Chapter 87

The scream of splitting ice cut through as Todoroki shot upward on a glacier, flames already wreathing his left side. Below him, Jiro's voice was raw, "He's not himself." But he didn't need the warning. 

Dark Shadow loomed, a tsunami of teeth and claws, its form swallowing entire blocks. Heroes lay strewn like broken toys, Mirko was pinned under rubble while also being surrounded by some villains that all had white shirts with the clear words L.O.V written on them, signifying their allegiance. 

And at the center, Tokoyami, his body used more like a it was a puppet in his beasts core, eyes wide and unassuming. 

Light. That was the answer. 

Todoroki's fire roared to life, a supernova blast aimed skyward. The flames licked at Dark Shadow's edges, forcing it to recoil, but not enough. The beast screamed, a sound like grinding bones, and lashed out. A talon the size of a bus slammed into Todoroki's ice, sending him skidding back. 

"Jiro!" he barked. "Can you reach him?" 

She didn't hesitate. "I can try!" Her jacks stabbed into the ice, amplifying her heartbeat into a sonic pulse that shattered the platform beneath her, launching her straight for Tokoyami. 

Dark Shadow swiped. 

Todoroki moved. 

A wall of ice erupted between Jiro and the attack, splintering instantly, but buying her a millisecond. She twisted midair, fingers outstretched. 

"FUMIKAGE!" 

Her voice cracked like a whip, vibrating through Dark Shadow's form. The beast stuttered, its red eyes flickering, Tokoyami's consciousness, fighting back. 

Now. 

Todoroki dropped his ice. The glacier beneath him collapsed as he poured everything into his flames, a tidal wave of fire that engulfed Dark Shadow. The beast shrieked, its form writhing, shrinking. 

But not fast enough. 

A backhanded strike sent Todoroki plummeting. He hit the street hard, ribs screaming, but rolled up just as Dark Shadow's maw dove for him. 

Jiro wasn't done. 

She landed on a lamppost, jacks plunging into the metal, and screamed. 

The sound distorted, a subsonic howl that made the air ripple. Dark Shadow clutched its head, Tokoyami's voice finally breaking through: 

"S...Stop!" 

Todoroki struck. 

A blitzkrieg of ice, spires, walls and shackles, hemming Dark Shadow in, herding it toward the light. His left side burned, flames white-hot, searing the beast's edges to smoke. 

"NOW, Earphone Jack!" 

She leaped, jacks slamming into Tokoyami's temples. 

"WAKE UP!" 

A final pulse. 

Dark Shadow imploded. 

The darkness slowly peeled away, dissolving like ink in water, until only Tokoyami remained, collapsing into Jirou's arms, tears cutting through the soot on his face. 

Silence. 

"...what... did... I?" Tokoyami's voice was broken. His fingers clutched Jiro's sleeves, shaking. Around them, the wreckage spoke for him. 

He was broken, his body was shaking in little tremors and his mouth was open, letting out tired breaths that sounded like he was hyperventilating. Almost everyone in the class knew that Tokoyami was more than a little insecure of his quirk. 

It was strong, and many people called out its potential. But whenever they did he was quick to call out its potential for danger and give off examples of such happenings. 

Her classmates would refute it and tell him that he was destined to be a great hero, but now. Now he had shown them what he meant by loosing control to the darkness and allowing his sentient quirk to take control of him. His biggest fear. 

"It wasn't your fault Tokoyami..." Jiro tried to say, but the heavy breathing didn't stop. It continued and got even worse. 

She had woke him up from his slumber but she wasn't able to completely pull him out of the darkness, out of the self-hate and doubt that he had just done for her. 

And that may have hurt her more. 

Todoroki approached, his flames already gone, he could do nothing but watch on. Silently, he was wishing Midoriya were here. 

*** 

The Tokyo Tower's collapse painted the sky in embers and screams, its skeletal remains clawing at the smoke-choked heavens. Sir Nighteye's breath came in short, ragged bursts as he sprinted through the wreckage, Centipeder's frantic clicks barely registering over the thunder of his own pulse. 

All Might is there. 

And Soryu will be there too. 

The thought's looped in his skull like a deranged mantra, drowning out reason. His glasses slipped down his nose, the cracked lens distorting the world into fractured glimpses, collapsed storefronts, fleeing civilians, the distant golden flicker of All Might's battle. 

Centipeder's mandibles snapped shut around his sleeve. "Sir! This is reckless!" 

