[TOKYO SKIES – ABOVE HPSC RUINS – 5:24 AM]
"Akutami."
"Yes, Sensei?"
Aizawa tightened his grip on the capture scarf wrapped around his torso, suspended in mid-air like some kind of deranged yo-yo. Below them, the HPSC building's twelfth floor was a gaping hole of shattered concrete and twisted rebar, smoke still rising from where All Might's entrance had carved a canyon through reinforced walls.
"When this is over..." Aizawa's eyes glowed red beneath his goggles, hair floating upward from the sheer updraft of destruction below. "...we are going to have a very long talk about when, exactly, you decided your quirk learned how to fly."
Yuta stood on nothing. Literally nothing. His feet planted on invisible platforms of air, body perfectly still despite the wind whipping his hood back and forth.
"I see," he said flatly. His expression blank
'Huh?' Aizawa's frown deepened at the sound of that. 'That tone. That look.' He eyed the boy who was currently watching the destruction below. He had been like this since the first broadcast on the plane. Stayed silent for an hour or so, then told both he and All Might that he had an idea. The revelation that followed was a new ability to fly faster than a jet going at Mach speeds.
'He can't still be blaming himself for all this, can he?' Aizawa couldn't tell.
However, compared to how he had been in Manila, both before and after his call to his mother, it was undeniably he was different now compared to then. 'What a bad night. To put a kid in these circumstances ...'
Aizawa thought with a growing frown, as he stared at the back of Yuta's hooded head, wondering what exactly was going through his mind.
Just then, the distant roar of jet engines cut through his thoughts.
Both their heads snapped toward the sound only to see six dots growing larger on the horizon.
Fast. 'Are those ..? ... Don't tell me.' Fighter jets. JSDF. Japan Self-Defense Force.
"Dammit," Aizawa hissed. "Why are they here?"
The answer was obvious, really. All Might had been missing. Endeavor's task force was destroyed. The HPSC building taken over by a villain who'd just broadcast his existence to the entire nation.
Of course the military had been authorized to respond with extreme force.
But All Might had just arrived. The situation had changed. These pilots probably got their orders twenty minutes ago and couldn't be recalled in time.
'They're going to get themselves killed,' Aizawa thought grimly.
"Akutami, remember the plan," he said, eyes never leaving the approaching jets. "Keep us airborne. Close enough for visual. And keep your hood on at all times." As much as he hated having his student participate under these circumstances, there was currently no other choice.
Without Yuta, making it here by now would be impossible, much less the subsequent actions they were about to take. Yuta didn't respond.
' ... These people ...'
He just stared at the dust cloud below where All For One had been launched through three city blocks. Had the people in the area here had enough time to evacuate, or any time at all?
It was in these thoughts that his right eye began throbbing with a searing discomfort that had become the norm since he woke up on that boat 'Great. Not this again.'
Down below, the dust was finally settling.
Endeavor, no longer pinned to the wall by the rivet, coughed violently, blood flecking his lips as he clutched his mangled shoulder. His vision was blurry, but through the haze he could make out a figure standing at the edge of the destroyed wall.
Blonde hair. Red, white, and blue costume.
That unmistakable silhouette.
"All Might," Endeavor rasped.
Toshinori coughed, a thin trail of blood escaping the corner of his mouth as he turned. He offered a strained, weary smile as steam slowly rose from his body. "Endeavor. Madam President. Sorry I'm late."
Endeavor's face crumpled. Then twisted into something between rage and despair.
"YOU FINALLY SHOW UP, YOU BASTARD!" He bellowed. "IF YOU KNEW AN ENEMY LIKE THIS EXISTED ... WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?! WHY LET US WALK INTO THIS?!"
All Might fell silent, his eyes shadowed
"I tried to warn you all, Enji." he said. "But I couldn't reveal the full nature of this evil without causing the very panic we see now. It was a failure of hindsight. If I had known... I would have made a different choice."
Endeavor's teeth ground together hard enough to crack. Emotions he'd been bottling since the moment his quirk was stolen ... rage, humiliation, despair, failure ...all of it boiling over at once.
"WHY YOU—"
_
Three blocks away, buried under tons of concrete and steel, All For One lay perfectly still. 'That was much earlier than expected,' he thought calmly, analyzing the situation even as rubble pressed down on him from all sides. 'According to my calculations, his plane was still more than twenty minutes from Tokyo airspace.'
'The Plane's top speed is barely above Mach 1.4. My calculations weren't wrong.'
Blood spilled from the side of his lips as the force of that attack still rattled his very skull. 'Which means he arrived without the plane. But how?'
The rubble shifted as All For One stood, pushing aside concrete slabs that weighed several tons with casual ease. Dust cascaded off his suit, now torn in several places as he emerged into the pre-dawn light.
Around him, the destruction was catastrophic. All Might's punch had sent him through an office building, a parking garage, and what looked like an apartment complex. Fires burned in the wreckage. Car alarms shrieked.
