what if deku was in dr stone

 

 

The sky above Musutafu was a brilliant, unblemished blue, the kind of autumn sky that made the air feel crisp and electric in the lungs. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and Ground Beta—one of U.A. High School’s premier urban training grounds—was echoing with the familiar symphony of destruction.

 

Izuku Midoriya ducked underneath a roaring blast of superheated air, the shockwave ruffling his unruly green hair. He hit the asphalt shoulder-first, rolling with the momentum before springing back to his feet, emerald lightning crackling around his body. One For All: Full Cowling—Eight Percent!

 

"Don't just dodge, you damn nerd!" Katsuki Bakugo roared, propelling himself through the air with a rapid-fire series of explosions from his palms. He descended like a meteor, his gauntlets aimed squarely at Midoriya’s chest. "Fight back!"

 

Midoriya planted his feet, his mind racing through calculations. His trajectory is linear, but he's got enough momentum to pivot mid-air if I try to side-step. If I use Blackwhip to grab the lamppost... no, that leaves my right side open.

 

"I am fighting back, Kacchan!" Midoriya shouted, dropping low. He channeled power into his legs, preparing for a Shoot Style kick to deflect Bakugo’s incoming assault. Off to the sidelines, Shoto Todoroki was freezing a collapsing building while Ochaco Uraraka floated chunks of debris away from the simulated civilian rescue zone. It was a standard Team-Up Mission exercise, overseen by Shota Aizawa, who stood atop a nearby roof with his capture weapon winding lazily around his neck.

 

Everything was normal. Everything was perfect. They were training to become the next generation of Pro Heroes, ready to inherit a world that relied on their strength, their courage, and their Quirks.

 

Then, the world ended.

 

It didn't begin with an explosion, or a villain's monologue, or the wail of a siren. It began with a light.

 

Midoriya was mid-swing, his leg sweeping upward to meet Bakugo’s gauntlet, when a profound, unnatural silence fell over the city. The deafening roar of Bakugo’s explosions simply vanished. Midoriya blinked, his momentum carrying him forward, but his eyes were drawn to the horizon.

 

Rising from the south, sweeping across the globe at an incomprehensible speed, was a wave of eerie, luminescent green light. It was a shade of green that Midoriya had never seen before—sickly, pale, and completely consuming.

 

"What the...?" Bakugo’s voice trailed off as he landed, his combat instincts instantly overriding their spar. He raised his gauntlets toward the light, teeth bared. "The hell is that? A villain attack?!"

 

"Everyone! Gather up and prepare for defensive maneuvers!" Tenya Iida’s voice boomed across the training ground, his engine calves smoking as he sprinted toward the center of the street.

 

On the rooftop, Aizawa’s eyes glowed a fierce red, his hair defying gravity as he activated his Erasure Quirk, glaring directly into the approaching wave of light. He was trying to erase the Quirk of whatever was causing it.

 

But it wasn't a Quirk. Or if it was, it was something entirely beyond human comprehension.

 

The light hit Aizawa first. Midoriya watched in horror as his homeroom teacher, a man whose reflexes were honed to a razor's edge, froze mid-shout. The color drained from Aizawa’s skin, his clothes, his capture weapon, replaced by a dull, grayish-white texture. In less than a second, Eraserhead was a statue.

 

"Mr. Aizawa!" Midoriya screamed.

 

"Deku! Behind you!" Uraraka cried out, floating down beside Todoroki, who was already raising a massive wall of ice to shield them.

 

The light hit the ice, passing through it as if the frozen barrier didn't even exist. Todoroki turned to stone, his face locked in an expression of intense concentration. Uraraka reached out toward Midoriya, her mouth opening to scream, but the green light washed over her. Her eyes widened, the warm flush of her cheeks turning to rigid, unyielding granite. She fell from the air, landing with a heavy, unnatural thud on the asphalt.

 

"Uraraka! Todoroki!" Midoriya’s heart hammered against his ribs. Panic, raw and unadulterated, seized his throat. He activated One For All at twenty percent, the green lightning flaring wildly as he prepared to run, to smash the light, to do anything.

 

"Damn it!" Bakugo yelled, stepping in front of Midoriya, his palms sparking furiously. "Die!" He unleashed a massive Howitzer Impact directly into the wave of light. The explosion bloomed, a massive sphere of fire and concussive force.

 

The green light swallowed the fire whole. It hit Bakugo.

 

Midoriya reached out. "Kacchan!"

 

Bakugo turned his head slightly, his crimson eyes locking onto Midoriya’s green ones for a fraction of a second. There was fear there, hidden beneath layers of defiance, before the gray texture consumed his face. The explosive boy turned to stone, freezing mid-stance.

 

And then, the light hit Izuku Midoriya.

 

The first sensation was cold. It wasn't the biting cold of winter or Todoroki’s ice; it was a profound, absolute zero that seemed to start deep within his marrow and radiate outward. He felt his toes stiffen, the sensation rushing up his calves, his thighs, his torso. He tried to move his arm, to reach for Bakugo, but his muscles refused to obey. His vocal cords paralyzed before he could form a sound.

 

The world went dark. The brilliant blue sky, the ruins of Ground Beta, the stone statues of his friends—all of it vanished into an impenetrable, suffocating black void.

 

I can't move, Midoriya thought, his internal voice echoing in the absolute silence. I can't breathe. My heart... is my heart beating? I can't feel it.

 

He tried to activate One For All. He tried to call upon the power that had been passed down to him, the power of a million souls, the legacy of All Might. But his body was gone. He was nothing but a floating consciousness trapped in a cage he couldn't see.

 

Is this a villain's Quirk? Like the Sludge Villain? No, it's different. It's solid. I'm... I'm trapped in stone. Everyone is trapped. I have to break out. I have to save them!

 

He pushed with all his mental might, imagining his arms, imagining his legs, envisioning the power of One For All coursing through his veins. Nothing happened. The darkness was absolute.

 

Minutes passed. Then hours. Then days.

 

Midoriya had no way of measuring time. He only knew that the silence was driving him mad. He began to count.

 

One. Two. Three. Four. Five...

 

He counted to a thousand. Then ten thousand. Then a million.

 

One million, four hundred and fifty-two thousand, eight hundred and nine...

 

The terror began to give way to a creeping, insidious despair. He was a Pro Hero in training. He was the Ninth wielder of One For All. He was supposed to save people with a smile. But how could he save anyone when he was trapped in an endless night, unable to even blink?

 

Am I dead? Is this what death is?

 

As the thought crossed his mind, a sudden warmth blossomed in the center of the void. It wasn't a physical warmth, but a spiritual one. A flickering, multicolored spark ignited in the darkness, growing brighter and brighter until it formed a swirling nebula of energy.

 

Midoriya’s consciousness felt itself being pulled toward the light.

 

What is that?

 

The nebula parted, revealing a landscape that Midoriya recognized from his dreams. It was a vast, empty space, illuminated by strange, floating orbs of color. And standing before him, radiating power and presence, were the Vestiges.

 

Yoichi Shigaraki, the First User, stood with his white hair floating gently around his face. Beside him stood the imposing figures of Daigoro Banjo, En, and Nana Shimura, along with the others.

 

"Ninth," Yoichi's voice echoed, not in Midoriya's ears, but directly in his soul. It was a voice filled with profound sorrow and unwavering resolve.

 

First? Where am I? What happened? Midoriya tried to speak, but without a mouth, he communicated through pure thought.

 

"The world has been halted," Nana Shimura stepped forward, her eyes softening as she looked at him. "A phenomenon we do not understand. A petrification beam of global scale. Your body has been encased in stone, Izuku."

 

Stone? Everyone? My mom? All Might? Uraraka?

 

"Everyone," Daigoro Banjo said, crossing his massive arms, his brow furrowed. "We felt it wash over the entire planet. The surface is quiet. Too quiet."

 

I have to get out! I have to break the stone! Let me use One For All! Midoriya surged forward mentally, desperation clawing at his mind.

 

En, the Sixth User, shook his head. "You can't. Your body is in a state of suspended animation. If you exert too much force from the inside while the stone is solid, you will shatter your own physical form. You would die, Izuku."

 

So I just... wait? For how long?

 

Yoichi stepped closer, his glowing eyes filled with a melancholic wisdom. "We do not know. But we know this: the stone is preserving you, but it is also a prison. If your mind degrades, if you lose consciousness and surrender to the dark, you may never wake up. The brain requires energy to function. Over centuries, the stone will drain you."

 

Centuries?!

 

"We will be your anchor," Nana said firmly. "One For All is a cultivation of power, but it is also a cultivation of spirit. The eight of us will share our consciousness with you. We will keep your mind active. We will train your mind, review your memories, analyze Quirks. We will not let you fade, Izuku."

 

Midoriya looked at the ghostly figures of his predecessors. He felt the weight of their words, the crushing reality of their situation. The world he knew was gone, trapped in stone. But he was Deku. He was the one who never gave up.

 

Okay, Midoriya projected his thoughts, his resolve hardening like steel. I won't sleep. I won't stop thinking. I will stay awake until I can break out. And when I do, I'll save everyone.

 

And so, the vigil began.

 

 

 

Time lost all meaning.

 

In the physical world, seasons changed. Spring rains washed over the stone statues, summer suns baked them, autumn leaves buried them, and winter snows froze them. Years turned into decades. Decades turned into centuries. Civilizations crumbled, steel rusted to dust, concrete was devoured by roots, and the earth reclaimed its surface, wiping away the scars of humanity.

 

Inside the void, Izuku Midoriya lived a thousand lifetimes.

 

To keep him sane, the Vestiges engaged him in relentless mental exercises. Daigoro Banjo taught him the intricate mechanics of Blackwhip, forcing Midoriya to visualize the tension, the flex, the emotional control required to master the tendrils without his body moving a millimeter. En detailed the aerodynamics of Smokescreen, calculating wind resistance and particulate dispersion. Nana Shimura walked him through the precise muscular contractions needed for Float, turning the Quirk from an instinctual reflex into an exact science.

 

They reviewed every battle Midoriya had ever fought. They analyzed every hero in his notebooks. They played mental chess. They told stories of their own lives, of their fights against All For One, of the people they loved and lost.

 

But even with the Vestiges, the isolation was agonizing.

 

There were times when Midoriya wanted to scream, to shatter the stone and risk death just to feel the wind on his face. There were times when the memories of his mother's smile or All Might's laugh brought such profound grief that his mental projection wept for years on end.

