Chapter 7 - Stain's, Viper's, and Bones: 3

As the two combatants came into range of one another, Stain's spare sword came inches away from Tenya's left cheek, the blue-haired teen's eyes widening as he felt the cold, uncaring steel press against the left side of his face. Moments before it could cut into his skin and draw blood, The Figure punched away the blade, as it was sent flying…. In slow motion.

Both combatants had no idea how that happened, nor how that was even possible. From Ida's point of view, the sword had gained a similar dark-blue aura to his own, as it travelled slowly to the ground. From Stain's point of view, he saw his blade get smacked out of thin air away from Tenya Ida, by nothing. If he had tried to go get it, he would've overextended himself, which would've left an opening for his opponent to take advantage of. And so, he retreated away from Tenya.

And both had very similar thoughts about the matter, as well.

"What the hell is going on?"

On Tenya's side of things, the boy didn't much care for the fact that Stain's sword was being launched through the air at 1 kilometre an hour and instead chose to maintain focus on the fight at hand. Stain, now that he had a solid distance away from the hero-in-training, reached for one of his spare knives, then narrowed his eyes, taking this small downtime to observe the situation.

Something that Stain had slowly been starting to figure out was that there was something around the boy that was protecting him from getting hit. He couldn't see what it was, but it was there. He could feel the movement in the air, but notably, it wasn't another person, which told him that it was something rather than someone, which gave him a small insight as to what happened to the boy's Quirk.

He knew a bit about the Ida family due to his research on the late Tensei Ida, formerly known as Ingenium. Every Ida, no matter what, had an engine-based Quirk that allowed the user to go faster than a regular person, the first of which being Tenchi Ida in the late 21st century, somewhere around the year 2079. Not once had their Quirks strayed away from that basis. The engines usually came out from large parts of the body, like Tensei's forearms, and this boy, Tenya's calves.

However, now, something had changed. It was as if the general air around Tenya Ida allowed him to dictate what flew at what speed for what distance, and as he observed with his sword, only in a straight line, almost as if he was using the laws of inertia as a base point for what he was going to do. He had no idea if the boy himself knew this, but one thing was clear.

He didn't know how to properly use it.

And so, he was going to use the boy's inexperience with this newfound ability, cut him, and activate his Quirk so that the boy would be paralyzed. And, he planned to cut somewhere vital, because as he had learned from his first attempt, his Quirk also seemed to now repel people from him, and violently, as well. And so, rather than aim for his cheek this time, he was aiming for the neck.

And with that in mind, he lunged.

Once again, The Figure came to Ida's rescue, as just when The Hero Killer had his blade inches from Ida's throat, The Figure punched down on the side of Stain's head. Rather than just knocking him away, however, the punch made Stain bounce off the ground, head first, and ragdoll his body up from the ground, where The Figure slammed him with a powerful blow to the villain's stomach.

Stain's body was enveloped in a blue aura, as he was sent flying at easily 60 miles per hour in the direction of the end of the alleyway, embedding him in the wall as The Hero Killer spat up a small glob of his own blood. Off in the corner of Ida's eye, he saw that the sword no longer had the aura around it and that it had dropped to the ground with an unceremonious thud. That was when Ida started piecing things together, regarding whatever it was that The Figure was doing.

"Whatever it hits seems to either slow down or speed up. The effect is instantaneous, and whatever speed it was supposed to go at gets replaced by whatever this thing puts on it. It's almost as if it's manipulating the speed of whatever it hits. It also only goes in the direction that this thing hits it in. I noticed with the sword that it was only going in a straight line. It wasn't spinning, it wasn't moving in any direction other than straight…. What could that mean?" Ida thought as he looked back over to where Stain was.

Except, he wasn't there. He was gone.

"I'll give you this, Tenya Ida. Whatever ability you've seemed to have awakened… it's quite the powerful one," Stain's voice echoed out from behind him, as he felt a sudden pain surge throughout his body. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a knife sticking out of it before it was ripped out by Stain. "But, as it would seem, it doesn't work all the time. You have little control over it, don't you? I guess your Quirk must've… evolved somehow…. Heh, new power can be good at the moment, but when you don't know how to use it, it becomes your downfall."

