The rain hitting the windowpane of Heights Alliance sounded like static.
Izuku Midoriya sat at his desk, the warm yellow glow of his All Might lamp casting long shadows across his meticulously organized hero analysis notebooks. It was a Tuesday evening, quiet and unassuming. Downstairs, he knew Iida was likely lecturing Kaminari about leaving his video games on the floor, while Uraraka and Asui shared a pot of tea in the common area. It was normal. It was safe. It was the life Izuku had bled and broken his bones to achieve.
He picked up his pen, hovering it over a fresh page detailing Kamui Woods’ latest kinetic binding techniques, when the heavy oak door of his dorm room suddenly exploded inward.
Splinters rained across the floor. Izuku leaped to his feet, green lightning inherently sparking across his skin out of pure reflex. "What—!"
"Stand down, Midoriya! Do not activate your Quirk!"
The voice was a harsh, guttural bark. Hound Dog filled the doorway, his massive frame tense, teeth bared in a genuine snarl. Behind him, flanked by heavily armed police officers in tactical gear, stood Shota Aizawa. Izuku’s homeroom teacher looked worse than usual; his eyes were bloodshot, and his capture weapon hovered around his shoulders like a nest of agitated vipers.
"Mr. Aizawa?" Izuku’s voice cracked, the green lightning fading into the air as confusion overrode his combat instincts. "What’s going on? Is there a villain attack?"
"Hands behind your head," Aizawa ordered, his voice devoid of its usual tired affection. It was a tone made of ice. "Turn around and face the wall. Now."
"Sensei, I don't understand—"
"Now, Midoriya!" Aizawa’s Quirk flared, his eyes glowing a brilliant, terrifying red. Izuku felt the familiar, jarring sensation of One For All being smothered within his chest.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced Izuku’s stomach, but he complied. He turned around, raising his scarred hands behind his head. The moment his fingers locked together, rough hands grabbed his wrists. Cold, heavy metal slammed around his wrists—Quirk-suppressing cuffs. They clicked shut with a brutal finality.
"You are under arrest for high treason, espionage, and the first-degree murder of the Pro Hero, Crimson Riot," an officer read off, his voice trembling slightly as he patted Izuku down for weapons.
Treason? Espionage? Murder?
"There's a mistake!" Izuku shouted, thrashing his shoulders, but Hound Dog’s massive hand clamped down on his shoulder, pinning him in place. "Mr. Aizawa, please! I haven't done anything! I was here all day! You know me!"
Aizawa walked slowly into the room. He didn’t look at Izuku. Instead, his dark eyes scanned the room—the All Might posters, the neatly made bed, the notebooks. He picked up Notebook No. 13. He looked at it like it was a live grenade.
"I thought I did," Aizawa said, his voice a ragged whisper. "Get him out of here."
They marched him down the hallway. Izuku’s mind was spinning at a million miles an hour, his brilliant analytical brain trying and failing to piece together a puzzle with no edges. As they reached the stairs and descended into the common room, the true nightmare began.
Class 1-A was gathered in the lobby. They had been corralled there by Present Mic and Midnight. As Izuku was led down the stairs in irons, twenty heads turned. The silence that followed was suffocating.
"Deku?" Uraraka breathed out, her hands flying to cover her mouth. Her wide brown eyes were filled with tears.
"Uraraka! Iida! Guys, tell them!" Izuku pleaded, his voice breaking. "Tell them I was here! Tell them there’s a mistake!"
Iida Tenya stood rigidly by the sofa, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. He didn’t chop the air. He didn’t offer a reassuring word. He just stared at Izuku with a look of profound, agonizing betrayal.
"The evidence..." Iida choked out, his voice rigid. "They showed us the broadcast, Midoriya. How could you?"
"What broadcast?! What evidence?!" Izuku screamed, thrashing against the officers.
To the side, Katsuki Bakugo stood leaning against a pillar. His crimson eyes were narrowed into venomous slits, tracking Izuku’s every movement. Izuku looked to his oldest rival, expecting an explosion, expecting Bakugo to scream at him for being a villain. But Bakugo was eerily silent. His jaw ticked. He looked from Izuku to Aizawa, his brow furrowed in a deep, calculating scowl, but he said absolutely nothing.
"Keep moving," Hound Dog growled, shoving Izuku toward the doors.
"Todoroki! Please!" Izuku sobbed, looking at the dual-haired boy. Todoroki looked away, closing his eyes as a physical expression of pain washed over his face.
They dragged him out into the rain. The doors of Heights Alliance closed with a heavy thud, sealing away the only family Izuku had ever known.
The interrogation room at the police precinct was a sterile gray box, smelling faintly of ozone and stale coffee. Izuku sat handcuffed to a steel table, shivering in his soaked UA uniform.
The heavy iron door swung open. Principal Nezu walked in, followed by Detective Tsukauchi and Aizawa.
"Principal Nezu! Detective!" Izuku leaned forward, the chains rattling loudly. "Detective, please, use your Quirk! Ask me if I did it! You’ll see I’m telling the truth!"
Tsukauchi looked down, gripping his trench coat. "My Quirk... it's not applicable here, Midoriya. The evidence we have supersedes polygraphs. We've been ordered not to rely on verbal testimony."
"What does that even mean?!" Izuku cried out, tears finally spilling over his freckled cheeks. "How can evidence supersede the truth?!"
Nezu climbed onto the chair opposite Izuku. The normally cheerful, tea-drinking chimera looked ancient. He placed a tablet on the table and slid it toward the bound boy.
"Watch it, Midoriya," Nezu said softly.
Izuku looked down. A video began to play. The time stamp in the corner indicated it was from security footage taken three nights ago at 2:00 AM—a time when Izuku had been fast asleep in his dorm.
The footage was shockingly clear. It showed a dark alleyway in the warehouse district. A figure stepped into the glow of a flickering streetlight. Izuku’s breath caught in his throat.
It was him.
Not someone who looked like him. It was him. The unruly green hair, the freckles, the exact posture, the customized Gamma suit. The 'Izuku' on screen held a heavily encrypted UA master drive.
From the shadows, Tomura Shigaraki emerged.
"You got it?" Shigaraki’s raspy voice echoed from the tablet's speakers.
"Of course," the Izuku on the screen replied. His voice was perfect. There was no hesitation, no robotic inflection. "Everything is there. The patrol routes, the Tartarus security codes, the dorm schematics. A deal is a deal, Shigaraki."
"Good boy," Shigaraki sneered, taking the drive.
Suddenly, a figure dropped from the rooftops. It was Crimson Riot, an older Pro Hero.
"Villains! Surrender now!" Crimson Riot yelled, hardening his skin and charging.
What happened next made the real Izuku violently ill. The Izuku on the screen didn't flinch. Black whip tendrils erupted from his back, completely identical to Izuku's own quirk. They lashed out, wrapping around Crimson Riot's arms and legs, hoisting him into the air.
"Annoying," the Izuku on screen muttered. He pulled his fist back. Green lightning—One For All—surged around his arm. With a terrifying roar, he drove his fist directly through Crimson Riot's chest armor. Blood splattered across the camera lens. The hero went limp, dropped to the ground like a broken toy, and the Izuku on screen simply smiled, turning to follow Shigaraki into a warp gate.
The video ended.
Silence hung in the interrogation room, suffocating and absolute.
Izuku stared at the black screen of the tablet. His mind fractured, trying to process what he had just seen. "That... that's not me."
"The footage was analyzed by six independent agencies," Nezu said, his voice heavy with sorrow. "No deepfake signatures. No CGI rendering. No spatial distortions to suggest a transformation Quirk like Toga Himiko's was used. The biometric data, the quirk energy output... it matches you perfectly, Midoriya."
