70 Tend to the Flames, Worship the Ashes
The ground shook with a mighty crash as the pipe was brought down, the crashing of the concrete falling down upon itself let out a shaking boom that echoed through the air and blew Nick's hair out behind him. The shaking of the vibrations up through his legs made him take a step back… it hadn't worked. Bringing down the pipe hadn't worked, the gate was still there.
It was buried yes, but for how long before someone or something dug it up? Was there no way to close them?
Looking closer at Mario's quirk he cursed as he pushed his hand back through his hair, he felt so fucking powerless. For all the effort he had put into becoming strong, he was right now feeling the crushing weight of reality. He couldn't stop everything.
He wasn't a god.
Letting out a roar of anger he blew all the rubble away and stared at the gate, it had simply used the pipe to form. Now it was permanent effectively until Mario closed it, but Mario was dead. And he couldn't absorb any more quirks… he would have to make someone do it.
But he didn't have fucking time, he didn't have any time. He had to act now, who knew how many gates there were. Who knew if an insect had already gone through one?
Just one, if it died and got eaten or even decomposed into the soil and then absorbed by the plants, that would then be eaten… it would spread uncontainably.
He had to stop it and now… what could he do? He couldn't do anything… not for all his power. Not for all the effort- No. He could, and he would.
He owed this world for giving him another life, he would save it. Even if it cost him…
Closing his eyes he just let out a sigh, the breath shaking the air around him as he felt it. He could feel every atom around him, his main power feeding his mind with the information of the world around him.
Letting the feelings of the world flow into him he closed his eyes, focusing on what he could feel. And he let his nerves spread. He let them slowly creep into the ground before they picked up the pace, expanding beneath the sand. Venturing further, feeling out.
Another pipe, a smaller one with supplies out the front… must have been their getaway. Collapsing it he sealed it in iron.
He would seal them all for now.
Letting the nerves spread he felt the range expand exponentially. The growing nerves flowed underground unhindered as he felt the information flooding his mind.
And then it broke, he couldn't handle it. All the information, it was too much. His pores started to bleed, he could push further, he needed to. But if this was his limit then he would never be able to see the entirety of Australia…
So he would make more minds.
--- Nezu ---
Nezu watched from the window of his office, looking out at the pipe that was being constructed down in the suburbs nearby, he could barely see the sight but he felt something was wrong. It had just been finished a week ago. Some higher up at the bureau had ordered it to be built. It didn't make sense.
He had tried to find what it was for but it was just something about odd sewer management and ground fissures. He wasn't dumb, that was for sure.
He could tell bullshit when he saw it… something was going on. Ever since the attack on one of the Bureau members at the provisional license exam, the Bureau had been… agitated. They had stopped being so efficient at work. He had asked Hawks what was going on, the number 2 Hero and Gang Orca had both been making fewer and fewer appearances in public.
Things were happening that he didn't understand, and he didn't like it.
Putting down his cup of tea he looked at the cold beverage, having cooled down while he thought. Looking at his laptop he chewed on the end of his cigar. Nick was still in Australia… something was happening. He could feel it. He hadn't received a report today.
And the last one had been concerned about mutation in the bugs that might be related to a city they had never found.
Threads were being tied together… All for One was just one evil, and it seemed that another had emerged to use Shigaraki. An old friend of the want to be the demon lord perhaps. Or maybe an old enemy. He didn't have enough information. He doubted anyone did.
Nicklaus Hendrix… please be alright.
--- Nicklaus ---
Creating another brain he duplicated the ones he had. A large tumour formed on him containing it. And he felt the strain lessen, he could do this. He just needed to create more minds and more processing power.
And so he expanded, and so did the range of his nerves.
As he made more minds his flesh twisted, he didn't care how he looked. He didn't even see it through his eyes anymore. Just feeling, Nick felt the world. As the nerves expanded. At first, it was slow. But soon the nerves were spreading faster than a bullet could travel. Racing through the ground and sending him feedback, he was finding more and more pipes along the coast.
And he sealed them all.
Feeling the strain increase he made more minds and dedicated those minds to expanding themselves. To growing. Not caring about his appearance he started to take another form, a form that he didn't know he was so familiar with.
One that had started his journey to growing and improving himself. A tree.