 

Mom... All Might... Kacchan... Todoroki... Uraraka... Iida...

 

He recited their names like a prayer. He remembered the exact shade of Uraraka's blush, the specific timbre of Iida's engine, the smell of burnt caramel that followed Bakugo. He held onto those memories with a desperate, white-knuckled grip, refusing to let the darkness steal them.

 

"Stay focused, Ninth," Yoichi would remind him whenever his consciousness began to drift into lethargy. "The world still needs a symbol. It will need you."

 

As the centuries dragged on, Midoriya noticed a change in the Vestiges. Their glowing forms were becoming slightly dimmer. Maintaining the mental link, protecting his consciousness from the eroding effects of the petrification, was draining the stored energy of One For All.

 

You're getting weaker, Midoriya realized one 'day' after a particularly arduous mental sparring session with Banjo.

 

"We're burning through the stockpiled energy," Nana admitted, her smile strained. "Keeping a human mind awake for millennia was never what this Quirk was designed for."

 

Millennia?! Midoriya’s mind reeled. How long has it been?

 

"Three thousand years, give or take a few centuries," En replied softly.

 

Midoriya felt a phantom chill. Three thousand years. The world he knew was gone. U.A. High, his apartment, the streets of Musutafu... it was all dust. Even if he broke out, what would be left?

 

Before the despair could take hold, a sensation ripped through the void.

 

It was faint at first. A tiny, microscopic pinprick of cold on his forehead.

 

Midoriya’s mental projection gasped, his ghostly hands flying to his face. What was that?

 

"A physical sensation," Yoichi said, his eyes widening. "Something is touching your physical body."

 

Drip.

 

There it was again. A cold, steady drip. Midoriya focused all his remaining consciousness on that single point on his forehead. The liquid felt strange—acrid, sharp, biting into the stone that encased him.

 

Drip.

 

"It's acid," En deduced, his mind racing. "Nitric acid, perhaps? It's slowly eating away at the petrified shell around your prefrontal cortex."

 

It's weakening the stone! Midoriya realized, a surge of adrenaline rushing through his dormant physical nervous system. I can feel it. I can feel my face!

 

"Izuku, listen to me," Yoichi said, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "The stone is compromised. The cage is cracking. We don't have much energy left, but we can pool it together for one massive, internal shockwave. But you have to channel it perfectly. If you miscalculate, you'll destroy your brain."

 

Midoriya nodded mentally. Three thousand, seven hundred years of meditation and absolute Quirk control had prepared him for this exact moment. He wasn't the reckless kid who broke his bones to throw a punch anymore. He was a master of his own internal energy.

 

I'm ready.

 

The Vestiges gathered around him, placing their hands on his shoulders, his back, his chest. The glowing nebulas of their power flowed into him, a warm, golden-green river of raw, stockpiled strength.

 

"Now, Ninth!" Daigoro bellowed. "Smash it to pieces!"

 

Midoriya localized the energy of One For All directly to his face and chest, keeping it millimeters below his skin. He didn't punch. He didn't kick. He simply let the power flare.

 

ONE FOR ALL: ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

 

In the physical world, a spiderweb of glowing green cracks erupted across the gray stone face of the statue. The cracks spiderwebbed outward, racing down the neck, the torso, the arms, the legs. The nitric acid had softened the bonds, and the sheer concussive force of One For All shattered them.

 

With a sound like a canon blast, the stone exploded outward in a cloud of dust and debris.

 

Izuku Midoriya fell forward.

 

He hit the ground hard, his bare hands sinking into damp, rich earth. For a moment, he simply lay there, his mind unable to process the sheer volume of sensory input.

 

He opened his mouth and took a breath.

 

The air rushed into his lungs like liquid fire. He coughed violently, his chest heaving, his diaphragm spasming after thousands of years of disuse. Every muscle in his body shrieked in agony, stiff and weak, trembling under the gravity of the earth.

 

But he was breathing. He was alive.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

The blinding light of the sun forced him to squeeze them shut, tears streaming down his dirty face. He blinked rapidly, letting his pupils adjust.

 

Green. That was the first thing he saw. Not the sickly green of the petrification beam, but the vibrant, explosive green of nature. He was lying in a dense carpet of ferns and moss. Towering trees with trunks the size of buildings stretched up into the sky, their canopy so thick it dappled the sunlight into a mosaic of gold and shadow.

 

The air smelled of ozone, rotting wood, blooming flowers, and wet soil. He could hear the deafening chirp of insects, the rustle of wind through the leaves, the distant call of a bird.

 

Midoriya pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, shivering. His clothes—his U.A. gym uniform—were gone, rotted away to nothingness over the millennia. Only a few petrified fragments of his shoes remained clinging to his feet before crumbling away as he moved. He was completely naked, covered in patches of gray stone residue that flaked off his skin like dead scales.

 

He looked at his hands. They were his hands. Scarred from his battles with Todoroki and Muscular, calloused from training. They were real.

 

"I'm out," he croaked. His voice sounded monstrous, hoarse, and cracked, grating like sandpaper. He cleared his throat, trying again. "I'm... I'm out."

 

He slowly staggered to his feet. His legs wobbled violently, threatening to give out, but he forced his knees to lock. He stood up and looked around.

 

"Ground Beta... U.A...." he muttered, turning in a slow circle.

 

There was no concrete. There was no asphalt. There were no buildings, no lampposts, no power lines. There was only the endless, primordial forest. Nature had completely devoured the city.

 

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through his chest.

 

"Aizawa-sensei?!" Midoriya yelled, his voice cracking violently. "Kacchan! Uraraka! Todoroki!"

 

Silence. Only the mocking chirp of the cicadas answered him.

 

He stumbled forward, his bare feet sinking into the moss. He needed to find them. They were right next to him when the light hit. They had to be here.

 

He frantically tore through the underbrush, ignoring the thorns that scratched his bare skin. "Guys! Is anyone there!?"

 

He tripped over a massive, moss-covered mound and fell face-first into the dirt. Groaning, he pushed himself up and turned to look at what he had tripped over.

 

It was a boulder. But as Midoriya looked closer, his breath hitched. The boulder had an unnatural shape. It was smooth, curved... it looked like a human shoulder.

 

Trembling, Midoriya reached out and frantically clawed away the thick layer of green moss and dirt. His fingernails scraped against hard stone. As the moss peeled away, a face was revealed.

 

It was a man, an adult, his features twisted in a mask of absolute terror, his mouth open in a silent scream.

 

Midoriya scrambled backward, his heart pounding in his ears. It wasn't someone he knew, but it was undeniable proof. The petrification was real. The people were still here, trapped in the stone.

 

"Okay. Okay, Izuku, think," he muttered to himself, forcing his hero-analysis brain to override his panic. He sat on the ground, bringing his knees to his chest. "I need data. I need to know where I am and what's left."

 

He closed his eyes, centering himself. One For All: Full Cowling.

 

Instinctively, he tried to draw upon the power. But the moment the energy sparked, a horrific tearing sensation ripped through his muscles. He cried out, collapsing onto his side.

 

My body... it's completely atrophied, he realized, panting heavily. I survived the petrification, but my muscles haven't moved in thousands of years. I have no stamina, no endurance. If I use too much power, I'll literally tear my own body apart.

 

He took a deep breath, recalibrating. Five percent. No, let's start with three percent.

 

Green lightning sparked weakly around his skin. It felt like a warm blanket rather than a surging river. With three percent coursing through his veins, the crippling fatigue lessened just enough for him to stand upright without shaking.

 

He approached the largest tree nearby, a colossal cedar that looked like it had been growing since the dawn of time. Digging his fingers into the bark, he used a fraction of One For All to propel himself upward, leaping from branch to branch until he broke through the canopy.

 

He perched on a thick branch, swaying gently in the wind, and looked out over the horizon.

 

The view stole the breath from his lungs.

 

A vast, unbroken sea of green stretched out in every direction. Rivers cut through valleys that hadn't existed before. In the far distance, majestic and unchanged, stood Mount Fuji.

 

I'm still in Japan, he thought, tears welling in his eyes. But... it's all gone. All of it.

 

Using Mount Fuji as a geographical anchor, Midoriya calculated his coordinates. U.A. High School was situated in Musutafu, somewhere in the Shizuoka Prefecture. If Ground Beta was here, then the main campus should be... north.

 

He descended the tree carefully, his bare feet gripping the bark. He had a mission. He had to find U.A. He had to find his friends.

 

For three days, Midoriya wandered the stone world.

 

It was a brutal, agonizing wake-up call to his new reality. His first priority had to be survival. The hunger that hit him on the evening of the first day was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It wasn't the grumbling of a skipped lunch; it was a deep, hollow gnawing in his gut that made him dizzy and nauseous.

 

He found a stream, the water crystal clear and freezing cold. He drank greedily, cupping the water in his hands. But water wasn't enough.

 

As he walked, he spotted a cluster of bright red berries on a bush. He reached for them, his mouth watering.

 

Wait, a voice in his head—sounding suspiciously like Recovery Girl—scolded him. You don't know what those are. Evolution has continued for millennia. Toxic plants might look different now.

 

He pulled his hand back. He couldn't afford to get sick.

 

Think about the rules of this world, Izuku, he muttered, fashioning a crude loincloth out of broad leaves and vines to protect his modesty and keep warm. There are no hospitals. There is no Recovery Girl. There are no antibiotics, no casts, no sterile bandages.

 

He looked at his right arm, the arm he had broken so many times in his first year. The scars were a testament to his recklessness.

 

If I break my arm now... it won't just heal crookedly. The bone will splinter. Without surgery, it will necrotize. I'll get gangrene, and I'll die of sepsis in a week.

 

A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. The realization was heavier than the petrification itself. His ultimate weapon, the 100% Smash that had saved him against Muscular and Overhaul, was gone. It was a suicide button. He could never, under any circumstances, use 100% again unless he was willing to die instantly.

 

I have to limit myself, he vowed, clenching his fist. Five to eight percent. That's my maximum operating capacity. Ten percent only if my life is in immediate danger. I have to fight smarter. I have to be a martial artist, not a battering ram.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, agonizing spike of pain in his head.

 

Danger Sense!

 

Midoriya gasped, dropping to one knee as the Quirk flared to life. The Fourth User's Quirk was screaming at him, a warning of malicious intent.

 

He snapped his head up. Stepping out from the thick fern underbrush, less than twenty yards away, was a predator.

