At the same time that Mewtwo, Kaina, and multiple heroes were investigating the religious maniac, life continued.
Unfortunately...
Not in a good way.
Just because they were focused on one case didn't mean the rest of the world had stopped moving.
Far from it.
Across Musutafu, incidents continued to unfold one after another, each one demanding the attention of heroes already spread dangerously thin.
One of the biggest problems involved Class 1-A.
More specifically...
Tenya Iida.
The Hero Killer had finally made his move.
Stain had attacked a Pro Hero.
Not just any Pro Hero.
He had attacked Ingenium.
Iida's older brother.
The attack left him gravely injured, and although he survived, his future as a hero had become uncertain.
For Tenya...
That wasn't something he could simply accept.
He tried to convince himself to remain calm.
To trust the professionals.
To let the heroes handle it.
But every time he closed his eyes, all he could think about was his brother lying in a hospital bed while the man responsible continued walking free.
Eventually...
His emotions won.
He couldn't remain idle while his brother's attacker was still out there.
He knew the area where the Hero Killer usually hunted.
If he searched long enough...
Sooner or later another hero would become the target.
And if that happened...
He would find him.
He would stop him.
Or perhaps...
Avenge his brother.
Sadly...
Fate answered those thoughts.
He found him.
Hidden within a narrow alley, illuminated only by the dim light filtering between the surrounding buildings, the Hero Killer stood over another Pro Hero.
The hero had already been defeated.
Pinned helplessly against the pavement beneath the villain's blade.
Without hesitation, Iida charged.
His engines roared as he accelerated straight toward the murderer.
But...
He wasn't the only one searching that day.
Or, more accurately...
Someone had been searching for Iida.
Shoto Todoroki had realized what his classmate intended to do and had followed him, hoping to stop him before he acted recklessly.
He arrived just in time.
The instant Stain moved to finish the fallen hero, an enormous wall of ice erupted between them.
The Hero Killer reacted immediately, leaping backward before the frozen barrier could trap him.
Even so...
His blade still managed to graze Iida's face.
A shallow cut.
Small...
But enough.
Stain's eyes narrowed.
As he retreated, he calmly licked the blood still clinging to his sword.
Almost instantly...
Iida collapsed.
His body refused to obey him.
Every muscle locked in place.
He crashed onto the ground, unable to move.
Todoroki frowned.
He had no idea what had happened.
But judging from the timing, it had to be the villain's Quirk.
Without wasting another second, he raised another massive wall of ice, separating Stain from both Iida and the injured Pro Hero.
The Hero Killer understood the message immediately.
He didn't waste time trying to force his way toward Iida.
There was no point.
Another obstacle now stood before him.
He would deal with this boy first.
Then...
He could finish the others.
Suddenly, Stain exploded into motion.
His speed was frightening.
In the same instant, he twisted his body to avoid a surprise attack coming from his blind spot and countered with one of his blades.
Instead of flesh...
His sword struck something hard.
Clink.
Steel met steel.
"Midoriya, be careful!" Todoroki shouted without taking his eyes off Stain. "From what I saw, if he licks your blood, you'll become paralyzed!"
Midoriya immediately nodded, never lowering his guard.
"Todoroki-kun... how's Iida?"
"Paralyzed," Todoroki answered, his expression tense. "I think... he just needs time to recover. I'm not completely sure."
Midoriya clenched his fists before nodding.
Then Todoroki asked another question.
"Is anyone else coming?"
Midoriya hesitated for a brief moment.
"...I only sent a message to you. Sorry."
For a second, silence settled between them.
Then Todoroki slowly nodded.
"Okay..."
He shifted his stance, ice gathering beneath his feet while his eyes remained fixed on Stain.
"So..."
"We'll just have to beat him."
Midoriya grabbed his wrists, and a sharp click echoed through the alley.
