Ordination

Without a second thought, Midoriya launched himself back up the stairs he’d almost just descended. The tectonic plates were going to rupture… That wasn’t actually possible, was it? He looked around as he went back up, the walls were shaking and small cracks were beginning to form almost everywhere he looked. “We need to make sure that the others are able to get out too.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already come up with a plan for that,” the copy of Mr. Aurdel said, “Because of the fighting, everyone should still be where they were before. The other me should have already broken out through the sanctum to get the Longsword back on the beach, he’ll likely have picked up Bakugo along the way. That means we just need to find Mirko and Issac.”

“And you know where they are?”

“I took navigational data while we were making our way in, so I know where we left them. I also took a readout of the facility while I was in their systems so I have a map of exactly where we need to go if you don’t remember.”

“Alright, let’s…Woah.” As Midoriya finally made his way back atop the stairs he found himself in back in the sanctum, a massive gaping hole stretching upward through the mountain to reveal the sky. “How did you-“

“We don’t have the time, keep moving!”

“R-right!” Midoriya got back to it, flinging himself through the hallways at one hundred percent. The further he went the more time he spent, and the more time that passed what started as a quiet rumble began getting progressively louder and louder. Eventually he made it all the way back to where Mirko had been separated from them, and he peered into the hole. “Mirko, are you there?!”

“Yeah, I’m right here kid.” She hobbled into view from the floor below, walking with a slight limp. Her body was completely battered with blood and bruises, even having the tip of one of her ears torn off.

“You’re hurt pretty bad!” He offered her a hand, pulling her up to his level.

“Yeah, well, you should see the other guy.” Even in a moment like this, and in the state she was in, she was able to put on a smirk. “So, did we get the bombs or what?”

“We stopped the bombs, but something else is going on and we need to get to the surface. There’s a hole in the sanctum that will give you an easy way up. Once you’re there just look for Mr. Aurdel.”

As soon as he went to turn around, Mirko grabbed his shoulder. “Where exactly are you going then? If we need to get to the surface then-“

“I’m going to go find Issac, we’re not leaving anyone behind.”

She stared in silence for a moment, then let go of his shoulder. “Alright, if you’re confident that you’re going to make it back then I won’t stop you. But you better make it back.”

“I will!” The two then split up, with Mirko making her way towards the sanctum while Midoriya went back the way they came. With no Villains or soldiers pursuing him to worry about, he was able to move much more quickly than he had the first time through. And within less than a minute he’d flung himself back to where they’d left the lone Australian soldier. “Issac!”

“I’m almost done here kid, there’s just a few of them left to go!” Issac peaked back around the corner with his rifle, opening fire on the groups of Humarise’s soldiers that were still trying to push towards the sanctum. On that same side was a mountain of corpses, gunned down as they hurled themself in front of Issac with the vain attempt at getting past. But on the opposite side Issac was on his last legs, riddled with bullets and leaning against the wall.

“We don’t have the time to stay here and fight them!” Rather than argue with him, Midoriya used Blackwhip to grab him and pull him away from the cover. Then he began launching himself down the hallway once again.

“Kid, put me down. I can walk by myself!”

“If I let you walk then we might both get killed!” By now the rumbling had become immense, the entire base was visibly shaking down. What were small cracks before began to rapidly expand and spread out. Sections of the ground began to crumble and chunks of the ceiling began to fall.

“What the hell is going on?!” Issac shouted, narrowly avoiding getting wiped out by a chunk of concrete.

He bit his lip, “I’m not sure, but I’d rather not stick around to find out. Smash!” He kicked through a chunk of rubble that fell directly in his path, plunging forward.

“Hold on, that section is about to collapse!” The hallway in front of them completely fell apart, the ceiling and walls collapsing and letting in a veritable landslide of rock and dirt. Their way forward was blocked.

“Mr. Aurdel?!”

“Already on it, go back two sections and break through the first wall on your right. Then you’ll want to keep going forward for one section, after that you break through the first wall on the left and you’ll be back on the right path.”

