Eri closed her eyes and waited for the stab to reach with tears flowing down her cheeks.
'I'm sorry, Shido! I can't accompany you anymore...'
However, sometimes life was like a fairy tale. Though there might not be a knight in shining armor, occasionally, one equivalent to it would appear right in front of you.
"Aleph!"
Bang!!
Eri could hear a gunshot and a familiar shout.
Was she hallucinating in the moments leading to her death?
She knew that Shido was almost a hundred kilometers away from this place, and Shido couldn't teleport to places he hasn't seen with his own eyes.
Perhaps she could at least see her beloved in her last moments; how great would it be? She wanted to see if her beloved would really appear, so she opened her eyes.
Everything was in slow motion.
Eri could see a single petal slowly floating down just behind Shigaraki.
Eri could feel her body slipping on the decaying dirt.
Eri could see the glint of madness hidden behind Shigaraki's eyes.
Eri could feel her own body deteriorating at a gradually increasing rate.
Just as his fingers were a centimeter away from Eri's forehead, she suddenly felt a new touch on her back.
"Huh?"
Before she could even react, Shigaraki's hand, which was still embedded into the middle of her chest, was cut off, and before the stab could reach her head, she found herself fifty meters away from her original position.
Eri immediately took the chance to remove Shigaraki's hand and started coughing out all the coagulated blood in her windpipe, essentially allowing her to breathe once more as she started using her quirk to rewind time on herself.
Her back was drenched with cold sweat while her hands trembled with nervousness, pain, and anxiety.
"Shi...do?"
She couldn't see his face clearly due to the sweat present on her forehead, which dripped into her eyes painfully. The sun illuminating her savior's figure only revealed a shadowed look.
There was no reply, but she could feel the grip on her tightening. Being so close to her savior, she could smell the scent of him - the very familiar scent of the Lily of the Valley.
"Shido?"
Hearing no reply, she repeated her words once more just to confirm her speculations.
"Why...?"
Her thoughts were confirmed the moment that one word was uttered.
"Why did you come out here? Didn't I tell you to stay at home or help the civilians evacuate if you really can't sit still? Why did you come all the way to the front line to face Shigaraki?"
Shido's tone was usually bright and cheery, full of confidence and never unwavering. But now, all Eri could hear was the agitation in his voice. A restlessness in his voice that was never heard before.
"Why, Eri? If I had just arrived a second later, you would have died..."
But Shido never managed to finish his sentence as he carried both of them to the air once more before appearing another hundred meters away.
In his arms, Eri could only see a blur. One second to travel one hundred meters. Their original position was now replaced by a crater and a one-armed Shigaraki, regenerating his hand slowly.
But Eri didn't care about that right now. She focused on the boy in front of her. Her windpipe, although not in the best condition, was repaired enough to let her breathe.
Her right arm was slowly raised, and she felt the boy's cheeks right in front of her.
"I wouldn't know what to do if you had died, you know?"
To her surprise and shock, she felt that her fingers were wet.
"Tears...?" Eri mumbled absentmindedly.
'Shido was crying?'
Shido finally raised his face, and Eri managed to get a good look at him.
His face was disheveled, and tears were streaming down with no end. But his eyes didn't show the eyes of a person who was crying. His expression was contorted with fury and anger.
Once again, they disappeared and appeared, this time a kilometer away from their original position.
"We'll talk later..."
Shido let Eri down gently to the ground before disappearing once more. Eri didn't know why, but she felt as though Shido was different. As she watched him leave, she finally noticed something different.
His hair, which should be light indigo in color, had turned entirely pure white.
His original child-like physique was replaced by a teen about nineteen of age.
"Shido..."
*****************
"Shigaraki...!!"
Shido slowly spoke as he saw Shigaraki a kilometer away. His thoughts were filled with rage and fear. Rage at Shigaraki almost killing Eri, and fear of Eri nearly dying under Shigaraki's hands.
His thoughts were so jumbled up that he didn't even realize that he could actually revive someone with Ain Soph.
Yoshinon wasn't faring much better. Eri was his sister-in-law, and Yoshinon was protective of his own. Eri's importance was just slightly below Shido's in his heart, and anyone who dared to even harm her would be punished, much less someone who almost killed her if not for the warning of one of Shido's clones.
'Torture him...'
'Kill him...'
'Make him regret doing everything...'
