Junsei stood atop the parking building, eyes fixed on AFO hovering above the city.
A few cars were left laying around him, remnants of what he had already hurled skyward. Each vehicle he had thrown had been obliterated midair by laser fire.
Junsei lifted both hands.
A violent explosion surged from his palms and tore upward.
AFO answered instantly, firing a concentrated laser downward.
The two attacks collided.
A massive detonation swallowed the skyline in smoke and flame, obscuring everything from view.
Within that same second, AFO activated a sensory Quirk, expanding his perception to locate every living presence nearby. He immediately realized Junsei was already upon him.
He emerged from the smoke without warning, claws extended.
AFO erected another barrier. But it shattered on impact with Junsei's claws. The claws punched straight through AFO's torso.
AFO clenched his jaw. With one arm, he seized Junsei's embedded limb and held it in place with crushing force. With the other, he generated a laser at point-blank range and fired into Junsei's shoulder.
The explosion between them pushed AFO back through the air while hurling Junsei down through several buildings in succession.
But Junsei's arm remained lodged in AFO's torso, it was torn free from Junsei's body.
AFO plucked the severed limb away as golden light flared through his torso, sealing the wound instantly.
His gaze followed the place where Junsei crashed, he intended to keep his enemy within his sight.
Then, he felt the severed arm in his grip grow heavier followed by a sharp pain piercing the hand holding it.
When AFO looked down, he saw the detached limb growing bones and flesh. Within two seconds, an upper torso and head formed from the stump of the arm.
The newly formed head snapped open four glowing blue eyes that stared right at him.
AFO reacted at last, flinging the grotesque being away with explosive force.
The instant he did, pain tore through his back and teeth sank into his neck.
He groaned, twisting his eyes sideways just enough to see Junsei clamped onto him, fangs embedded deep into his neck trying to tear it off.
AFO fired another laser blindly over his shoulder. The blast sent Junsei crashing away.
He soared higher into the sky, blood streaming down his back and collar. Golden light enveloped him once more, sealing torn flesh and punctured muscle.
He looked back and down, Junsei stood amid the rubble below. naked and staring up. His mouth smeared with AFO's blood.
AFO didn't understand how he appeared behind him like that. His gaze shifted to where the severed arm had fallen. Another naked Junsei stood there.
Finally he looked farther toward where he had thrown Junsei first.
A third Junsei stood among the ruins. This one still wore pants and had two arms intact. He was watching him.
"He can create clones… from severed parts of his body?" he muttered. "One from the arm… Was the other from the tongue?" (A/N: google starfish regeneration)
His mind raced, dissecting possibilities.
He retreated slightly, attempting to keep all three figures within his line of sight.
But he realized two of them vanished.
The original Junsei launched again, crossing the city in a blur before leaping toward him.
"You relentless freak!" AFO snapped.
He fired another laser, blasting Junsei down again.
Only for pain to explode across his chest and his back.
Two heavy presences latched onto him simultaneously. Teeth tore into his right shoulder and left arm.
AFO groaned, glancing sideways.
No one was there. Only blood pouring from him and four glowing eyes hovering in empty air at each side.
His blood ran cold.
With a roar, both his arms and the muscles along his back bulged grotesquely. He released a violent omnidirectional blast.
The shockwave tore through the surrounding air, blasting the invisible attackers away and demolishing nearby buildings in all directions.
Golden light erupted around him once more, sealing his injuries.
But this time, he breathed unevenly. He scanned the devastation, searching desperately for Junsei and his clones.
"He can turn invisible as well!" he muttered.
Then Junsei's earlier words resurfaced in his mind 'I will devour you'
AFO felt something unfamiliar stir inside him. Junsei was not merely trying to defeat him. He was trying to eat him literally.
He had lived for more than a century. He had fought countless enemies, heroes, vigilantes, and rivals. Never once had he faced someone who sought to consume him alive.
A seed of fear and worry formed inside. His regeneration required stamina. Each use drained him incrementally. He could not sustain it indefinitely. And the freak of nature circling him was trying to take pieces of him. Bite by bite.
If he failed to end this, he would be eaten.
Dust erupted from three different directions. AFO did not need sight to understand what that meant.