“Got it!” Midoriya quickly turned around and began following the given directions, moving as quickly as he could. “Smash!” He burst through the wall and turned, kicking forward.

“I might have overestimated just how much time we had, I’ve never actually seen the first hand occurrence of a tectonic failure.”

“Could you not tell us that while we’re still trying to get out of here alive?!” Issac shouted.

“Smash!” Midoriya kicked through the last wall, returning to the main path and moving as quickly as he could.

“Holy shit!” As he moved forward the hallway he was running through began to cave in, narrowly keeping ahead of it as he pushed himself to his limit. “We barely made it!” They finally emerged at the end of the hallway, running into the sanctum. By now landslides has begun falling in to the large pit, with massive rocks and trees still rooted to huge chunks of dirt being dragged in with all the dirt. The sky had turned almost completely orange.

Midoriya jumped from one solid section to another, making his way up the still moving landslide. “We need to get to the plane!”

“There, I see it!” Issac pointed towards it, flying high above them in the sky. “But how the hell are we supposed to get up there?”

“We’re going to grab on as it's passing by and pull ourselves on.”

“As it’s passing by? Don’t you know how fast that fucking thing goes?!”

Mr. Aurdel dropped a set of flares into the air, indicating the path that he would take when he circled back around. “He’ll slow down.”

“Jesus Christ, we’re about to get turned into mist on a windshield.” The plane dove down for its approach, shutting off the engines and slowing itself down. As soon as he saw that the ramp was down Midoriya prepared himself.

“We’re not going to die.”

“It sure as hell seems like it!” He screamed as Midoriya jumped into the air, holding onto him with one arm as he used the other to create a net with Blackwhip and latched onto the front of the plane. Once their position had stabilized he reduced the coverage and focused on getting onto the ramp itself, pulling them towards it.

“Come on!” Mr. Aurdel descended to the edge of the ramp, offering his arm. Midoriya then wrapped Blackwhip around it and was pulled in.

“We’re losing too much speed!” Bakugo shouted from above. Mr. Aurdel quickly then ran back into the cockpit and sat down at the controls, turning the engines back on and closing a ramp once they were all safely inside.

Midoriya let out a sigh of relief as he finally got a chance to breathe, “What do we do now?”

“You’re all going to get into the seats I’ve installed in the back, hook up one of the oxygen masks and strap yourselves in. We’re about to get into a dogfight.”

“…This message is being broadcast at the request of the Provisional Japanese Wartime Government. At nine forty five PM, Japanese Standard Time, a disaster of unknown type occurred off the eastern coast of Otheon. Following this disaster, major geological activity had been observed by survey stations across the globe. Due to the widespread events and overlapping over a number of earthquakes, the magnitudes of the earthquakes affecting Japan directly is currently indeterminate. Regardless, all individuals are advised to shelter in place until tremors from the earthquakes have ceased. Following the cessation of tremors, it is advised that anyone within twenty kilometers of the coastline on all sides of the country should evacuate further into the interior as quickly as possible. When traveling it is likely that you will come across newly formed volcanic fissures. If you come into contact with them, it is advised that you do not attempt to cross them and instead travel around them. A special advisory has also been put in place due to the mass breakout of Villains in prisons across the country, and all civilians are permitted to take whatever actions necessary to defend themselves. All Heroes assigned to the UA defense sector are to-”

Aurdel took the data chip from Midoriya and slotted it back into the main console, the AI taking partial control of the Longswords systems as he sat down at the controls. Then he stared straight out the canopy. Below him the earth had practically split wide open, massive gashes ripping apart landmasses to expose flows of magma that flooded their ways to the surface. Huge waves of water came up and down, thrown into the air by the force of tectonic plates being broken apart and forced towards the surface. The sights he saw in front of him… they were something he’d wished he’d never needed to see again.