Heavy metal weights detached from both of his forearms and crashed onto the pavement with a loud thud. A second later, he repeated the motion with his legs. Four massive training weights hit the ground one after another, cracking the concrete beneath them.
The instant they were gone...
Lightning exploded around Midoriya's body.
Green sparks danced across his limbs as Full Cowling surged through him.
He accelerated.
So suddenly that even Stain's eyes widened for an instant.
The distance between them vanished.
Midoriya's kick shot toward the Hero Killer's head with enough force to create a gust of wind.
Stain barely managed to react.
Crossing both blades before him, he blocked the strike with his entire body behind the defense.
BOOM!
The impact forced the villain several meters backward, his boots scraping across the pavement.
Even so...
The Hero Killer lived up to his reputation.
The moment his feet stabilized, he retaliated.
One blade flashed toward Midoriya's torso.
But the green-haired boy twisted his body in midair, narrowly avoiding the slash before landing several meters away.
At the very same moment, Todoroki attacked.
A massive wave of ice surged across the ground, racing directly toward Stain in an attempt to trap him before he could recover.
While the students of Class 1-A fought desperately against the Hero Killer...
Elsewhere across the city...
Chaos had already begun.
Multiple Nomu were rampaging through Musutafu.
Heroes rushed from one district to another, desperately trying to contain the monsters, but most of them quickly realized an unpleasant truth.
The creatures were simply too powerful.
One by one, buildings collapsed beneath their strength.
Cars were overturned.
Roads shattered.
The fires ignited by their attacks spread rapidly through the surrounding streets, growing larger with every passing minute as thick black smoke rose into the evening sky.
Yet this time...
Unlike the original events...
There wasn't a Shigaraki standing atop a building, proudly admiring the destruction.
Instead...
Tomura Shigaraki stood alone in the middle of an empty field.
Both of his hands were heavily wrapped in fresh bandages.
They had been surgically reattached after the disaster at U.A.
The operation had been successful...
Technically.
But the result looked grotesque.
Metal staples lined parts of his wrists and fingers, while angry scars disappeared beneath the white bandages.
The injuries had healed...
His hatred hadn't.
Slowly, Shigaraki raised a pair of binoculars and stared toward the distant skyline.
His teeth ground together.
He had finally spotted the figure approaching.
Heroes weren't the only ones with an information network.
The League of Villains had one as well.
And an organization led by All For One possessed connections far beyond what ordinary villains could ever dream of.
Ever since the failed assault on U.A.—the incident that had cost Shigaraki both of his hands—there had been only one thing occupying his thoughts.
Mewtwo.
He wanted revenge.
No...
He needed revenge.
Interestingly enough...
All For One had also developed a growing interest in the young hero.
Not out of hatred.
Out of potential.
The boy possessed extraordinary abilities.
Enough to become a future vessel.
A masterpiece.
And All For One had no intention of letting such talent disappear.
No matter the cost.
There was very little in this world that he couldn't accomplish.
"Calm down, Tomura-kun."
The calm voice came from the communication device attached to Shigaraki's ear.
All For One wasn't physically present.
He was observing everything remotely through cameras and hidden surveillance.
"He's coming."
"And he'll stop soon."
Shigaraki frowned.
"...How are you so sure?"
"Simple."
All For One sounded almost amused.
"He's been hunting that serial killer for weeks. The man escaped the authorities for so long only because I allowed it."
A brief pause followed.
"I believed he might become useful someday."
"...And today is that day."
"Even if he serves only as bait... he'll fulfill his purpose."
Completely unaware of everything unfolding across Musutafu...
Mewtwo continued flying at maximum speed.
The landscape blurred beneath him as he pursued the trail left by the escaped priest.
Then...
Something caught his attention.
A crashed vehicle.
His eyes immediately locked onto it.
The car had slammed violently into the roadside, its front completely destroyed.
Near the wreckage...
Someone was moving.
Slowly.
Struggling to stand.
The priest.
"...He crashed?"