 

It looked like a wolf, but it was massive—easily the size of a small horse, with thick, matted gray fur and teeth that looked more like jagged daggers. It growled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated in Midoriya's chest. Saliva dripped from its jaws. It saw him not as a human, not as a hero, but as a weak, naked meal.

 

Midoriya swallowed hard. In the old world, a 5% Detroit Smash would have sent the beast flying. But he was starved, exhausted, and operating on thousands of years of muscle atrophy.

 

The wolf lunged.

 

Midoriya didn't fight. He evaded.

 

Full Cowling: Five Percent!

 

He pushed off the ground, pivoting sharply to the left. The wolf's jaws snapped shut exactly where his throat had been a millisecond prior. As the beast skidded to a halt, turning to snap at him again, Midoriya raised his hand.

 

Blackwhip!

 

A tendril of dark, crackling energy shot from his knuckles, wrapping securely around the high branch of an oak tree. He pulled, the momentum yanking his light body off the ground and launching him twenty feet into the air. He landed gracefully on the branch, looking down at the wolf, which was barking furiously at the base of the tree.

 

"Sorry," Midoriya panted, his heart hammering. "I'm not on the menu today."

 

He used Blackwhip to swing through the canopy, traveling high above the forest floor until he lost the predator. He eventually found a grove of fruit trees that he recognized as wild apples, though they were smaller and more tart than the ones in the supermarket. He ate three of them, ignoring the sour taste, just desperate for calories.

 

On the fourth day, he found it.

 

The geography lined up perfectly. A massive plateau overlooking a river valley. It was where U.A. High School had once stood.

 

Midoriya stood at the edge of the plateau, his breath catching in his throat.

 

There was no gleaming H-shaped glass building. There were no dormitories. The plateau was a dense forest. But as he walked through the trees, he saw the remnants.

 

Massive, square foundation stones, overgrown with vines, jutted out of the earth in perfect geometric lines. Rusted, unrecognizable flakes of metal were buried in the dirt—the remnants of the security gates.

 

He walked into what would have been the main courtyard. And there, buried beneath a small hill of earth and moss, he saw them.

 

Statues. Dozens of them.

 

Midoriya dropped to his knees and began to dig furiously, his bare hands bleeding as he scraped away the earth.

 

He uncovered a statue of a tall boy with engines on his calves. The statue was posed defensively, arms raised as if trying to shield someone behind him.

 

"Iida..." Midoriya choked out, brushing the dirt from the stone glasses on his friend's face.

 

He dug nearby and found another. A girl with short hair, her stone face looking upward, a hand reached out toward the sky.

 

"Uraraka." Tears spilled over Midoriya's cheeks, leaving clean streaks through the grime on his face.

 

He crawled frantically, uncovering more. Kirishima, frozen mid-hardening, looking defiant. Tsuyu, crouched low. Todoroki, his hands raised to blast ice. And finally, standing aggressively in the center, palms outstretched, a scowl etched permanently into the granite.

 

"Kacchan." Midoriya pressed his forehead against Bakugo's stone chest, a sob tearing through his throat.

 

"I'm sorry," he wept, his voice echoing in the silent ruins of his school. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't protect you."

 

He stayed there for hours, surrounded by the stone ghosts of his friends. The sun began to set, casting long, mournful shadows across the statues.

 

As the sky turned a bruised purple, a horrifying thought struck him. A thought that made his blood run cold.

 

Mom.

 

If the petrification wave hit U.A., it hit the city. It hit his apartment.

 

Midoriya didn't wait for morning. Driven by a frantic, desperate energy, he activated three percent Full Cowling and bolted. He used the stars to navigate, running south toward where his apartment complex had been.

 

He ran through the night, ignoring the branches whipping his face, ignoring the ache in his muscles, ignoring the flares of Danger Sense warning him of nocturnal predators. He swung with Blackwhip, leaped over ravines, and pushed his body to the absolute brink.

 

It took him two days of relentless searching through the unrecognizable topography of what used to be his neighborhood. He dug through collapsed ruins of concrete foundations, looking for the layout of his building.

 

He finally found a section of flooring that had survived, buried under a collapsed cave-in of what used to be the upper floors. He dug through the debris, lifting massive chunks of stone with Blackwhip and his enhanced strength.

 

In the corner of what would have been their living room, he found her.

 

Inko Midoriya was curled on the ground. Her stone hands were clasped together over her chest, her face buried in her knees. She looked so small. So fragile.

 

Midoriya fell to his knees. He didn't scream. The grief was too profound, too absolute for sound. He just leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the cold, hard stone of his mother.

 

"Mom," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I'm here. I'm here, Mom."

 

He closed his eyes, and the memories rushed over him. The smell of her cooking. The way she fussed over his injuries. The tears she cried when he got his U.A. acceptance letter. The warmth of her hugs.

 

All of it, frozen in gray rock.

 

He sat with her for a long time. The forest around him moved on, indifferent to the tragedy of a boy from a lost era mourning a mother made of stone. The wind rustled the leaves, and the distant river flowed steadily.

 

Eventually, the tears stopped. A hollow emptiness settled in his chest, threatening to consume him. He could just lie here. He could lie down next to his mother's statue and let the forest take him. He could let starvation and exposure finish what the petrification started. It would be so easy to rest.

 

No.

 

The voice in his head didn't belong to the Vestiges. It was his own.

 

He remembered the feeling of the nitric acid dripping onto his face. He remembered the chemical reaction that weakened the stone.

 

I broke out, Midoriya thought, his green eyes slowly opening, staring at his mother's stone hands. I broke out because the stone was weakened. It's not a corpse. It's a stasis. The body is still inside, perfectly preserved, waiting to be freed.

 

He wiped his face with the back of his dirty arm and stood up.

 

"I'm not going to let you stay like this," he said to the statue of his mother, his voice steadying, growing firmer with every word. "I don't know how long it will take. I don't know what I have to do. But I promise you, I'm going to save you."

 

He turned and looked toward the north, where he had left his friends at U.A.

 

"I'm going to save all of you."

 

Midoriya clenched his fists. The emerald lightning of One For All sparked to life around his body, casting a vibrant, defiant glow in the dim light of the forest.

 

He was Izuku Midoriya. He was the Ninth wielder of One For All. He didn't have a hero license anymore. He didn't have a Hero Society to back him up. He didn't even have clothes.

 

But a hero wasn't defined by a costume or a government registry. A hero was someone who saved people. A hero was someone who interfered when they weren't asked. A hero was someone who looked at an impossible, broken world and decided to fix it.

 

He needed to survive. He needed to understand the science of the petrification. He needed to find whatever broke him out—that nitric acid—and figure out how to replicate it.

 

His stomach gave a loud, painful rumble, breaking the dramatic tension.

 

Midoriya sighed, a wry, exhausted smile touching his lips. "Right. First step to saving humanity... find something to eat that won't kill me."

 

He spent the rest of the daylight gathering dry wood and tinder. He had seen survival videos on the internet back in the old world. He found a piece of hardwood, a softer piece of cedar, and fashioned a bow drill using a sturdy vine and a curved branch.

 

As the sun dipped below the horizon, plunging the forest into darkness, Midoriya sat cross-legged, furiously pumping the bow drill. His palms were blistered, his muscles burning, but he didn't stop.

 

Friction creates heat. Heat creates an ember. An ember creates fire.

 

Smoke began to curl from the wooden divot. Midoriya gasped, dropping the drill and carefully picking up the smoking piece of wood. He tipped the tiny, glowing red ember into a bundle of dry moss and leaves he had prepared.

 

He blew on it gently, just like the videos showed.

 

The smoke thickened. The ember glowed brighter, feeding on the oxygen.

 

And then, with a soft whoosh, a tiny, beautiful orange flame sprang to life.

 

Midoriya fed it small twigs, then larger sticks, until a warm, crackling campfire pushed back the darkness of the stone world. He sat by the fire, feeling the heat radiate against his skin. It was a tiny victory. A single spark of human ingenuity in a world dominated by untamed nature.

 

He looked up at the stars. Without the light pollution of the cities, the Milky Way was a breathtaking, vibrant river of light spread across the cosmos.

 

"I am Deku," he whispered into the quiet night, tossing another branch into the fire. "And I'm not giving up."

 

Unbeknownst to Midoriya, several miles away, a thin column of smoke from another campfire was rising above the tree line. He wasn't the only one awake in the stone world. And tomorrow, the Hero of Power was going to meet the Hero of Science.

 

 

 

 

The morning sun bled through the dense canopy of the stone world, casting long, fractured shafts of golden light across the forest floor. Izuku Midoriya awoke with a sharp gasp, his body instinctively tensing as the cold reality of his situation crashed over him once more.

 

For a fleeting, hazy second between sleep and wakefulness, he had expected to hear the familiar sounds of the U.A. dormitories—Iida loudly marching down the hallway, shouting about the schedule, or the muffled explosions of Bakugo arguing with Kirishima. But there was only the deafening, untamed chorus of the primordial wilderness. The cicadas buzzed like electric saws, and the distant call of an unrecognized bird echoed through the trees.

 

Midoriya sat up, wincing as his stiff muscles protested. His makeshift leaf-and-vine loincloth had barely kept the night chill at bay. The small campfire he had painstakingly birthed the night before was now nothing but a pile of smoldering gray ash. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.

 

He was alone. He was three thousand, seven hundred years in the future. Everyone he loved was trapped in stone.

 

He allowed himself exactly thirty seconds of despair. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to thirty. Then, he opened them, the emerald irises hardening with resolve.

 

"I have work to do," he rasped, his throat dry.

 

He stood up and stretched, carefully activating One For All: Full Cowling at a mere two percent. The familiar green lightning crackled across his skin, acting as a surrogate cup of coffee, flushing the lactic acid from his atrophied muscles and sharpening his senses.

 

He climbed the nearest tall tree, relying on the raw grip strength of his scarred hands rather than his Quirk, conserving every calorie he could. When he broke through the canopy, he squinted against the glaring morning sun, scanning the endless ocean of green.

 

He was looking for landmarks, for any sign of his old life. But then, he saw something else entirely.

 

Off to the northeast, perhaps five or six miles away, a thin, gray column of smoke was rising steadily into the blue sky.

 

Midoriya froze. His heart gave a violent lurch against his ribs.

 

He stared at the smoke, his analytical mind immediately kicking into overdrive. Is it a forest fire? No, the smoke is too contained, too localized. A lightning strike? There were no clouds last night. A geothermal vent? It doesn't smell like sulfur, and the color is too dark for steam.