“...The actions that you’ve taken have left a black mark across the world. From the lives that you’ve taken on a senselessly violent self-righteous crusade to force your ideology upon the world, to all the homes that you’ve managed to destroy in the crossfire. I am their vengeance made manifest, and I have come to haunt you. You… are responsible for this.” Twenty three aircraft lay in front of him, twenty two being unmanned variants of standard Chinese aircraft and one being the experimental aircraft that led the formation.

He tightened his grip around the controls, “You piece of shit…” Aurdel punched the afterburner and dove straight into the center of the formation just like he’d done the previous time, opening fire with the one hundred and ten millimeter rotary gun in an attempt to knock out the lead aircraft. Two of the drones quickly dove into the line of fire, absorbing the bullets and closing in so quickly that he was forced to break away in order to avoid a head-on collision with the aircraft. After passing over the enemy he shut off the engines and bled the speed, flipping the aircraft one hundred and eighty degrees before re-engaging.

“You took the lives of my family, my friends and my countrymen. Tell me, do you think they deserved it? Did they deserve to die just because they were following the orders given to them?” The swarm of drones quickly managed to turn, seemingly possessing better flight characteristics than the aircraft they were based off of. Aurdel dropped chaff and flares as they let loose with their missiles, simultaneously pumping the afterburners to pull hard turns and avoid the ones that managed to keep track of him. “What gives you that right when you deny it to so many others?”

He grit his teeth, mumbling under his breath. “...That’s how war is, people live and people die. If they stood in the way of protecting what I want to keep safe, then so be it.” He leveled out the Longsword and rushed his way towards the flight lead again, the drones swarming him once more. As missile tones blared in his ears he increased his speed and made a sharp turn upwards, punching it straight towards the sky before veering to the side and suddenly bleeding all his speed. He spun the aircraft into position as the drones blew past him, blind firing one of the ASGM-10s before remotely detonating it within the cluster of drones. The ensuing explosion wiped out six of the unmanned aircraft, an unsurprising result given that the missile had enough explosives in it to punch through the hull of a warship. He then grit his teeth as the shockwave hit him, the immense force coming from the fact that these weapons were meant to be used in space.

“Do you even recognize all the evil acts that you’re responsible for?! You just showed up in Japan one day and started acting like you owned the place and knew best, then you fell under the control of the west and became a tool! Any reasonable nation and people would have thrown you out for causing so much destruction, but all because you acted like a puppet they allowed you to stay!” The lead aircraft soared its way towards him, opening fire with what appeared to be a pair of railguns and laser weaponry. Aurdel spun the Longsword as the bolts of light went flying by, weaving through the lingering trails of ionized air that remained. “But it seems that you possess no true loyalty, because in the end you turned on those that supported you and overthrew the very nation that took you in. That is why we invaded Japan and the rest of Asia! To rid the world of the kind of ideas that mold men into monsters like you.” He brought the Longsword about to fake the lead craft, opening fire with the rotary gun and once more forcing two of the drones to dive in and take the hits. Aurdel felt like he was gritting his teeth with enough force to bite through concrete, being forced to take part in this battle and listen to this conversation. “I won’t allow you to be a dictator that takes the lives of innocent people!”

At that moment, he had had it. Aurdel flipped the transmitter back on. “Do you know how audacious it is to call ME evil? How ridiculous it is to call ME a dictator? Or how absolutely insane it is to say that I have been killing innocents?! You have no idea just how much I’ve been restraining myself to prevent needles killing and wanton destruction!”

“You have shown absolutely no restraint!” The lead craft fired off a barrage of micro-missiles, bursting out of a pod and all independently seeking the Longsword. He dropped chaff and flares again to avoid them as railgun fire soon followed suit. “You’re just making excuses to-!”