"But it's impossible!" Izuku screamed, slamming his cuffed hands onto the table. "I was in my dorm! I was asleep! Ask the security systems! Ask—"
"The Heights Alliance security system was looped at exactly 1:45 AM," Aizawa interrupted, his voice dead. "By an override code registered to your student ID. You sneaked out, met with the League, murdered a hero who stumbled upon your deal, and sneaked back into bed."
"No! NO! It’s a setup! Shigaraki is framing me! Why would I do this?! I want to be a hero!"
"We found a Cayman Islands offshore account tied to your mother's maiden name," Tsukauchi said, pulling out a file. "Deposits totaling over fifty million yen, transferred by shell companies known to be fronts for the League of Villains."
Izuku stopped breathing. They involved his mother. The villains hadn't just framed him; they had built a fortress of lies around him, walling off every single escape route. It was a masterpiece of destruction, orchestrated by someone who understood exactly how the system worked. All For One.
"You're making a mistake," Izuku whispered, the fire draining from his voice, replaced by a hollow, ringing shock. "You're letting them win."
"The trial was expedited by the Hero Public Safety Commission," Nezu stated, standing up on his chair. "Given the severity of the crimes, the undeniable proof, and the danger of your Quirk, the verdict has already been passed in a closed military tribunal."
"Trial?" Izuku looked up, his green eyes wide with horror. "Without me? I didn't even get to speak!"
"A formality when dealing with high-tier threats," Aizawa said, looking away. "I’m sorry, Midoriya. I failed as your teacher. I failed to see the rot inside you."
The words hit Izuku harder than any physical blow he had ever taken. Aizawa, the man who had fought to the brink of death for him at the USJ, the man who had taught him how to survive... thought he was a monster.
"Your sentence is life without the possibility of parole," Nezu finished softly. "You will be transferred to Tartarus immediately."
They turned to leave.
"Wait!" Izuku choked, tears streaming down his face, dripping off his chin onto the cold steel table. "Wait, please! Call All Might! Let me speak to All Might! He'll know! He knows me! Please!"
Aizawa paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder.
"He's the one who authorized your transfer," Aizawa said quietly.
The door shut, locking from the outside.
Izuku didn't know how long he sat in the dark. Time lost its meaning. He just stared at the wall, his mind a continuous, agonizing loop of the video, of his friends' faces, of Aizawa's parting words.
He had given everything to them. He had shattered his arms, his legs, his fingers. He had stood against monsters that made pro heroes tremble. He had smiled through the agony, all to protect them. And a single video—a single, brilliant lie—was all it took for them to throw him away.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Slow, heavy, deliberate.
The heavy steel door groaned open.
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway, was Toshinori Yagi.
He was in his skeletal civilian form, draped in an oversized yellow trench coat. His sunken eyes were cast in deep, dark shadows, his face a canvas of unspeakable grief.
"All Might..." Izuku breathed, his heart giving a violent, desperate flutter. Hope, stubborn and cruel, flared in his chest. He’s here. He figured it out. He knows it’s a lie.
Toshinori stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He didn't sit down. He stood towering over Izuku, looking at the boy he had chosen as his successor.
"Young Midoriya," Toshinori said. His voice wasn't booming. It wasn't warm. It was the sound of a dying man.
"All Might, thank God," Izuku babbled, shifting forward in his chair, the chains clinking loudly. "You have to tell them. You know about One For All, you know I would never give it to Shigaraki! You know my heart, All Might! We have to find out how they faked the quirk—"
"Stop."
The single word cut through the air like a guillotine. Izuku’s mouth snapped shut.
Toshinori closed his eyes, taking a ragged breath. When he opened them, the blue irises were cold. "I have spent the last twelve hours reviewing the footage. I had David Shield look at it. I had the finest analysts in the world tear it apart."
"And?" Izuku whispered, trembling. "They found the fake, right?"
"They found nothing, Izuku. Because it wasn't a fake."
Izuku felt the floor drop out from under him. The air was sucked from his lungs. "What?"
"I don't know how they corrupted you," Toshinori said, his voice shaking with a mixture of rage and profound heartbreak. "I don't know if it was money, or if Shigaraki promised you power, or if you simply cracked under the pressure of the legacy. I told myself it couldn't be true. But I saw you use Blackwhip. I saw you use the power I gave you to murder an innocent man."
"It wasn't me!" Izuku shrieked, thrashing violently against the cuffs. "I swear on my life! I swear on my mom's life! I didn't do it!"
"Do not bring Inko into this!" Toshinori barked, slamming his skeletal hand down on the table, bending the steel. He leaned in, his face inches from Izuku's, his breath smelling of copper and regret. "You have broken her heart. You have broken my heart. You took the sacred torch of One For All—the power meant to save the world—and you handed it to the devil."
Izuku stared at him. The man who had told him he could be a hero. The man who had been a father to him. The absolute, unwavering conviction in Toshinori's eyes was the final nail in the coffin.
All Might believed the lie. The Symbol of Peace had lost faith.
Something inside Izuku Midoriya—a bright, warm, glowing core of pure optimism that had survived bullying, quirklessness, and supervillains—fractured. A web of cracks spread through his soul, and with a silent, devastating shatter, it broke into a million pieces.
Izuku stopped thrashing. His shoulders slumped. His chin dropped to his chest. The tears stopped falling, replaced by a terrifying, hollow stillness.
"I made the greatest mistake of my life the day I met you under that bridge," Toshinori whispered, the words dripping with poison. "I chose wrong. And the world will bleed for my failure."
Toshinori stood up straight, his expression hardening into stone.
"I cannot let All For One have this power. I cannot let a murderer keep the legacy of the First, of Nana. It is over, Midoriya." Toshinori held out a trembling hand. "Give it back."
Izuku looked up. His green eyes, usually so large and expressive, were completely dead. They were the eyes of a corpse.
"Give it back?" Izuku echoed, his voice devoid of any emotion.
"One For All requires the consent of the user to transfer," Toshinori said coldly. "Give it back to me. Now. Before you are locked away in the dark forever."
Izuku stared at the outstretched hand. He thought of all the times that hand had reached out to pull him up, to guide him, to comfort him. Now, it was reaching out to strip away the very last shred of his humanity.
If I give it back, I am nothing. I am quirkless Deku again.
But what did it matter? Deku was already dead. The world had killed him tonight.
Slowly, agonizingly, Izuku reached up with his cuffed hands. He grabbed a lock of his messy green hair. He pulled, plucking a single strand from his scalp. He held it out between his bruised, battered fingers.
Toshinori looked at it. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of profound sorrow crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced by duty. He reached out and took the hair.
"Eat it," Izuku whispered, staring directly into Toshinori's soul. "Take it. Take it all. I hope it burns."
Toshinori didn't reply. He swallowed the hair.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a violent, agonizing sensation ripped through Izuku’s chest. It felt as though someone had reached into his ribcage, grabbed his heart, and ripped it out through his spine. The golden, roaring fire that had kept him warm for the past year was suddenly extinguished.
Izuku gasped, convulsing against the table as the embers of One For All were violently pulled from his body, transferring back to their previous host. He collapsed against the steel table, panting, completely and utterly empty.
He was Quirkless. Again.
Toshinori turned around, pulling his coat tight around his skeletal frame. He walked to the door and knocked twice.
"Wait," Izuku croaked.
Toshinori paused, not looking back.
"When you find out the truth," Izuku said, his voice eerily calm, resonating with a terrifying, hollow gravity in the small room. "When the illusion breaks... and you realize what you've done to me today... don't come looking for me. Because Izuku Midoriya is dead."
Toshinori bowed his head. "May God have mercy on you."
He walked out. The heavy iron door slammed shut, and the lock turned with a definitive, echoing click.
Izuku was alone in the dark.
The armored transport vehicle rumbled aggressively as it rolled over the concrete bridge connecting the mainland to the fortress island.
Izuku sat in the back of the transport, bound in a straitjacket constructed of titanium fibers, his feet chained to the floorboards. Across from him sat four heavily armed guards, their faces hidden behind black tactical visors, their assault rifles resting across their knees.