 

The smoke was rising in a perfect, continuous stream. It was deliberate. It was maintained.

 

Someone is alive.

 

The thought hit him with the force of a Detroit Smash. He wasn't the only one. Someone else had broken free from the stone. Someone had built a fire.

 

Without a second thought, Midoriya dropped from the canopy. He hit the forest floor in a crouch, the dirt exploding beneath his bare feet as he activated five percent Full Cowling. He shot forward like a green bullet, weaving through the massive tree trunks and thick underbrush.

 

He had to be careful. Five miles was a long distance when navigating untamed terrain, and his caloric deficit was severe. Every use of his Quirk burned energy he didn't have. But the prospect of finding another living human being, someone to talk to, someone to plan with, was an intoxicating fuel.

 

He ran for nearly an hour. Along the way, his Danger Sense flared twice. The first time, it was a massive, venomous snake hanging from a vine; he simply ducked and rolled under it. The second time, he sensed a pack of the large, wolf-like predators he had encountered yesterday circling his scent trail. He took to the trees, using Blackwhip to swing from branch to branch, leaving them howling in frustration below.

 

As he closed the distance, the smell of woodsmoke grew stronger. And then, he caught another scent.

 

Meat. Roasting meat.

 

Midoriya’s stomach let out a roar so loud it startled a flock of birds from a nearby bush. He swallowed hard, drool pooling in his mouth.

 

Slowing his pace, he crept through the dense ferns, his bare feet making scarcely a sound. He deactivated Full Cowling to remain completely stealthy. He didn't know who had survived. It could be a civilian. It could be a hero.

 

Or, a dark part of his mind whispered, it could be a villain. The Sludge Villain, Muscular, Shigaraki... if the petrification wave hit everyone, it hit the bad guys, too.

 

He crawled up a small, rocky ridge and peered over the edge into a clearing near the riverbank.

 

What he saw made his jaw drop.

 

It wasn't just a campfire. It was a functioning campsite. There was a crude hut made of bamboo and thatch, expertly tied together with braided vines. There were clay pots baking near the fire. There was a rack of fish and wild boar meat smoking over the flames.

 

And there were two people.

 

They were teenagers, roughly his own age. One of them was an absolute giant of a boy with spiky brown hair, a thick brow, and a physique that looked like it had been carved from the very stone they were trapped in. He was wearing a tunic made of animal skin, currently hoisting a massive log over his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a baseball bat.

 

The other boy was leaner, wearing a similar animal-skin outfit, but it was his hair that drew the eye—a wild, gravity-defying shock of pale blonde and green that looked somewhat like a leek. He was crouched over a flat stone, using a piece of charcoal to furiously scribble mathematical equations that Midoriya couldn't even begin to decipher from this distance.

 

"Hey, Senku!" the large boy bellowed, his voice so loud it echoed off the trees. "I brought the firewood! Is this enough to fire the clay?!"

 

The leek-haired boy, Senku, didn't even look up from his calculations. "Yeah, yeah, just dump it, you big oaf. And try not to crush the kilns this time. If we have to restart the pottery phase, I'm going to use your skull as a mixing bowl."

 

"Right! Sorry! I will set it down gently!" The large boy, Taiju, practically vibrated with earnest enthusiasm as he carefully lowered the massive log.

 

Midoriya watched them, utterly captivated. They weren't villains. They were just... guys. High schoolers. And judging by the sophisticated setup of their camp, they had been awake for a while.

 

Overwhelmed by a sudden, crashing wave of relief, Midoriya stood up. He wanted to shout, to wave, to run down and hug them. But as he took a step forward, his foot snagged on a thick, hidden root.

 

After thousands of years of atrophy, his coordination wasn't what it used to be. Midoriya pitched forward, tumbling over the rocky ridge. He crashed through a dense bush, tumbling down the dirt incline in a tangle of limbs and leaves, right into the clearing.

 

He landed face-first in the dirt, mere feet away from the campfire.

 

Silence descended on the camp. The only sound was the crackle of the flames.

 

Midoriya groaned, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. He slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, rubbing the back of his head. "Ow..."

 

"Whoa!" Taiju yelled, jumping back and dropping a piece of firewood. "Senku! It's a monkey! A really weird, hairless monkey!"

 

"Are your eyes just painted on, you ten-billion-percent idiot?" Senku's voice was sharp, analytical, and remarkably calm. "That's a human."

 

Midoriya slowly looked up. Taiju was staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. Senku was standing with his arms crossed, his reddish-brown eyes locked onto Midoriya, calculating and dissecting him with a gaze so intense it reminded Midoriya of his homeroom teacher, Aizawa.

 

"H-hi," Midoriya stammered, intensely aware that he was covered in dirt, sporting patches of gray stone residue on his skin, and wearing nothing but a few pathetic, crumpled leaves. "I'm... I'm a human. I just... woke up. I saw your smoke."

 

Taiju's fear instantly evaporated, replaced by a radiant, blinding joy. Tears practically exploded from his eyes as he rushed forward. "A human! You're a human! You survived!"

 

Before Midoriya could react, the massive boy wrapped his arms around him, hoisting him into the air in a crushing bear hug.

 

"Ah! My ribs!" Midoriya squeaked, feeling his fragile bones creak under the immense pressure.

 

"Taiju, put him down before you snap him in half," Senku ordered, walking closer. "He looks like a strong breeze could break him right now."

 

Taiju hastily set Midoriya back on his feet, bowing deeply. "I am so sorry! I'm just so happy! I'm Taiju Oki! And this is my friend, Senku Ishigami!"

 

"I-Izuku Midoriya," he replied, rubbing his chest and bowing back.

 

Senku stopped a few feet away, leaning in close. He inspected Midoriya's face, his eyes darting to the freckles, the unruly green hair, and the distinct, jagged scars covering his right arm. A slow, knowing smirk spread across Senku's face.

 

"Izuku Midoriya, huh?" Senku mused, tapping his chin. "Green hair. Freckles. Looks like he cries a lot. And arms covered in surgical scars from acute blunt-force trauma."

 

Midoriya blinked, taken aback. "Uh, yes?"

 

Senku let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Ku ku ku... I knew those scars looked familiar. I never cared much for the whole Pro Hero circus back in the old world. Too illogical. Too reliant on genetic lottery tickets. But even I couldn't escape the media circus after the U.A. Sports Festival."

 

Taiju's jaw dropped. He pointed a massive finger at Midoriya. "Wait! Now that you mention it! You're that kid! The one who shattered his own fingers to win the obstacle course and the cavalry battle! You're a hero!"

 

Midoriya felt his face flush a deep, crimson red. "I—well, I was a hero-in-training. I hadn't gotten my provisional license yet before... before the light hit."

 

"Provisional license, schmo-visional license," Senku waved a hand dismissively. "You're the real deal. You're that 'Deku' kid." Senku's eyes gleamed with an unnerving, predatory excitement. "Tell me, Midoriya... do those Quirks of yours still work?"

 

Midoriya tensed defensively. "Yes. They do. Why?"

 

Senku threw his head back and laughed, a genuine, maniacal cackle of pure scientific triumph. "Why?! Ten billion points for us, Taiju! Do you know what this means?! We just acquired the ultimate, S-tier, cheat-code manual labor unit! We have a human bulldozer!"

 

Taiju cheered, raising his fists in the air. Midoriya just stood there, utterly bewildered.

 

"Here," Senku said, tossing a bundle of tanned animal hide at Midoriya. "Put that on. You look ridiculous. And sit down. You look like you're going to pass out from caloric depletion. Taiju, give the hero some meat."

 

Fifteen minutes later, Midoriya was sitting on a log by the fire, wrapped in a surprisingly warm and well-made tunic of boar hide. He was ravenously tearing into a massive chunk of smoked meat. It was tough, salty, and utterly devoid of modern spices, but to his starving body, it was the greatest thing he had ever tasted. He was crying tears of joy as he chewed.

 

"So good," Midoriya sobbed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

 

"Don't thank us yet," Senku said, sitting across from him, using a small knife to whittle a piece of wood. "You're going to pay for that meal with blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly sweat."

 

Midoriya swallowed hard. "I don't mind. I want to help. But... how did you guys wake up? Have you seen anyone else? Do you know what the petrification beam was?"

 

Senku’s smirk faded into a serious, clinical expression. He pointed the knife at Midoriya. "One: We woke up because our bodies naturally broke down the stone from the inside out using a constant expenditure of brain energy, combined with a steady drip of nitric acid from a local bat cave. Two: We haven't seen anyone else alive. It's just us. Three: No idea what the beam was, but it's fundamentally a physical phenomenon, which means it can be beaten by science."

 

Midoriya’s eyes widened. "Nitric acid... yes! That's exactly what happened to me! I felt the acid dripping on my head, and it weakened the stone enough for me to use my Quirk to shatter the rest!"

 

Senku stopped whittling. He looked up, genuinely surprised. "You shattered the stone from the inside using your Quirk? I calculated that the compressive strength of the petrification was roughly equivalent to industrial-grade concrete. To shatter it from the inside without turning your own organs into paste..."

 

Senku whistled low. "You must have exerted localized force at precisely the compromised fracture points. That takes insane control. Maybe you aren't just a meathead after all."

 

"I had... a lot of time to practice in my head," Midoriya said softly, looking down at his scarred hands. He thought of the Vestiges, of their sacrifice to keep his mind alive. "How long has it been, Senku?"

 

"Today is October 5th, 5738," Senku said casually, as if remarking on the weather. "Give or take a few hours."

 

Midoriya’s breath caught in his throat. Three thousand, seven hundred years. Hearing the exact number spoken aloud made it agonizingly real. The Vestiges had been right.

 

"Don't look so grim, Midoriya," Senku said, standing up and dusting off his hands. "The world ended. So what? We're going to build it back. From scratch. I'm going to beat fantasy with science. I'm going to find the cure for the petrification, and I'm going to revive all seven billion people on this planet."

 

Midoriya stared at Senku. The leek-haired boy was smiling, a confident, arrogant, utterly fearless smile.

 

In that moment, Midoriya didn't see a high schooler in animal skins. He saw the exact same aura, the exact same indomitable presence that All Might possessed. Senku didn't have a Quirk. He didn't have super strength or speed. But his mind, his sheer refusal to accept defeat, his unwavering conviction that he could save everyone—it was the very essence of a hero.

 

Midoriya stood up. The fatigue seemed to wash out of his body, replaced by a surge of purpose. He placed a fist over his heart and bowed his head respectfully to Senku.

