The night split open with the sound of wings, not the soft flutter of feathers, but the grotesque, wet snap of membrane and bone. They descended from the smoke-choked sky like fallen angels, their forms warped by the hands of a godless surgeon. Endeavour stood amidst the festival square of Kyoto, his flames a low, seething ember in his chest, his eyes locked on the abominations circling above.
Kamui Woods' branches lashed out beside him, ensnaring a screeching Nomu mid-dive. "Endeavour...!"
"GET BACK!" The roar tore from Endeavour's throat, raw with warning. His flames erupted in a corona around him, heat distorting the air like a mirage. "TAKE THE CIVILIANS AND GO!"
Kamui hesitated, just for a heartbeat, before his mask twitched in understanding. The branches retracted, and he vanished into the chaos below, herding stragglers toward the underground shelters.
Endeavour didn't watch him leave. His world had narrowed to the sky, to the things that hung there, waiting.
They were not like the mindless brutes he almost got used to fighting whenever it came to Nomu. They watched him. Their eyes, too many, too sharp, tracked his every twitch.
The first struck without sound.
One moment the air was empty, the next, a blur of serrated limbs and gnashing teeth filled Endeavour's vision. Chainsaw Nomu, the same one that All Might had reported had gotten away during their raid to retrieve the captured UA student.
Its arms were whirring with monstrous, rotating blades, each tooth screaming as it split the air.
Endeavour pivoted, flames jetting from his soles as he twisted midair. The chainsaw limb grazed his side, shearing through his costume and scoring a line of fire across his ribs. He didn't flinch. His hand snapped out, fingers clamping around the Nomu's wrist.
"HELL SPIDER!"
A lattice of crimson fire erupted from his palm, threads of blazing red so fine they sliced through flesh like monofilament wire. The Nomu's arm came apart in segments, meat and metal spraying, but it didn't scream. It laughed, a wet, clicking sound, as its slump bubbled and regrew in seconds.
Endeavour's teeth ground together. Regeneration.
The second Nomu struck from below.
Its body was a grotesque parody of elasticity, limbs stretching like taffy, snapping back with whip-crack force. Endeavour barely dodged, the air itself screaming as the limb grazed his cheek. He countered with a backhanded blast, Prominence Burn, the fire so concentrated it vaporized half the creature's torso.
It didn't care.
The two remaining halves twitched, then reformed, knitting together like living putty.
Persistent bastard.
The third attack came from above.
A beam of crimson light, thin as a needle, hot as a star's core, it lanced down. Endeavour barely rolled, the beam searing a molten trench through the street where he'd stood. Lazer Nomu hovered, its single eye a pulsating red orb, its maw split in a grin too wide for its face.
Three of them. All regenerating. All adapting.
Endeavour exhaled, steam curling from his lips.
Then the sky moved.
Not just three.
From his quick scan, there were at least fifty.
They dropped like meteors, their wings blotting out the moon, their voices a chorus of broken syllables.
"Heeeerooo..."
"Flaaames..."
"Buuurn..."
Endeavour didn't wait for them to touch the ground. He shot upward, flames roaring from his back like a rockets ignition. The first Nomu met him head on, a hulking brute with calcified skin. Endeavour drove his fist through its chest, fire erupting from the exit wound in a geyser of gore.
The second and third came at his flanks.
Chainsaw Nomu's blades found his thigh, shearing through muscle. Elastic Nomu's fist wrapped around his ankle, yanking him earthward. Endeavour snarled, his free leg pistoning into Elastic's face... Jet Burn.
The kick was so violent it sent the creature crashing through three buildings.
But Chainsaw wasn't done.
Its limbs revved, a scream of metal on metal, and then...
WHIRRR—
Endeavour barely twisted in time. The blade grazed his ribs, drawing a line of fire. He retaliated with a point-blank Flashfire Fist, the explosion so intense it vaporized the Nomu's head.
It didn't stop.
Headless, it swung again.
What the-?
Endeavour barely dodged, but laser Nomu's beam caught him in the shoulder, searing through flesh. The pain was white-hot, blinding, but he'd endured worse. He'd endured it all being in All Might's shadow.
He spun, fire wreathing his body like a second skin, and plowed through Chainsaw Nomu, reducing it to chunks.
Still, the pieces twitched.