None of them spoke. The only sound was the howling of the ocean wind outside and the rhythmic thumping of the tires.
Izuku looked down at his lap. He felt incredibly cold. Without the residual warmth of One For All, the chill of the storm outside seeped directly into his bones. But the physical cold was nothing compared to the absolute void in his mind.
He didn't think about his mother, crying in her apartment as the police tore it apart for evidence. He didn't think about Uraraka, or Iida, or Todoroki. He didn't think about All Might. Thinking about them brought a searing, blinding pain that he couldn't handle. So, his mind shut it out.
Instead, a new sensation was beginning to take root in the empty space where his dream used to be.
It was a dark, smoldering thing. It didn't roar like the golden fire of One For All. It hissed. It cracked like burning coal.
They didn't look.
The thought surfaced from the dark waters of his mind.
They didn't look past the surface. They claim to be heroes. They claim to seek justice. But they took the easiest path. They cast me out to save their own reputations.
The transport slowed to a halt. The heavy hydraulic hiss of massive gates opening echoed through the armored hull. They were driving into the belly of the beast. Tartarus. The maximum-security prison designed for the most dangerous, unsalvageable monsters on the planet. And they were putting him, a fifteen-year-old boy, in its deepest depths.
The vehicle lurched as it entered the loading bay. The back doors swung open, letting in the harsh, blinding glare of security spotlights.
"Get up, villain," one of the guards barked, grabbing Izuku by the shoulder and hauling him to his feet.
Izuku was dragged out of the truck. The rain was torrential now, soaking his hair and plastering it to his forehead. He looked up.
Before him towered a monolithic structure of black steel and concrete, rising out of the churning, black ocean like a tombstone for humanity. There were no windows. There was no light. Only walls.
"Walk," a guard shoved him from behind with the butt of a rifle.
Izuku stumbled forward, his bare feet slapping against the wet concrete. As he approached the massive blast doors of the prison intake, a line of guards in riot gear parted to let him through. They looked at him with disgust, whispering to each other.
"That's him. The UA traitor."
"Killed Crimson Riot in cold blood."
"Should just put a bullet in his head and save the taxpayers the yen."
Izuku heard them. But the words didn't hurt. The sadness was gone, entirely burned away in the span of a few hours. In its place, that smoldering, crackling ember inside him flared.
Hypocrites, he thought, his green eyes scanning the armed men. All of you. Blind, pathetic hypocrites.
He was led down endless, spiraling corridors, deeper and deeper underground. The air grew stale, smelling of rust, sweat, and despair. They passed rows of reinforced steel doors. Occasionally, a scream or a maniacal laugh would echo from within, but mostly, there was just silence. The silence of the buried.
Finally, they reached Sector 4—the lowest, most secure block in Tartarus. Reserved for those whose quirks were too dangerous to see the light of day. Or, in Izuku's case, those whose existence was a political inconvenience.
They stopped before Cell 404.
The guards undid his straitjacket, leaving him in a thin, gray prison jumper. They shoved him roughly inside.
"Enjoy your new home, hero," the lead guard sneered, hitting the wall panel.
The heavy vault door slid shut. The magnetic locks engaged with a sound like a thunderclap.
Total darkness.
Izuku stood in the center of the tiny, freezing cell. The only light was a faint, red emergency strip on the ceiling, casting a bloody hue over the concrete walls. There was a metal cot. A sink. A toilet.
He walked over to the cot and sat down. The springs groaned under his weight.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He simply sat there, staring into the red-tinted dark.
He realized now the fundamental flaw in his worldview. He had believed that the light always conquered the dark. That heroes saved the innocent. That justice was absolute.
But the world wasn't light and dark. It was a murky, filthy gray. The heroes were just as flawed, just as capable of devastating cruelty, as the villains. They were bound by rules, optics, and public opinion. They were too blind to see the truth when it was buried under a clever lie.
If heroes won't punish the truly wicked... Izuku thought, his hands clenching into tight fists, his short nails biting into his palms until blood welled up. If they would rather throw an innocent boy to the wolves to protect their precious society... then they aren't heroes.
The anger swelled, a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated hatred. He hated Shigaraki. He hated All For One. But most of all, he hated the system. He hated the complacency. He hated the fake smiles of the heroes who had turned their backs on him.
Deep within the bowels of Tartarus, in the cold and the dark, Izuku Midoriya's soul began to change. The naive, forgiving boy was stripped away, piece by piece, leaving behind a hard, jagged core of wrath.
He didn't know it yet, but somewhere deep in the prison, separated by yards of concrete and steel, an ancient entity felt that wrath. A dormant spirit of vengeance, wasting away in a dying host, stirred from its slumber. It tasted the absolute despair, the suffocating injustice, and the bottomless, roaring anger of the boy in Cell 404.
The spirit smiled.
Izuku looked up at the red light, his eyes cold and empty.
"I won't die here," Izuku whispered to the empty cell, his voice raspy and devoid of its former light. "I will survive. And when I get out... I'll make them all pay."
The Fall of the Symbol was complete. The countdown to Judgment had begun.
Time did not exist in Tartarus.
There were no windows to show the rising of the sun or the falling of the moon. There were no clocks on the walls, no changing of the seasons. There was only the suffocating dark, the biting cold of the damp stone, and the rhythmic, maddening drip of a leaking pipe somewhere down the hall.
For the first few weeks, Izuku tried to keep track. He made tiny scratches on the underside of his metal cot using a sharpened piece of his own fingernail. One scratch for every time the slot in his door opened to slide in a tray of tasteless, gray nutrient paste. He calculated three meals a day, meaning three scratches equaled twenty-four hours.
But soon, the guards learned of his little system. They began bringing his meals at random intervals. Sometimes twice in what felt like an hour. Sometimes not at all for days, leaving him shivering, starving, and hallucinating in the pitch black. They broke his calendar, and in doing so, they unmoored him from reality.
He didn't know how long he had been in the dark. Six months? Eight? A year?
It didn't matter anymore. The boy who had cared about time—who had meticulously scheduled his training with All Might, who had rushed to class to avoid Iida’s reprimands, who had counted the seconds during provisional license exams—was dead.
What remained in Cell 404 was a ghost haunting its own body.
Izuku Midoriya had changed. The physical transformation was stark. Without the golden warmth of One For All constantly burning calories, and subjected to the brutal, starvation-level rations of Tartarus, his body had leaned out dramatically. The rounded, youthful softness of his face had evaporated, leaving behind hollow cheeks and a sharp, severe jawline. His unruly green hair was now matted, hanging past his shoulders, completely obscuring his forehead. His skin, untouched by the sun, was a ghastly, translucent pale, making the archipelago of silver scars on his arms and hands stand out like roadmaps of a forgotten life.
But it was his eyes that had changed the most. The large, bright emeralds that used to shine with unwavering optimism had frosted over. They were flat, cold, and utterly devoid of light. They were the eyes of a predator cornered in a cage.
And he had every reason to be a predator. Tartarus was not just a prison; it was a meat grinder.
Because of the nature of his "crimes"—a hero student who had sold out his own kind, murdered a pro hero, and supposedly aligned with the League of Villains—Izuku was hated by everyone.
The guards, many of whom idolized the pro heroes or had friends in the security forces Izuku supposedly compromised, treated him with a sadistic, creative cruelty. They would often "accidentally" leave his cell door open during the recreation hour of the most violent cell blocks.
That was how he met Muscular again.
It had happened on what Izuku roughly estimated to be his ninth month. The cell door had hissed open. A guard, a burly man named Kato, had smiled cruelly from the shadows, twirling a kinetic shock baton.
"Yard time, traitor. Try not to trip," Kato had sneered.
Izuku was led into a high-walled concrete pit that served as the maximum-security recreation yard. His Quirk-suppressing cuffs were removed—a cruel joke, considering he was Quirkless—and the heavy steel door slammed shut behind him.