 

"If you're going to save the world, Senku," Midoriya said, his voice ringing with absolute certainty, "then I pledge my power to you. Tell me what you need, and I'll do it."

 

Senku's eyes gleamed. "Ku ku ku. Excellent. Let's put that to the test right now. Taiju and I need to build a larger shelter and a laboratory before winter hits. We need lumber. Lots of it. Taiju's strong, but cutting down these virgin trees with a stone axe takes him a whole day for one trunk."

 

Senku pointed to a massive pine tree at the edge of the clearing. It was easily three feet in diameter.

 

"Show me what a Pro Hero can do without destroying himself," Senku challenged.

 

Midoriya turned to the tree. He cracked his neck, then rolled his shoulders. He couldn't use 100%. He couldn't use 20%. But with a tree this thick, he needed precision and kinetic buildup.

 

Fa Jin.

 

Midoriya didn't activate Full Cowling yet. Instead, he dropped into a low crouch, rapidly bouncing on his toes, bending and extending his knees in a strange, rhythmic motion.

 

"What is he doing?" Taiju whispered loudly. "Is it a dance to the tree spirits?"

 

"Quiet, big oaf," Senku hissed, his eyes narrowed, analyzing every twitch of Midoriya's muscles. "He's building kinetic energy."

 

Midoriya felt the familiar, warm coil of Fa Jin wrapping around his legs, storing the repeated kinetic motion. Once he felt he had built up a sufficient charge, he stopped. He took a deep breath.

 

Full Cowling: Five Percent!

 

Green lightning erupted around him. The sudden flash caused Taiju to yelp and shield his eyes. Even Senku took a half-step back, startled by the sheer visual spectacle of raw, glowing energy in a world lit only by fire and sun.

 

Midoriya moved. He was a blur of green light. He closed the distance to the tree in a fraction of a second, pivoting sharply on his left foot. He released the stored energy of Fa Jin in tandem with the five percent boost of One For All, channeling it entirely into a devastating roundhouse kick aimed precisely at the trunk.

 

Shoot Style: Manchester Smash!

 

His shin connected with the massive trunk. There was a sound like a canon going off. The shockwave of the impact flattened the surrounding ferns and blew out the nearby campfire.

 

The three-foot-thick pine tree didn't just snap. The entire lower section of the trunk exploded into splinters. The massive tree groaned, teetered, and then crashed violently to the forest floor, shaking the earth beneath their feet.

 

Midoriya landed gracefully, the green lightning fading from his skin. He winced slightly—the impact had bruised his shin, a reminder of his weakened state—but the job was done.

 

He turned back to look at Senku and Taiju.

 

Taiju was on his knees, his jaw literally hanging open, staring at the fallen tree in absolute, religious awe.

 

Senku was frozen. His reddish-brown eyes were wide, staring at the splintered stump. Slowly, a massive, manic grin spread across his face. He began to laugh. It started as a chuckle and evolved into a full-blown, hysterical cackle.

 

"Ten billion percent!" Senku yelled, throwing his arms in the air. "It defies the laws of physics! It violates the conservation of mass and energy! It's utterly, phenomenally illogical! And it is OURS!"

 

Senku ran over to the stump, running his hands over the shattered wood. "The sheer localized force... incredible. With you here, Midoriya, we just skipped months of manual labor! We've advanced from the Stone Age to the... well, slightly more advanced Stone Age!"

 

Over the next few weeks, the Kingdom of Science underwent a revolution.

 

Before Midoriya's arrival, Senku and Taiju had been surviving, slowly inching their way toward civilization. With Midoriya, they began to sprint.

 

Senku quickly realized that Midoriya wasn't just a brute force instrument; the boy was highly intelligent, constantly analyzing his own Quirks to figure out how they could best serve Senku's scientific goals.

 

One afternoon, Senku needed massive, flat stones from the riverbed to act as a foundation for a new furnace. Taiju was struggling to lift a single stone that weighed upwards of four hundred pounds.

 

"Let me try something," Midoriya said. He approached the boulder. He couldn't lift it with his bare strength—not without using a higher percentage of One For All and risking his spine.

 

Instead, he placed his hands on the rock. Float.

 

The Quirk of the Seventh User activated. The massive boulder slowly lifted off the ground, becoming completely weightless.

 

"What the..." Senku dropped his clay pot, staring in disbelief. "Did you just negate gravity?!"

 

"It's one of the Quirks inside One For All," Midoriya explained, easily pushing the massive, floating boulder with one finger toward the camp. "I can make myself or things I touch float. It drains my stamina to keep it active, but it makes transportation easy."

 

Senku pulled his hair, looking like he was having a scientific crisis. "You negate gravity. Just... poof. Gravity gone. Sir Isaac Newton is spinning so fast in his petrified grave he could power a turbine."

 

Midoriya smiled sheepishly. "Sorry?"

 

"Don't apologize!" Senku yelled gleefully. "Float all the rocks! Taiju, get out of the way! The floating rock delivery service is coming through!"

 

With Midoriya using Float, they gathered enough foundation stones in three hours that would have taken Taiju a week to haul.

 

When Senku needed vines from the tops of the highest canopy to make ropes, Midoriya didn't bother climbing. He used Blackwhip, shooting tendrils of dark energy from his arms to swing through the trees like a spider, gathering massive bundles of vines in minutes.

 

When they needed to hunt, Midoriya used Danger Sense to locate wild boars before the boars even knew they were there, and a quick 5% kick was enough to instantly and humanely kill the animal, providing them with ample food.

 

The three of them fell into a rhythm. Taiju was the unyielding stamina and raw, consistent muscle. Midoriya was the high-speed, precision tool for heavy lifting and resource gathering. And Senku was the brain orchestrating it all.

 

At night, sitting around the fire, Midoriya found himself opening up to them. He told them about U.A., about All Might, about the friends he had left behind in the stone ruins of the school.

 

"I found them," Midoriya said one evening, poking the fire with a stick, his voice thick with emotion. "Iida, Uraraka, Todoroki... Kacchan. And my mom. I found her statue."

 

Taiju sniffled loudly, tears streaming down his face. "That's so sad, Midoriya! But don't you worry! Senku is going to save them! He's going to make the revival fluid, and your mom is going to wake up, and I'll give her a huge hug!"

 

"Thanks, Taiju," Midoriya smiled warmly.

 

Senku was sketching in the dirt with a stick. "Midoriya. Your friends. The ones with Quirks. If they are revived, what are the odds they'll cooperate with us?"

 

Midoriya looked up. "A hundred percent. They're heroes, Senku. Iida is honorable and strictly abides by the rules; he'd be a great leader for keeping order. Uraraka's Zero Gravity Quirk is similar to my Float, but she can apply it to multiple objects much more easily. Todoroki can create fire and ice—he could literally run a steam engine by himself."

 

Senku's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "A human steam engine... A girl who can negate gravity on demand... God, if I can revive your class, we'll hit the Industrial Revolution by next Tuesday."

 

"And Kacchan..." Midoriya hesitated. "Bakugo. He creates explosions from his sweat. It's nitroglycerin-based."

 

Senku stopped sketching. He slowly looked up at Midoriya, his face completely deadpan. "Did you just say you have a friend who sweats nitroglycerin?"

 

"Yes."

 

"A living, breathing, infinite supply of explosive material?"

 

"Well, he needs to stay hydrated, but essentially, yes."

 

Senku covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking as he let out a low, terrifying laugh. "The old world was insane. Utterly, beautifully insane. Yes. We are reviving your friends. They are moving to the top of the priority list right after I figure out how to synthesize alcohol to make the revival fluid."

 

"Revival fluid?" Midoriya asked. "You mean you know how to break the stone?"

 

Senku nodded, his expression turning serious. He picked up a clay jar near the fire. "When I woke up, I analyzed the environment. I woke up in a cave filled with bats. Bat guano creates nitric acid. That acid dripped onto the stone, eating away at it. But nitric acid alone isn't enough to break the petrification for a normal person. You and I only woke up because our brains were constantly working, consuming energy, keeping the core warm and reactive. For an ordinary person whose consciousness faded, nitric acid alone won't work."

 

Senku poured a tiny bit of the liquid from the jar onto a leaf. "To revive anyone, regardless of their mental state, we need a catalyst to exponentially increase the corrosive power of the nitric acid. We need Nital. A mixture of nitric acid and ethanol."

 

"Alcohol," Midoriya realized. "You need to make booze."

 

"Exactly ten billion percent correct," Senku smirked. "We've been gathering wild grapes to ferment into wine, which we will then distill into pure ethanol. Once we have that, we can revive anyone."

 

Midoriya stared at the clay jar. The hope that bloomed in his chest was so bright it almost hurt. This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a desperate wish. It was science. It was real.

 

"Senku," Midoriya said, his voice trembling slightly. "How long until the grapes ferment?"

 

"A few more weeks," Senku replied. "It's a slow process. We can't rush biology. In the meantime, we need to prepare. Winter is coming. If we don't have adequate shelter, preserved food, and warm clothing, we'll freeze to death before we can revive a single person."

 

"Understood," Midoriya said, his eyes blazing with determination. "I won't let you freeze. I won't let us starve. I'll do whatever it takes."

 

As the days turned into weeks, the temperature began to drop. The vibrant green leaves of the forest turned to brilliant shades of gold and crimson before falling to the earth. The nights became bitterly cold.

 

Midoriya pushed himself to the limit. Despite his internal vow to limit his Quirk usage, the sheer amount of labor required to winterize the camp demanded everything he had. He used Blackwhip to haul massive amounts of firewood, stacking cords of it high against the cliff face. He used his enhanced strength to help Taiju dig a deep cellar to store their smoked meat and gathered roots.

 

He was exhausted. His muscles ached with a deep, persistent throb. He was eating ten times more than Senku and Taiju just to keep his Quirk functioning, but he was still losing weight.

 

One evening, as the first flakes of snow began to fall from the gray sky, Midoriya collapsed by the fire, breathing heavily. He had spent the last four hours using 5% Full Cowling to chase down and kill two boars, ensuring their meat supply for the first month of winter.

 

Senku walked over and handed him a bowl of hot broth.

 

"Drink," Senku ordered. "You're burning the candle at both ends, Midoriya. Conservation of energy applies to human biology, too. You can't output super-strength without inputting calories. If you keep pushing like this, your body will start cannibalizing its own muscle tissue."