Junsei was going to resume the attack any moment. Without hesitation, AFO pivoted midair and shot forward, weaving between the distant standing buildings. He deliberately lowered his altitude, forcing the chase to be among buildings and civilians.
If Junsei wished to reach him, he would have to navigate through them.
At the same time, AFO calculated. Regeneration consumed a lot of stamina and so did creating flesh clones from severed body parts.
He would drag this out and exhaust the freak.
Behind him, three angry roars overlapped. The sound shattered windows across the district.
Then they gave chase.
AFO crossed streets at extreme speed, firing lasers at any Junsei that closed the distance. In their wake, buildings began to fall, vehicles and pavement were all getting damaged or destroyed. Destruction followed wherever the two went.
But within moments, AFO realized something critical. Junsei was not slowing down. He was not avoiding obstacles.
He was smashing through buildings without hesitation while concrete shattered around him. Civilians fled or were crushed beneath debris or torn apart by Junsei. The freak was destroying and killing everything standing in its path.
The destruction nor the casualties matter to him, the freak was locked onto him and only him.
AFO turned around and fired a laser at one of the advancing clones. The beam struck cleanly, detonating the body and sending it tumbling down the street in flames.
Before the smoke cleared, another clone burst from the side of a building and unleashed a violent sound attack.
AFO twisted aside. The soundwave scraped past him, distorting the air.
The clone he had just blasted apart reformed mid-fall and lunged again.
He gritted his teeth and ascended abruptly, avoiding their converging assault. The pursuing clone slammed into a nearby building, causing it to begin collapsing inward.
AFO did not look back. His eyes were on the original Junsei that appeared above him.
The original punched him straight down.
AFO crashed through a building floor by floor, concrete shattering beneath his body in rapid succession. When he struck the final level, he stabilized instantly and looked around.
He saw the terrified people all around him and realized that he had landed inside a hospital.
The realization barely formed before the ceiling ruptured. Junsei descended after him.
AFO's arm reshaped into a massive blade and slashed forward.
Junsei caught the blade in his jaws. The blade shattered between his teeth.
AFO ignited golden fire from his foot, blasting Junsei backward while propelling himself through the hospital interior in the opposite direction.
Walls collapsed as he forced his way through corridors.
He headed straight for a window and froze. The two clones waited outside.
Hands extended and palms glowing.
AFO's eyes widened.
He detonated sideways instead, bursting through interior walls again as an eruption of fire consumed the space behind him. He could hear the scream of people inside, no doubt the explosion had claimed the lives of tens of people.
He exited the hospital in a violent spray of debris and glanced back.
Flames climbed the hospital as parts of it began crumbling down. Junsei and both clones burst through the rubble moments later, continuing the pursuit.
As he fled, AFO replayed Junsei's earlier words about humanity.
The inherited sin and the existence of humans itself is a transgression against life.
He analyzed it clinically from the way Junsei was fighting. Junsei was not merely violent or a person with a villainous or greedy heart as society tends to put it. He was ideologically hostile to humanity as a whole. A psychopath driven by genocidal mania against humans.
AFO compared himself to Junsei. He sought power, control, authority, and the satisfaction of dominance. To see society kneel. Junsei, in contrast, seemed to desire extinction.
"I am indulging in the sin of taking, so I am the most human," AFO muttered. "He is an enemy of humanity, So he is a demon"
The seed of fear began to sprout in AFO's heart, this was not a fight between good and evil, or evil against evil. This was a demon hunting a human to eat, nothing more and nothing less.
AFO activated his sensory Quirk again. Two presences running at his flanks completely invisible. While the original followed from behind him.
Then all three accelerated simultaneously, closing distance to him, they clearly intended to lunge at him from three different directions.
AFO's hands and back bulged grotesquely. He released another omnidirectional shockwave. The blast hurled all three away, scattering them across rooftops and streets.
His breathing was growing uneven. He understood the three were not hunting him mindlessly, they were coordinated, relentless, and changing strategies.
He thought to himself [How do I eliminate them?]
And then a solution surfaced.
Momo.
If he caught the girl again, he could use her as leverage against Junsei. At the very least, he could stop this relentless hunt and escape alive. In the future, once he finds a way to eliminate Junsei, they can have a second battle.
AFO turned toward the direction where the battle had begun. He shot forward at full speed. He needed to capture the girl again.