Standing in the center of the yard, grinning like a shark smelling blood in the water, was Goto Imasuji. Muscular. The man Izuku had nearly destroyed his own arms to defeat at the summer camp.
Muscular had lost an eye in that fight. The prosthetic he now wore gleamed under the harsh artificial lights. Muscle fibers were already weaving under his skin, expanding his frame into a towering behemoth of flesh and violence.
"Well, well, well," Muscular had rumbled, cracking his knuckles, the sound echoing like gunshots in the empty yard. "The little hero. The guards told me you lost your Quirk. Said you were just a regular, fragile little boy again."
Izuku hadn't spoken. He hadn't panicked. He merely settled into a loose stance.
The beating that followed lasted for twenty minutes. Muscular hadn't wanted to kill him quickly. He wanted to break him. He wanted to hear Izuku scream, to hear him beg for mercy just like the heroes he used to slaughter.
Muscular’s massive fists had rained down like artillery shells. Ribs cracked. Blood painted the gray concrete. Izuku was thrown into the reinforced walls like a ragdoll, his body protesting in a symphony of agony.
But Izuku never screamed.
Every time he hit the ground, he spat out a mouthful of blood, looked up with those dead, emerald eyes, and stood back up.
When Muscular shattered his nose, Izuku thought of Aizawa turning his back on him. When Muscular dislocated his shoulder, Izuku thought of Uraraka’s tears, mourning a lie instead of defending her friend. When Muscular stomped on his chest, Izuku saw All Might’s skeletal hand taking back the hair, taking back his dream.
The physical pain was nothing compared to the phantom ache in his chest where his heart used to be.
Eventually, Muscular grew frustrated by the silence. He went in for a lethal blow, aiming to crush Izuku's skull, but the guards finally intervened, filling the yard with sleep gas. They couldn't let their favorite punching bag die just yet.
Izuku had woken up back in his cell, his body a canvas of black and purple bruises, his arm set haphazardly in a sling. He had stared at the red emergency light on the ceiling, cataloging the pain, burying it deep in his core to fuel the smoldering fire of his hatred.
He was surviving. But barely.
It was during his recovery from the Muscular incident that the voice first spoke to him.
It was deep in the simulated "night" cycle. The prison was completely silent, save for the hum of the ventilation shafts. Izuku was lying on his cot, staring into the dark, trying to suppress a violent coughing fit that tasted of copper.
"Your rage is incredibly loud, little bird."
Izuku froze. The voice was dry, ancient, sounding like two stones grinding together. It hadn't come from the door. It had come from the rusted ventilation grate near the floor of his cell.
Izuku slowly sat up, wincing as his ribs shifted. He slid off the cot and crouched next to the grate. "Who's there?" his voice was raspy, unused for months.
"A neighbor," the voice replied, echoing hollowly through the metal shaft. "Cell 405. They call me Zarathos."
Izuku frowned, his analytical mind booting up through the fog of pain. Zarathos. It didn't sound like a Japanese name. It didn't ring any bells in his encyclopedic knowledge of villains and heroes.
"I don't know you," Izuku whispered.
"Few do, anymore," Zarathos coughed, a wet, rattling sound that indicated failing lungs. "I am old. Older than the glowing baby in Qingqing. Older than this prison. Older than the false society built above our heads."
"Older than Quirks?" Izuku muttered, leaning closer to the grate. "That's impossible."
A low, dry chuckle drifted through the vent. "Impossible is a word used by men who fear the unknown. I have watched you, Izuku Midoriya. I have felt the echoes of your beatings through the floorboards. I felt the brute tear your flesh, and I felt you offer him nothing but your absolute contempt. Tell me, boy... why do you not weep?"
Izuku leaned his head back against the freezing concrete wall. Why didn't he weep?
"Tears are for people who think someone is coming to comfort them," Izuku answered softly. "No one is coming for me."
"Ah," Zarathos sighed, a sound of profound satisfaction. "The absolute clarity of a broken soul. They betrayed you, didn't they? The ones who wear the capes and smile for the cameras."
Izuku didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Over the next few months, Zarathos became Izuku's only tether to sanity, though the ancient man's sanity was questionable in its own right. They spoke only during the deep night cycle when the guards were lethargic and the patrols were light.
Zarathos never spoke of his crimes, nor did he ask for the specifics of Izuku's. Instead, he spoke of philosophy. He spoke of justice.
"The modern hero," Zarathos wheezed one night, "is a symptom of a diseased world. They treat the rash, but they ignore the poison in the blood. They lock men in cages to rot, calling it mercy. They smile, they wave, they collect their paychecks, and the wicked simply wait for their chance to strike again."
"They believe in the law," Izuku whispered back, staring at his scarred hands. "They believe the system works."
"And does it?" Zarathos challenged. "Look around you, boy. The system threw you into the abyss because it was easier than finding the truth. The law is a shield for the corrupt and a chain for the innocent. True justice is not blind, Midoriya. True justice sees every sin. True justice is Vengeance."
"Vengeance," Izuku rolled the word around in his mouth. It tasted like ash and iron.
"There is a power," Zarathos continued, his voice dropping to a hypnotic rasp. "A power born before the first Quirk mutated in a human gene. A curse, forged in the collective wrath of a thousand generations of innocent blood spilled by the wicked. It is the Spirit of Vengeance. It seeks a host."
"Like a sentient Quirk?" Izuku asked, his mind flashing to One For All.
"Do not insult it with such a trivial, modern word," Zarathos hissed violently, causing him to descend into a hacking cough. When he recovered, his voice was weaker. "It is not biology. It is a mantle. It requires a vessel. But the vessel must be perfect."
"Perfect how?"
"If the host's soul is whole, the Spirit has no room to dwell. It will burn them to ash from the inside out. But if the soul is shattered... if it has been emptied of hope, of love, of delusion... the Spirit can make its home in the cracks. And yet, the host must possess an unbreakable will. A will to control the fire, lest the fire consume the world."
Zarathos paused. The silence stretched for so long Izuku thought the old man had died.
"My vessel is broken, boy," Zarathos finally whispered. "I am dying. The fire is fading into embers. It demands a new host. It demands... a Rider."
Izuku closed his eyes. "I'm Quirkless, Zarathos. I'm nothing. I'm just a dead kid waiting for the grave."
"You are a crucible," Zarathos corrected softly. "And you are exactly what we have been waiting for."
The end of the first year came not with a calendar marker, but with blood.
It was the middle of the 'day' cycle. Izuku was sitting on his cot, doing a set of agonizing, slow push-ups to keep his atrophied muscles from completely wasting away, when the magnetic locks of his door disengaged with a heavy clunk.
Izuku stopped, remaining on his hands and knees. The heavy steel door swung inward.
Officer Kato stepped into the cell. He was alone. The red emergency light caught the gleam of his kinetic shock baton, already activated and humming with blue, violent electricity. The guard closed the door behind him, locking it from the inside.
He keyed a command into his radio. "Control, Kato. Routine cell inspection in 404. Cut the audio and video feeds. The traitor is twitchy, don't want the brass complaining if I have to subdue him."
"Copy that, Kato. Feeds are dark. Take your time," a voice crackled back over the radio.
Kato smiled. It was a terrible, greedy smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper, tossing it onto the floor in front of Izuku.
Izuku looked at it. It was a printed bank statement. A deposit of five million yen into an offshore account.
"The HPSC is getting nervous," Kato said casually, tapping the crackling baton against his thigh. "Some of the bleeding hearts at UA, a few of your old classmates, are starting to ask questions. Petitioning for a review of your trial. The Commission doesn't like loose ends. And frankly, Shigaraki’s people on the outside are willing to match the HPSC's price to see you gone."
Izuku slowly stood up. He didn't assume a fighting stance. He just stared at Kato with those dead, emerald eyes.
"You're going to kill me," Izuku stated. It wasn't a question.