Something even his soul had started to reflect, and now so did his body.
Housed in the crown of its branches the tree grew, 4 meters. 8, 16, 64, 256. His height grew. The roots spreading. The branches wreathed in stunning golden flames.
He could feel it, his body growing. Each twisting limb contained thousands of minds all dedicated to one task. Seeing the entirety of Australia. He didn't even realize that his body moved, travelling from the shore to the centre of the continent. His body grew, twisted. Roots spread and limbs stretched.
He had to grow, he had to strengthen himself, he didn't even realize it, but Nick absorbed another quirk and countless quirks. Every piece of DNA that he had in his body, he sorted, filtered. Merged with, combining and creating countless threads of Plus alpha strands that each took a leaf. A core of a quirk. A power that he could siphon and use.
The main trunk held three. Revamp, his own quirk. Cremation, his fire. And Mutation, the sickening quirk of the old lady. But he needed it, he needed to surpass limits. And humans, no matter how optimized… Always met their match.
A human could never be a god.
Mutating its quirks and its body it controlled them, measuring, and testing effects. Growing, evolving.
Its trunk thickened and expanded. The golden fire burnt all the bugs that tried to attack it, but they saw it. Everyone on the continent started to see the tree expand. The branches blotted out the sky as they grew. The flaming leaves were like suns. Rain of drifting embers like falling motes of stars. The entirety of Australia. Nick could feel everything. Its roots touched each shore. It didn't know how long it had taken.
But all beings could on the continent see the burning tree that reached above the clouds. Its golden wood burning and glowing with light so intense it stood as a beacon in the middle of the dunes.
It saw them, all the pipes. And it sealed them, but it didn't stop there. Why would it? There was a threat. A threat that he had to take care of.
The billions of bugs that had buried even beneath the surface of the continent. Going down further than any creature should dig. The countless colonies were filled with the mutated monsters of the devil's playground.
He killed them all. Fire washed from the main trunk as it flowed over the entire continent, avoiding every human. Washing through the tunnels, turning stone to ash. Sealing passages as the fire passed through them. It would get rid of every single piece of mutated DNA.
It would purge it all.
---
The tree expanded, and people watched in shock as it suddenly started to grow, it had started near the shore but had soon travelled along the thick roots that sat on the surface until it stood firmly in the centre of the world's largest island. The tree was well taller than the clouds by now. It had been expanding for hours.
Murmurs and whispers travelled from mouth to ear. Spreading like wildfire. People talked. It wasn't long before the first incidents happened. Roots attacked the bugs and animals. Pulling them underground, even the captured work animals. Roots that shrugged off all attacks as if they were nothing. Some were no thicker than a finger but some were larger than buildings.
It was a massacre, the sands of Australia started to flow red with the blood of mutated animals. People felt it, the wave of power that passed through even them, making them feel dizzy, but just for a moment.
The air was alive with falling motes of fire, the flicking flames drifting like falling leaves in a gentle breeze. The branches swayed. Moving with the current of air that was well above the clouds. Like slow motion, waves of leaves and branches shifted in the sky-high currents of air.
An endless sky of gold.
The tree...
It was wonderful, it provoked wonder.
It was marvellous, it held marvels.
It was fantastic, it was out of fantasies.
It was enchanting, it wove enchantments.
It was terrific… it instilled unending terror.
---
Was there any sense of self left in the binding branches that wove down into the twisted trunk? It could see all, it felt all, the wind through the branches. It knew it had a purpose. To get rid of the bugs, the mutations. To extract it from the humans leaving them unharmed and unchanged. But it must find the gates. And destroy them.
It must kill the bugs, it must keep this world safe. It must protect it.
It had a purpose. Its life was a tool to achieve it.
It would live its purpose and make its full achievement the demonstrated proof of its sincerity.
When one saw everything, could it still be an individual?
Such thoughts mattered not, did they further its purpose? No, they did not. They were unwanted, and discarded.
It was quick. Only for a brief moment did it have such a purpose. Then it was done. Every bug was gone. Every single one, every trace of the mutation. It had completed what it was made for. And from it rose a new man.
--- Nezu ---
He stood in front of the pipe, it had suddenly started letting embers pour through before it was suddenly sealed by a wall of iron. It hadn't taken them long to break through it though. After all, he wanted to know what was on the other side.