Just as Stain was about to lick the knife with Ida's blood on it, The Figure rushed forward and punched Stain in the face. When the fist collided with Stain, yet again, a blue aura covered him. Instead of him going out of the alleyway at ludicrous speeds, however, he travelled just as slowly as the blade had been going from when it had been punched away.

Clasping his shoulder, Ida watched as the knife that Stain had been holding stabbed through his own cheek, ripping the skin, blood gushing from the new wound as it normally would, rather than being affected by The Figure's ability. The blood splattered all over Stain's attire, as he shouted in pain. Ida's eyes narrowed toward The Hero Killer, as started to walk around him, standing a decent distance away so that he wouldn't be knocked down by the hero killer's slowly moving body.

He observed what was happening, and finally, almost like completing a puzzle, Ida finally understood what his newfound ability could do.

"I think I get it now. Whatever this thing… no… whatever Can't Stop punches, their speed is affected. It either slows down or speeds up, completely bypassing the laws of inertia. No… not that either. It controls the laws of inertia. It manipulates it and bends it to its will," Tenya said, as he positioned himself and Can't Stop behind Stain proper, his face looking at Stain's back, all the while Can't Stop floated just in front of Ida. The villain's head slowly began to turn over his shoulder, eyes widening as nothing but raw, unadulterated hatred filled Tenya's eyes.

"You told me that I should prepare to die, Stain? That's funny. You came close to paralyzing me again, twice, and I have to admit, I was scared. But with this new power. With this new ability…. With my very own Stand…. you never stood a chance against me, did you?" Tenya spat as Can't Stop recoiled back its right arm, lunging toward Stain, as it unleashed a barrage of punches at speeds faster than the human eye could keep track of.

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With each punch landed, ripples formed across Stain's body. To the villain, it felt like an invisible semi-truck was slamming into him repeatedly over and over again. It hurt. It hurt a lot. He felt bones break, limbs snap, muscles contort and nigh unending pain.

He couldn't see what was attacking him. Just like what had happened back in The League's hideout. Just like what that fake Blackwell had done. He had somehow used some sort of ability that wasn't a Quirk to prevent him from stabbing Shigaraki, to paralyze him and kill him. And it was then that he picked up on something that Tenya Ida had said.

"With his very own Stand… Stand… is that was this new power is called?! Why can't I see it!? This makes no sense! I thought… I thought Quirks were the only kind of powers that someone could have!" Stain thought as the final blow hit him square in the chest, knocking him to the ground as he skidded and stumbled, before once again finding himself laying up against the same wall that Tenya Ida had slammed him into at the beginning of their second clash.

His body shook, coughing up blood as Tenya Ida walked toward him, a scowl on his face. The hatred in his eyes seemed to double, as he approached. There was confidence in his stride, a bravado, unlike anything he had seen from any of his prior opponents. And it scared him to his core. "Like I told you, Stain. I will kill you. For all of those who've you killed. For all the families you've separated. For my older brother. I would put a stop to your reign of terror. And now… it's time that I end this."

Stain, for the second time in his life, flinched, readying himself to die. The last time he had felt this way was when Knuckle Duster had cornered him during his time as Stendhal. He never thought that the brother of Ingenium would be able to do the same thing. To make him feel the fear of a thousand lions pouring down on him.

And at that moment… he accepted his death. He might not have been able to fulfill his goals, but at least he fell to a worthy opponent. To someone who he deemed his equal. He was able to keep up with him, something that not even his old friend could do. And while he was going out in a way that he didn't like, it wasn't as if he felt insulted. He was a little disappointed, sure, but at least he was going to die at the hands of someone with a clear sense of conviction, one that shone brighter than his own.

