The alley reeked of garbage and scorched concrete. He didn't know where the fire had come from but it didn't matter. There was a hero crumpled against the wall. his once pristine costume torn and slick with blood, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps. He had tried to run. That was his first mistake.
Stain stood over him, the jagged edge of his sword glinting under the light of the moon, its tip still dripping. The hero's hands trembled as they clutched at his throat, fingers slipping against the wound that had not yet finished killing him. His lips moved, forming words that never made it past the blood filling his mouth.
"You... you don't... understand..."
Stain's eyes burned behind his tattered mask, his voice was low, grating and raspy.
"I understand perfectly."
He shifted his grip on the sword, the leather of his gloves creaking. The hero flinched, his pupils dilating in animal terror.
"You took an oath," Stain continued, stepping closer, his shadow swallowing the man whole. "Swore to protect the weak. To stand when others fell. And yet..." He tilted his head, the motion slow, deliberate. "The moment the world shook, you fled. Abandoned your post. Left the people to drown in the chaos while you hid from the dark like a little boy."
The hero choked, his body jerking as he tried to speak, to beg, to justify himself.
Stain's sword flashed.
The blade punched through the man's throat with a wet crunch, pinning him to the brick like a butterfly to cork. His legs kicked once, twice... then stilled.
Silence.
Stain exhaled through his nose, the scent of iron thick in the air. He yanked the sword free with a twist, letting the body slump to the ground.
Behind him, two figures lingered at the mouth of the alley, their presence as quiet as shadows. One stood tall, his posture oddly refined despite the grime of the city clinging to his coat. The other was small, almost childlike, her fingers twitching toward a device strapped to her wrist.
Stain didn't turn to look at them. He knew they were there, they hadn't snuck up on him or anything. They had just followed him since he got out of Hosu.
"Hosu," he muttered, flicking the blood from his blade. "That was a new beginning. A moment where false idols all began to rot and show their rot to the next generation." His fingers tightened around the hilt. "I was broken then. Forgotten about maybe, or maybe just left to die. But then I was found."
It was after he uttered those words he decided to turn the other way and look at the other two at the entrance of the alley.
There was a pause. A silent acknowledgement of two who had pulled him from the ashes.
"I came here because I knew. Knew the heroes would fail again. Knew that while the few brave fought, that many more would seek a chance to flee until it was time to preen for the cameras." His gaze lifted, scanning the skyline, news helicopters had began to fly in. Later than usual but they were still en route. "And I was right."
He thought of another objective as to why he was here.
The little green hero student. After doing some digging and searching around he had gotten a name. Izuku Midoriya, Hero name, Champion.
He remembered their first encounter just before they had all been transported into the game. The boy was tough and more hero like than Stain was used to while travelling. He was happy, he thought the next generation was a generation that stood for more than just a moment to shine in the flashy lights of camera filters.
But then he spotted a change, it was during their second fight.
The boys eyes seemed more tired, he was angrier, his tone was deeper. It would make sense though, being trapped in a man made game where he was forced to kill. But he had the heart of a hero... that's what Stain thought, even then.
So he was here to confirm it.
And so he did, he along with his two companions had watched the boy fight the hulking mass of growing flesh from the League. Now the boy was more like a car that had veered off course and had taken the path of a F1 racer even though it simply doesn't fit.
A weapon too dangerous to leave unchecked.
Stain's jaw clenched.
"He's strayed," he murmured, too low for even the shadows to hear. "Grown reckless. Monstrous. Another fake that needs to be purged."
The sword in his hand felt the same, light and wavy, easy to swing, quick and deadly in his hands. He was right. Someone with so much power to guide the future unchecked will only be devastating.
The ground trembled.
A shockwave ripped through the streets, rattling trash cans, shaking windows in their frames. Stain's head snapped toward the horizon, where a plume of dust and debris mushroomed into the sky.
That direction.
Where the helicopter was trying to get to.
That would be where All Might is, then.
Stain's fingers twitched.
"Well, the hunt isn't over."
***
Wash moved through the wreckage carefully, his water-based quirk swirling in restless eddies around his gloves, useless here, where the earth had been ripped apart and scorched dry by violence. Beside him, Gran Torino tapped along with a brittle rhythm against the pavement.
A building groaned, its skeleton buckling under unseen strain. Wash glanced toward the epicenter of the devastation, where the sky pulsed with the aftershocks of All Might and All For One's clash. His fingers twitched at his sides.
"We should..."
"We can't." Gran Torino didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The old hero's gaze remained fixed ahead, his jaw set beneath the shadow of his visor. "Not there. Not to him."