What had the pipe become? The bureau was here as well, but they looked more confused than anything.
And so was Nezu. They had broken through the iron just for him to see the most terrifying thing he had ever laid his eyes upon.
A golden tree that looked like its branches were doused and heavens flames and its roots sunk down to the depths of hell. It was indescribably large. It was impossibly large.
He had started at it, and so had All Might and Aizawa.
They had looked at it and instinctively knew as if they were told the answer. They knew that the tree was Nicklaus' doing. He had made whatever that was for whatever purpose. The pipe was a gate to Australia, and Australia was now housing this golden tree.
What had happened, this entire situation felt so… beyond him. What quirk did the boy really have? How was he able to do something like this? This was not the power of a quirk, it was something more now. It was something so beyond humanity that it was dangerous.
This was too much, he never should have given Nick his mind, he never expected that it would be able to go this far though. But he knew that it was his fault, his mind had let the boy go beyond what was normally human. To be able to know things that humans shouldn't.
He had always known that his mind was powerful, but to see what it could really do? Once Nick had gotten it his growth had suddenly spiked… and this was a result of that.
This was his fault.
---
Emerging from the crown of the tree, at the highest point Nick stepped out onto a branch. His hair was golden and drifting behind his head. His eyes are orbs of pure light. His skin was unscared, even the black carbon blotch from his time dying was gone.
After all, this was nothing but a vessel. He was something more now.
Not a god, no… Gods were so much greater than he was. He knew that still. But some part of him felt hollow. He wanted some answers but everything felt so small. Touching his father with one of his roots he closed his eyes and felt his memories.
He had been trying to make cold fusion. But the government had stopped him saying it was 'too dangerous.' He blamed it on the Heroes who he thought they were just wanting to hinder creations that could possibly rival them. After all, why was space travel not invented yet? Yes, quirks had stunted the growth of technology. But so had humanity.
They had cast aside science in favour of powers. And those that wanted to advance science were held back, worrying it would knock Heroes off their thrones. At least that was how some, including his father, had come to see it.
He had been desperate. He had devoted his life to making this and the closer he felt the more he was shackled. So he had turned in desperation to a kind man who had told him of a dream. A dream of making a new world where Heroes would not hinder those undeserving. It had struck just the right cord.
Of course, Nick was missing out on a lot of the important details, the subtle manipulation. The small amounts of influence that his father was subjected to.
The small details finally pushed him to follow this man. But Nick didn't want to see it anymore.
It made him feel hollow.
Standing on this tree he could only look above his branches. To the sky above. To whatever 'god' had put him in this world. He knew that he was trapped here. He could not ascend beyond this point. He had used all that he had and hit a hard limit. He was finished, his purpose done. Complete.
He was sent to a world of Andrew's choice and had instead survived having a reincarnation put in his flesh and even used his power of the soul to push himself beyond what should have been possible.
But he was not a god.
He was mortal, and that was his curse. He had seen a glimpse of them when he had first died. And he had seen their power. He could barely even remember them. He had remembered the concept of nothing, yet still, the concept of a god was so well beyond his reach.
But he was mortal and he had still become this. This was not the first time that he had thought he hit a roadblock…
Focusing on the thoughts from one of his many leaves he looked to the right. His gaze zoomed in through the use of his branches and roots to see what should have been beyond him. Eyes opened on the limb that despite being thousands of meters in the air could still see the ground in clarity.
Nezu… he was standing at the opening of one of the pipes. He had felt it, and he had let them break the metal. He wanted him to see this. Standing on the branch he looked at Nezu, knowing the mouse could not see him. But he could see his mentor.
This is what you made.
You created the spark that grew into this fire. Be proud.
=======
Thanks for all the support on this book so far! I am feeling that it is almost over, maybe in just a chapter or two.
Just to answer some questions that I think some people had. The Garaki mentioned in the last chapter was Garaki Haruto. He is the son of Kyudai, I did that since we know that Kyudai at least had a grandson, Tsubasa. His quirk was similar to Garaki's but mutated by Olivia (the old lady and Sovereigns advisor) So that it could also extend others lives.
Thanks for reading! It really means a lot to all those that have stuck around since the beginning! Thanks for the comments all those that have left them!