"Satoru… I'm sorry… that I couldn't change the world…. I'm sorry that I couldn't keep… my promise to you…"

Just as he was about to resign himself to his fate, out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone. Someone who had been standing just about next to him, just out of Tenya Ida's sight. They were tall, covered in shadow, the only thing noticeable being his inhuman yellow eyes. The figure gave him a large, toothy grin, before saying three words. And it was those three words that struck fear into him, more than anything Tenya Ida ever said.

"Pit Of Vipers."

In a split second, Tenya felt an excruciating pain surge throughout his entire body. He had seen it show up in a flash, a green viper of some kind with a pair of… wings? It had been surrounded by what appeared to be a green aura, not too dissimilar to Can't Stop's aura. The snake hissed, then straightened out like a spear, and travelled toward him at a speed far faster than what Can't Stop could block. As it travelled, its scales changed colour from green to a steely grey, almost like it was changing to match the scenery.

And then, it hit him square in the chest, but it didn't stop there. It kept going all the way through the center of his chest, through his heart, and out of his back. Blood sprayed out of him like a fountain, as Stain's eyes widened to the size of saucers. Can't Stop flickered in and out of existence, before crumbling away into nothingness, as Tenya Ida hit the ground, falling in a pool of his blood. The figure covered in shadows stepped out from around the corner, revealing themself.

They were tall, around 6 feet tall, in fact. They had a rather slim figure, and had been wearing a loose-fitting white short-sleeve shirt, with a pair of black denim jeans, and ankle-high boots. Over top of the shirt, the figure wore an unbuttoned green school uniform, which more or less clung onto him like a cape of some kind, held in place by two buckles. The figure's skin was pale, paler than it had any right to be, and the smile that the figure adorned was sharp-looking, almost inhuman. To top it all off, the figure had long, flowing, black hair, that reached down to the back of its neck and curled upwards, pointing toward the sky with arrow motifs hanging from his ears like a pair of earrings.

The figure stood above still, hands in his pants pockets, unfazed by the fact that he had just killed someone. His eyes reflected no sympathy, no emotion, although if there was one thing that Stain did see, it was some form of sadism.

"Ah… isn't that just sad? You were trying to avenge your brother as well, Tenya Ida…." The figure purred, before approaching the corpse of the young man. Stain could only watch as the figure straightened out his hand, and stabbed the back of Tenya's neck. What happened next made Stain's skin crawl. The longer the figure had his hand on Tenya's neck, the more shrivelled Tenya appeared to become, until his skin lost all colour, and his body appeared mummified. Then, the figure huffed, almost disappointed. "I've tasted better…."

Once the figure said that, he kicked the corpse to the side, the now completely bloodless husk of a human body hitting the wall as it crumpled in some vague form of a sideways slouch. The armour around the body's arms slid off, revealing more mummified remains, as the glasses that Tenya had been wearing slid off as well, which were then crushed by the figure.

"It's too bad, too…. He had just awakened a Stand and quite the powerful one at that. In a way, we had the same motivation. We both wanted revenge for our brothers. We both wanted to kill the person responsible. It's too bad that he was in my way…. Too bad that the was allied with the person who I wanted to die…. He would've been a great addition to Percussores damnatorum." It was then, that his tone of voice shifted from disappointment to sickening glee. "Oh, the irony. Just as he was about to get his revenge, just as he was on the cusp of claiming what was rightfully his, moments away from completing his life-long goal~! Only for it to be snuffed out~! Like water to a flame, it's quite cathartic. Seeing the light fade away from someone's eyes… the thrill of watching another pathetic human die never gets old to me~!"

Stain could only look at the figure in horror. He had no words for this… monster. Not that he had any energy left in his body to speak, or to even scream. However, the point was still there. For as much of a "monster" as Stain was told to be, for how much he was portrayed by the media to be a heartless, ruthless killer, deep down, Stain did not enjoy killing heroes. Far from it, actually.

Heroism, no matter what form it might take, was always something that Stain idolized. The only thing he hated about the current heroes was their obsession with popularity and money. He wasn't a fool to believe that some heroes did go for money and didn't save people in the process. The world wasn't black and white, he knew it, most people with a rational brain knew it, but even still, that was not what a hero was supposed to be.