Nighteye whirled, his usually pristine suit stained with ash and sweat, his pupils pinpricks behind his glasses. "Those fools think I'm the one who's lost it," he hissed, voice too sharp. "Hawks, Jeanist, even Nezu. They think I'm some rabid dog chasing ghosts." A twitch jerked at his cheek. "But I saw him. I saw Soryu. He is a major contributing factor to this mayhem. He killed All Might!" Nighteye's voice came out as a shrill scream, and he pulled himself away from Centipeder as he stretched his hand upward. 

"Even if the heroes say he has aided them in this operation, he is still a villain, one that has killed and acted out on his own. One who has deceived heroes to further whatever his agenda is. Soryu at the very least needs to be restrained and monitored, they shouldn't allow him to carry on. So I will..."

"Sir!" Centipeder tried grabbing him again but stopped midway. "All Might is still alive." 

Something was wrong with Nighteye, maybe it was his quirk or maybe it was deeper than that, but sometimes Centipeder and some of the other crew would notice him speaking on future events as though they had already happened. It made finishing up jobs harder. 

Centipeder didn't like seeing his boss... his friend like this. In a state that was more similar to a patient in a psych ward. He blamed himself partly for all of this, and it all started with that damn article he made sure was published due to his own ego being hurt. 

"I have noticed that I feel a great tomb of regret over my actions during the operation against Overhaul." Nighteye looked at him ready to refute. "I should never have antagonized Soryu the way I did, I feel that was one of the many decisions that lead to what is going on now with you Sir. I feel that if we looked at him for what he was... a young boy in a position no child should have been in, then things would be very different now." 

There was a short sigh that came from Nighteye, he still looked worse for wear but he slicked his hair back and let out the deep breath while trying to look as composed as possible. The dark bags under his eyes only made it that much harder. 

"You have been an exemplary member of the Nighteye agency." Centipeder didn't know where this was going. To him it sounded like the start of a sentence from your boss before telling you that 'you've been let go'. But Centipeder was confident that was not what was going on now. 

"And you have nothing to regret. As a member of my agency I not only carry my own burdens but your's as well, just as I do Mirio and Bubble Girl. So I say again Centipeder, you have nothing to regret." 

Centipeder didn't know what was going on. He couldn't pull himself away from Nighteyes stern look. It was like facing another person when hearing that tone and the words that accompanied it. The words came out like magic, like they were scrambled on a communication device catered to exactly what he wanted to hear and Nighteye was just the voice box. 

And then it switched. 

"So I hope you continue to fulfill your role as my exemplary sidekick." In the flip of a switch he changed again. His tone darker and more demanding. "Help me in cutting out a tumour before it metastasizes." 

Centipeder couldn't give a response, he couldn't even turn his head quick enough at the sound that interrupted them. 

It wasn't an explosion, it was more like a crunch, like skull meeting concrete at terminal velocity. 

Nighteye's head snapped toward the ruins of a shattered office building, its glass facade now a jagged maw. Through the dust storm, two figures blurred, one hurtling backwards, the other laughing. 

Soryu. 

Daiki Tenma the other. Nighteye remembered being briefed on the latter. The League's Storm Incarnate. He held a triple edged lance, it looked as though it vibrated in the air around them, warping like asphalt in a heatwave. His grin was a sickle moon of malice. Lips peeled back too far, too wide. 

"C'MON RAT!" Daiki crowed, voice gutter deep and giddy. "Dodge better or I'll rip your legs off before the fun starts!" 

Soryu skidded across the street, his paper forged blade splintering under the force of the impact. Blood webbed from his hairline, his breaths were uneven, wet. But his eyes,

Cold. Calculating. And... desperate? 

Nighteye's vision tunneled. 

There. 

Right there. 

The one that was haunting his foresight, the crack of All Might's future, the variable that didn't belong. 

"SORYU!" The roar tore from Nighteye's throat, raw and unrecognizable. 

Neither fighter noticed him. 

Daiki moved. 

His lance swung, not at Soryu, but the air itself, and the shockwave that followed buckled the street. Nighteye barely had time to flinch before the force clubbed him sideways, sending him crashing into an overturned car. 

Pain. White-hot and blinding. 

Centipeder's voice was distant. "SIR!" 

Nighteye gasped, blood filling his mouth. Through the static, he saw: 

Soryu twisting midair, his blade reforming as he slashed at Daiki's throat. 