And somewhere in the rubble... 'Civilians.' All For One tilted his head, listening. Dozens of them, trapped or injured. This district hadn't been evacuated before this happend as his takeover of the HPSC had been too sudden. The broadcast to All Might's challenge had been mere minutes ago.
These people had no warning nor any time to flee. And All Might's opening strike had just buried dozens of them.
'How heroic,' All For One thought with dark amusement.
"No matter." He rolled his shoulders, testing his body's response. Everything functional. "While frustrating to not account for this variable, the end result will ultimately be the same."
He cracked his neck—a habit from his younger days, unnecessary now but satisfying nonetheless.
"Now is the perfect time to test these new combinations of quirks." Above him, the fighter jets were locking on.
"Target acquired. Heat signature confirmed."
"Gamma-1, you are cleared hot. Repeat, cleared hot."
"Copy. Fox Three."
Six AGM-114 Hellfire missiles streaked from the lead fighter's wings, their contrails painting white lines across the dawn sky.
"Direct hit imminent. Target zone is—" The pilots words faded out as the missiles headed towards their target. Unfortunately however, they hadn't accounted for the civilians. Or more like they had accounted for them but gone through with it anyway. This was the heart of Tokyo; the "Detroit Smash" had already trapped hundreds in the surrounding subways and collapsing apartments. The military was about to turn a rescue zone into a carpet-bombed graveyard.
Hovering above, Yuta who was attempting to suppress the discomfort in his eyes realized all of this.
"What's wrong?" Aizawa asked, noticing Yuta flinch.
"Sensei," Yuta uttered, his voice dropping somewhat hollow and cold enough to freeze blood. "Change of plans."
"Huh?"
Yuta's quirk released. Aizawa's stomach lurched as his capture scarf holding him midair lost its invisible support. For a heart-stopping instant he was in free fall ...
Then his feet hit solid rooftop. Four blocks away. Safely distant from the battlefield.
"AKUTAMI—!"
BOOM.
A sonic boom shattered the windows of the surrounding buildings as Yuta shot back toward the battlefield at blurring speeds. He landed on the rubble of a building, placed his hand on the earth, and sent a quarter of his chakra reserves straight into the earth beneath his feet. It surged through the earth, covering a full three block radius. In an instant, a large amount of information surged into Yuta's mind. A slight trickle of blood slid from his nose as he pushed his Quirk's external control to map out the entire area at once and everyone in it at once.
The missiles were seconds from impact.
'Building One: seventeen people. Basement level, east corner.'
'Building Four: twenty-three people. Third floor, collapsed stairwell.'
His Enhanced Control reached out, seizing every mobile object within range. Steel beams. Concrete chunks. Entire sections of wall.
'Building eight; eight people. Ground floor, gas leak imminent.'
'Body Flicker.' A larger chunk of his chakra was expended as he pushed chakra through his body and moved at higher speeds.What followed was a black blur pulling civilians from crushed cars and scooping families from the path of the incoming strike. All For One's mask tilted upward, tracking the blur. 'Who is—?'
He didn't get to finish the thought. A rain of 20mm vulcan rounds pelted his position, followed immediately by a barrage of air-to-ground missiles. The street vanished in a wall of fire. A collapsed building with seven residents was destroyed along with it.
'Dammit!' Yuta cussed as he pulled a middle aged man from a car and sped away before it could get engulfed.
"Target neutralized?" a pilot radioed. The answer was a pillar of compressed air that shot out from the inferno. 'Air Cannon!' striking a jet's wing and sending it spiraling into a fireball.
"Gamma-One is down! I repeat, Gamma-One is—!"
The flames parted. All For One stood there, his suit ruined by his skin untouched. He hadn't even needed to his Scale-Mail armor Quirk.
Watching the fighter jets, he raised a hand toward the next jet. "They never learn," he murmured.
Just as his palm began to glow, a streak of gold descended from the sky. All Might struck with both fists. All For One pivoted, his movements fluid and inhuman, grabbing both of All Might's wrists as he fired with air cannons.
BOOM!
A windstorm destroyed the surroundings as both men were held in a standstill, their stalemated clash destroying the environment with every passing second.
"THIS IS GOING TO BE YOUR END, ALL FOR ONE!"
"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN ACTUALLY KILL ME AGAIN, TOSHINORI?!"
They stood locked, muscles straining, concrete cracking beneath their feet as the ground itself tried to reject the forces being exerted. Air Cannon + Springlike Limbs + Kinetic Booster x4 + Hellflame
The Infernal explosion that erupted out of All For One's hands was akin to a raging sun appearing on the street. All Might was engulfed in the blast before shooting backwards, a living projectile of blue and gold, hurtling straight toward the already weakened HPSC building.
Inside the executive suite, Endeavor and the President watched in horror as the Number One Hero—now a human wrecking ball—shot toward them.