Wash exhaled, the sound swallowed by the distant thunder of collapsing stone. He knew the truth in those words. Some battles were beyond backup.
"Then we clear the field," Wash said, forcing steadiness into his voice. "Make sure he's got room to move."
Gran Torino gave a curt nod. "Look for stragglers. Anyone still breathing."
They moved in tandem, two veterans navigating the graveyard of a fight they'd arrived too late to join. The rubble shifted unnaturally underfoot, unstable as quicksand. A slab of concrete the size of a car shuddered, then stilled, then shuddered again.
Gran Torino froze.
Wash saw it too. "Under there..."
The old hero didn't wait. One burst of his jets sent him arcing forward, his boot connecting with the slab in a shower of sparks. It screeched aside, revealing the hollow beneath.
A figure lay curled in the dirt, half-buried in debris. Blood matted his dark hair, streaking his face in grotesque patterns. His chest rose and fell in shallow, stuttering motions, his fingers twitching as if grasping for a weapon no longer there.
Soryu... Kobe Arakawa.
Wash dropped to one knee, his gloves hovering over the boys injuries. "Christ. He's barely..."
"Alive. Yeah." Gran Torino's voice was gravel wrapped in steel. He studied Kobe's face, the slack mouth, the bruised eyelids fluttering like wounded moths. "Stubborn kid."
Wash gathered the boy into his arms, his quirk forming a makeshift sluice of water to cushion the movement. Kobe's head lolled against his shoulder, his breath a wet rasp.
"This is the one who's been feeding us intel?" Wash murmured. "He really is just a kid."
"A concern for later." Gran Torino adjusted his gloves, the motion sharp, final. "Right now, we owe him. So we move."
A beat. Then quieter.
"He'll fight again when he wakes. Kid's got that kind of steel."
Wash didn't argue. He'd seen the reports, the descriptions of the bodies left in his wake. A soldier in a war too old for him.
They retreated from the ruin's heart, Kobe's weight a silent accusation in Wash's arms. The air grew thicker as they neared the periphery, the scent of ozone and iron clotting in their throats. Gran Torino led with his shoulders hunched.
"We'll circle east," he muttered. "Check for - !"
The gunshot cracked the world in half.
Wash spun, water and bubbles surging instinctively to shield him. But the bullet hadn't been meant for him.
Gran Torino stood perfectly still. A bloom of red darkened the back of his sleeve, the fabric rippling just above his elbow. His cape yellow cape dropped to the ground like a feather.
"Torino!!"
The old hero didn't stagger. Didn't cry out. He simply turned, his body a wall between Wash and the figure emerging from the smoke.
Nighteye stepped into the light.
His glasses were gone. His usually immaculate suit hung in tatters, one sleeve ripped to the shoulder. The gun in his hand trembled, not from fear, but from something far worse looking. Something unhinged and wild.
"You." he breathed out, he almost sounded unrecognizable, although Wash was super-well acquainted with the man. "Thank you for bringing him so close. I was looking."
The barrel swung toward Kobe.
Gran Torino shifted his weight, his wounded arm hanging uselessly at his side. His other hand flexed, ready.
"Sir Nighteye," Wash said, his voice too loud in the sudden silence. "What the hell are you..."
"Drop him!" Nighteye's shout tore through the ruins, raw as an open nerve. "Drop him and let me finish him. Every move he makes there's major death. Ruin. Grief." Spittle flew from his lips. "And you carry him like some... some wounded lamb...!"
Gran Torino didn't flinch. "Put the gun down Mirai."
Nighteye turned to look at Gran Torino and strangely there seemed to be recognition in his eye. He stuttered and slowly mumbled out in a broken, strewn along sentence.
"Old... sir... Gran Torino Sir." he started. Wash watched in straight and utter confusion. "What happened? You're hurt." It was like he had forgotten the gun in his own hand was what was used to apply that hurt to his old partners mentor.
He then looked up again to see Soryu being held in a bubble by Wash.
"It was him wasn't it." his tone was left seething again and his eyes shined, even in the dark shadows wash could see them glow.
"No..." Wash gave as rebuttal, "It was you. You need to put the gun down so we can help you."
Nighteye marched forward swinging his gun-free hand in a wide swaying motion. "No. You need to drop that boy and let me end him. Or else we'll all be left to regret it."
Nighteye just sounded like a madman, it was like he had forgotten all about his prior acknowledgement of Gran Torino's hurt and was edging past him.