Heroes, fundamentally, were meant to swoop in and save the day without any sort of reward issued to them, only taking the reward if it wasn't avoidable—just like All Might. All Might might have been wealthy, but a majority of the money he made he gave out to charity—hell, most of the top ten if you excluded Endeavour, did that as well. While he was an admitted super fan of All Might, he could see the merit of the other 8 heroes in the top ten. He wasn't blind to his obsession with killing every hero who didn't fit his clean-cut world of only altruistic heroes.

He was an idealist. Not an absolutist. He made mistakes, he was human. Not everyone could get it right all the time. When he did make a mistake, he tore himself apart for it. He beat himself up over it. He hated it when he got it wrong, even going out of his way to show up to the funerals of those he mistook as fakes, without the whole Hero Killer get-up, obviously.

That is to say, he wasn't heartless. He had his limits. And one of those limits was that he would not, ever, unless push came to shove, harm innocent people, or kill heroes-in-training unless he saw no other way out.

So when he looked up to see that monster talk gleefully about murdering Tenya Ida, he felt nothing but bone-chilling fear. That such a madman could exist. That, and he was pretty sure that the thing before him wasn't human. That the monster that was looming over the now mummified corpse of Tenya Ida was something beyond his comprehension.

And then the figure turned to face him.

And it smiled.

"Ah… Akaguro-kun~! The Boss wanted me to save you from your fate. I knew you'd be here, and I knew that brat would be here, too. Seeing as he's friends with the people who're going against my Boss, and someone who I have a personal grudge against, It's only fitting that he dies, right?"

Once again, Stain felt a chill go down his spine as he stared up at the monster that he, begrudgingly had to acknowledge, had saved his life. He had questions. So, so many questions. Like how it knew his name, or why it looked at him with the glee that it did. But most of all, he wanted to know what the hell it was talking about.

The monster leaned down and outstretched a hand toward Stain in an offering gesture. "Come now… you are an honorary member of The League of Villains, correct? That means that you're a partner with Damnatio ad Bestias. Allies look out for other allies, right? So… let's get out of here."

And just before Stain could pass out due to the pain that had been inflicted upon him by the now deceased Tenya Ida, he saw the makings of a purple, dark, swirling portal appear behind the monster, as said monster picked up a phone, and tapped something on the screen, before unconsciousness took him.

xxXXxxXXxx

Izuku had left the train about five minutes ago, running as fast as he could, ignoring Gran Torino's orders to stay put. As much as he respected his teacher, he couldn't just stand around knowing his friend was probably in a lot of danger right about now, and knowing that Gran Torino was probably in danger as well. And who could blame him? He knew he was empathetic to a fault, and that he had absolutely no self-control when it came to the desire of saving those even remotely close to him.

And as much as he wanted to obey Gran Torino's orders, he just couldn't. There was nothing that Gran Torino could've said to make him sit still. Even if he threatened to send him home early should he leave the train, all Izuku cared about was to go in and make sure that both his current mentor and Ida were safe and sound.

Right now, he had two goals in mind. Goal number one: Find and check to make sure Gran Torino was alright, and that he could handle the strange creature that resembled Nomu that had attacked the train. Goal number two: Find and locate Ida to make sure he was okay, help him through his time of need, and make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

A part of him felt bad for leaving all those people on that train, but he had other duties to attend to. Besides, before he left he had made sure everyone was alright, including the hero that had been slammed through the wall of the train. The conductor had told him that it was too dangerous, but Izuku knew dangerous. That thing was dangerous, and if it had half of the abilities of Nomu, due to him surmising some sort of familial bond between the two monsters, then Gran Torino was going to be in serious trouble.

"No… not just Gran Torino. Everyone in this entire city will be put in danger!" Izuku thought, as a picture of Ida, conflict in his eyes, flashed in Izuku's mind. "Ida will be in danger as well! His internship with Manual is here! Think, Izuku, think! What am I going to do?! What's the best course of action I can take to help these people?! What can I do to help Ida when I find him?!" Izuku thought, panic filling his veins as he turned the corner, and cried out for one of his first and best friends.