'Make him suffer for what he did to Eri...'
Shido's head hurt, stinging with the poisonous thoughts of utterly annihilating the man in front of him.
'More power...'
'More torture...'
'More strength...'
Shido didn't realize it, but his hair had slowly turned pure white, his body slowly growing to his late teens, his astral armor slowly changing as well.
His top became a sleeveless, slim-fit suit, entirely black in color with a pink and white tinge, while his pants were of a similar color scheme and type. In the middle of his chest was a pink and white diamond-shaped figure.
As he started to float above the ground, his once green raincoat had turned entirely black that draped on his upper arm, not covering his shoulders.
His palms were covered with gloves, pink on the palms and black on the back of the palm (dorsal side).
His white hair grew until it reached the tip of his feet and flew wildly, his feet now currently glitching violently without a fixed shape or form.
Fours chains were present, dangled behind his hair.
His left eye slowly turned into a blue clock from a golden clock, while his right eye's sclera turned entirely black with a pink pupil.
"Satan. Beelzebub. Lucifuge. Astaroth."
Shido called out four names consecutively as he started walking towards Shigaraki.
Under his feet, a huge bunny appeared. It looked similar to Zadkiel, except that Astaroth was pink and black in color, similar to Shido's own attire.
Within a second, the entire area, which was already leveled by SHigaraki, turned into an ice wasteland within seconds. Every single inch of the ground was covered in ice, except the place where Eri was resting.
A single black, spiked crown appeared above Shido's head as six black, feather-like cannons surrounded him. Without any warning, the six cannons shot out dark lasers at Shigaraki, aiming for the kill.
Shigaraki wasn't just going to stand there and let himself get killed and started to dodge those lasers.
"Yoshinon. Freeze the entire area even colder." Shido's cold voice rang out, and Yoshinon obeyed without hesitation. The already cold area turned even colder, reaching negative sixty degrees Celcius and going even lower.
The six cannons had increased to twelve cannons and were firing non-stop at the dodging Shigaraki. He had tried to decay those lasers, but the light particles traveled at a much faster speed compared to the decay. If he had just stood there and decayed the attacks, it would have gotten hit before the decay would even start decaying the light.
A floating black book with equally black pages appeared in front of Shido as he noticed a few nomus still alive at a distance.
"Summon."
Shadow-like creatures of all shapes and sizes started to appear from the book at Shido's command and immediately pounced towards the nomus. Although each nomu was strong individually, they couldn't do much when faced with a neverending wave of shadow monsters.
There were monsters as small as humans, and they were monsters the size of skyscrapers, all of them aiming for their one target - the nomus.
While the shadows keep appearing from the book, a white astrology clock appeared behind Shido, along with a saber and a flintlock pistol, one in each of Shido's hands.
"Cancer Sword, Sartan."
Shido swung his saber diagonally at where he predicted Shigaraki was going to appear, and before Shigaraki could even try and get close to Shido, a slash made up of space-time had cut his entire arm off.
He had barely managed to stop in his tracks to dodge the attack aimed at his heart, but his arm wasn't so lucky.
"My space-time attack doesn't do anything special. It only lets the attack be super fast as it 'teleports' to its intended target before pausing time on the wound made."
With this attack, Shigaraki couldn't regenerate his arm since his wound was stuck in the past.
Shigaraki couldn't even yell out in pain as another barrage of dark lasers bombarded him.
"Leo Bullet, Arie."
Shido fired a single bullet and directed it towards the running figure of Shigaraki.
Arie was a tracking bullet, guided by Shido's will, that devoured space. The devoured space takes the form of a white trail that the bullet leaves behind. Anything that comes into contact with the trail or bullet will be shredded or annihilated into pieces. However, Shido must focus on his target to track them while being immobile to use this bullet.
However, the last weakness was solved as Yoshinon started hopping towards Shigaraki, leaving behind great craters. The bullet moved faster and faster with Shido's will, soon reaching the speed of Mach 1, the speed of sound.
SPLAT!!
The bullet went through Shigaraki's liver from the back and straight out from the front, leaving nothing behind, not even a single drop of blood except for a path of white dust.
"AHHHHH!!!!"
But it wasn't the end. No matter how much Shigaraki tried to decay the bullet or the air around it, the white trail always devours the decay before it was decayed, rendering Shigaraki's most potent weapon useless.
