What if Deku became the new Doom Slayer or the new Master Chief”

 

The wind high above the city of Musutafu carried with it the distant, ambient symphony of a metropolis in motion. Sirens wailed blocks away, traffic hummed in a continuous, droning pulse, and the oblivious chatter of a million lives went on undisturbed.

 

Izuku Midoriya heard none of it.

 

He stood frozen on the sterile rooftop, his worn red sneakers planted near the chain-link fence, staring at the heavy metal door that had just slammed shut. The echo of that metallic clang reverberated in his skull, ringing louder than the explosive detonations of a villain attack, louder than the mocking laughter of his peers, louder than the breaking of his own heart.

 

“It’s not bad to dream. But you also have to consider what’s realistic, young man.”

 

The words hung in the air, thick and suffocating. They weren’t delivered with malice, nor were they spat with the fiery, explosive contempt that Katsuki Bakugo used. No, they were delivered with pity. Heavy, exhausted, pity by the one man Izuku had worshipped since before he could form coherent sentences. All Might. The Symbol of Peace. The smiling pillar of hope.

 

Izuku’s knees finally buckled. He didn’t fall gracefully; he collapsed like a marionette with its strings brutally severed, the rough gravel of the rooftop biting into the fabric of his middle school uniform. His trembling hands pressed against the cold stone. He gasped for air, but his lungs felt lined with lead.

 

“Can I be a hero, even without a Quirk?” he had asked. He had laid his soul bare, pouring fourteen years of mockery, isolation, and desperate, clawing hope into a single question.

 

The answer was no.

 

Tears, hot and fast, blurred his vision. They dripped from his chin, splashing against the concrete, leaving dark, transient stains that the afternoon sun would soon erase—much like society would erase him. He was quirkless. A genetic anomaly. An archaic relic in a world of gods and monsters. He had clung to his notebooks, to his obsessive analysis, to the delusion that if he just tried hard enough, if he was just brave enough, he could stand on that brightly lit stage alongside the heroes he adored.

 

But bravery didn't deflect bullets. Analysis didn't stop a falling building. Without power, he was nothing but a liability. All Might had told him to become a police officer. To do something safe.

 

Izuku stayed on that rooftop as the sun began its slow descent, casting long, bruised shadows of purple and orange across the skyline. When he finally stood, he felt hollowed out. The frantic, nervous energy that usually buzzed beneath his skin—the constant mumbling, the jittery excitement—was gone. He picked up his burnt, waterlogged hero analysis notebook. The cover, scorched by Bakugo’s explosions earlier that day, felt rough under his thumbs. He didn't throw it away, but he didn't hold it to his chest like a holy text anymore. He just held it. A dead thing.

 

He opened the heavy roof door and began the long walk down the stairwell. Each step felt mechanical. His mind was a blank slate, scrubbed clean of the vibrant, colorful fantasies of capes and smiles.

 

As he stepped out onto the bustling streets of Musutafu, he let the crowd swallow him. He was a ghost walking among the living. People brushed past him, their quirks subtly manifesting—a woman with faintly glowing skin, a man with a feline tail, a teenager casually floating a soda can. A parade of miracles, and Izuku was the only one entirely mundane.

 

BOOM.

 

The ground shuddered. The vibration traveled through the soles of Izuku’s red shoes, rattling his teeth. A plume of acrid black smoke billowed into the twilight sky just a few blocks away. The smell of burning rubber and scorched concrete washed over the street.

 

Instinctively, Izuku’s feet began to move. For a decade, an explosion meant a villain, and a villain meant heroes, and heroes meant notes. His body operated on muscle memory, carrying him toward the chaos before his numbed brain could remind him that he had given up.

 

He pushed his way to the front of the gathered crowd, the heat of the fire washing over his face. Tatooin Shopping District was in ruins. Flames licked the sides of buildings, and the air was thick with smoke. Several Pro Heroes—Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, Backdraft—were standing at the perimeter, looking frustrated, fearful, and entirely useless.

 

In the center of the devastation was a writhing, abhorrent mass of dark, viscous fluid. The Sludge Villain. The very same monster that had nearly suffocated Izuku in the tunnel earlier today. The monster All Might had captured.

 

It dropped him, Izuku realized, a sickening wave of guilt crashing into his gut. When I grabbed All Might’s leg... the bottle must have fallen. This is my fault.

 

The villain roared, a guttural, wet sound that made the crowd flinch. And then, Izuku saw it. Thrashing desperately within the suffocating mass of sludge was a boy. Ash-blonde hair. Furious, bloodshot eyes wide with unadulterated terror. Explosions popped wildly from the boy’s palms, feeding the fires around them, but doing nothing to free him.

 

Katsuki Bakugo.

 

Izuku looked at the Pro Heroes. Death Arms was holding back the crowd, shouting about not having the right quirk for the job. Kamui Woods couldn't get close because of the fire. Mt. Lady didn't have room to expand. They were waiting. Waiting for someone with a more suitable quirk. Waiting for someone else to take the risk.