Still, they merged.
A voice... no, voices echoed around him, a dissonant choir.
"Futile..."
"Futile..."
"Futile..."
Endeavour hovered, blood dripping from his wounds, his breath ragged. Below, the city burned. Civilians screamed. Heroes fought.
And above, the Nomu were... converging.
They melted into one another, flesh knitting, bones fusing, until the sky was no longer filled with monsters, but with a singular horror.
A wingspan of hands, each finger longer than a train car, all connected at the center by a single, massive eye. The pupil dilated, fixing on Endeavour with something almost like amusement.
"Little Flame..." the voices rumbled, so deep the ground shook. "You Burn... But You Will Not Win."
The pressure of its voice hit like a physical force. Below, civilians clutched their heads, some collapsing, noses bleeding. Even other heroes struggled.
Endeavour didn't.
He lowered himself, just slightly, flames flickering around his boots. His shoulders rose with a breath... long, slow and deliberate.
Then he looked up.
"Three decades." His voice was quiet, but it carried, cutting through the Nomu's drone. "Three decades I've fought. Three decades I've burned!"
His flames intensified, blue bleeding into white, the heat so intense the rubble beneath him began to melt.
"There have been many villains who have stood tall against me. And you are just another 'One'." His fists clenched. "But like all of them. You willfall!"
The Nomu's eye twitched.
Then Endeavour moved.
Not a dash. Not a leap.
A cataclysm.
Endeavour didn't move, he erased the distance. The air screamed as he ignited, not as a man anymore, but a star given form, flames vomiting from his body in a continuous, annihilating detonation. The Nomu's hands surged to meet him, a grotesque wall of fused flesh and bone—
"HELL's JUDGMENT!"
His fists shattered through the barrier like meteors through glass. Fire unspooled in a chain reaction, searing through the creature's limbs, melting tendons, charring muscle into brittle husks. The Nomu's eye bulged, its pupil swelling.
Then, Endeavour was inside it.
A comet of white annihilation, he bored through the monstrosity's core, fire erupting from its back in a geyser of gore and molten viscera. The explosion swallowed the sky, a pillar of nuclear light so bright it blinded, so hot the very air ignited. Buildings buckled, glass vaporized, the shockwave peeling the streets like rotten fruit.
The explosion lit the sky.
A pillar of white fire erupted, consuming the monstrosity, its flesh blackening, its wings crumbling to ash. The civilians were safe. The shelters held.
And then, silence.
The flames collapsed inward, leaving only void. No ash. No scream. Just emptiness, as if the creature had never existed at all.
No Nomu. No screams.
Just Endeavour, hovering in the sky, his breath ragged, his body smoking.
Below, the crowd roared.
And in the distance,
A glacier of ice surged upward, and atop it, Shoto stood, his left side ablaze. Their eyes met momentarily.
No words. Just a nod.
Endeavour exhaled.
Then he turned, his flames igniting anew, and he shot forward towards Tokyo.
He wasn't done yet.
***
There was panic in the air. Midoriya's red boots crunched over shattered glass as he and Uraraka weaved through the wreckage of Hero's Eve, scanning for stragglers. Most civilians had been evacuated to the underground shelters, but the ones left behind were worse than lost. They were feral.
A man, frothing at the mouth, lunged at a woman clutching her child. Uraraka was there before Midoriya could blink. Her palm slapped against the attacker's chest, her fingers brushing fabric before her quirk took hold. The man floated, limbs flailing wildly, until Uraraka jabbed two fingers into his pressure point. His eyes rolled back, body going limp.
"Got him," she called, breathless but steady. She guided his unconscious form to the ground with a careful nudge.
Midoriya nodded, scanning the street. "There's another shelter two blocks east. We need to keep them away from it, if whatever's making them like this is contagious, we can't risk spreading it."
His mind raced, synapses firing faster than his quirk ever could. The symptoms, violent outbursts, erratic movements, no sign of airborne toxins. No overwhelming chemical stench cutting through the festival's greasy fried food aroma.
"Its not the air," he muttered. "Its something they ingested. Food or drinks. Probably tasteless and odorless, otherwise someone would have noticed something."
Uraraka's nose wrinkled. "We haven't eaten anything..."
