Meanwhile, an hour earlier, forest outskirts of Tokyo Japan. The truck had broken down thirty minutes ago. Which, according to Genzo, was somehow everyone else's fault. "I told you not to keep driving the thing like you stole it," Daichi muttered from where he sat on the roadside guardrail, one arm wrapped around his ribs.
"We did steal it," the woman with spiky hair replied flatly.
"Yeah, I said it a hundred times, this thing was gonna fall apart."
Genzo, currently half-buried beneath the smoking hood of the vehicle, flipped them both off without looking up.
The old van sat crooked in the middle of the isolated mountain road, its engine periodically coughing like it was about to die. Meanwhile one of the headlights hung loose by a wire after clipping a tree branch earlier.
Honestly, Daichi was impressed the thing had survived this long. The six escaped convicts had been wandering through western Tokyo's outskirts for nearly a week now. Ever since the prison breaks six days ago, almost everything had changed. The highways in cities were under strict control, and the majority of businesses had been temporarily shut down. Citizens were required to stay indoors if possible.
So naturally, they'd fled into the mountains instead. Unfortunately, nobody in the group actually had a plan beyond "keep moving."
"You got any clue what you're doing?" one inmate asked, crouched beside the truck. "Obviously," Genzo snapped. There was a loud metallic CLANG from inside the engine.
"That doesn't sound like it .."
"Shut up."
The woman leaning against the truck sighed and lit a cigarette. "We should've ditched this thing hours ago."
"And walk?" another inmate complained immediately. "Through the mountains for who knows how long?"
"Yes."
"That won't work." Someone else cut on. A man sitting on a large stone in the distance, face covered with a muzzle and shark features on his face. "We're not the only ones thinking about escaping into the mountains. Once villains get scarce in the cities, the search will obviously tilt to other locations. Walking was never going to cut it."
"So what's the plan?" one of the others asked from the passenger seat. "We just hide forever?"
"Nah," Genzo uttered, lips curving up. "Society's collapsing. Watched the news last night. For now, heroes are dropping like flies trying to deal with the mess everywhere. We could make a name for ourselves if we play our cards right." There was no response. Black Scarlet frowned.
"Make a name for ourselves doing what exactly? Robbing convenience stores?" Genzo grinned. "What? You ain't interested? I know someone who for real could hook us up with the big leagues for real."
Nobody looked nearly as enthusiastic as he did.
Honestly, Daichi couldn't blame them. They'd escaped prison six days ago expecting freedom and chaos. Instead, what they got was sleeping in drainage tunnels, stealing canned food from abandoned stores, and listening to emergency broadcasts about heroes struggling every few hours. Turns out society collapsing was a lot less fun when you were still broke.
"If I wanted the big leagues, I would have joined those freaks who broke us out of jail days ago." The spiky haired lady, Black Scarlet, uttered indifferently. "Now I just want to stay outta jail. You can keep your connections for whoever wants em." They were all occupants of the first prison facility destroyed days ago. The opportunity to join the League Of Villains had been laid then and there. None had taken it for different reasons. In hindsight, that seemed to be a good choice. As no sooner had their grand leader been revealed and hijacked the country live on television that he died not long after. "How do you think they're doing now?"
"No clue. Probably not too great though." Daichi still wasn't over that part. "How the hell do you invade Japan, destroy the government, fight All Might, and die in the same morning?" he muttered.
"Does it matter? The dead are dead." Black Scarlet drew in a smoke, eyes narrowing at the memory. "Honestly, I almost regretted my choice. Thought maybe I'd missed out on something big."
Genzo snorted. "See? Told you." That got a few chuckles.
She exhaled smoke lazily into the cold mountain air. "Seriously, what the hell was that speech? Guy hijacks the entire country looking like the final boss of humanity just to get killed off before it could sink in."
Daichi winced slightly. "Damn. You really got no fear."
"The man's dead. What's he gonna do? Crawl out the grave and kill me?" She shrugged, flicking the cigarette butt away. "I'd like to see it happen."
The cigarette hit the pavement.
THUD.
The sound rolled through the mountains like distant artillery.
Nobody moved at first.
Daichi frowned slightly. "…Thunder?" That couldn't be. The sky was clear.