"TENYA!!!" Izuku called out, only to be met by absolute chaos. Smoke billowing from buildings, sidewalks cracked, people lying unconscious or worse on the ground, heroes fighting for their lives and rescuing civilians, all the while two massive, inhuman-like monsters were attacking everything and everyone indiscriminately.

And they too, both resembled Nomu from the USJ. One of them looked exactly like the Nomu from the USJ if you discounted the top of its head being completely lopped off and replaced with a brain, while the other was a gross yellowish colour with a pair of wings and a gas mask.

"No way…! What the hell is going on here?!" Izuku thought, as, once again, his eyes widened. Manual, who was busy helping put out a fire, seemed to be fretting over something. Something that drove more concern from Izuku.

"Tenya! Where the hell are you?!" Manual called out, only to curse under his breath. "How could he run off at a time like this?!" Manual shouted, looking from place to place as Izuku swallowed down the building fear in his stomach.

"Manual, Ida's interner, is calling out for him? But why? Why would he have to do that…. Unless… no, why would he do something stupid like that?! There's no way Ida would be dumb enough to…. To…." Izuku closed his eyes and made a swift heel turn to run down an opposite street. "Of course! That was why Ida interned with Manual! The Hero Killer was spotted in Hosu! With all this chaos going on, Ida would assume that The Hero Killer would be taking advantage of it, and going after other heroes! And since he has a grudge against The Hero Killer… he's gone to hunt him down without Manual knowing!"

Turning a corner, he narrowed his eyes, activating Full Cowl, which thanks to his training with Gran Torino, he had just about fully mastered, to increase his movement speed. And as he ran to go search for Ida and The Hero Killer, he did some mental gymnastics.

"I might be overthinking this, but a lot of things have made me have to do some extra mental work over these last few months. I've got no real evidence that this is the case, but I'll be damned if it isn't just a coincidence! Nomu look-a-likes pop up in the city around the same time as The Hero Killer, it's the perfect storm to drum up some wanton chaos. Nomu worked with The League of Villains and was their strongest heavy-hitter during the USJ, strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a weakened, heavily injured All Might. The fact that more of them showed up here, in Hosu, means the League of Villains has something to do with what's going on."

Izuku turned another corner, bouncing off of a wall as he jumped from place to place, picking up speed and momentum, all the while listening for noises that didn't match with the current environment. Keeping an ear out for Ida's voice.

"I may be the only one in the whole city uneasy about this, probably because no one else is aware of The League of Villains due to their recent spiral in popularity on the online internet forums that I've been using in conjunction with Sakunami-san on info for those Stand Bullets, and seeing as their only limited to online forums, not many people would come to this conclusion. However, the idea of The League and Stain working together… scares me to the core. Especially because The League was powerful enough to hire a Stand User on their side back at the USJ. At least, according to Fumi-kun, anyway. If they could get Stain to join them… then I don't doubt for a second that these villains might become the bane of our existence in the months to come!"

Izuku lept around another corner, and narrowed his eyes, as something caught his eye. A small glint of something reflective. And it was there, that Izuku knew that he had found Ida because only his suit would make that gleam.

"I was right, he found The Hero Killer!"

Izuku whipped around the corner, and was prepared for the fight of his life! He was prepared to fight The Hero Killer Stain and was determined to make sure that Ida and himself would get out of this alive. He didn't plan on capturing The Hero Killer or going on a prolonged fight with the villain. He planned to scoop up Ida and get them out of there before any more harm could be done.

At least, that was the plan.

His plan came to a screeching halt, as he had to stop dead in his tracks. Because the person in the alleyway was not The Hero Killer. The person in question was a tall, looming figure, wearing what could only be called a mishmash of fashion and design. He stood stock still, hand—no, claw reached out to swat him away like a fly. The force of the impact was so great, that when he hit the wall of the building, he could've sworn he felt at least two of his ribs break on impact alone, let alone what the hit to the chest caused.