"I'm going to help you commit suicide," Kato corrected, his smile widening. "The guilt of your treason finally became too much. You overpowered me, took my baton, and used the highest voltage setting on your own temple. Tragic. A cautionary tale."
"They'll do an autopsy. They'll see the defensive wounds."
"They'll see what the Commission tells them to see," Kato lunged.
Izuku dodged to the left, his instincts flaring, but his malnourished body was too slow. Kato adjusted his grip and swung the baton in a brutal backhand. The crackling tip connected squarely with Izuku’s ribs.
The kinetic discharge was like a bomb going off inside his chest. Izuku was thrown across the tiny cell, slamming into the opposite wall with a sickening crack. He crumpled to the floor, gasping for air that refused to come, his vision swimming in a sea of black spots.
Kato was on him in an instant. A heavy combat boot drove into Izuku’s stomach, pinning him to the ground.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be, kid," Kato grunted, raising the baton high above his head, aiming directly for Izuku’s skull. "Just close your eyes. It'll be over soon."
Izuku looked up at the descending baton.
So this is it, he thought, a strange, terrifying calm washing over him. I die in the dark. Betrayed. Forgotten. A murderer in the eyes of the world.
The absolute injustice of it all swelled in his chest. It was a pressure so immense he felt like he was going to explode. He didn't want to die. He wanted them to hurt. He wanted Kato to burn. He wanted the Commission to burn. He wanted the fake heroes to look upon their sins and choke on them.
I WISH THEY COULD FEEL IT! Izuku screamed in his mind. I WISH THEY COULD BURN!
"THEN BURN, MY RIDER!"
The voice wasn't from the vent. It was inside his head, roaring like a furnace.
Suddenly, an agonizing, deafening shriek echoed from the cell next door. Cell 405. Zarathos. It was the sound of a man tearing his own soul to pieces, projecting it through the walls, through the very concrete.
Before Kato’s baton could connect, the air in Cell 404 superheated. The temperature spiked from freezing to boiling in a fraction of a second. The red emergency light shattered above them, raining glass down on the floor.
Kato gasped, stumbling back, dropping his baton. The sole of his boot began to melt where it had been resting on Izuku's chest. "What the hell?!"
Izuku was convulsing. He grabbed his own head, screaming—a raw, tearing sound that ripped his vocal cords.
He felt something ancient, something unspeakably furious, slamming into his empty, shattered soul. It filled the cracks left by All Might's betrayal. It flooded the void where One For All had been. But this wasn't the warm, golden light of generations passing down hope.
This was hellfire.
Thick, liquid emerald flames erupted from Izuku’s pores. The fire tore through his prison jumper, incinerating the fabric instantly. Kato screamed in terror, scrambling backward until his back hit the steel door, desperately banging on it.
"Control! Get me out of here! He's got a Quirk! He's burning!" Kato shrieked into his radio, but the device simply melted in his hand.
Izuku writhed on the floor, the emerald fire consuming him. It didn't burn him; it transformed him. The flames ate away his pale skin, vaporized his muscles, and boiled his blood. But he didn't die.
As the flesh burned away, what remained was not fragile white bone. The fire forged his skeleton into something unnatural—a dark, metallic substance that gleamed like gunmetal under the swirling green flames.
Izuku slowly pushed himself off the floor.
The agonizing screams stopped, replaced by a low, terrifying rumble that sounded like a revving engine crossed with a dying breath.
Kato stared in absolute horror.
Standing before him was not Izuku Midoriya. It was a demon. The boy's body was a skeletal construct wrapped in a leather biker jacket that seemed to manifest from the shadows and ash themselves, adorned with heavy, jagged iron spikes. A thick, rusted iron chain was wrapped tightly across his chest like a bandolier.
But it was the head that broke Kato’s mind.
A metallic skull, wreathed in a roaring, violent crown of emerald hellfire. Where the boy's dead green eyes used to be, there were now only empty, bottomless sockets, burning with a concentrated, blinding green light.
The entity slowly turned its flaming skull toward the guard.
When it spoke, it was a terrifying, dual-layered voice. It was the sound of Izuku Midoriya, overlaid with the demonic, ancient rasp of Zarathos.
"You reek of innocent blood, Kato."
"No! Please! I was just following orders! It was a job!" Kato sobbed, drawing his sidearm and firing wildly.
The bullets struck the Rider's leather jacket and flattened against the metallic ribs underneath, falling to the floor like useless pebbles. The Rider didn't even flinch.
The Rider slowly raised his skeletal right hand. The rusted chain wrapped around his chest uncoiled like a striking viper. It snapped forward with the speed of a bullet, wrapping tightly around Kato’s throat.
The hellfire traveled down the chain, turning the links glowing hot.
Kato screamed as his flesh began to sizzle. He clawed at the chain, but it was unyielding.
The Rider pulled, dragging the heavy, armored guard across the floor as effortlessly as pulling a rag doll. He hoisted Kato into the air, pinning him against the concrete wall.
The Rider stepped forward, until his burning skull was inches from Kato’s terrified, tear-streaked face. The heat was unbearable, blistering Kato’s skin.
"Orders do not absolve you of sin," the Rider whispered, the emerald flames reflecting in Kato’s terrified eyes. "Your soul is stained. And the guilty must be punished."
The Rider didn't just strangle him. He applied the essence of the Spirit.
The Penance Stare.
"Look into my eyes," the Rider commanded, forcing Kato's head up.
Kato couldn't look away. The emerald fire in the sockets surged forward, boring directly into the guard's pupils.
In that instant, Kato felt everything. He felt the pain of every prisoner he had ever beaten for a bribe. He felt the terror of the families he had extorted. He felt the crushing, suffocating despair he had tried to force onto Izuku Midoriya just moments ago. It was a lifetime of inflicted agony compressed into a single, mind-shattering second.
Kato’s eyes widened until the blood vessels popped. A horrific, gurgling scream tore from his throat. The green fire ignited within his own eyes, burning his retinas, searing his brain.
With a final, violent twitch, Kato went limp. His heart stopped, his mind completely obliterated by the sheer weight of his own sins.
The Rider released the chain. The corpse of the corrupt guard slumped to the floor, his eyes burned completely green, smoke rising from his mouth.
The Rider stood in the silent cell, the emerald hellfire licking the ceiling. He looked down at his skeletal, metal hands. He flexed his fingers, the joints scraping together with a metallic rasp.
He could feel it. The boundless, infinite power of the curse. He could feel the sins of the entire prison pressing against his mind like a physical weight. So many monsters. So many corrupt guards. So much filth.
In the cell next door, Zarathos took his final, rattling breath, and passed into the void, leaving the legacy in the hands of the betrayed boy.
The Rider turned toward the heavy steel door. It was locked from the outside now.
He stepped forward and placed a single, burning, skeletal hand flat against the titanium-reinforced steel. The emerald hellfire surged from his palm. The metal groaned, glowed cherry-red, then blinding white, and finally, it simply melted, dripping onto the floor like hot wax.
The Rider stepped out of the cell and into the dark corridor of Tartarus.
Alarms finally began to blare. Flashing red strobes illuminated the darkness. Sirens wailed, signaling a catastrophic breach in Sector 4.
The Rider didn't run. He walked slowly, the heavy chain dragging along the concrete floor behind him, sparking where it scraped the stone. The flames upon his skull roared higher, eager to taste the sinners trapped in this concrete tomb.
Izuku Midoriya was gone, buried beneath the ash and the fury.
The Spirit of Vengeance had awakened. And it was time to burn the world clean.
The storm raging outside the monolithic fortress of Tartarus was biblical.
Black clouds swirled in a violent, bruised vortex, blotting out the moon and stars, plunging the isolated island into absolute darkness. Rain fell in jagged, sideways sheets, driven by gale-force winds that whipped the churning ocean into fifty-foot swells. The freezing water crashed against the impenetrable concrete and titanium walls of the prison, a relentless siege by nature itself.