Mewtwo frowned.
It didn't make sense.
Or perhaps...
It did.
Running from the authorities only to end up crashing moments before escaping...
The irony was almost unbelievable.
He was about to descend when something else caught his eye.
The damage.
It wasn't natural.
His psychic senses immediately focused on the twisted metal.
There.
Embedded deep into the side of the vehicle...
Was the unmistakable imprint of a fist.
Not a collision.
An impact.
Someone had punched the car hard enough to crumple reinforced steel.
Mewtwo's expression immediately changed.
This hadn't been an accident.
Someone had attacked the vehicle.
And anyone capable of causing that level of damage with a single strike...
Was incredibly powerful.
Instantly becoming alert, Mewtwo remained hovering in the sky.
His psychic senses expanded in every direction, searching the surroundings for whoever had caused the attack while simultaneously keeping the injured priest within sight.
The man was desperately trying to crawl away from the wreck.
The reason was obvious.
Small flames had already begun spreading beneath the engine.
Sooner or later...
The vehicle would explode.
Even without that danger, putting distance between himself and the wreckage was the smartest thing he could do.
The priest also looked badly injured.
Nothing immediately fatal...
But Mewtwo could already tell that several bones had been broken.
Still...
Something about the entire scene bothered him.
Everything looked...
Too perfect.
Too carefully arranged.
Almost...
As if someone had deliberately staged it.
In the next instant, Mewtwo stopped himself from descending.
Instead, he hovered in place, his eyes narrowing as he carefully analyzed the scene below.
Something...
Something felt wrong.
The crashed vehicle.
The injured priest.
The empty surroundings.
Everything fit together almost too perfectly.
His instincts screamed at him that something was off.
A trap.
He couldn't explain why.
He simply knew.
So rather than rushing down to secure the suspect, he expanded his psychic senses, examining every detail around the wreckage from above.
Then...
His gaze shifted slightly to the side.
His eyes widened.
Something was approaching.
Fast.
No...
Ridiculously fast.
It crossed the horizon in an instant, covering an impossible distance before his brain could even fully process what he was seeing.
Whatever it was...
It was moving even faster than he could.
And if something could outrun him in the air...
Then it was unquestionably dangerous.
"Protection."
Without a moment of hesitation, a brilliant sphere of psychic light blossomed around Mewtwo.
A translucent barrier enveloped his entire body as he instinctively concentrated his psychic energy toward the incoming threat.
He was already preparing to evade.
To accelerate.
Anything.
But there wasn't enough time.
Everything happened in less than a fraction of a second.
He barely managed to reinforce the barrier...
Before it hit.
The object slammed directly into his protective sphere—
—and exploded.
A deafening roar swallowed the sky.
The blast wasn't merely powerful.
It was catastrophic.
Fire erupted outward in every direction, consuming a sphere nearly twenty meters wide.
The shockwave tore through the air with terrifying force.
For a brief instant, Mewtwo's barrier held.
Cracks rapidly spread across the glowing psychic shell.
One.
Two.
Then dozens.
Until—
Shatter.
The barrier burst apart into countless fragments of fading light.
The remaining force of the explosion slammed directly into Mewtwo, launching him across the sky like a ragdoll.
His body crashed violently into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
A third impact shattered the earth beneath him before he finally came to a stop, carving a long trench across the terrain.
For several seconds...
He remained on one knee.
His breathing had become ragged.
Fresh blood dripped from the corner of his mouth onto the dirt below.
Burn marks covered parts of his body where the barrier had failed to absorb the entire blast.
Without hesitation, soft blue energy surrounded him.
Life Dew.
The healing technique immediately began repairing the damage, soothing the burns and knitting together the injuries inside his body.
Even so...
Mewtwo remained staring ahead with wide eyes.
He genuinely hadn't expected an attack of that magnitude.
And honestly...
Who could have?
He had just been struck...
By a military missile.
...
How?
How was that even possible?