“NO RESTRAINT?!” His voice practically cracked as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “If I was acting with no restraints, then I would have walked into every prison and summarily executed every prisoner that I came across! If I had no restraint, I wouldn’t have waited until the government was literally trying to kill me before overthrowing them. IF I HAS NO RESTRAINT, I WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR ON THE SECOND DAY BY USING THE NUCLEAR WARHEAD I STOLE FROM AMERICA TO BLOW UP THE THREE GORGES DAM AND TURN HALF OF CHINA INTO A NUCLEAR SWAMP! YOU KNOW WHY I DIDN'T? BECAUSE I DON’T BELIEVE IN TAKING THE LIVES OF INNOCENTS! SOMETHING YOU’VE NEVER DONE!”

“That’s a lie! You’re just trying to-“

“DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS DONE? WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!” He got himself in position and opened fire on the aircraft, shields flaring up as dozens of the rounds impacted one after another. The remaining drones soon came swarming over. “YOUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN IMPRISONING AND KILLING MILLIONS OF INNOCENTS FOR DECADES, SO MANY PEOPLE SENTENCED TO THEIR FATES ALL BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T FALL IN LINE WITH THE PARTY’S STANDARDS! YOUR GENERALS CARPET BOMBED HALF OF ASIA IN A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE TO SUPPORT THEIR WAR, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE THAT KILLED?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU’VE KILLED?!” He turned the aircraft around, focusing on engaging the drones and blowing through another three of them with the guns.

“Everything I did in service of my country was to protect the workers and people of the world! I won’t be spoken down to-!”

“PROTECT?!” He screamed the word out. Aurdel bled a tremendous amount of speed, dropping open the ventral bay and revealing the one hundred and twenty millimeter gun. In two bursts of its fire the remaining drones were destroyed. He weaved between a hail of lasers and missiles. “YOU’VE DESTABILIZED THE EARTH’S CORE AND SHATTERED NEARLY EVERY TECTONIC PLATE, THE DESTRUCTION FROM THAT ALONE WILL CAUSE THE DEATHS OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! BUT THAT DOESN’T INCLUDE THE TSUNAMIS THAT WILL KILL MILLIONS MORE, OR ALL THE VOLCANOES AND CALDERAS THAT ARE GOING TO FILL THE ATMOSPHERE WITH ASH AND WORSEN THE FALLING TEMPERATURES TO DESTROY AT LEAST HALF OF ALL HABITABLE LAND! IF EVEN A TENTH OF THE POPULATION SURVIVES IT WILL BE A FUCKING MIRACLE!”

“Liar!” The voice on the other side of the conversation cracked, as if the pilot didn’t entirely believe himself what he was saying. “You’re coming up with excuses to blame me for your own atrocities! I won’t listen!” Aurdel bore down on the aircraft, the Longsword shaking as he fired both main guns and pounded the enemy’s shields. But it was to no avail. It seemed like there was a constant flow of power going to the shields when its weapons weren’t firing, meaning that it would be impossible to punch through if he treated this as a normal dogfight. FIne, then he’d treat this like he was fighting the Covenant.

“Take the controls, I’m going to take him down myself.”

“Don’t act so irrationally,” the AI of him snapped back, “We’ve already destroyed the drones and determined his firing pattern, all we need to do is-”

“And you shouldn’t act so robotically!” He turned the Longsword, avoiding a barrage of missiles. “You know just how much destruction they’ve caused, how many lives they’ve taken.”

“The number of deaths is horrific, yes. I won’t deny that. But there’s no reason for you to take them all so personally.”

“No reason?” He pulled hard again, allowing the fighter to blow past the Longsword. “The reason he showed up here is because he felt that I slighted him, that was the reason he used that weapon to try and kill me! He’s ending the world, because of ME! How am I supposed to not take that personally?!”

After that they both went silent for a moment, the only sounds that could be heard were that of roaring engines and guns firing. “Fine, but I’ll damage his craft first. There’s no sense in making this any more difficult than it needs to be.” The AI took control of the Longsword, Aurdel standing up and moving to the ramp. Despite not looking through the canopy he could feel as they veered upward into the sky to bait the enemy pilot. As soon as they began to open fire the Longsword made a sharp one eighty, using both the one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty millimeter guns to fire on the targets as its shields lowered to attack. After hearing two bursts rip out he then opened the ramp, spotting the aircraft.