 

"I have to," Midoriya panted, taking the bowl with trembling hands. "If I don't work, we don't survive. A hero has to go beyond his limits. Plus Ultra."

 

Senku sighed, sitting down next to him. He looked at the scarred, exhausted boy.

 

"Listen to me, Midoriya," Senku said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "In the old world, you were a hero. You were expected to throw yourself into the meat grinder to save the day. But this isn't the old world. This is the Kingdom of Science. I don't need a martyr. I need a living, breathing powerhouse."

 

Midoriya looked at his hands. "But Senku... if I don't push myself, who will protect you? Who will gather the supplies? I have all this power, but I feel so useless when I can't even use it without destroying myself."

 

"Useless?" Senku scoffed, pointing around the camp. The sturdy bamboo hut, the massive stockpile of firewood, the cellar full of food, the kilns for firing clay. "Take a look around, Deku. Do you think Taiju and I could have built all this in a few weeks? You single-handedly advanced our survival timeline by an entire season. You saved our lives. Without you, we'd be freezing our asses off right now."

 

Midoriya looked at the camp. He had been so focused on the physical strain, on the limitations of his body, that he hadn't fully appreciated what they had accomplished.

 

"Science is about steady, logical progression," Senku continued, poking the fire. "It's about taking one step forward, securing your footing, and taking the next. You're trying to sprint a marathon. I need you to walk it. Rely on me. Rely on Taiju. Use your Quirk like a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. That's the logical way to survive."

 

Midoriya absorbed Senku's words. He had always been told to rein in his power, by Aizawa, by Gran Torino, by All Might. But Senku's approach was different. Senku wasn't telling him to hold back because he was fragile; Senku was telling him to hold back because it was inefficient.

 

"You're right," Midoriya said softly, a small smile touching his lips. "It's illogical to destroy the tools you need to build the future."

 

"Exactly," Senku smirked. "Now drink your soup, meathead. Tomorrow, we start distilling the wine. The Nital is almost ready."

 

Midoriya’s heart skipped a beat. "Tomorrow?"

 

"Tomorrow," Senku confirmed. "We're going to make the revival fluid. And then, we're going to start waking people up. We're going to take back the earth, Midoriya. Ten billion percent."

 

Midoriya looked into the fire, the flames reflecting in his green eyes. For the first time since he woke up from the stone, the crushing weight of isolation truly lifted from his shoulders.

 

He wasn't alone. He had Taiju's boundless strength and heart. He had Senku's unparalleled genius and vision.

 

All Might had once told him that to be a hero, he had to be a symbol of peace. He had to smile to show everyone that things were going to be okay.

 

Midoriya looked at Senku, who was currently yelling at Taiju for trying to drink the unfermented grape juice. Midoriya couldn't help but laugh, a genuine, joyful sound that echoed into the snowy night.

 

In this new stone world, he didn't need to be the sole Symbol of Peace. Senku was the light guiding them forward. Senku was the hope.

 

Izuku Midoriya tightened his fist, feeling the dormant spark of One For All thrumming in his chest. He would be the sword and the shield of the Kingdom of Science. He would protect Senku's dream with everything he had.

 

The Stone Age was about to end. And the heroic age of science was about to begin.

 

 

The distillation apparatus was a masterpiece of primitive engineering, a testament to the unyielding power of human intellect. Crafted from river clay baked in a roaring kiln, the retort vessel sat directly over a carefully maintained fire, its long, angled neck feeding into a crude but functional cooling coil made of hollowed-out bamboo.

 

Izuku Midoriya sat cross-legged in the dirt, his eyes fixed intensely on the bamboo spout. He didn't dare blink. His hands hovered inches from the fragile clay pot catching the drips, tiny tendrils of Blackwhip coiled tightly around his wrists, ready to shoot out and stabilize the vessel if the uneven ground caused it to shift even a millimeter.

 

"Keep the temperature steady, big oaf!" Senku commanded, his eyes narrowed as he monitored the fire. "If the heat spikes above seventy-eight degrees Celsius, the water in the wine will vaporize alongside the ethanol, and we'll end up with watered-down garbage. We need a purity of at least ninety-six percent for the Nital mixture!"

 

"Right! Keeping the fire exactly as it is!" Taiju bellowed, though he was merely fanning the flames with a large palm frond, sweating profusely in the crisp winter air.

 

"Deku, how's the flow rate?" Senku asked, his tone shifting into the clinical, rapid-fire cadence he reserved for laboratory work.

 

"Steady," Midoriya replied, his voice a low, focused hum. "About one drop every three seconds. The liquid is completely clear. No discoloration from the clay."

 

"Ku ku ku... perfect," Senku smirked, wiping a streak of soot from his forehead. "The boiling point of ethanol is lower than water. We're capturing the pure spirit of the grapes. We run this through the distillation process three times, and we'll have high-proof alcohol. Combine that with the nitric acid from the bat cave, and humanity rises from the grave."

 

Midoriya watched a single, crystalline drop of pure ethanol fall from the bamboo spout and splash into the clay pot. It looked like water, but the sharp, medicinal fumes rising from it burned his nostrils. It was the smell of progress. It was the smell of salvation.

 

For the past several weeks, the trio had pushed themselves to the absolute brink. Winter had descended upon the Stone World with a vicious, unyielding bite. The vibrant greens of the forest had given way to skeletal branches and thick blankets of frost. Midoriya had spent every waking hour hunting, gathering, and hauling, using his Quirk as sparingly as possible but still burning through calories at an alarming rate.

 

His body was a map of his struggles. The boar-hide tunic Senku had crafted for him hung a little looser on his frame. His cheeks were slightly hollowed. The constant caloric deficit required to fuel One For All, even at a mere two or three percent, was taking its toll. In the old world, U.A.'s cafeteria, overseen by Lunch Rush, provided him with meticulously calculated, high-protein meals designed to sustain Quirk usage. Here, a diet of smoked fish, wild mushrooms, and tough boar meat barely kept his baseline metabolism afloat.

 

But as he watched the alcohol drip into the pot, the exhaustion faded, replaced by a swelling tide of hope.

 

By sunset, the third distillation was complete. Senku carefully poured the purified ethanol into a hardened clay flask, sealing it with a cork made of compressed bark.

 

"Phase one complete," Senku declared, holding the flask up to the dying light of the sun. "Now for phase two. We need the nitric acid. The cave where I woke up—the Miracle Cave—has a steady supply of it dripping from the ceiling, thanks to thousands of years of bat guano fermenting. We mix the two there, and we'll have the revival fluid."

 

Taiju leapt to his feet, his massive fists clenched in sheer joy. "Then what are we waiting for?! Let's go to the cave! Let's wake up Yuzuriha!"

 

Senku had agreed days ago that Yuzuriha Ogawa, Taiju's crush and a girl of infinite patience and craft-making skill, would be the first person they revived. They needed her nimble fingers to help make proper winter clothing and textiles.

 

"Hold your horses, ten-billion-percent idiot," Senku sighed, pointing at the darkening sky. "It's a two-mile trek to the Miracle Cave through uncleared forest. The temperature is dropping below freezing, and nocturnal predators are waking up. We go tomorrow at first light."

 

Midoriya nodded in agreement, though his heart ached with impatience. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we save our first life.

 

 

 

The next morning, the forest was locked in a bitter, silent freeze. Frost coated the ferns like shattered glass, crunching loudly beneath their leather-wrapped feet as they made their way toward the Miracle Cave.

 

Midoriya took the vanguard, his senses hyper-tuned to his surroundings. He was tired. A deep, bone-weary ache had settled into his joints overnight. He had given his portion of dried meat to Taiju that morning, knowing the larger boy needed the fuel to carry the heavy clay pots they would use to harvest the acid. Midoriya figured he could rely on his Quirk's stamina for a few hours. It was a calculated risk, a hero's sacrifice.

 

"The cave is just past this ridge," Senku announced, checking a crude compass he had magnetized using a lodestone. "Keep your eyes peeled. The local wildlife has been acting erratic lately. The change in season makes them desperate for food."

 

Midoriya nodded, stepping over a massive, moss-covered log. As his foot hit the ground, a sudden, blinding spike of pain erupted behind his eyes.

 

Danger Sense.

 

It wasn't a dull throb. It was a screaming, violently sharp siren in his brain. It was the kind of warning that preceded an immediate, lethal threat.

 

Midoriya gasped, dropping to one knee, clutching his head.

 

"Midoriya!" Taiju yelled, rushing forward. "What's wrong?! Are you hurt?!"

 

"Get back!" Midoriya croaked, his eyes snapping open. He scanned the dense, frost-covered underbrush. The shadows between the trees seemed to elongate. The silence of the forest wasn't peaceful; it was the breathless quiet of prey hiding from a predator. "We're being hunted. Pack formation."

 

Senku instantly dropped into a defensive crouch, his eyes darting around. "Wolves?"

 

"No," Midoriya whispered, his emerald eyes locking onto a pair of golden, predatory irises glowing in the brush just twenty yards ahead. "Too big. Much too big."

 

A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the earth, a sound so deep it rattled Midoriya's ribcage.

 

From the shadows of the ancient trees, they emerged.

 

Lions.

 

But they weren't the lions Midoriya had seen in zoos back in the old world. Three thousand, seven hundred years of untamed evolution had returned them to a primal, terrifying state. They were massive—the males easily weighing over six hundred pounds, their manes thick and tangled, their muscles rolling like fluid steel beneath their tawny coats. There were six of them, fanning out in a coordinated, tactical crescent to cut off any route of escape.

 

"Cave lions," Senku muttered, his voice tight. "They must have migrated south as the climate shifted over the millennia. Dammit. This is mathematically the worst possible scenario."

 

"Stand behind me," Midoriya commanded, his voice losing the soft, polite cadence of a teenager and taking on the hardened, authoritative edge of a Pro Hero.

 

He dug his feet into the frozen dirt. Full Cowling: Five Percent!

 

The green lightning flared, but it sputtered. Midoriya gritted his teeth as a wave of intense nausea washed over him. His muscles, starved of glycogen and operating on fumes, screamed in protest. The energy of One For All felt heavy, like trying to pump thick mud through his veins instead of electricity.

 

My caloric deficit... it's worse than I thought, Midoriya realized, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. I don't have the fuel for this. If I use too much power, my muscles will literally tear themselves apart from the lack of protein synthesis.

 

The lead lion, a scarred, colossal male, let out a deafening roar and charged.

 

Midoriya pushed off his back foot. Shoot Style!