Behind the figure was a dark, swirling portal that Izuku recognized to belong to the villain Kurogiri, what he saw enter it shocked him just as much, that being The Hero Killer. Granted, he was being lifted through it by what appeared to be two arms belonging to an orange-suited man, but that was not what he was paying attention to. It was the fact that he was right. The League of villains was working together with The Hero Killer.

However, while that was a revelation in itself. Another revelation came, when he looked up at the figure. He was greeted with two, very inhuman, very vicious, and very deadly eyes. "Ah… Midoriya Izuku~! It's quite a treat to meet you here! Who could've guessed that the ninth holder of One For All would come walking right into our hands~!"

Izuku felt his blood run cold, as his breathing turned from slightly quickened due to the shock of being hit, to an outright panic-attack level pace, as the man bore down on him, with a sinister smile, all the while his eyes gleamed with sinister intentions. This, mixed with the utter euphoria in his tone of voice made alarm bells ring in Izuku's head. What also made Izuku's head ring with alarm bells, was the fact that this man knew about One For All.

"How?! How does he know?! All Might said that only a few people knew of his Quirk?! So how could this random villain know of it?!" Izuku thought, panic flowing through his veins, as the man's expression burned into his subconscious. Once he got out of this, he had to tell All Might immediately. If his secret was out to a villain, then All Might would want to know.

And while the knowledge of One For All being in the hands of a villain was bad enough already. What he saw next was even worse.

And then, what went from considered, then to alarm, transformed into pure horror and disgust, as his eyes trailed to what could only be described to be a mummy wearing Tenya's hero costume, along with a hole the size of a 500 yen coin in the center of his chest, along with the shattered remains of Tenya's glasses.

The horror and disgust turned to anger, as Izuku's eyes gained a dangerous gleam. Activating Full Cowl, Izuku lept up from his spot against the wall, completely ignoring the broken ribs, charging toward the villain that he assumed killed his friend, cocking back a fist to slam it into the bastard's lower jaw, only for the figure to completely disappear, before a pain unlike any he had felt before surged throughout his body.

Izuku came crashing down to the floor, Full Cowl deactivating as a sinister laugh rippled throughout the alleyway. "Ah~! How sad! You must've cared for that brat, didn't you, Midoriya Izuku?" The villain taunted, Izuku coughing up his left lung, bent over the ground on his knees, a few droplets of blood being mixed into the saliva that came out of the boy's mouth.

The villain loomed over his shoulder, grabbing him by the tuft of his hair, and lifting him off the ground as he dangled uselessly in the air, back to the villain as he let out a small, sinister chuckle. "Oh, but who am I kidding? Of course, you cared for him! He was your classmate, your friend even! Why would you not care about him dying? I should've expected this reaction out of you! And what's better, is that the plan worked! Not that I had one in the beginning, but seeing that phone of his, I knew I could call two of the most powerful students of Class 1 – A to this very location! And finish them off for good! Isn't that right, Shoto Todoroki?"

Izuku hadn't realized it, but at the mouth of the alleyway, Shoto stood, eyes wide as he wore his revamped hero costume, that being a blue tracksuit with brown gear-like rings wrapping around the base of his shoulders, along with a tactical-styled belt and black combat boots. Izuku's eyes trailed over to the mouth of the alleyway, as he saw the downright mortified expression on the half-and-half teen's face.

"T-Todoroki-Kun…?" Izuku rasped, as he coughed yet again. Izuku had no idea what the extent of the damage was in his body, and right now, he wasn't all too caring about that. Anger still flowed through his body at the knowledge that Ida was dead, killed by the villain who had so thoroughly defeated him, while the same villain had him in his grasp.

He wanted to lash out. He wanted to somehow find a way out of the horrid situation he was in right now, but with how weak he was beginning to feel, he knew that it was impossible.