“I WON’T LOSE TO YOU!” He estimated that only three rounds had managed to hit the aircraft with its shields down, but they had been incredibly effective. One of the engines had been destroyed, one of the wings was partially shorn off and a few of its weapons were torn to shreds. The two then circled around and came at each other from head on, both firing their weapons. Aurdel then leapt out of the Longsword and came crashing into the fighter, smashing through the canopy and driving his fist into the frame to keep himself from being thrown off. As the pilot violently shook in an attempt to throw him off he would climb forward, punching holes until he eventually reached the broken canopy. There he shoved one fist in, grabbed the controls and forced the aircraft into a nosedive before breaking the flight stick. He then ripped his hand back and grabbed the pilot's seat, tearing it out of the cockpit and watching the plane as it slammed into the ground and exploded into a fireball. He then opened his wings and slowed their descent to the ground, landing on his feet.

He grabbed the pilot's helmet, “Do you have any idea what you’ve-!” Upon removing it he took a step back, needing a moment to get out the last word in his sentence. “Done…?”

“I know what I’ve done, but what other choice did I have?!” The face underneath the helmet was that of a young boy, with tears streaming down his face. He couldn’t have been any older than thirteen. “The Colonel was the only one that took me in and raised me. If I didn’t do what I did, I would have gone against everything that he did for me.”

Aurdel could see the look in his eyes, it was the same one that he and all the other Spartans had. Someone so young, being made to take lives for a cause they never really understood. “You’re like me…” He sat down on the ground next to the boy, taking off his own helmet. One look was all the boy needed to understand what he’d meant.

And so for a moment, they say in silence together. “How old were you when they took you?”

Aurdel lowered his head, “Five, though it was a little less than two months before my birthday when I was kidnapped.”

“I was three when the Colonel found me. I went with him because I had nowhere to go, nothing to lose. At first all I had was him, then I was able to talk with other people through my quirk.”

“Other people?”

“After I was given my quirk, I began to have dreams where I was able to speak to the people who previously had it. They told me not to listen to the Colonel, said he was a bad man who wanted to do bad things,” the boy looked down, “I wish I had listened.”

Aurdel shook his head, “You were never given a real choice.”

“Even if I didn’t have a choice, I still did a bad thing. And I need to be punished for that.” He looked up, “Can you help me?”

He was conflicted… but Aurdel knew what the boy wanted. “Yes.”

Aurdel unholstered his magnum, and the boy turned his head. “Thank you.” Aurdel closed his eyes as he raised the gun, “Do you think I’ll be able to meet those people I spoke to? That I’ll be able to apologize for not listening to them?”

“I believe that as long as you're honest with yourself and truly feel regret for your actions, then it’s never too late to apologize. And I think they’ll understand that too.”

“I see. Thank you.”

With his gun pointed to the back of the boy's head, he took a deep breath.

And then…

Last Legs

Midoriya and the others watched as Mr. Aurdel walked back over to the Longsword, soon stepping in. Held at his side was his helmet, and across the bottom of his armor there was a single spatter of blood. Not one of them dared to say a word. “…My son. You remind me of my son.”

Midoriya was caught completely off guard. “What did you say?”

Mr. Aurdel collapsed onto the floor, leaning against one of the walls. The others quickly gathered around. “Some time ago you asked me who it was that you reminded me of. It was my son.”

“You never said you had a son…” Mirko said.

“Rumi, that day when we went for drinks and I was pouring my heart out… Everything I told you was true. It’s just that I didn’t say everything that happened to me.”

“How much of it then?”