But tonight, nature was merely a backdrop to the true disaster.
Three miles off the coast, a rusted cargo ship violently lurched in the waves. Standing on the bow, completely unbothered by the torrential rain soaking his tattered black coat, was Tomura Shigaraki.
His white hair clung to his scarred face, but his ruby-red eyes glowed with a terrifying, feverish anticipation. The agonizing, months-long surgery performed by Dr. Garaki was complete. Shigaraki could feel the boundless, terrifying ocean of power boiling just beneath his skin. He possessed All For One. He was the ultimate apex predator, the king of the ruins he was about to create.
"It’s time," Shigaraki rasped, his voice cutting through the howling wind.
Behind him, a spatial distortion warped the air. Kurogiri, rescued and repurposed, opened a massive, swirling purple warp gate. Out of the portal stepped the remnants of the Paranormal Liberation Front and the core League of Villains: Dabi, his staples holding together burnt flesh twisted into a sadistic grin; Spinner, clutching a massive sword crafted of scavenged blades; Mr. Compress, adjusting his mask; and a horde of modified, grotesque Nomus, their exposed brains twitching with violent programming.
"Finally," Dabi drawled, blue flames already licking across his knuckles, turning the raindrops to steam before they could even touch him. "I was getting bored. Let’s go burn this ugly monument to the ground."
Shigaraki raised his hand, the hand that held the power to reduce cities to dust. "The guards are irrelevant. The security systems are obsolete. The heroes won't make it in time. We breach the surface, we tear open the lower levels, and we free the Master. Everything else is just target practice."
He placed a single finger on a handheld radio transceiver. "Machia. Wake up."
A mile beneath the ocean's surface, the behemoth known as Gigantomachia, who had been burrowing through the earth's crust for days under Shigaraki's orders, breached the bedrock directly beneath Tartarus.
The initial impact registered on the mainland as a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
The ocean exploded upward in a geyser of white foam and displaced water. The bridge connecting Tartarus to the mainland violently snapped, its suspension cables whipping through the air like decapitated snakes before plummeting into the sea.
"Go," Shigaraki commanded.
Kurogiri’s portals enveloped the League, teleporting them directly into the chaos of the upper courtyards of Tartarus.
The assault was instantaneous and overwhelming. Alarms screamed—a deafening, mechanical wail that echoed across the island. Automated defense turrets deployed from hidden alcoves in the concrete, tracking the intruders.
Shigaraki didn't even break his stride. He reached out, his five fingers brushing the side of the main guard tower.
Decay.
The effect was instantaneous and horrific. The reinforced concrete, the titanium blast doors, the plexiglass windows, and the screaming guards inside all turned to a fine, gray ash that was instantly scattered by the storm. A massive, gaping hole appeared in the side of the impregnable fortress.
"Descend!" Shigaraki ordered.
Near-High-End Nomus shrieked, diving into the breach, tearing apart the automated drones and the few guards brave enough to fire their weapons. Dabi unleashed torrents of blinding blue fire down the ventilation shafts, roasting the security personnel alive in their command centers. Spinner leaped down the stairwells, his massive sword cleaving through riot shields as if they were wet paper.
The objective was Sector 1: the deepest, darkest pit of Tartarus, where All For One was held in absolute isolation.
To reach it, they had to bypass Sectors 2, 3, and 4. And Shigaraki, in a mood of chaotic generosity, ordered the control panels destroyed. The cells opened.
Thousands of the most depraved, violent, and bloodthirsty villains Japan had ever captured were suddenly thrust into the dark, their quirks no longer suppressed, their chains broken.
The prison dissolved into a theater of pure anarchy. Villains turned on guards, tearing them limb from limb. Some villains turned on each other, settling old grudges in the bloody corridors. The noise was a cacophony of explosions, maniacal laughter, and the screams of the dying.
Shigaraki walked through the carnage like a god traversing a battlefield. The villains parted for him, sensing the unnatural, monstrous aura radiating from his augmented body.
"We are at Sector 4," Mr. Compress noted, checking a stolen security tablet. "Just two more levels down to the Master."
"Keep moving," Shigaraki muttered. "The heroes will be scrambling jets soon. Let the trash distract them while we—"
Shigaraki stopped.
He didn't just stop; his instincts, honed by months of torture and combat, screamed at him to halt. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Dabi paused beside him, the blue flames flickering erratically around his hands as if starved of oxygen.
"You feel that, boss?" Dabi asked, his smirk faltering just a fraction.
The air had changed. The damp, freezing chill of the underground prison was suddenly gone. Instead, the atmosphere grew heavy, suffocating, and incredibly hot. It smelled like sulfur, burning ozone, and rusted iron.
But it wasn't the heat that made Shigaraki’s newly augmented danger sense flare to life. It was the aura. It was a suffocating pressure, completely alien to Quirks, devoid of human ego or ambition. It felt like standing on the edge of a bottomless abyss and feeling something enormous and hateful looking back up at you.
Then, the screaming started.
It didn't sound like the frantic, adrenaline-fueled screams of the guards fighting for their lives. This was a symphony of absolute, mind-shattering terror. It was the sound of apex predators realizing they were no longer at the top of the food chain.
"Sounds like someone is having a party in the lower block," Spinner said nervously, gripping his massive sword tighter.
"Send a Nomu," Shigaraki commanded.
A hulking, four-armed Nomu with exposed muscle and a beak-like jaw roared, bounding down the corridor toward Sector 4, where the screams were originating.
Shigaraki and the League followed at a slower pace, turning the corner into the main thoroughfare of Sector 4.
What they saw brought them to a dead halt.
Just ten minutes prior, Muscular had punched his way out of his cell.
The massive villain stretched his neck, muscle fibers already weaving around his arms and torso, expanding his bulk until he brushed the ceiling of the corridor. The prison was in chaos. The alarms were blaring, and the lights were flickering. It was a beautiful, violent symphony.
"Time to find some meat," Muscular growled, his remaining eye wide with sadistic glee. He wanted a hero. He wanted to crush someone's skull.
He walked through the darkened cell block, ignoring the lesser villains scrambling past him. He turned a corner, heading toward the armory, when he noticed a strange green light flickering on the concrete walls ahead.
The temperature was unbearable, like walking into a blast furnace. The air was shimmering with heat haze.
Standing at the end of the corridor was a figure.
It was clad in a dark leather biker jacket, adorned with jagged iron spikes that looked as though they had grown organically from the material. Heavy chains were wrapped around its torso. But Muscular didn't care about the clothes. He stared at the head.
It was a skull, forged of dark, gunmetal gray bone, entirely engulfed in a roaring crown of emerald hellfire. Empty, bottomless sockets burned with blinding green light, staring down the corridor.
At the entity's feet lay a dozen villains. They weren't just dead; they were charred, twisted husks, their eyes burned out, their faces frozen in masks of unimaginable agony.
Muscular blinked. "What the hell is this? Some new Nomu? Or a hero playing dress-up?"
The entity didn't answer. It slowly turned its burning skull toward Muscular.
"Goto Imasuji."
The voice was terrifying. It didn't travel through the air; it resonated directly inside Muscular's skull, vibrating against his teeth. It sounded like an avalanche of stone grinding against steel.
Muscular grinned, his bloodlust overriding his confusion. "You know my name? Good. Means you know I'm going to rip that flaming head right off your shoulders."
Muscular roared, thousands of pink and red muscle fibers erupting from his skin, wrapping around his legs and arms, turning him into a tank of pure kinetic energy. He launched himself down the corridor, the concrete shattering beneath his boots, moving at blinding speed.
He pulled back his massive, augmented fist, aiming directly for the entity's chest, intending to obliterate it in a single blow.
The Rider didn't dodge.
Muscular’s fist, carrying enough force to level a skyscraper, slammed directly into the Rider's chest.
CLANG.
