the sheer pressure of his swing.
All For One's eyes flickered, just for an instant, before the blow connected.
CRACK.
A spit of blood flew from All For One's lips, his head snapping back from the force. The inversion buckled, the world snapping back into place as the sheer magnitude of the strike overwhelmed the quirk's limits. The pavement solidified beneath them, the air thinning back to normal.
All Might didn't let up.
He drove forward, fist cocked for another strike,
Only for All For One's body to melt like wet clay, dissolving into a puddle of black sludge at his feet.
A clone.
"No muscle-bound fool, am I?"
The voice came from behind.
All Might barely had time to turn before All For One's knee drove into his spine, sending him crashing through three buildings in a shower of shattered concrete. Dust billowed in his wake, the earth trembling under the force of his impact.
All For One floated down after him, his boots barely touching the rubble as he stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back like a professor delivering a lecture.
"You always did rely too much on strength," he said, shaking his head. "Shame, I was the same honestly. But now I try to see more within what I looked at as trash. And it truly has worked out for me. Couldn't say the same about Nana Shimura though, right?"
All Might snarled, forcing himself up from the wreckage. "Don't you dare speak her name!"
All For One ignored him. "I think you'll find this story interesting. All Might. It involves your master."
"You killed her!" All Might roared, surging forward again, "You and that demon...!"
A flick of All For One's wrist.
The ground beneath All Might's erupted, jagged spikes of concrete spearing upward like the jaws of some great beast. He twisted midair, shattering them with a sweep of his arm, but the distraction cost him, All For One was already upon him, a fist crashing into his ribs with enough force to send him skidding back.
"Believe what you want," All For One said, straightening his sleeve. "But the truth is far more amusing."
He paced slowly, as if they weren't standing in the ruins of a city, as if this were nothing more than a casual conversation.
"After Nana's... departure, I went looking for her heritage. Her bloodline." His voice was calm, almost nostalgic. "Imagine my surprise when I found a man named Kotaro Shimura."
All Might froze.
Shimura.
"A bitter, broken thing," All For One continued. "Traumatized by abandonment. So terrified of loss that he beat the very ideas of heroism out of his own son."
A pause.
"Little Tenko."
All For One laughed, a low, rumbling sound that made the rubble tremble. "Oh, you should have seen it. The day his quirk awakened. The way everything around him crumbled." He held up a hand, fingers curling as if mimicking decay. "The dog first. Then the sister. The grandmother. The mother."
His grin widened.
"And then dear Kotaro."
All Might's fists shook.
"The best part?" All For One leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The boy enjoyed it."
"LIAR!" All Might's roar shook the battlefield, his body surging forward in a golden blur. His fist connected with All For One's jaw, sending him rocketing back through a half-collapsed skyscraper, steel and glass exploding outward in his wake.
All For One emerged from the dust unharmed, floating just above the wreckage, his smile never fading.
"Do you really think I would fabricate something so detailed?" he mused. "No, All Might. The truth is far worse."
He raised a hand.
The earth split, a chasm tearing open beneath All Might's feet. He leaped clear, but All For One was already upon him, a knee driving into his gut hard enough to blast the air from his lungs.
"I watched as every adult failed him," All For One continued, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Every person who walked past that broken child. And then, just as he was about to shatter completely... I gave him purpose."
All Might's vision swam, but he refused to fail.
"You didn't save him," he snarled. "You twisted him."
All For One tilted his head. "Did I? Or did I simply show him the truth?"
A fist crashed into All Might's face, sending him hurtling into the ground hard enough to crater the street. Dust plumed around him, the impact rattling his bones.
"Tenko Shimura then turned into Tomura Shigaraki." All For One said, floating down toward him. "His rage is not mine. It is yours. It is hers."
All Might forced himself up, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Then I'll find him," he gasped. "And I'll fix what you broke."
All For One laughed, a sound so full of genuine amusement it sent a chill down All Might's spine.
"Fix him?" He spread his arms wide. "What is there to fix? I have saved that boy in ways you never could."
The ground trembled. And All For One let out a great amount of his bloodlust that seemed to turn the air's natural colour to a meek and dark red.
"And maybe you just aren't meant to understand that."