Chapter 200

(A/N: We'll say this chapter is from me since I forgot to post one before going to bed xD)

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Though he was much faster than the group of Nomus, Izuku doubted he could break through them or dodge all their laster-like beams. Thus, the moment he noticed a few of their eyes glowing red, he abruptly changed direction, propelling himself high into the storm clouds. The crackling of lightning around him caused his body to tremble from its core, but he felt it was safer flying through the sky than trying to swim through the icy sea.

With their suppressed intellects preventing them from making decisions for themselves, the horde of Nomu fearlessly followed after Izuku or tried to intercept him. The latter was banking on this, as the more targets there were, the less likely he was to get struck by lightning. At least, that's what he told himself as he darted and dodged through the clouds, evading the swarm of Nomus by rapidly changing direction and occasionally barreling straight through them.

"Gufu-"

Though the clouds provided coverage for Izuku, they were a double-edged sword as a particularly powerful female Nomu burst through one and caught him with a throat-crushing lariat. Izuku felt like his head had nearly been lopped off, but thanks to his [Bronze Skin] providing him at least some protection against impacts and shockwaves, his throat had merely collapsed for a moment as he was sent careering, uncontrolled, toward the sea.

Taking advantage of Izuku's state, several other Nomus aimed their heat vision at him, but while they managed to make contact, he didn't melt or split in two. His body had been able to endure the heat of Wilnas's flames and a literal dip in liquid magma, so while their heat vision was intense at more than 2000°C, it only charred his costume and made him feel like he was being cooked.

'These mother fuckers...!' Izuku exclaimed internally, extending tendrils of Blackwhip to grab several Nomus before using his extraordinary strength to both pull them toward him and himself toward them. The tug also drew them closer together, crashing them into each other, so Izuku was able to liquefy seven while critically injuring several others as he passed through them like a tungsten rod dropped from space and into a pool of ballistics gel.

Before Izuku could feel the satisfaction that usually came from defeating a powerful foe or receiving a tremendous amount of Experience points, at least thirty additional Nomus fired their heat vision at him. They had used his uncontrolled fall to surround him from every direction, so Izuku's body tensed involuntarily, his pupils contracting to the size of pinholes as bright red light filled his vision. What followed was searing pain and a feeling as if he had been struck in the face by a baseball bat, his vision going black as several other impacts battered his plummeting body.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...!' Izuku repeated in his mind, focusing entirely on defense as he willed his body to impact the water quickly. The direct hit to his face had blinded him, so he couldn't tell up from down as his body ping-ponged about, his temperature rising to the point he felt like he was melting.

*HSSSSSSSSSSSSSH*

Though there was a painful and frigid impact, followed by his throat and lungs filling with frigid water, Izuku felt tremendous relief as he impacted and plummeted into the tumultuous sea. He could feel the water heating and eventually boiling around him, but with his powerful legs and Water Regalia spinning in overdrive, Izuku was able to zip through the water at high speeds, using the pressure around him to determine whether he was too deep or too close to the surface.

With the power of One-for-All boosting his stacking regenerative Perks, Izuku very nearly had regeneration on par with Super Regeneration. As such, it only took a few seconds for him to regain vision in his left eye as, unlike his right, it hadn't melted completely. With that small boon, he felt a rush of glee and adrenaline as he changed trajectory to escape the water, forcing himself to inhale before coughing and expelling a large amount of seawater from his lungs. His body tried to continue coughing, but Izuku, grinning with an expression of madness, promptly stabbed himself in the diaphragm with his left thumb, preventing its contraction as he flipped to dodge an attack from a Nomu, expelling Blackwhip through his critically damaged Water Regalia to entangle the opportunistic creature and use it as a shield to block several heat visions.

Kicking the boiling Nomus body into the air and sending himself back into the frigid sea, Izuku plummeted toward the depths willfully as he stared back up at the surface, noting the fact that none of the obsidian-skinned creatures tried following after him. Unfortunately, while his regeneration was working in overdrive to allow him to function without oxygen, Izuku's brain and heart were pulsing in concert as darkness gradually encroached upon the vision of his left eye. It didn't help that he felt incomprehensibly cold and exhausted...

'I always knew I'd die in the fucking ocean...' thought Izuku, attempting to will himself back to the surface but only sinking deeper. The pressure around him increased, but instead of feeling uncomfortable, he felt like he was being wrapped in a blanket, compelling Izuku to close his eyes until a hand abruptly grasped his shoulder, causing him to startle awake only to find he was face-down in a crumbling stone chamber floating in a swirling purple tempest, within which were nine kingly thrones arranged in a semi-circle.

"Get up, kiddo. Now isn't the time to die," said a familiar voice, followed by a muscular, thug-like man picking Izuku's wispy green-and-black body up from the ground and dusting him off. Izuku recognized the bald, square-jawed man as the fifth user of One-for-All and the origin of Blackwhip, but he didn't attempt to greet the man as he focused on the people seated on the thrones. There was a wispy golden silhouette of Toshinori, looking as if it would burn out at any moment, but everyone else was solid, including a thin, hikikomori-like man with long white hair covering half his face but with a slit for his right, glowing green eye to see through.

As he was vaguely aware of Izuku's thoughts, the wiry man adopted a wry smile, scratching his right cheek as he said, "While it is true I was a shut-in, you should respect your predecessors, Ninth."