“In twenty five thirty eight I was still serving in the navy, at that time I still hadn’t yet been reintegrated because the augmentation procedures were still being tuned in order tos hit my body. That same year I went on leave after an important victory and ended up falling in love with and having an affair with the female captain of another ship. That relationship ended up producing a child, my son. Aric.”

“That’s why you were trying to care for me so much…” The dots of previous events connected in his head.

“Before Aric was born, everything that I had once had in my life was taken away from me. My biological parents, my real family and the childhood I was supposed to have, the purpose that I was trained for years to shoulder and then so many of my friends. But at that moment, when he was born, I truly had something in my life that I could celebrate and hold onto. So I held onto him for as long as I could.”

“But they made you let go.”

Mr. Aurdel lowered his head, “I tried my absolute hardest, God knows that I did everything I could. I tried to get married, but was denied service by the government and every church I approached. I tried to leave the Navy, but was refused on the grounds of the ongoing war effort and draft. I tried to get dishonorably or medically discharged, but every time the board was swayed to keep me in service. I even tried to desert outright, but was captured and dragged kicking and screaming back into service. Eventually years passed by and my ship went down at Psi Serpentis, something that I have reason to believe was planned beforehand to ensure I wouldn’t cause any more trouble.” He shook his head, “Because I was away for the battle and labeled dead, agents from ONI were able to get close to my family and started shadowing them. Then when I was pulled out of the wreckage and told about it, I knew that they were holding them hostage and threatening to kill them if I didn’t comply.”

“You can’t blame yourself for giving in!” Midoriya said, “You were put in an extremely difficult situation, if you didn’t comply then-“

“Yeah, I told myself that excuse a lot. It never worked.” He covered his face, “From then on that was how they kept me in line. Eventually I managed to get out a message to them through an old friend, but the message I got back from my wife told me that for my sake I should try and move on. But I couldn’t. If I did that I would have been completely abandoning my son, and after losing so much I just couldn’t accept that.” Mr. Aurdel sighed, “Years of fighting went by and eventually I was called back to Reach alongside all the other Spartans. Within days we were fighting for our lives as the Covenant attacked and invaded the planet, killing hundreds of millions of people. By the end of the battle I’m so injured that I’m on death's doorstep, dragging the dead and injured with me into a titanium mine to avoid the orbital bombardment that I knew was coming. I put all the others into cryosleep with the hope that I would eventually be able to get them help, but as soon as I finished I passed out from my injuries. I thought for sure I was dead.” He lifted his head, “But then, after hearing what sounded like voices, I woke up. When I did I saw that, miraculously, all of my injuries had been healed and my armor had been repaired. Whatever had happened, divine intervention or some occurrence, I didn’t care. I took my chances and clawed my way out of that mine to a ship on the surface, taking it with the hopes of both finding my family without ONI knowing and getting help for the Spartans still in the mine. But the slipspace drive malfunctioned, and somehow I ended up in this world. Unable to perform the slipspace jump again I left the ship to see what I could find on the surface. I ended up landing in the middle of the League’s attack on the training camp, and that was how I found you.” He looked at Midoriya, “I knew that you couldn’t be Aric, the whole situation was enough to tell me that. But that didn’t matter. The way you acted, and the way you looked, was so similar that it caused my fight or flight response to kick in and protect you. Ever since they’ve been constantly kicking in as I to keep you in arms reach and protect you. It’s part of the reason my behavior kept escalating so badly. I needed to put an end fo the League, I needed to end the corruption and I needed to try and prevent the war… all so I could see someone who looked like my son grow up in peace.”

“What about me?” Mirko asked.

“Rumi, everything that I feel for you is genuine. But the reason I was so hesitant to ever say any of me feelings outright, or do anything too intimate, was because I wasn’t sure if I was ever ready to take on a new relationship. I couldn't bear the idea of losing someone again.” He lowered his head again. “Even so, at times I wasn’t sure if anything around me was even real. The cynical part of me thought I was still in the mine’s bunker, bleeding out on the floor and my mind gave me one last hurrah in the form of a bunch of complex hallucinations. Eventually I’d sign real or not that I would do everything I could to make things happen the way I wanted them to go.” He took a heavy breath, holding back what sounded like a hurricane of emotions. “But acting like that meant that I wasn’t telling the truth to anyone around me. And all this is the end result.”