The sound was deafening, like striking a colossal cathedral bell. The shockwave blew the doors off the nearby cells.
Muscular’s grin vanished. His fist hadn't gone through. It hadn't even staggered the figure. It was as if he had punched a mountain of solid tungsten.
The Rider slowly looked down at the massive, fleshy fist pressed against his leather jacket. Then, he looked back up at Muscular.
"Guilty."
Before Muscular could retract his arm, the Rider moved. His skeletal hand shot out with terrifying, imperceptible speed, grabbing Muscular by the wrist.
Muscular gasped. The Rider's grip was impossible. It felt like being caught in an industrial hydraulic press. "Let... go!" Muscular grunted, attempting to use his Quirk to force his arm free, stacking thousands of fibers to push the skeletal hand away.
The Rider merely squeezed.
The emerald hellfire flared from the Rider's hand, bleeding into Muscular's arm. It didn't burn the flesh; it burned the quirk. The muscle fibers began to hiss, turning black and instantly dissolving into ash.
"What are you doing to me?!" Muscular roared in panic, punching the Rider in the face with his free hand. His knuckles scraped against the metallic skull, tearing open his own skin. The Rider didn't even blink.
The Rider reached up with his other hand, grabbing the thick, rusted chain wrapped around his chest. He pulled it free with a metallic hiss. The chain instantly ignited in green fire.
With a brutal, effortless flick of his wrist, the Rider whipped the chain. It wrapped tightly around Muscular's massive neck, the burning links searing into his skin.
Muscular choked, his hands flying to his throat, desperately trying to pull the chain away, but the metal burned his palms to the bone.
The Rider yanked the chain, ripping Muscular off his feet and dragging the behemoth forward until they were inches apart. The heat radiating from the Rider was melting the ceiling tiles above them.
"You revel in the slaughter of the innocent," the Rider rasped, the dual-layered voice vibrating with an ancient, fathomless hatred. "You broke the bones of those who sought to protect. You feast on pain."
"Screw... you..." Muscular gasped, spitting blood onto the Rider's leather jacket.
"Now... you will feast on your own."
The Rider grabbed Muscular by the front of his shirt, lifting the two-ton villain into the air with one hand.
"Look into my eyes."
Muscular tried to close his remaining eye, tried to look away, but the command was absolute. An invisible force pried his eyelid open. The emerald fire within the Rider's empty sockets flared, boring a tunnel directly into Muscular's mind.
The Penance Stare.
In an instant, Muscular’s mind was transported. He was no longer in Tartarus. He was standing on a cliffside, and suddenly, he felt a horrific, tearing pain in his chest, exactly like the pain he had inflicted on the Water Hose heroes when he murdered them. He felt the suffocating grief of a young boy left orphaned. He felt the bones shattering in a green-haired teenager's arms as he relentlessly beat him into the dirt.
He felt every tear, every drop of blood, every scream he had ever caused, reflected back onto his own soul, magnified a thousand times.
Muscular let out a scream that didn't sound human. It was the sound of a soul being shoved into a woodchipper. Blood began to pour from his nose and ears. His remaining eye turned a brilliant, blinding green as the hellfire incinerated his consciousness.
The Rider dropped him. Muscular’s massive body hit the floor with a heavy thud, twitching violently before going entirely still. He was physically alive, but his mind was utterly, permanently destroyed.
The Rider turned his burning gaze away from the vegetative villain, just as a colossal, four-armed Nomu crashed through the barricade at the end of the hall, shrieking as it charged toward him.
The Rider simply raised his burning chain.
Shigaraki rounded the corner just in time to witness the execution.
The four-armed Nomu, a beast capable of regenerating from a severed head in seconds, lunged at the flaming skeleton.
The Rider didn't retreat. He lashed out with the chain. The rusted metal moved like a living serpent, wrapping around the Nomu’s torso and two of its arms. The entity gave a violent, two-handed pull.
The chain sliced through the Nomu's hyper-dense flesh like a heated wire through butter. But more horrifying than the dismemberment was the fire. Where the chain cut, emerald hellfire erupted.
The Nomu screeched, trying to regenerate, but the green fire clung to the stumps. It didn't just burn the cells; it burned the artificial life force animating the corpse. The regeneration quirk was completely neutralized. The fire spread, engulfing the Nomu. Within seconds, the invincible bio-weapon was reduced to a pile of gray ash and smoking bone.
The corridor fell dead silent, save for the crackling of the emerald flames.
Shigaraki stared, his eyes wide. Dabi took a step back, the flames on his hands entirely extinguishing in the presence of a superior, unfathomable heat. Mr. Compress dropped his marbles.
"What... is that?" Spinner whispered, his voice trembling. "Is that a hero?"
"No," Shigaraki murmured, his brain working overtime to analyze the threat. "That's not a hero. Heroes hesitate. Heroes talk. That thing... is just death."
The Rider slowly turned. His blazing, hollow eye sockets locked onto the League of Villains.
The air pressure dropped. The oppressive, terrifying aura doubled in intensity, pressing down on Shigaraki like the weight of the ocean. The Rider looked at Shigaraki, at Dabi, at Spinner.
The Spirit of Vengeance analyzed them. It tasted their sins.
Murderers. Terrorists. Anarchists.
The chain in the Rider's hand began to rattle, the flames turning a brighter, angrier hue. He took a step toward them, his heavy boots echoing like a death knell.
Shigaraki grit his teeth. He couldn't afford to be delayed here. All For One was just below them.
"Kill it!" Shigaraki yelled, pointing a finger.
Three more Nomus surged past the League, blindly throwing themselves at the Rider. Dabi followed up, unleashing a massive, roaring torrent of blue flames that filled the entire corridor, aimed directly at the flaming skeleton.
"Turn it to ash!" Dabi laughed maniacally.
The blue flames engulfed the Rider, creating a blinding inferno that melted the concrete walls and vaporized the water dripping from the ceiling.
But as Dabi cut off his blast, panting slightly, the smoke cleared.
The Rider was still standing there. He hadn't even raised an arm to block. The blue flames had washed over him, completely impotent, absorbed into the roaring emerald hellfire upon his skull without leaving a single scorch mark on his leather jacket.
The Rider reached out, grabbing a leaping Nomu by the throat. He drove his fist straight through its chest, the green fire incinerating its heart, before tossing the carcass aside like garbage.
"Your fire is cold, child," the Rider's voice echoed, directed at Dabi. "You burn with the tantrum of a boy. I burn with the wrath of the innocent."
Dabi's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "No way..."
Shigaraki prepared to use Decay, stepping forward to touch the floor and wipe out the entire corridor, including this new monster.
But before he could act, a massive explosion rocked the facility from above.
The ceiling groaned as a colossal drill-like apparatus pierced the upper floors. The heroes had arrived. Shouts and the sound of heavy artillery began to filter down through the shafts. Pro heroes were dropping in from above to secure the breach.
The Rider paused. He looked up at the ceiling, his burning skull tilting slightly.
The Spirit of Vengeance calculated. The villains before him were dripping with sin. They deserved the fire. But above them... above them were the hypocrites. The jailers. The ones who had locked an innocent boy in a box and thrown away the key.
The Spirit of Vengeance did not just punish villains. It punished betrayal. And the very institution of heroes was built on a foundation of lies that the Rider was born to expose.
Izuku Midoriya's repressed memories—the betrayal, the cuffs, Aizawa's cold eyes, All Might's demand—surged through the demonic entity.
The Rider lowered his chain. He turned away from Shigaraki and the League, ignoring them entirely. They were merely insects scavenging a corpse. The real target—the corrupt society above—awaited.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!" Dabi yelled, humiliated that his fire had done nothing.
The Rider didn't answer. He walked toward a heavy, blast-proof door labeled VEHICLE BAY - MAXIMUM SECURITY. He kicked the door. The titanium hinges shattered like glass, and the door flew off into the dark room.
The Rider stepped inside.