"Ever since he appeared with Overhaul. Everything started to go wrong since then." He screamed. "Overhaul was supposed to be captured and thrown in Tartarus. The public weren't supposed to start idolizing a vigilante. My agency weren't supposed to be attacked. Heroes weren't supposed to be on the losing front." He blurted it all out as rain started to pour down causing him to get even louder.
"But ever since he showed up and started poking his nose in everything... Things have just gone wrong. Everyone looks at me like a freak now! All Might's going to die! My quirk won't work like it used to. All Might's going to die! My own sidekicks are double if not triple questioning my methods that have always worked before. And... And All Might's going to die!!!"
He seemed to be in a state of panic. His breathing was all over the place.
To Wash. A hero losing his mind in the battlefield and it was not quirk-related was not something he thought he would be going through, it wasn't something he wanted to be going through on such a horrid day.
Gran Torino had already toppled over by now, the bullet wound had pierced straight through his left side as he protected him and Kobe from it.
It looked like Nighteye was stuck in thought. He kept saying All Might is going to die. And his gun was pointed at Kobe again.
It was like he was cutting one loss in favour of getting this one win. Killing this child that has helped hero society in the shadows.
Wash couldn't let that happen.
His quirk activated.
And.... BANG!!!
***
Dust hung suspended in great choking clouds, swirling lazily around All Might's battered form as he wiped a smear of blood from his split lip, his once-pristine costume now hanging in tatters that fluttered like battle standards in the superheated wind.
Across the ruined battlefield, All For One stood framed against the burning skyline, his silhouette distorted by the heat waves rising the molten scars their clash had carved into the city's flesh. The villains remaining eye gleamed with malicious amusement behind his shattered mask, his breath coming in steady, controlled rhythms despite the ruin of his body, a stark contrast to All Might's heaving chest and trembling limbs.
All For One's fingers twitched almost imperceptibly as he cycled through his stolen arsenal, each movement precise as a concert pianist selecting his next note. His right arm bulged grotesquely as kinetic energy thrummed beneath the skin, veins standing out like cables under the strain of some terrible, contained power.
At the same moment, his left hand blurred at the edges as spatial distortions warped the air around it, creating a shimmering halo of refracted light. All Might barely had time to register these changes before the villain was upon him, moving with that unnatural speed that defied his massive frame.
The first punch came from an impossible angle, All For One's enhanced arm twisting in ways human anatomy shouldn't allow as it sought All Might's ribs. The Symbol of Peace twisted aside at the last possible instant, feeling the displaced air tear at his wounds as the blow grazed past.
But before he could counter, something snaked around his ankle, a whip-like tendril of living flesh that had erupted from All For One's side without warning. The elastic appendage yanked viciously, sending All Might crashing face-first into the rubble-strewn ground, his teeth rattling from the impact.
"You rely too much on that brute strength, pinhead." All For One goaded, his voice was like a grotesque symphony of stolen tones that echoed unnaturally in the ruined cityscape. He flexed his fingers, watching with detached interest as the elastic flesh quivered and retracted back into his body. "It makes you... predictable."
All Might spat out a mouthful of blood and shattered concrete, his blue eyes burning with undimmed defiance even as his body protested every movement. With a grunt of effort, he rolled with the momentum of his fall, using the remaining tension in the tendril to catapult himself back to his feet in one fluid motion.
The counterattack came almost before he'd fully regained his balance, a piston-driven fist that caught All For One square in the shoulder in the solar plexus with enough force to crater a skyscraper.
The villains breath left him in a shocked gasp, his massive frame folding around the impact before he was launched backward like a discarded doll. He skidded through the ruins, carving a trench through reinforced concrete and twisted steel before finally coming to rest against the remains of a collapsed overpass. Dust and debris rained down around him as he slowly pushed himself upright, one hand pressed almost casually against his undoubtedly shattered ribs.
"Ah," he wheezed, that terrible amusement never leaving his voice. "there's that famous resilience." His remaining eye gleamed as he raised his palm, which began to glow with an eerie, building light. "Let's see how far it stretches, shall we?"
The hyper-dense laser quirk ignited with a sound like tearing metal, the beam condensing into a searing line of pure annihilation that burned the very air it passed through. All Might's muscles tensed to dodge, until his sharp eyes caught movement in the distance, barely visible through the setting dust and smoke.
Wash's distinctive form, a slumped form he carried in bubbles, and Gran Torino's small frame... on passed out and bleeding on the ground. And in front of them was... Nighteye? His former sidekick's presence sent a jolt of confusion through him, but there was no time to process it as the laser's path became horrifyingly clear.