Surprising himself, Izuku scratched the back of his head and responded with a faint, ghostly-sounding, "Sorry..."

"Oh! You can already speak!? That's some great progress!" exclaimed the Fifth, smacking Izuku's back with too much force, causing him to stumble forward and faceplant. He 'tried' to catch himself, but perhaps as a result of the condition of his body in the real world, he had virtually no feeling in his arms or legs.

"Give the poor boy a break, Daigoro-san," said a woman with long, raven-black hair cascading from her shoulders and fixed into a tuft-like ponytail that reminded Izuku of his mother. The differences were that the woman, undoubtedly Nana Shimura, was tall and exceedingly well-built, her toned body adorned with a sleeveless navy-blue bodysuit that left very little to the imagination. The rest of her costume consisted of a red sash around her waist, likely to prevent people from gawking at her ass, a white cape, yellow gloves, and white boots. She also had a tiny mole under the right side of her lip, accenting her beauty as a kind of 'charm point.'

"Oh? You think I'm attractive...?" asked the woman, smiling broadly as she added, "Then, if it will help motivate you to survive, how about this? If you can recover my body and restore it using that Eri girl's Quirk, I'll be sure to give you a 'reward.' That should light a fire under your ass."

"We don't have time for your antics, Shimura-san..." muttered a lean man with short, off-white hair that parted away from the base of his forehead, thin green eyes that slanted downward, and two distinctive scars running along the left side of his face, resembling circuit lines. His body appeared to be covered in a modified karate gi, but he looked a bit like a homeless person with a straw waistband and a tattered hoodie that was missing its lower half and had the bicep section of his right sleeve torn off.

Pointing to his forehead, the man said, "My name is Hikage Shinomori, the Fourth Wielder of One-for-All. That pain you've been experiencing in your forehead is the result of my Quirk, Danger Sense, beginning to rouse. But telling you that isn't the reason we brought you here."

Piggybacking off of Hikage's words, the white-haired man, undoubtedly the First Wielder as his throne was in the center of everyone else's, said, "Your body isn't prepared to endure the full power of my Quirk, but you're currently on the verge of death. Now, more than ever, we can't permit the power that has been accumulated across eight successive generations to vanish. As such, when you awaken, you will have full access to our power and Quirks for five minutes. Use that time to get somewhere safe, as the moment the period ends, you will likely fall into a coma."

Following the First's words, Izuku felt a tugging sensation in his gut as his body was abruptly sucked into the shadowy purple tempest encircling the fragmented throne room. Before he was drawn back completely, however, the First, turning into a pale blue haze, smiled and said, "Worry not. When you awaken, we shall be there to guide you..."

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Feeling as though someone had injected adrenaline directly into his heart, Izuku snapped awake and immediately made for the ocean's surface as eight wispy figures appeared around him. One, a spiky-haired man veiled in orange and with a vicious scar across his face, placed his right hand on Izuku's shoulder, causing warmth to flow into him as he explained, 'These five minutes you've been afforded are the result of my Quirk, Gearshift. It lets you change the speed at which things accelerate through space to go slower or faster, ignoring inertia. Use it to break through all obstacles that bar your path...'

As knowledge of Gearshift's use flowed into him, Izuku accelerated like a rocket through the water. At the same time, the phantom of Nana pushed him from behind, excitedly shouting, 'And my Quirk, Float, you'll be able to sail through the skies and blast through those knockoffs without having to exhaust yourself or waste energy...!'

Accelerating even faster, Izuku emerged from the sea with such speed that he left a green trail behind him, his irises fragmenting as turquoise lightning shrouded his body and caused his hair to flow backward, away from his scalp. Several Nomus tried blocking his path, but as a figure in dark purple placed his hand on Izuku's shoulder, stating, 'And this is my Quirk...' a thick purple gas erupted from his body, billowing around him like a thick cloud as he barreled through the encirclement. The rain inhibited it a bit, but the haze, produced by the Sixth Wielder's Smokescreen, made it impossible to track Izuku's location, especially when he started changing direction at high speeds, 'pinballing' through the air to store up the kinetic energy he needed to use the Third's Quirk, Fa Jin.

With a body comprised of crimson light, the Third Wielder, a man vaguely resembling a shinobi with spiky hair tied into a ponytail, a black bandana across his forehead, and a bulletproof vest adorning his body, explained, 'My Quirk is dangerous in your current state. It allows you to store kinetic energy through repetitive movements, but if you're interrupted by one of these bastards' laser beams, the stored energy will bleed off or erupt. For now, don't try anything flashy and focus on escaping...'

Moving almost entirely on instinct, aided by the Fourth's Danger Sense, Izuku dodged between rays of heat vision as his speed increased to the point the oversaturated air around him began to ignite despite the heavy downpour. Gearshift also had an influence on his perception of time, but instead of feeling omnipotent, even as a bolt of lightning zipped past him and appeared to freeze on its upstroke, Izuku, finished stockpiling kinetic energy, accelerated toward the horizon with such speed that everything in front of him paradoxically seemed to zoom away from him, contrasting the flash of images in his periphery, which zipped by too fast for even his accelerated brain to process...

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(A/N: Zoom zoom...)