Daiki leaning back, the strike missing by millimeters, his knee driving into Soryu's ribs with a wet crack... 

Soryu spitting blood, his free hand slamming a paper seal into Daiki's chest. 

The blast that followed, erupting in a sphere of force, hurling Daiki through three buildings. 

And then... 

Eye contact. 

Kobe's light brown irises locked onto Nighteye's. 

Recognition. 

. 

And indifference. 

Nighteye lurched forward, his body screaming, his quirk screaming louder. 

Foresight: Activate... 

A flash. All Might's shattered smile. Soryu's bloodied hands. Something sharp glinting in the dark. 

The vision shattered. 

Daiki's foot connected with Nighteye's jaw. 

"OUTTA MY WAY YA STRINGBEAN!" 

The world spun. 

Then.

He was out... 

***

I don't hear the next attack. I feel it. 

The air compresses, a vacuum forming for just a fraction of a second before Daiki's lance punches through reality itself, the shockwaves ripping the street apart beneath my feet. My paper reacts before I do, unfolding into a wall just thick enough to diffuse the force, but not enough to stop it. 

The impact lifts me off the ground, my ribs screaming as I skid backward, boots carving trenches into asphalt. Blood wells in my mouth, metallic and warm. 

Daiki doesn't let me breathe. 

He's already gone, his form blurring as he absorbs the recoil of his own strike, using it to propel himself forward faster than I can track. His lance whirs, edges glowing white-hot from the sheer speed he's stolen from the world around him. 

I barely move. 

His thrusts misses my throat by a hair, but the air pressure alone splits my cheek open. I twist, paper coiling around my arm into a serrated blade, and slash for his ribs... 

CLANG. 

The strike connects, but doesn't cut. 

Daiki's jacket ripples, the fabric hardening as he halts all momentum in the material. My blade shatters into little pieces of paper on contact, the backlash jolting up my arm. 

He grins, teeth glistening. 

His knee crushes into my gut. 

I fold around the blow, paper bursting from my back to cushion the impact, but it still sends me flying. I tuck, rolling through the debris of a shattered storefront, glass biting into my skin. 

Think. 

Daiki isn't just strong. He is an unfair match. I wonder if this is what it felt like fighting the real All Might. I only had that one clone to fight against. And even then, I had to use my quirk to create a clone of him to fight against. 

I couldn't do that now. 

The conditions to do that couldn't be reached. First I would have to touch what I am fighting against to copy it if it is a living form for at least one minute of accumulated time. And I would also have to know their quirk so it works how I envision it. 

With how quick Daiki is moving, I couldn't even land a hand on him, so it was better to just forsake that idea and think of something else. 

His quirk, Thunder, lets him absorb, store and redirect momentum. Every step he takes, every strike he throws, every hit he absorbs, it all fuels him. The longer this fight goes, the faster, the heavier, the more unstoppable he becomes. 

And his clothes? 

They were like armour. 

By nullifying momentum in the fabric, he makes it impenetrable. No cuts. No bullets. No conventional force gets through. 

I spit blood, forcing myself up. 

Daiki flicks his wrist. 

A pebble shoots toward me at bullet speed. 

I swerve, but it clips my shoulder, spinning me, just as he closes the distance, lance already mid-swing. 

I drop, letting the blade scorch the air above me, and kick upward, paper coating my leg into a spiked maul. 

He leans back, but I twist, hooking his ankle with a chain of paper. 

Yank. 

He stumbles... 

CRACK. 

My elbow meets his jaw, paper reinforcing the strike, 

But his head barely snaps back. 

He grins, blood dripping from his lip. 

"Cute." 

His hand clamps around my throat. 

I remember this. 

The Eden Project. 

The rankings. 

Daiki, always first. Me, just behind him. 

I never fought him seriously, just enough to not get obliterated by him. 

Now I know why. 

The gap isn't just skill. 

It's monstrous. 

He slams into the ground, the pavement cratering beneath me. My paper armour cracks. 

"You're slow, Kobe." He murmurs, almost disappointed. 

Then, he punches. 

I roll, his fist obliterating concrete where my head was. 

My paper erupts, not as a weapon, but as my smokescreen of a thousand pieces of origami birds. 

Daiki snorts, swatting them aside. 

But they're not distractions. 

They're sensors. 

I feel the air shift as he moves, his trajectory mapped by the displaced paper. 

I dodge his next swing, sliding under his guard, and drive a paper-coated fist into his kidney. 