He couldn't even use his regeneration as Shido made his wounds trapped in the past, unable to regenerate in the present.
"AHHHH!!!!" Shigaraki screamed in pain again as the bullet curved back into his right hamstrings and left hamstrings. He couldn't even move since the moment he moved, his body would touch the white trail, causing his own muscles to be devoured.
Shido didn't show mercy to Shigaraki. He had already surrounded Shigaraki with white trails, making him unable to move from that spot.
From the kidneys, bladder, stomach, pancreas, testicles, nose, ears, eyes to triceps, biceps, gluteus maximus, pectorals, iliotibial tract, Achilles' heel. Every single non-vital spot was cruelly devoured by the bullet while Shido rained black lasers onto him.
"How dare you harm Eri. Belial. Your suffering will not be over anytime soon."
A demonic tree appeared in the middle of the destroyed city and stood up tall proudly, piercing through the sky. The branches were filled with poisonous thorns, and the flowers were all black in color, giving it a dreadful appearance.
The colorful world was suddenly reshaped, replaced by a monochrome, chessboard-like appearance.
"[Law of Life] + [Law of Healing] + [Law of Infinity] = [Law of immortality]. Congrats. Now that you've got immortality, let's continue on, shall we? [Law of time] - Time dilation."
For every second that lasts outside the range of Belial, ten minutes would pass inside there.
Eri watched as Shido rampaged the entire place to torture Shigaraki to death, but just as she thought he would die already, Shido made him unkillable and continued the torture.
As much as she wanted to kill him, torture wasn't part of her plan.
"Shido!! Stop it!!"
Having recovered already, Eri quickly flew to Shido to try and stop the destruction.
However, a wall of ice appeared and surrounded her, not letting her leave.
"Shido!!!!"
"Don't interfere, Eri. We might love you, but currently, I'm not that 'good' Shido." Shido's face appeared all around her and spoke, "Since this guy had tried to kill you, he must be prepared to die as well."
"Yes! But you don't have to torture him!! Just kill him already!" Eri already prepared her flute and started playing.
"No." However, compared to Eri, who had only just received her angel for a month, Shido's sound attacks were much more powerful than Eri's, thus nullifying her sound wave as well, keeping her trapped within that ice.
"Just stay there quietly and don't move."
"NO! You're not the real Shido! Shido would never be so cruel!" Eri wailed as she desperately tried to get out of the confinement.
"Cruel? I would only become cruel to those who deserve it. Like this one who almost killed you." Shido plainly stated as he watched Eri trying to get out of confinement in vain.
After ten more minutes have passed outside the range of Belial, Shido finally had enough of the screaming Shigaraki. At one point, Shigaraki's body was invaded by the will of the first All for One, but Shido immediately extinguished it without delay.
"It's time to end your pathetic life now. I hope you will never ever reincarnate again." Seeing that Shigaraki was still standing strong and yelling in pain, Shido finally had enough of looking at Shigaraki, "Qementiel."
"No...No...NO...!!!!!" Shigaraki
A black seed appeared in Shido's hands and glowed brightly.
The black light started shining brighter and brighter, or darker and darker depending on perspective, and soon, the whole world was plunged into darkness.
After a few seconds of utter darkness in every part of the world, the darkness disappeared like it was never there before, disappearing as suddenly as it arrived.
Although most people were shocked, they quickly resumed their daily lives after the darkness disappeared. After all, what else could they do?
They were just regular civilians. Even if it's someone's quirk at work, it was none of their business. It was the heroes' job to investigate it.
Back at Shido's place, the entire area was completely emptied. There was no nomus, no Shigaraki, no buildings, and no rubbles.
It was just one huge empty field.
Every single trace of it was gone. All the heroes who were present were surprised.
On that day, Shido and Eri disappeared along with Shigaraki, All for One, and their lackeys locked up in Tartarus, never to be found again. Shido's clones who were based in Hosu city quickly followed up after one month of the incident, though they never revealed themselves in front of the masses after this incident, protecting the city for one final month before disappearing.
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Full Title: Inverse Form and Disappearance
A/N: I don't think I have written the inverse behavior well, the actions still seemed as though it was Shido himself who does it...What do you think?
If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:
https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere. We are currently 7.75 months ahead (aka 31 chapters going by 1 chapter per week release schedule)