 

He moved fast, but to his own hyper-perceptive mind, he felt sluggish. He closed the distance, pivoting on his heel to deliver a sweeping roundhouse kick to the lion's jaw.

 

His shin connected. The concussive force of the 5% smash echoed like a gunshot. The lion was thrown off its feet, crashing into a nearby tree with a sickening crunch. It whimpered, struggling to rise.

 

But Midoriya paid the price. A sharp, tearing pain ripped through his right calf. He stumbled upon landing, his leg trembling violently.

 

"Deku!" Taiju roared, grabbing a massive tree branch to use as a club.

 

"Don't move, Taiju!" Midoriya yelled, forcing himself to stand straight. "If you break formation, they'll surround you!"

 

The other five lions didn't retreat. Seeing their leader fall only enraged them. They began to circle tighter, recognizing that the green-glowing human was wounded.

 

I can't fight them all off with physical strikes, Midoriya calculated frantically, his breathing shallow and rapid. I'll tear every muscle in my body. I have to use Blackwhip to bind them or Float to get us into the trees!

 

He raised his right arm, summoning the dark tendrils of the Fifth User. The crackling black whips shot forth from his knuckles, wrapping securely around the necks of two charging lionesses. Midoriya planted his feet, intending to use the momentum to swing them into each other.

 

But as he pulled, his vision suddenly tunneled. Black spots danced at the edges of his sight. The sheer caloric drain of manifesting Blackwhip on an empty stomach was catastrophic.

 

His grip slipped. The tendrils dissolved into black mist.

 

One of the lionesses lunged, its jaws snapping shut inches from Midoriya's face as he barely managed to throw himself backward. He hit the frozen ground hard, gasping for air that felt like razor blades in his throat.

 

"Midoriya!" Senku shouted. The scientist was furiously calculating their odds, his mind racing through a thousand variables a second.

 

Midoriya's stamina is zero, Senku thought, his eyes wide. His Quirk is a biological function, and his battery is dead. Taiju's strength is immense, but he won't kill, and against apex predators, defense means death. I have no weapons. We are going to die.

 

The remaining three lions roared, preparing for the final, lethal pounce.

 

"Senku!" Taiju threw himself in front of Senku, dropping his club and throwing his arms wide, a human shield ready to take the jaws of the beasts to protect his friend.

 

Senku looked around frantically. They had been backed up against the cliff face that housed the Miracle Cave. Scattered around the entrance were dozens of petrified statues—humans who had been washed into the cave over the millennia.

 

Senku's eyes locked onto one statue in particular. It was a young man, perhaps a year or two older than them, with long, wild hair. But it wasn't the hair that caught Senku's attention. It was the physical build. The statue was a masterpiece of human anatomy, broad-shouldered, heavily muscled, exuding an aura of raw, untamed power even in stone.

 

Senku recognized that face. He had seen it on television programs highlighting martial arts prodigies before the petrification.

 

Tsukasa Shishio. The Strongest High School Primate.

 

"Taiju!" Senku yelled, unscrewing the cork of his clay flask with his teeth. "Hold them off for exactly ten seconds! I'm taking a ten-billion-percent gamble!"

 

Senku sprinted toward the statue of Tsukasa. He uncorked the small clay jar of nitric acid he had harvested previously, pouring it into the flask of pure ethanol.

 

The chemical reaction was instantaneous. Nital.

 

Senku didn't hesitate. He splashed the corrosive mixture directly onto the face and chest of Tsukasa's statue.

 

Midoriya, struggling to push himself up from the dirt, watched through blurred vision. What is he doing? Reviving someone now?! In the middle of a fight?!

 

For three agonizing seconds, nothing happened. The lions crouched low, their muscles coiling like springs.

 

Then, a sound pierced the air. Crack.

 

A spiderweb of glowing fissures erupted across the stone face of Tsukasa Shishio. The gray shell splintered, fractured, and exploded outward in a cloud of dust.

 

A hand shot out from the dust cloud, catching a falling piece of stone debris.

 

The lions lunged. Three colossal beasts sailing through the air, their jaws aimed directly at Taiju, Senku, and Midoriya.

 

"Watch out!" Midoriya screamed, desperately trying to summon Blackwhip again, his head spinning dizzily.

 

A blur of motion intersected the lions' trajectory.

 

Tsukasa Shishio stepped out of the dust, completely naked, his long brown hair flowing behind him like a dark cape. His eyes, sharp and predatory, locked onto the lead lioness mid-leap.

 

He didn't take a stance. He didn't use a Quirk. He simply drew his arm back and punched.

 

The sound of the impact was not a thud. It was a sickening, explosive crack that echoed off the cliff face. Tsukasa's fist connected with the lioness's skull with such devastating, localized kinetic force that the beast was killed instantly. The massive animal's momentum was entirely arrested, and it dropped to the forest floor like a broken toy.

 

Silence descended upon the clearing.

 

The remaining lions skidded to a halt, their instincts screaming at them. They looked at the naked human who had just executed their strongest female with a single, casual strike.

 

Tsukasa slowly turned his gaze to the other lions. He didn't growl. He didn't posture. He simply stared at them with an aura of such overwhelming, apex dominance that the beasts broke. With a collective whimper, the remaining lions turned and fled into the forest, disappearing into the frost-covered brush.

 

Midoriya stared, his jaw slack, his breath catching in his throat.

 

He killed it in one hit. No Quirk activation. No energy build-up. Just pure, unadulterated physical strength. Midoriya's analytical mind was short-circuiting. That level of power... it's comparable to an eight percent Smash! But he's quirkless!

 

Tsukasa stood tall, slowly rotating his shoulder, the joints popping audibly. He looked down at his hands, then up at the sky, taking a deep, slow breath of the crisp winter air.

 

"The air is clean," Tsukasa murmured, his voice smooth, deep, and unnervingly calm. He turned his attention to Senku, who was standing a few feet away, holding the empty flask. "You revived me. What is the current situation?"

 

"The year is 5738," Senku replied, his tone perfectly steady, though his eyes were analyzing Tsukasa with the intensity of an electron microscope. "Humanity was petrified. I woke up. Then I woke up the big oaf over there, and the green-haired kid broke out himself. I revived you because we needed someone to punch a lion."

 

"I see," Tsukasa said. He bent down, effortlessly tearing a massive patch of fur and hide from the dead lioness, wrapping it around his waist as a makeshift garment. "You understand the mechanics of the petrification, then. And you possess the intellect to reverse it. You have my gratitude."

 

Tsukasa's gaze shifted. He looked past Senku, past Taiju, and his dark eyes landed on Izuku Midoriya, who was still kneeling in the dirt, clutching his trembling leg.

 

For a long moment, the two locked eyes. The Hero of Power and the Strongest Primate.

 

A flicker of recognition sparked in Tsukasa's eyes. The calm, philosophical detachment on his face hardened into something colder, sharper.

 

"Izuku Midoriya," Tsukasa said, his voice echoing off the stone walls.

 

Midoriya flinched. "You... know me?"

 

Tsukasa took a slow, deliberate step forward. "Anyone who watched the U.A. Sports Festival knows you. The boy who shattered his own bones to entertain the masses. The golden child of the Hero Public Safety Commission. The protégé of the Symbol of Peace."

 

Midoriya pushed himself up, leaning heavily on his good leg. "I'm a hero-in-training."

 

"You were a guard dog," Tsukasa corrected smoothly, his tone devoid of malice but dripping with absolute conviction. "A guard dog for a corrupt, rotting world."

 

"What did you just say?" Midoriya's voice dropped, a defensive edge creeping in.

 

Senku stepped between them, raising his hands. "Alright, let's keep the philosophical debates to a minimum until we've got frostbite-proof shelter. Tsukasa, thanks for the save, but we need to harvest the nitric acid and get back to camp."

 

"Senku," Tsukasa said, not breaking eye contact with Midoriya. "Do you intend to revive everyone? The entire human race?"

 

"That's the plan," Senku smirked. "Seven billion people. The Kingdom of Science doesn't leave anyone behind."

 

Tsukasa closed his eyes, letting out a slow, mournful sigh. "Then we are at an impasse."

 

Taiju blinked, utterly confused. "Impasse? What does that mean? Aren't we all on the same team?"

 

"Taiju, was it?" Tsukasa looked at the large boy with genuine pity. "Before the petrification, I was a fighter. I fought in underground arenas to pay for my sister's medical bills. She was brain-dead, kept alive on machines. Do you know who owned those machines? Who owned the hospital? Who owned the land we stood on?"

 

Tsukasa gestured broadly to the untouched, pristine wilderness around them.

 

"The adults," Tsukasa said, his voice turning hard. "The politicians. The executives. The landlords. And yes... the Pro Heroes who enforced their rules. They hoarded the wealth, they destroyed the earth, and they preyed on the weak. They created a society where a boy had to beat men to a bloody pulp just to keep his sister breathing."

 

Midoriya felt a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air. He recognized this kind of rhetoric. He had heard variations of it from the Hero Killer, Stain. He had heard it from Shigaraki Tomura. It was the pain of a broken society, weaponized into radicalism.

 

"This world is a paradise," Tsukasa continued, spreading his arms. "The stone washed away the corruption. It erased the borders, the debts, the pollution. We have a blank canvas. We can build a pure world, untainted by the greed of the old generation. But to do that... we cannot revive the adults. We must revive only the young, the untainted."

 

"You're talking about murder," Midoriya stated, his voice trembling slightly, not from fatigue, but from rising anger. "You're talking about leaving billions of people trapped in a nightmare, or worse, destroying them."

 

"It is a necessary culling," Tsukasa said calmly.

 

"It's insane!" Midoriya yelled, taking a step forward, ignoring the pain in his leg. "You don't get to decide who lives and dies! You don't get to judge the entire world based on the worst parts of it! There were good people! My mother is in that stone! My teachers! People who dedicated their lives to helping others!"

 

"And what of the villains, Midoriya?" Tsukasa challenged, his eyes narrowing. "What happens when you revive the villains? The murderers? The ones with Quirks so devastating they can level cities? In this world, without a massive infrastructure of police and prisons, a single villain with a destructive Quirk could subjugate the entire planet. Are you going to risk the survival of the human race on the naive hope that you can punch them all into submission?"

 

"I will protect them!" Midoriya shouted, his fists clenching, the green lightning sparking involuntarily around his arms. "I'll protect Senku, and Taiju, and everyone! That's my job!"

 

"Your job is obsolete," Tsukasa replied coldly.