THUD.
This time the road beneath them vibrated hard enough for loose gravel to bounce. The truck gave a metallic rattle. Somewhere deeper in the forest, birds suddenly exploded into the air in massive flocks.
Every head turned. "…What the hell was that?"
The tremor came again.
THOOOOOM.
The atmosphere shifted instantly. Years of criminal instinct screamed the same thing into every one of their brains at once.
Danger. The shark-faced inmate rose from the stone immediately, muzzle twitching. "Something's moving."
"No shit," Black Scarlet snapped. "…Probably a landslide." THOOM.
The trees behind Black Scarlet were smashed apart. One of the inmates reacted quickly, raising his arms and conjuring a storm of blades, firing in that direction. The sound of metal bouncing off fell into their ears.
Everyone else had barely turned when ... BOOM! Dust and debris flew in all directions. The car for their getaway was smashed into bits and pieces.
In the distance, Daichi reappeared, cold sweat forming on his forehead as well as a slight sting in his calves. Just then, the dust cleared. In the far distance, a body could be seen smashed against a tree. Blood flowed from the corpse, staining the ground red quickly. It was the convict who fired the blades.
However, Daichi wasn't paying him any attention now. Not just him, everyone else had their eyes solely fixed on the creature right before them, stepping out of the collapsing treeline. Brown skin. Wild hair. Massive teeth and cataract white eyes.'A Gigantification quirk user?' Genzo frowned. 'What the hell?'
"...All For One…"
The voice was low, deep, and inhumanly heavy. Everyone stiffened. Black Scarlet frowned upward. "…What?"
The monster's white eyes locked onto her. "What did… you say about… master?" Daichi felt every hair on his body stand up. Every instinct screamed at him to run at the moment. Black Scarlet's face changed, seeing the gaze locked onto her. "SCREW THIS!" An energy ball emerged in her hand, half black, half red.
"BIG OR NOT, I'LL RIP YOU APA—"
The giant hand moved before she could finish her words. It made no sense. Something that massive should not have been capable of accelerating that fast.
BOOM!
The road detonated beneath her. A shockwave erupted outward as the giant crossed the distance instantly. Black Scarlet had enough time to widen her eyes when she was grabbed along with large chunks of stone.
That was it. CRUNCH. The giant's hand closed around her entire torso. The sound that followed was loud, bloodcurdling scream. No one moved to do anything, watching as the giant lifted the twitching remains slightly. "…You insulted my master." Then casually squeezed. Blood splattered across the road.
The remaining four convicts stared in absolute horror as pieces of Genzo hit the pavement. Genzo staggered back a step. "...What the fuck…"
The giant dropped what remained of the corpse.
Then he started walking toward them. The earth trembling with each step. "RUN!" Daichi screamed. The spell shattered instantly. Everyone scattered.
The shark-faced inmate bolted into the trees. Another leapt down the roadside embankment. Genzo spun around and sprinted without hesitation. The giant watched them all flee. "No one escapes after insulting master." Then ... BOOOOM. He charged right after the first one.
Eighteen minutes later… SQUELCH! Genzo died before he could even scream.
The giant opened his hand, seeing the pulverised flesh and blood and turned it's head into the distance. There was nothing in sight. In these eighteen minutes, it had killed three out of four of the remaining insects. One had tried to hide while turning invisible. The other with a shark face had tried to fight. He just killed the third. The fourth however, was nowhere in sight. He turned around. The forest had returned to silence.
Not even the sound of a heartbeat was nearby. "No one escapes." The giant inhaled. In an instant, the scents from nearby were easily. Six scents, five present here. It's head looked up to the horizon. The sixth one was in that direction. More than a hundred miles in that direction.
The giant's white eyes narrowed slightly. Despite not being at his maximum, height, it was too far to pursue directly at current size. His body remained motionless for several seconds as instinct and conditioning processed the information.
"Stay hidden, Machia .." Those were his Masters last orders. "Persistent insect." The giant slowly lowered himself. The earth cracked beneath it as his hands dug into the earth. Then ... Claws shot out from his fingers as the ground shattered beneath him. His colossal frame began sinking directly into the mountain terrain, stone and soil parting around his body under overwhelming force. Trees tilted violently as the earth displaced outward in waves. Finally, a hole of considerable size was created on the earth.