"Midoriya…. Ida…?" Shoto murmured, as rage flowed from the young teen's eyes. "You… you bastard!" Shoto hollered, fire dancing across his left side, as the villain tossed Izuku to the left, making him hit another wall face first, knocking him to the ground. A torrent of brilliant orange flame washed over the alleyway, just barely missing Izuku, and grazing Ida's mummified corpse. Izuku slowly tried to get up, but the damage done to his ribs was enough to make him stay on the ground, coughing up more blood as his pupils shrank.

"Blood… I'm… coughing up blood…. I must've been... internally injured from that attack…! Just how strong is this guy?!" Izuku thought as the flames died down, Shoto breathing heavily on the other side of the alleyway, as the man, now burnt to a crisp, stood stock still in the alleyway. When Izuku saw that, he for sure thought the man was dead. And while the thought of Shoto killing someone was downright mortifying, at the very least, Ida would've been avenged.

Only for his skin to start growing back, and for his eyes to revert from whatever they had become, to normal eyes.

Both Shoto and Izuku stared in abstract horror, as the monster laughed uproariously, and slowly began to retake his form. Of course, he was left with no clothes, so it revealed everything that had been hiding underneath what it had been wearing. The monster was ripped, built like an athletic runner, his skin paler than what could be considered normal, all the way down to every last inch of him. The monster had no shame to show it all, and it made the mood incredibly uncomfortable.

"I knew that Endeavour and his spawn were going to be here! It only made sense, especially if anything revolving around The Hero Killer had anything to do with it. After all, Endeavour was actively hunting The Hero Killer for quite some time now! He made it public that he was, and who could blame him?! For a man who so thoroughly slandered him, of course, the man being slandered would want to kill him, right?!" The madman ranted, the portal of Kurogiri having been long gone, meaning that the villain had no intentions of leaving, as a wave of dread washed over the whole of the alleyway.

Both Shoto and Izuku stared at him with terror written all over their faces, as the inhuman monstrosity that was… whoever this guy had been, faced them down with nothing but glee strewn across his face. It was a twisted, sickening face, that even if the vilest of humanity saw it, they too would shrivel their faces in disgust at just how unabashedly monstrous this thing was.

"Now~! I'll take my next step for revenge! I will kill two of the strongest members of Class 1 – A! One, who is related to a bastard, and the other, who is directly connected with my current nemesis and target! Ha~! This is so fulfilling~!" The monster said, a bright, demonic smile spreading across his face, only for it to drop, replaced by one of annoyance, as he placed a finger to his ear. There was a moment of silence, before he cursed, then hissed. "It would seem my fun is being put to an end…. I can't disobey orders. Oh well, we'll meet again, Izuku Midoriya, and Shoto Todoroki… and I hope it will be very, very soon~!"

And with that, the monster jumped from where he stood, leaving cracks in the floor, shaking Shoto off of his feet and on his ass, as both Izuku and Shoto watched the man leap from wall to wall, before heading atop the rooftops to go… wherever it was he was heading.

Izuku could do nothing but lay on the floor, a wave of dread washing over him. He could do nothing but cower in fear at the sight of that… of that thing, and wait for him to do something. If it hadn't been for Shoto, he was pretty sure in the fact that he would've died. And even then… even with Shoto's intervention, his body was too broken to run away. That thing was moments away from killing them both before he was called away by someone who he deemed to be his superior.

And if something that strong had a Boss… that meant that whoever this Boss was had to have been a million times stronger…. And if that was the case….

"I… was going to…. Die…." Izuku thought, his consciousness weighing, his eyes barely staying open due to the lingering smell of burning flesh. Once the smell faded, he felt a cold chill wash over him. He could vaguely make out Shoto's voice before yet another pain filled his chest. Before his vision started to go dark, he coughed up another glob of blood, and then, due to the immense heaviness, his eyelids felt, he shut his eyes.

One moment, Izuku remembered narrowly losing consciousness. The next, he heard Gran Torino's voice, and finally, he heard police and ambulance sirens. And after all of that, after all the racket was done, he slipped into a sleep-like state, still able to hear all the voices, indiscriminate as they might've been, flow from one ear and out the other.

And then… there was nothing.