Without hesitation, All Might threw himself into the beam's trajectory, his massive frame becoming a living shield between the deadly energy and the vulnerable figures down below. The heat seared his back instantly, the smell of burning fabric meeting flesh filled his nostrils as the beam carved a molten trench through the earth just behind his heels.
Pain screamed along his nerve endings, but he gritted his teeth against it, only to feel, rather than see, the presence suddenly at his blind spot.
"Tsk, tsk," All For One's voice slithered into his ear, dripping with mock disappointment. "Still playing the hero even now? How... distracting."
The impact reversal-enhanced fist caught All Might square in the jaw with enough force to make his vision whiten at the edges. He felt himself airborne, the world spinning in a nauseating whirl before his back connected with what remained of a clock tower.
Stone and metal rained down around him as he slid to the ground, his body screaming in protest. Blood filled his mouth, hot and metallic, and for one terrifying moment his limbs refused to obey his commands.
But through the haze of pain, memories flickered like candle flames in the dark. Nana's smile, warm and proud. Young Midoriya's determined face, so full of promise. The countless hands reaching for him, trusting him to stand where they could not. The images blurred together and brighter than the pain, hotter than the laser's searing kiss.
With a growl that started deep in his chest and built into a roar, All Might forced himself to his feet. The rubble shifted beneath him, the tower's remains groaning in protest at the movement. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a crimson smear across his cheek.
"You always talk too much." he spat, his voice rough but unwavering.
This time, he was the one to charge.
The battle became a blur of motion and impact, a deadly battle played out across the ruins of the city they were destroying with every clash. All Might moved with the precision of a veteran warrior, every evasion razor-sharp, every counter calibrated to break bone and shatter defenses. He ducked under a Sonic Scream Quirk that shattered the remaining windows for blocks around, twisted past a Gravity Crush that compacted the ground where he'd stood moments before into a dense slurry.
When shadowy tendrils erupted from All For One's form seeking to ensnare him, he simply punched through them, his fist connecting with the villains mask hard enough to send fresh cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
All For One staggered back, and for the first time, All Might saw it, the faintest flicker of uncertainty in the monster's posture, the slightest hesitation in his movements. The knowledge sent a fresh surge of strength through his battered body.
"You're running out of tricks," All Might panted, his breath coming in ragged gasps that burned his lungs but did nothing to dim the fire in his eyes.
All For One's remaining eye narrowed, the cracked mask doing little to hide the twist of his lips. "You'd be surprised."
But All Might wasn't listening anymore. His world had narrowed to this moment, to the power thrumming through his veins like liquid lightning. One For All surged within him, a supernova contained in mortal flesh, its light so bright it seemed to shine through his very skin. The ground beneath his feet cratered from the sheer pressure of his aura, rubble lifting and hovering as if caught in some powerful gravitational field.
"This ends now," he vowed, the words resonating with the weight of prophecy.
All For One braced himself, quirks cycling through his stolen arsenal with visible effort now, the strain of maintaining so many abilities at once finally showing in the tension around his eyes.
With a wordless shout that echoed across the battlefield, All Might leapt. His fist drew back as he soared through the air, the atmosphere itself screaming in protest around the limb, reality seeming to buckle under the weight of his resolve. Time seemed to slow as he neared his target, his muscles coiling for the final, decisive blow.
"UNITED...!"
All For One didn't move to dodge. Didn't raise a defense. Instead, he went perfectly, unnaturally still, his body relaxing into utter immobility.
All Might's fist passed through him as if he were made of mist, the phantom sensation of cold vapor against his knuckles the only warning before his momentum carried him harmlessly past. His eyes widened in shock even as his body continued its trajectory, the realization dawning a heartbeat too late.
"Phase Shift Quirk," All For One's voice slithered from right beside his ear, closer than should have been possible. "A rare one. Useless in most fights, unless your opponent is... predictable."
All Might barely had time to turn his head before All For One's hand, now sheathed in a shimmering, blade-like aura, sliced across his abdomen with surgical precision. The Molecular Quirk parted flesh and muscle like water, the pain a white-hot brand that lanced through his entire body.
Blood arced through the air in a grateful crimson spray, droplets hanging suspended for a moment like rubies in the fading light before spattering across the broken ground. All Might's scream tore through the sudden silence of the battlefield, raw and guttural, as his legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed to his knees, one hand instinctively clutching at the grievous wound while the other kept him from pitching forward onto his face.
All For One stepped back, examining the crimson staining his fingers with something akin to artistic appreciation. "The stage is set, All Might." he murmured, his voice almost gentle now, which made the words all the more terrible. "Now... its time for you to die!"