Elsewhere, U.A Training Camp, Far below the hillside—
"Delaware…!" Green lightning exploded across Izuku Midoriya's body before fading back down.
"SMASH!"
His punch shot forward. His opponent, Tiger effortlessly twisted into an impossible pretzel shape, expertly dodging the linear attack.
It was followed by a heavy, open-palm counter-punch of his own. "GUH—!"
Midoriya was sent flying backward straight into a thick cedar tree, bouncing off the bark and crashing face-first into the dirt with a painful groan.
"Owowowow…"
Nearby, Tenya Iida sprinted past at absurd speed, exhaust bursting from his calves. "Keep it up, Midoriya! Remember, intense suffering is the only true path to getting stronger!"
Midoriya pushed himself up onto his elbows, offering a wry, deeply deadpan smile. "Yeah... I think I got the idea." He looked around, seeing everyone working so hard in their training
'Everyone is giving it their all, just to improve. I ...'
"I don't wanna get stronger..." The miserable, reedy voice cut into Midoriya's thoughts just before his motivational rhythm could kick in.
Towards the clearing to his left, Minoru Mineta was walking around like a lifeless, hollow puppet, fresh blood literally pooling from his scalp as his hands mechanically pulled ball after grape-like ball from his head.
"I don't want to keep suffering," Mineta sobbed, his voice echoing with absolute, unadulterated despair. "I just wanted to be popular with girls. This isn't worth it. None of this is worth it..."
"Poor Mineta," Midoriya muttered under his breath, a genuine wave of pity washing over him. 'Despite his perverted behavior in class, this training really is a bit rough on him...'
Just then, a sudden, violent wave of wind gushed over the entire training ground. "What in the—!" Bakugo's relentless blasting cut off abruptly as the gale threatened to throw off his trajectory. Todoroki stopped his rapid, alternating streams of ice and fire, his mismatched eyes snapping upward toward the peak of the mountain.
Even Vlad King, who was supervising the other section of the clearing, looked over, his brow furrowing deeply.
The trees above them bent violently as the air pressure itself changed. Midoriya's eyes widened.
"What's going on ..." BOOOOOM.
The hillside erupted. The next second, large trees snapped apart, and massive chunks of rock tumbled downward like an avalanche. Midoriya's eyes widened to the size of saucers.
"Look out!" He instantly activated One For All and launched himself forward at maximum speed. The completely unsuspecting Mineta, still lost in his own tears, was violently tackled out of the way right before a large, descending cedar tree trunk could crush him into the earth.
"H-HOLY CRAP!" Mineta clung to Midoriya's shoulders like a traumatized koala. Nearby, Kaminari looked up just in time to see a massive boulder hurtling toward him. "OH COME ON!"
Before it could impact, Kirishima jumped into the path, his skin instantly hardening into a jagged, rocky armor. The boulder shattered against his chest.
"You okay, dude?"
"Yeah... thanks!" On the other side of the clearing, Vlad King fired thick, pressurized beams of blood from his gauntlets, shattering the incoming projectiles into harmless gravel before they could reach Class 1-B. "What the hell is going on up there?!"
"Pixie Bob?"
Pixie bob placed her hands on the earth and shook her head. "It's not me."
It happened then. Another tremor shook the forest. Then everyone saw it. Far above the treeline, an enormous skeletal orange arm erupted upward from the mountainside.
Everyone froze at the gigantic translucent limb clawing at empty air as glowing cracks of orange energy spread outward through the trees. Up ahead, Aizawa launched backward through the forest with Ragdoll tucked under one arm, his capture scarf whipping violently behind him.
His red eyes remained locked forward. And for the first time in a very long while, Shota Aizawa looked genuinely shaken. Down below, everyone could more or less make out the person in the middle of whatever that structure was.
"What IS that thing?!" The orange construct quickly turned white, then switched back before turning to a blend of two colors. Inside, Yuta cleaned the blood streaming from his eyelids and looked up. The skeleton grew with each passing moment, the bones growing connective tissue before being encased with more energy.
For a moment, his mind went blank. "This wasn't part of the plan."
__
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