Chapter 199
(A/N: This chapter was made available by Felis, the younger brother of Feliz Navidad.)
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Though the sea was turbulent, generating waves as high as ten meters and making it challenging for aircraft to take off, Izuku felt more at ease standing on the flight deck and witnessing the awe-inspiring, borderline cataclysmic sight than when they were submerged hundreds of meters beneath the surface. And, thanks to his Water Regalia and general leg strength, he had no trouble standing alongside Gran Torino, arms crossed as the massive ship listed from side to side.
"Any idea when the enemy is supposed to show...?" asked Izuku, speaking into the microphone of his respirator.
"Unfortunately, unless the person he's using Foresight on has a habit of checking the date and time, Sir Nighteye is unable to pinpoint when the events he witnesses are set to take place," responded Gran Torino. "All we know for sure is that I'll be locked in battle with the Nomu before the ship can return to port."
With the Samantha Grey having a surface range of 1700km per day and the nearest major port approximately 1500km away, Gran Torino's words didn't narrow things down too much. However, with All Might being able to propel himself through the air at speeds in excess of 27,000km/h, if he held nothing back and had a specially prepared suit equipped, it was safe to assume the attack would come within the hour.
Feeling his body abruptly tense, followed by a sharp feeling at the center of his forehead, Izuku shouted, "Dodge...!" just as a twinkling of red light appeared amidst the bluish-purple, lightning-saturated storm clouds. In the very next moment, two pencil-thin beams of pulsating crimson energy sliced through the USS Samantha Grey's hull. The beams weren't strong enough to cut clean through it, but the heat generated was enough to set the deck ablaze as air raid sirens began blaring.
Having evaded the initial attack, Gran Torino zipped and zagged at high speeds as the beams followed him. Its firing rate was near the speed of light, but its tracking was sub-sonic. It 'could' track faster, but as it was a heat-based attack, it needed to focus on a target to slice through or ignite it effectively.
After drawing fire away from the ship and toward the waves, Gran Torino produced such an explosive amount of lift from his feet that the crest of a ten-meter wave burst apart as he ascended into the sky like a rocket. The laser-like beams temporarily ceased, but heat vision was far from the only trick the nude, ebon-skinned female Nomu had at her disposal.
As Gran Torino launched a kick at it, his speed exceeding Mach 3.5, the female Nomu caught his foot with her left hand, a visible ripple passing through her forearm and bicep, causing them to swell briefly but suffering no apparent damage. Gran Torino subsequently managed to free his foot with a powerful burst of wind, but that too dealt no damage to the Nomu as it lunged forward with its right hand, generating a strange, hazy white sphere that spread faster than Gran Torino could evade.
'What's this...!?'' exclaimed Gran Torino internally, his eyes widening at the realization he could no longer breathe. His Quirk, Jet, functioned similarly to the Sky Regalia, using the air he drew into his lungs and compressing it to enable his high-speed movements. The sphere produced by the Nomu generated a faux-vacuum, so not only couldn't he breathe, but he felt like his eyes were burning and his blood was boiling.
Just as Gran Torino prepared to unleash his last resort, the vacuum-like bubble abruptly 'popped,' followed by the female Nomu stumbling out of the sky. Gran Torino was confused, but instead of stopping to think about the reason for the unexpected opportunity, he began to spin forward and descend rapidly, his lungs taking in a tremendous amount of frigid air as he followed after the plummeting Nomu, exclaiming, "Gran Axe...!" as the heel of his right foot impacted her exposed brain center-mass, caving it in and sending her crashing down into the tumultuous sea like a cannonball.
"Serves you right..." groaned Gran Torino, taking a moment to wipe the sweat and rain from his brow while hovering in the air. He doubted the Nomu would be defeated with a single kick, but he felt vindicated getting back at it for nearly collapsing his lungs...
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'We're fucked...' thought Izku, his pupils wavering as he gazed at Gran Torino with a surly-looking, crimson-eyed Aizawa on his back. The latter was the reason that the female Nomu's Quirks had stopped working, but even if Gran Torino's attack had finished it off, it didn't matter as this was what he saw when inspecting its status...
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Name: [Nana Shimura]
Title: N/A
Quirk: Float, Double(Vestige), Heat Vision(Vestige), Vacuum Sphere(Vestige), Super Regeneration(Vestige), Shock Absorption(Vestige)
Bond Level: 100(0 due to the effects of Mind Domination)
Current Level: 153
Effective Level: 1,798(9,765)
[Attributes]
Strength: 502(10,040)
Agility: 336(1,680)
Vitality: 15,663(78,315)
Intelligence: 142(20)
Dexterity: 1,339(6,695)
Luck: 5
Free Attributes: 0
[Perks]
N/A
[Skills]
N/A
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Though the revelation that the female Nomu used the body of Toshinori's Master, Nana Shimura, as a base was unnerving, the Quirk listed after her Float was what shook Izuku to the core. He was almost certain it was the Quirk belonging to the S-Ranked Villain, Twice, and if that were the case, they could be up against a functionally infinite number of clones.
Feeling another sharp pain in his head, Izuku nearly fell out of the sky, cradling his forehead and compelling Aizawa to ask, "What's wrong? Did you have a vision...?" in a measured tone.