Solid hit.  

He grunts, but it doesn't last as he hardens his jacket again. 

Damn it.

One moment I'm standing, the next, my ribs scream as Daiki's lance hurls me backwards like a bullet. The first building rushes up to me, and I barely twist in time to take the impact on my shoulder instead of my spine. Plaster explodes around me, drywall disintegrating as I carve a trench through someone's apartment, a coffee table shatters under my back, a TV screen bursting into sparks as I crash through it. 

Momentum still carries me. 

The second building hits harder. 

Glass shrieks as I plow through an office window, cubicles flipping like dominos in my wake. A water cooler erupts, drenching me in icy liquid that immediately turns pink with my blood. I skid across the carpet, finally slamming into a concrete support beam hard enough to crack it. 

I gasp, tasting copper, my vision swimming. My paper reacts on instinct, unfurling from my sleeves to brace my broken ribs, reinforcing my body like a living cast. 

Then... Screaming! 

Not mine. 

A child's voice, shrill with terror. 

I blink blood from my eyes and see them through the shattered remains of the office floor, civilians huddled in the intersection below, shielded by Death Arms' massive frame while Vlad King's blood-whips lash out in desperate arcs. A little girl clutches a singed All Might plushie, her wide eyes reflecting the firelight. 

Daiki steps through the wreckage behind me, boots crunching glass. 

"Oops," he croons. 

I see his lance wing was not meant for me but the building instead, it's last intact column. 

No. 

I move before the thought finishes. 

Paper erupts from my skin in a storm of razor-edged threads, weaving through the air like living things. They dart past Vlad King's whips, slip between Death Arm's fingers, wrapping around every civilian in cocoons of reinforced origami. A UA student gasps as my paper birds lift a toddler from her arms... 

Daiki's strike lands. 

The shockwave hits me first. 

A wall of compressed air crushes my chest, sending me flying again, but not before I see my paper nets tighten protectively as the building implodes behind me. 

I hit the street shoulder-first, tumbling like a ragdoll until my back slams into an overturned car. Agony whites out my vision. But through the link of scattered paper fibers, I feel them, every heartbeat I snatched from death's grip. 

My remaining paper convulses, transforming into cranes that burst skyward, each carrying their precious cargo to safety. The last thing I see is the little girl's plushie clutched in a paper bird's beak before— 

"Since when," Daiki's voice cut through the ringing in my ears, "did you grow a conscious?" 

A boot crushes my wrist. Bones creak. 

I spit blood onto his shoe. "Well, its not like people like you will. And the world needs balance." 

He leans down, breath hot against my ear. "I think I've got you figured out Kobe." My free hand twitches. "You're like a fly on the wall. You're an observer. You like to watch how things unfold up until its last moment and that when you decide whether you want to act or not." 

He pauses, as if tasting the thought. "You let chaos bloom. Then pluck a petal and pretend it was always your's to begin with." 

I don't answer. My finger's twitch again, brushing broken glass. 

Daiki chuckles, low and amused. "And when you do act, its never for them. Not for heroes, not for justice and not for villainy." His boots grind harder, wrist threatening to snap. "Its because you hate the ending you're watching." 

My vision split, half blood, half fire. I can see the cranes breaking into the sky. Some nearly fall apart midair. Expected when I split my focus like this. 

He kicks onto my back. 

"I'll give you one clean shot, fly-boy." He spins the lance once more, embedding it into the pavement beside my face. "Lets see if you can stop being a bystander." 

I smile, teeth red. "You talk too much." 

He blinks. 

And a thorny and sharp piece of paper is jabbed through his left ankle. 

Daiki snarls, a wild animal sound. He didn't sound mad, maybe surprised and he jerked back with a smile on his face. 

I raised my arm, torn tendons screaming and my paper explodes outward like a supernova, forming a giant figure behind me. A fox with a hundred tails, like ribbons of steel. Each tail had edges hones like blades, whispering through the air with lethal grace. 

This is my next best thing. 

Daiki backed up a little, his lance pulsated in the ground at his side. 

"You're gonna die here Kobe." 

The bloodlust radiating off of him is suffocating. 

But I don't retreat. Daiki Tenma is someone too strong for most people out there. He is someone that loves the thrill of battle and the stench of death wafting around the air too much. He is someone that would have to be put down. Just like Overhaul... And just like Abyss. 

I square my stance. 

"Let round two begin!"