"Exactly." Midoriya exhaled sharply. "Which means we're clean. But we need to—"
A gust of wind sliced past him.
Too fast. Too deliberate.
His spine locked.
"Uraraka—!"
Her name barely left his lips before the sound hit, a crunch like a car wreck, a scream cut short.
Midoriya whirled.
Uraraka was gone.
No, not gone. Embedded.
The wall of a nearby café had shattered, a jagged crater blown through brick and steel. In the center, limp as a ragdoll, Uraraka slumped forward, blood dripping from her temple in thick, sluggish ribbons. The civilian she'd been carrying lay beside her, motionless.
And standing over them, grinning, was a villain that had made quite a name for himself. Muscular.
the villain cracked his neck, his grotesquely swollen muscles rippling under his skin like living armour. "Oops," he drawled. "Guess I hit her harder than I meant to."
Midoriya's vision narrowed.
His pulse vanished.
His body moved before he thought.
One For All ignited.
Green lightning erupted from his skin, the pavement beneath him splintering as power flooded his veins. His teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached.
Muscular's grin widened. "There he is! The little hero himself!" He stretched his arms, tendons snapping like whipcords. "League's got a hit list, y'know. And guess what? You're the only name on it."
Midoriya didn't care.
He didn't care about hit lists. Didn't care about taunts. Didn't even care about breathing.
All he saw was Uraraka's blood.
All he felt was rage.
Pure. Primal. Unfiltered.
Muscular chuckled, rolling his shoulders. "Man, I'm glad I ran into you first. Been itchin' to see what you're made of."
Midoriya's voice came out low. Deadly. "Muscular."
The villain paused.
"You've killed heroes," Midoriya said. "You've slaughtered civilians. You enjoy it." His fists trembled, energy coiling in his bones. "But tonight? You don't get to hurt anyone else."
Muscular barked a laugh. "Oh? And who's gonna stop me? YOU?"
Midoriya's eyes glowed.
"Yes."
A beat.
Then—
"I'm the hero named Champion. And I'm putting you down right here and right now."
Muscular's grin twisted.
"Just try it."
The world erupted. The same mini earthquake again. "Seems like Gigantomachia is getting closer."
Midoriya ignored the mans words.
Instead he launched himself forward. And so did Muscular. Muscular was a blur of enhanced muscle and murderous intent. His fist ballooned, knuckles bulging grotesquely as he swung.
Midoriya ducked.
The punch missed, but the air pressure alone shattered the street behind him. Midoriya spun, his leg whipping upward in a roundhouse that caved into Muscular's legs.
The villain skidded back, laughing. "That all?"
Midoriya didn't answer.
He attacked.
Fists hammered into Muscular's guard, each strike louder than a gunshot. The villain blocked, but Midoriya didn't let up. He feinted left, then jabbed two fingers into Muscular's throat—
"Ghk—!"
Muscular staggered, eyes bulging.
Midoriya grabbed his arm.
"SMASH!"
A detonation of force rocketed through Muscular's shoulder, tearing muscle from bone. The villain roared, his free hand swelling as he swung.
Midoriya leaped, flipping over the blow.
His knee slammed into Muscular's jaw.
Teeth shattered.
Muscular spat blood, grinning. "Now that's more like it!"
Midoriya landed, stance low, eyes burning. His movements have gotten better since the start of the year thanks to his extra training with Iida and mina.
He would have to thank them later when he found them, but for now...
The fight wasn't over.
Soon a loud voice blasted over the city. It was Mt. Lady, he could see her enlarged silhouette in the distance, but some more voices were heard over it.
And they were saying.
"EVERYBODY!" That was Kirishima.
"TWICE HAS MADE DOZENS OF CLONES OF THE LEAGUE OF VILLAIN MEMBERS SO DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN!" And Kaminari too.
What!
Midoriya tuned out the announcement, it was just the same thing but by Mt. Lady as well. He looked to Muscular and was beginning to doubt. That was until the man spat out one of his loose tooth and cracked a smile.
"No need to worry 'Champion'. I'm the real deal. I wouldn't let Twice make a clone of me to steal the fun."
.
.
.
Good.
That was all Midoriya had thought in the moment.
He wanted to obliterate the real him. Not a fake.
"So lets go again Champion. Lets fill the streets with our blood!"
Lets!