 

Tsukasa turned his back on Midoriya and walked toward a cluster of petrified statues near the cave entrance. He stopped in front of one. It was a middle-aged man, portly, clutching a petrified briefcase to his chest. His face was locked in an expression of pompous irritation.

 

"This man," Tsukasa murmured, placing a hand on the statue's head. "Look at him. The expensive clothes, the briefcase. He was likely a CEO. A landlord. Someone who evicted families, who exploited his workers, who built his wealth on the suffering of others. If we revive him, he will immediately try to claim this land. He will demand taxes. He will demand you, the Heroes, protect his 'property'."

 

Midoriya's eyes widened in horror as he realized what Tsukasa was about to do. "Tsukasa, don't! Stop!"

 

"I am purifying the world," Tsukasa said.

 

With a casual, terrifying flick of his wrist, Tsukasa struck the statue's neck.

 

The sound of shattering stone ripped through the clearing. The statue's head detached, flying through the air and smashing into a dozen irrecoverable pieces against the cliff face. The headless body crumbled, collapsing into a pile of gray rubble.

 

Time seemed to freeze.

 

Taiju screamed, dropping to his knees. "No! What did you do?! You killed him!"

 

Senku's eyes widened, his mind instantly calculating the horrifying reality of the situation. He just murdered a human being in cold blood. And he didn't even blink. He's not just a physical threat; he's a zealot.

 

Inside Izuku Midoriya's mind, a dam broke.

 

The exhaustion. The starvation. The lingering trauma of waking up in a ruined world. The agonizing realization that his mother was trapped in stone. All of it crystallized into a singular, blinding flash of pure, heroic fury.

 

He didn't think. He reacted.

 

"TSUKASA!"

 

Midoriya's roar was unlike anything Senku or Taiju had ever heard. It wasn't the voice of a nervous teenager. It was the roar of a beast, echoing with the combined fury of the Vestiges within him.

 

Green lightning exploded from Midoriya's body, far brighter and more violent than before. He ignored the tearing pain in his muscles. He ignored the caloric deficit. He pushed his body to Eight Percent.

 

Simultaneously, thick, black tendrils of energy erupted from his arms and back. Blackwhip. But driven by his raw emotional state, the whips were thicker, more chaotic, thrashing through the air like angry serpents.

 

Tsukasa turned, his eyes widening slightly at the sheer visual spectacle of Midoriya's Quirks. "So. The power of the Symbol of Peace."

 

Midoriya didn't speak. He thrust both arms forward. Six massive tendrils of Blackwhip shot across the clearing at blinding speed. They slammed into Tsukasa, wrapping tightly around his wrists, his ankles, his torso, and his neck.

 

"You don't get to play God!" Midoriya screamed, hauling back on the tendrils.

 

With a mighty heave, Midoriya lifted Tsukasa entirely off the ground and slammed him violently into the massive trunk of a cedar tree. The tree shuddered, bark exploding outward from the impact.

 

Midoriya didn't stop. He used the tendrils to launch himself forward, closing the distance in a fraction of a second. He pulled his right arm back, the green lightning concentrating around his fist.

 

Detroit Smash!

 

He threw the punch, aiming not for Tsukasa's head, but for his chest, intending to knock the wind out of him and render him unconscious.

 

But Tsukasa was not a normal human.

 

Despite being pinned by Blackwhip, Tsukasa flexed. The sheer, incomprehensible density of his muscles bulged against the energy tendrils. With a terrifying roar of exertion, Tsukasa shattered the physical manifestation of Blackwhip on his right arm through pure, raw, physical strength.

 

Tsukasa brought his newly freed right arm up, catching Midoriya's glowing fist in his open palm.

 

BOOM.

 

A shockwave of displaced air erupted from the point of impact, blowing the frost off the surrounding trees and forcing Senku to cover his face.

 

Midoriya's eyes widened in absolute shock.

 

He stopped it. He stopped an eight percent Smash with one hand.

 

Tsukasa's feet were driven an inch into the frozen dirt, his arm trembling slightly from the immense kinetic force, but his grip on Midoriya's fist was absolute.

 

"Astonishing," Tsukasa breathed, his dark eyes locked onto Midoriya's glowing green ones. "The destructive capability of a Quirk. If you had hit me squarely, you would have shattered my ribs. But you hesitated. You aimed for the center of mass. You held back your killing intent, Midoriya. That is the weakness of a Hero."

 

Tsukasa twisted his wrist. Midoriya gasped as a sharp pain shot up his arm, his momentum completely hijacked. Tsukasa pulled Midoriya forward, delivering a devastating, point-blank knee strike to Midoriya's abdomen.

 

The air vanished from Midoriya's lungs. The green lightning sputtered and died. The remaining Blackwhip tendrils dissolved into mist.

 

Midoriya coughed up a splash of saliva, his eyes rolling back momentarily as the sheer agony of the blow combined with his total caloric exhaustion. He fell to his knees, clutching his stomach, paralyzed by the pain.

 

Tsukasa stepped back, looking down at the defeated hero. He raised his hand, curling it into a fist, preparing to deliver a final, lethal blow to the back of Midoriya's neck.

 

"You are too dangerous to be left alive in my new world, Midoriya," Tsukasa said softly. "Your ideology is a disease. I will end you painlessly."

 

"Stop right there, Tsukasa!"

 

Tsukasa paused, his fist inches from Midoriya's neck. He looked over his shoulder.

 

Senku was standing ten feet away. In his hand, he held the clay flask of pure ethanol. In his other hand, he held a piece of dry moss and the small, glowing ember from a fire-starting kit he always kept in his pouch.

 

"Do the math, primate," Senku said, his voice cold, devoid of any fear. "This flask contains ninety-six percent pure ethanol. The fumes are highly volatile. If I drop this ember into the flask and throw it at you, it will create a localized thermobaric explosion. You might be tough enough to punch a lion, but human skin still burns at two hundred degrees Celsius. You'll be a charred corpse before you can take another step."

 

Tsukasa narrowed his eyes, assessing the leek-haired scientist. He looked at the flask, then at the ember.

 

"You would catch yourself in the blast radius," Tsukasa noted calmly. "And Taiju. And Midoriya."

 

"I'm a scientist," Senku smirked, though a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. "I make calculated risks. Try me, Tsukasa. Take one more swing at Deku, and I will ten-billion-percent send us all to hell."

 

Silence hung heavy over the clearing, save for Midoriya's ragged, painful gasps for air.

 

Taiju stood up, tears streaming down his face, moving to stand between Tsukasa and the headless statue. "Tsukasa... please. We don't have to fight. We can talk about this!"

 

Tsukasa looked at Taiju's pleading face, then at Senku's unwavering, calculating glare. Finally, he looked down at Izuku Midoriya, who was struggling to lift his head, his green eyes still burning with defiant, unyielding anger even as his body failed him.

 

Slowly, Tsukasa lowered his fist.

 

"You are bluffing, Senku," Tsukasa said. "You are too rational to sacrifice your own life, and the lives of your friends, simply to stop me. But... I concede the tactical advantage. I have no desire to fight you. You are the only one who knows the exact formula and application of the revival fluid."

 

Tsukasa turned his back on them, walking toward the lion he had killed. He hoisted the massive beast over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing.

 

"We cannot coexist, Senku," Tsukasa said without looking back. "I will not allow you to revive the old world. I will build my empire of the young. If you try to stop me... if you try to build your Kingdom of Science... I will destroy you. And Midoriya..."

 

Tsukasa paused, glancing over his shoulder, his dark eyes locking onto the fallen hero.

 

"The next time we cross paths, I will not hold back. The Age of Heroes is dead. The Age of Stone belongs to the strong."

 

With that, Tsukasa Shishio walked into the forest, disappearing into the frost and shadows.

 

Senku immediately dropped the ember, extinguishing it beneath his leather shoe. He let out a long, shaky exhale, his knees wobbling slightly. "Ten-billion-percent terrifying. He called my bluff perfectly."

 

Taiju rushed forward, sliding onto his knees beside Midoriya. "Deku! Are you okay?! Speak to me!"

 

Midoriya groaned, rolling onto his back. The winter sky spun above him. His body was completely broken. His calf muscle was partially torn, his abdomen was bruised black and blue, and his Quirk factor felt completely hollowed out, empty and cold.

 

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in his heart.

 

He slowly turned his head, looking at the shattered remnants of the statue Tsukasa had destroyed. The face of the middle-aged man lay in pieces in the dirt.

 

He hadn't saved him. He had been right there, with the power of One For All, and he hadn't saved him.

 

"I failed," Midoriya whispered, a tear slipping down his bruised cheek. "I failed him."

 

"Don't be an idiot," Senku said harshly, walking over and kneeling beside Midoriya. He began probing Midoriya's stomach, checking for internal bleeding. "You didn't fail. You survived. If you hadn't distracted him, he might have decided to kill Taiju and me on the spot."

 

"He's a murderer," Midoriya choked out, gripping the frozen dirt. "Senku... he's a villain. A real villain. In this world."

 

"He's worse than a villain, Midoriya," Senku said, his face grave. "A villain acts out of greed or madness. Tsukasa acts out of a twisted sense of righteousness. He genuinely believes he's saving the world by culling it. He's charismatic, he's a tactical genius, and he has superhuman strength."

 

Senku looked up, staring in the direction Tsukasa had gone.

 

"We are at war," Senku declared softly. "A war between Science and Might. Between the old world and the new."

 

Senku looked down at Midoriya. "Can you walk?"

 

Midoriya gritted his teeth, forcing himself to sit up. "No. My leg is torn."

 

"Taiju," Senku commanded. "Carry him. We need to get back to camp. We need to harvest the nitric acid, and we need to move our base. Tsukasa knows where we are. It's only a matter of time before he returns to claim the cave."

 

Taiju carefully scooped Midoriya up into his massive arms, cradling the hero gently against his chest.

 

As they walked away from the Miracle Cave, leaving the shattered statue behind in the frost, Midoriya closed his eyes.

 

The Stone World wasn't just a battle against nature anymore. It wasn't just a race to build civilization. It was a battle for the very soul of humanity.

 

Tsukasa had challenged everything Midoriya believed in. He had challenged the legacy of All Might.

 

I won't let him win, Midoriya vowed, the embers of his spirit glowing hot in the dark void of his exhaustion. I will heal. I will train. I will master my Quirk in this new world. I am the Ninth. I am the Symbol of Hope. And I will save everyone... even from Tsukasa.