Shigaraki watched him go, a cold sweat forming on his forehead. "Leave him," Shigaraki ordered, his voice tight. "Whatever the hell that is, it's headed for the heroes. Let them deal with it. We have to reach the Master. Now."
The League hurried past the vehicle bay, leaving the terrifying entity to its own devices.
Inside the vehicle bay, the emergency lights were flashing red. The room was massive, housing several heavily armored personnel carriers and riot-control vehicles designed to traverse the rugged, unforgiving terrain of the island.
But the Rider wasn't interested in the trucks.
Resting on a reinforced hydraulic stand in the center of the room was a specialized Riot-Control Motorcycle. It was a beast of machinery, painted matte black, equipped with reinforced armor plating, massive all-terrain tires, and a chassis designed to ram through concrete barricades.
The Rider walked up to the machine.
He didn't need a key. The Spirit of Vengeance did not just control fire; it commanded the physical world to reflect its demonic nature.
The Rider placed his skeletal, burning hands on the handlebars.
"Wake up," he whispered.
The moment his metallic fingers gripped the rubber, the emerald hellfire surged from his body, pouring into the motorcycle like a torrential flood.
The machine reacted violently. The matte black paint boiled and blistered away, replaced by the dark, gunmetal gray of demonic forging. The sleek, aerodynamic armor plating cracked and warped, reshaping itself into jagged, terrifying iron spikes that jutted out like the ribs of a prehistoric beast.
The dashboard shattered, replaced by a glowing, emerald skull that served as the headlight, burning with intense, concentrated hellfire. The exhaust pipes extended, curving upward like demonic horns, spitting thick black smoke and green sparks.
But it was the wheels that underwent the most horrific transformation. The heavy rubber melted away entirely, leaving behind wide, solid rims of jagged, rusted iron. As the transformation completed, the iron rims violently ignited.
The motorcycle was no longer a machine of metal and wires. It was a living, breathing extension of the Rider's soul. It was a Hell-Cycle.
The engine roared to life on its own. It didn't sound like a combustion engine. It sounded like a choir of damned souls screaming in unison, layered beneath the deep, thrumming bass of a tectonic fault line shifting.
The Rider threw his leg over the saddle and sat down.
He gripped the handlebars. The hellfire from his skull synced perfectly with the fire of the tires. The heat in the room was so intense that the other vehicles began to melt into slag.
The Rider looked up at the ceiling. Sector 4 was miles underground. The elevators were destroyed. The staircases were choked with debris and fighting villains.
He didn't need them.
The Rider pulled a heavy iron chain from his chest and wrapped it around his forearm. He revved the engine. The sound shattered the remaining glass in the room.
He popped the clutch.
The Hell-Cycle launched forward with explosive, impossible speed. But it didn't head for the door. It headed straight for the reinforced concrete wall of the central ventilation shaft—a massive, vertical tunnel that led directly to the surface, miles above.
The Rider slammed into the wall.
Physics broke. Gravity ceased to exist.
The Hell-Cycle didn't crash. The burning, iron tires gripped the vertical concrete wall, melting their way in just enough to gain traction. The Rider drove straight up the ninety-degree incline.
He accelerated, roaring up the vertical shaft at over a hundred miles an hour, leaving a massive, burning trail of emerald fire etched into the concrete behind him.
The journey upward was a blur of darkness and roaring fire. He passed Sector 3, where villains paused their rioting to look in terror at the green comet shooting up the shaft. He passed Sector 2, where pro heroes were locked in brutal combat with Nomus. They stopped, frozen in shock as the demonic engine roared past them, defying all laws of nature.
The Rider kept his burning eyes fixed on the top.
On the surface, the storm was reaching its apex.
Pro heroes had secured the main courtyard, fighting off the escaping low-level villains and pushing them back toward the breach. Endeavor, the new Number One Hero, stood amidst the wreckage, his hellflame keeping the torrential rain at bay. Beside him stood Hawks, Mirko, and several platoons of armed police.
"Hold the perimeter!" Endeavor roared, his fiery beard flaring. "Shigaraki is down there! We must not let him escape with All For One!"
"We've got movement in the central vent!" Hawks yelled, hovering above, his red feathers shielding his eyes from the rain. "Something's coming up! And it's coming fast!"
Endeavor turned toward the massive, metal grating covering the main ventilation shaft in the center of the courtyard. He readied a Prominence Burn, expecting a high-tier Nomu or Gigantomachia.
"Get back!" Endeavor ordered the police. "Whatever it is, I'll incinerate it the moment it breaches!"
The metal grating began to glow green.
A sound reached them—a sound that cut through the thunder, the rain, and the shouting. It was the roar of an engine, feral and demonic.
"Now!" Endeavor shouted.
He unleashed a massive torrent of blinding, golden-red fire directly at the grating.
The blast hit the metal just as the entity reached the top.
But Endeavor’s fire didn't stop it. The entity tore through the Number One Hero's flames as if they were nothing more than a warm breeze.
The heavy titanium grating exploded outward, sent flying hundreds of feet into the air like a frisbee.
Out of the shaft, erupting from the blinding golden fire of Endeavor’s attack, burst the Rider.
The Hell-Cycle flew into the stormy sky, a terrifying silhouette of spikes, leather, and roaring emerald hellfire, completely defying gravity.
Time seemed to slow down for the heroes in the courtyard.
Endeavor’s eyes widened in absolute shock. Hawks dropped his visors, his jaw slack. Mirko froze, her combat instincts short-circuiting in the face of something that felt so intrinsically terrifying.
Suspended in the air, framed against the lightning-streaked black clouds, the Rider looked down at them.
For a fraction of a second, Endeavor locked eyes with the entity. He saw the metallic skull, the leather jacket, the chains. But mostly, he saw the empty sockets burning with a green light so intense, so hateful, that the Number One Hero actually took a physical step backward.
The heat radiating from the motorcycle was so intense that the torrential rain within a hundred-yard radius vaporized instantly, creating a massive cloud of steam.
The Hell-Cycle hit the ground of the courtyard with a deafening crash, the iron tires cracking the reinforced concrete.
The armed police raised their rifles, their hands shaking uncontrollably. "Freeze! Don't move!" one officer screamed hysterically.
The Rider didn't even acknowledge them. He didn't attack the heroes, though his inner demon screamed at him to burn them for their hypocrisy. The time for them would come. But not tonight. Tonight was about freedom. Tonight was about announcing to the world that there were consequences.
The Rider revved the engine. The sound was a physical shockwave that knocked several officers off their feet.
He spun the Hell-Cycle around, burning a perfect circle of green fire into the stone. He aimed the bike toward the shattered remains of the bridge, leading toward the mainland of Musutafu.
Endeavor finally broke out of his stupor. "Stop him!" he roared, lunging forward, his fists coated in fire.
The Rider popped the clutch.
The Hell-Cycle launched forward like a missile. Endeavor swung his fiery fist, but he was entirely too slow. The Rider blurred past him, a streak of emerald light.
Endeavor was hit by the backdraft of the Hell-Cycle's exhaust. The Number One Hero choked, his own flames momentarily snuffed out by the sheer, suffocating heat of the hellfire. He fell to his knees, coughing violently, watching as the demonic motorcycle launched itself off the edge of the island.
But the Rider didn't fall into the churning ocean.
As the Hell-Cycle left the concrete, the iron tires spun, igniting the very air beneath them. The Rider drove across the surface of the raging ocean, the water instantly boiling away beneath his tires, leaving a trail of green fire suspended on the waves.
Endeavor, Hawks, and Mirko watched in stunned, horrified silence.
The green comet carved a path through the darkness, heading straight for the glowing city lights of the mainland, until it was swallowed by the storm.
Tartarus was falling behind him. The old world was dying.
Izuku Midoriya, the quirkless boy who just wanted to save people with a smile, was dead and buried under a mile of stone.
The Ghost Rider had arrived. And hell was coming with him.