"It's something different..." replied Izuku, feeling several powerful pulses in his head as the low hum of a man's voice whispered, 'That one was just a scout. Many more are approaching. You must escape.'
After repeating what the voice said aloud for Aizawa's benefit, Izuku speculated, "I think my Danger Sense Quirk is on the verge of activating. Regardless, we need to flee this place as quickly as possible. An army of those things could appear at any moment..."
"What happened to you 'not' being able to run...?" asked Aizawa, his tone as flat as his expression.
"This is different!" barked Izuku, momentarily gritting his teeth before explaining, "The Nomus that will follow are near-perfect clones produced by a Quirk called Double! If we don't find and take out the original, we're going to have a bunch of flight-capable monsters swarming us, shooting fucking lasers from their eyes...!"
Instead of responding to Izuku's outburst, Aizawa activated his comms, apprising Gran Torino and the bridge crew of the USS Samantha Grey of the situation. Before he could finish, the dark and tumultuous sea below began to glow an ominous red, followed by tens of lasers shooting from its surface as more than a dozen identical female Nomus emerged.
Slapping at the air, generating a wave of pressure that caused the beams targetting him to bend and peter out while also launching him and Aizawa to the side, Izuku revealed, "Based on what I can deduce, each subset of clones has its physical parameters decrease by around 10%! If we target those with higher stats, it should cause their respective clones to weaken and destabilize...!"
"But you and Sir Nighteye are the only ones who can view their status...!" exclaimed Aizawa, his eyes darting about at high speeds as he took turns negating the Quirks of various Nomus.
"I fucking know...!" bellowed Izuku, causing Aizawa to feel like his organs had shifted as he abruptly spun around, launching a sweeping kick with his prototype Water Regalia spinning in overdrive. As he did so, a veritable wall of explosive, fast-spinning bubbles appeared between him and a trio of Nomu endeavoring to surround, debilitate, or outright kill him with their vacuum spheres.
As watery explosions rippled through the air, Izuku used them as cover to dive toward the sea's surface, stopping short of actually entering it as he unceremoniously tossed Aizawa toward the awaiting Ginka and Genji. The former now looked a little more like her brother but more humanoid, while the latter had bulked up to nearly four meters in height, both becoming 'a lot' more powerful within the water than they were on land.
Before Aizawa could think to stop him, Izuku turned off his comms and left the trio behind, kicking against the air as if it were a physical surface and propelling himself high into the sky. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest, but as the world around him slowed, drops of rain appearing to freeze in place, his panic and apprehension were gradually replaced by a feeling of...omnipotence.
Dodging between the heat vision of the same three Nomu that had tried attacking him previously, Izuku punched one in its left breast with such force its body twisted around the axis of his fist and expanded to create a massive cavity that ultimately left a meter-wide hole through its body as he effectively passed through it. The efficacy of its Shock Absorption was weakened because it was a clone, so its body promptly burst into a mud-like substance before disappearing after it sustained more damage than it could endure.
Feeling a wave of emotions that weren't entirely his own, Izuku made a beeline toward a second Nomu, his ever-accelerating movements leaving a vibrant green train behind him as he sailed forward with crossed arms, shouting, "Carolina...SMAAAAAAAASH!" as he sliced through the body of a Nomu that had managed to grab Gran Torino by the head.
As a visible, x-shaped 'beam' of pressurized air shot forth from his hands, slicing the targetted Nomu to ribbons and blasting everyone in the vicinity away from him, Izuku couldn't help smiling, the edges of his irises starting to lose their shape, his hair glowing, and as his brain tingling due to the power of One-for-All and the amount of endorphins pumping through him.
Interrupting Izuku's reverie, Gran Torino grabbed him by the collar, pulling him along at tremendous speeds, shouting, "Calm down, kid! You're letting your power get to your head...!"
Regaining a bit of his reason in response to Gran Torino's words, Izuku noticed the leading arm of his Carolina Smash was flapping as if all the bones within his forearm had been destroyed. There was no pain, and it was gradually setting thanks to his stacking Regeneration Perks, but he had definitely gone over the threshold of what his body could endure.
'Looks like I need to adjust the ratio of Strength to Vitality even more if I want to make proper use of Stockpiling...' thought Izuku, referring to the wellspring of One-for-All's power. It grew increasingly stronger with time, and, much like Blackwhip, its potency was affected by his emotions. If he lost control or succumbed to fear or panic, a few broken bones would be the least of his troubles...
Thinking of Blackwhip, Izuku extended his good hand, unleashing thick, lightning-like tendrils from his palm and fingers that slammed into the bodies of several pursuing Nomus. In response, Gran Torino released him, sending him flying as he shouted, "Leave here to me! You go and look for the original!"
Though his first instinct was to refuse and say they should fight together, Izuku promptly suppressed it to turn around and fly in the direction of the storm's epicenter. The Nomus he had eliminated caused several others to weaken or outright melt into sludge, but unless they took out the original, the group of super-powered body horrors would continue to replicate and grow in number exponentially. Even with a 'vestige' of the original Double, there were already more than a hundred of the gradually weakening but still exceptionally dangerous Nomus littering the sky. As for how he knew to aim for the storm's center, it was because hundreds more were on their way, flying from the same direction like a swarm of oversized locusts...
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(A/N: A power that could destroy the entire world o_o...)