At first, none of them were quite sure how to respond. Then, Bakugo spoke. “Lies or not, you were still trying to do the right thing even if you couldn’t do it alone. In my book, that’s good enough for me.”

“There are a lot of piece of shit out there,” Mirko said, “And while you may have done some crap, you’d be overselling yourself if you thought that you were responsible for everything that’s gone wrong.”

He looked up. “I… I was expecting a more hostile response. You’re not angry?”

“Oh no, I am definitely angry. Even if it might have not been my right to know I still would have liked to know about your last relationship. But ultimately we’re partners, and I’d be a dumb rabbit to not try and forgive you.”

“I guess you have a point.”

As he stood back up, Issac interjected himself into the conversation. “Not to butt into a bunch of personal drama I don’t have any stake in or anything, but what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“The world has essentially been thrust straight into the apocalypse without any warning. The only thing we can do is go back to our homes and try to stabilize the situation.”

“For us that means going back to Japan,” the AI copy said, “Though it’s up to you to decide what you want to do.”

“What about all the soldiers on the ground here?”

“We can give them twenty minutes to get aboard, but that’s all the time we can afford them. If the damage here is as bad as it is in Japan then it’s likely that the prisons have broken open, giving All For One a chance to escape. And if there’s anyone I expect to make a grab for power it’s him.”

“All For One?”

“All For One has the goal of taking over the world, and is indirectly responsible for the Third World War and the apocalypse that’s going on now.”

Issac shifted, “In that case I don’t think I’ll be heading back to Australia just yet. If he’s responsible for the war, then it means he’s responsible for the deaths of my mates. Something like that needs to be answered for.”

“Mr. Aurdel, what about everyone who’s still in Japan?”

“We’ll just need to hope that they can hold out until we make it back.”

Aizawa woke up to find himself in a complete stupor. The last thing he remembered before falling unconscious was the conclusion of the fight against Overhaul. With Honenuki’s help they had managed to trap the Yakuza boss inside a lake of liquid concrete and asphalt, constantly shifting so he never had a chance to touch something solid and attack them. Mineta then, after helping to restrain the other Yakuza members, restrained Overhaul’s arms behind his back in a way that left him unable to touch anything. But suddenly after that the ground had begun to shake, the already cracked and damaged roads completely splitting open. Some point after that he received a face full of rubble and was knocked out, now he was bleeding from the back of his head and feeling the effects of what he assumed was a concussion. Aizawa sat up, “Is everyone alright?”

“I think we’re about as alright as we can be,” Mineta said. Given the circumstances, that was probably a fair comment to make.

“We need to get back to the campus and-” As he stood up and turned around, he saw Daitaian. “Daitaian, what are you doing?”

“If Chisaki manages to escape again, there will never be any end to the torture that he plans for Eri. I don’t intend on allowing that to happen.” He was pressing a gun up against the side of Overhaul’s head, his finger resting on the trigger.

Overhaul, meanwhile, was trapped on the ground and unable to move with his hands fixed behind his back. “I should have known that it was you who betrayed me, destroying the organization that the old man built. You always held too tightly onto your morals, but I let you stay because you had the boss’s blood in you.”

“And Eri? She had the boss’s blood too, but you tortured her and treated her like a tool to be used.”

“You’re stating an oxymoron,you can’t torture a tool. Not that it matters. Her relation to the boss became moot when she was disowned by her mother, and her blood meant nothing.”

“You son of a…”

“You don’t have it in you to kill me. If you did that, you’d lose the only chance you have at fixing the boss and-” Overhaul was cut off as Daitaian pulled the trigger, ending his life with a single bullet.

“It’s a kinder fate for him to never know just how far you’ve gone.”

Aizawa narrowed his brow, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Arrest me if you have to, but I won’t allow it to be said that death wasn’t something he deserved.”

A new voice spoke out. “Oh yes, he deserved to die. That much is true. But I really wish you hadn’t killed him. Finding one particularly useful quirk is a boon, but finding so many in one place is more than a miracle.”

“Brace yourself!” Gentle suddenly jumped in the way of both of them, creating an elastic barrier mere moments before a powerful blast of compressed air blew through the area. The barrier barely held its ground.

“See what I mean? A quirk capable of creating elastic barriers, ones strong enough to take the same blasts that were able to exhaust All Might… And it was born to a C-list Villain.”

“I am no longer a Villain! I was-”

“Yes, I heard what Spartan did.”

This voice…! “All For One!” AIzawa opened his eyes wide, using his Erasure to halt All For One’s quirks.

“And to see that you too are alive, Eraserhead. It makes me happy.” Daitaian raised his pistol to fire at All For One. “Oh no, we can’t be having that.” A series of lasers fired from somewhere off to the side, severing Daitain’s hands and leaving him to clutch the stumps..

There was another Villain! “Monoma!”

“I’ve got it!” Monoma quickly used his copy of Erasure, catching the other Villain in his line of sight.

“And this boy, he has a quirk not too dissimilar to mine. It’s a shame that it’s wasted on a career such as this.”

“Yes, perhaps I should have pruned him from your school early on. That way Garaki would have had some time to work on him. Not that it matters now, Garaki’s death makes it a moot suggestion.” The Villain that had fired the lasers looked much different from All For One, but the way he spoke was almost exactly the same. It was as if one mind was trying to inhabit two different bodies.

“We should really get out of here now!” Mineta shouted.

“By all means, leave. I have no intention to slaughter you all here and now. That wouldn’t produce the effect I desire. Of course if you do plan to leave I would hurry. The prisoners that have been freed will soon be here, and they won’t be nearly as kind as I am.” All For One raised his hands, “Then again, who’s to say that I’m not lying? I could very well strike while your back is turned and kill you all.” Aizawa and the others quickly regrouped, All For One and the Villain standing next to each other in plain sight. “The choice is-“

“-up to you,” the Villain finished. Aizawa grit his teeth, there was absolutely no way that they could trust what All For One was saying. If they turned their backs the two of them would completely obliterate them, likely taking their quirks before outright killing them. He couldn’t allow that to happen, but he also knew that if they stayed to try and capture All For One they would ultimately be overrun. “The clock is ticking Eraserhead, you should make your decision now unless you really wish to meet your friend Shirakumo in the afterlife.” He bit his lip in anger, weighing the options. Maybe they could defeat the Villains that were coming if he used his Erasure on them, but if All For One even had a second to leave his sight…

Monoma put a hand on his shoulder, “It doesn’t look like we have much of a choice.” He spoke in a slightly joking but also nervous manner, “The end boss is in front of us, and we can’t even defeat him without being killed. And the only two people that can definitively hold him back are right here, with one needing to stay behind while the other prepares.”

“I’m not going to leave a student-”

He shook his head, “Remember, we’re all Heroes. We got our licenses. Besides, my quirk has a time limit. Yours doesn’t.” Aizawa squeezed his fist shut, not wanting to admit it.

“I”ll stay behind too,” Kirishima said, “I’m busted up pretty badly, and I don’t think even if I make it back I’ll be able to do much. The least I can do is stall them here.”

“Kirishima…”

“Make your decision,” Monoma said, keeping his hand on him to ensure that his time limit would count down from its peak once he left.

“I…” Aizawa took a deep breath, “Gentle, get us back to UA. We need to inform everyone about what’s happening.

“...Of course.” They all quickly turned, with Gentle leading the way as he made the platforms for them to bounce back towards UA. He couldn’t help but look back as Kirishima and Monoma stayed behind, staring down All For One.