 

In the span of three seconds, Izuku watched the life slowly draining from his childhood tormentor’s eyes. Bakugo’s struggles were growing weaker. He was drowning in plain sight, surrounded by people with superpowers who were doing absolutely nothing.

 

They’re waiting, Izuku thought, his mind crystal clear. They’re waiting, and he’s going to die.

 

Before the rational, defeated part of his brain could stop him, Izuku Midoriya crossed the police line.

 

He didn't think about his lack of a quirk. He didn't think about All Might's words. He only saw a life that needed saving. He sprinted, his backpack slung over his shoulder, his red shoes slapping frantically against the pavement.

 

"Hey! Kid, stop! You'll get yourself killed!" Death Arms bellowed, reaching out, but Izuku was already too fast, propelled by a desperate surge of adrenaline.

 

Izuku tore his backpack off and hurled it like a makeshift missile. The zipper burst open, sending pens, pencils, and the burnt notebook flying. The heavy spine of the notebook struck the Sludge Villain right in the eye.

 

The monster shrieked, a wet, gargling cry of pain, and its grip loosened just enough for Bakugo to gasp a lungful of oxygen.

 

"Deku?!" Bakugo choked out, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fury. "What the hell are you doing?!"

 

"I don't know!" Izuku screamed, his hands clawing at the foul, suffocating mud, trying to rip it away from Bakugo's face. The sludge burned his skin, stinging like acid. "My legs just moved! You looked like you were asking for help!"

 

For a fleeting microsecond, the universe seemed to pause. The quintessential moment of a hero’s origin. The moment where a hidden power awakens, or the Symbol of Peace arrives with a booming laugh to smash the villain away.

 

But this universe was cruel.

 

The Sludge Villain recovered, its remaining eye narrowing with malicious intent. "You little brat! You're the one from the tunnel! I'll crush you!"

 

A massive, fluid tendril whipped back, solidifying into a dense club of hardened muck. Izuku raised his arms to protect himself, bracing for the bone-shattering impact.

 

But the impact never came.

 

Instead, a deafening crack split the air, louder than any explosion Bakugo had ever produced. It wasn't the sound of an attack; it was the sound of the earth failing.

 

Bakugo's erratic, panicked explosions had done more damage than anyone realized. The continuous blasts, combined with the intense heat, had completely compromised the structural integrity of the street. Below Tatooin Shopping District lay a forgotten network of old subway lines, utility access points, and deeper still, ancient subterranean caverns that had not seen the light of day in millennia.

 

The pavement beneath Izuku and the Sludge Villain simply ceased to exist.

 

A massive sinkhole, thirty feet across, collapsed inward with the roar of an avalanche.

 

Izuku felt the ground drop out from under him. The sudden weightlessness made his stomach lurch violently into his throat. He saw the sky pull away from him, a rapidly shrinking circle of orange light surrounded by jagged, broken asphalt. He heard Bakugo scream his name—a sound completely devoid of anger, filled only with raw panic. He saw the Sludge Villain flailing as it, too, was dragged into the abyss.

 

Then, there was only the rushing of wind, the terrifying sensation of freefall, and the enveloping, suffocating darkness.

 

He hit the sides of the shaft, tumbling off broken pipes and jagged rocks. Pain, white-hot and blinding, exploded in his left arm as it snapped against a protruding rebar. He screamed, tumbling head over heels. He bounced off an angled slab of concrete, tearing the skin from his ribs.

 

Down, down, down.

 

The fall seemed to last an eternity. The light from the surface vanished, swallowed by the sheer depth of the chasm. Izuku’s descent was finally halted when he crashed through a layer of brittle, ancient stalagmites and slammed into the ground.

 

The impact knocked the breath from his lungs in a violent huff. His head cracked against the stone, and the world dissolved into an ocean of static and pain.

 

 

 

Time lost its meaning in the dark.

 

When Izuku’s consciousness finally clawed its way back through the thick fog of agony, the first thing he registered was the smell. It wasn’t the smell of damp earth or city sewage. It was a sterile, metallic scent. Like ozone. Like the air right before a massive thunderstorm, mixed with the faint, coppery tang of his own blood.

 

He groaned, the sound echoing strangely in the space. He tried to move, and a fresh wave of nausea and blinding pain washed over him. His left arm was completely useless, bent at a horrifying angle. His ribs felt like shattered glass stabbing into his lungs with every shallow breath. His vision was blurry, his right eye swollen shut.

 

He lay on his back, staring up into the pitch black.

 

"Help," he whispered. His throat was dry as sandpaper. "Anyone..."

 

Silence answered him. Not the silence of a quiet room, but the oppressive, heavy silence of a tomb.

 

He rolled onto his stomach, swallowing a scream as his broken arm dragged across the floor. He had to keep moving. If he stayed here, he would bleed out. He would die alone in the dark.

 

Using his good arm, he dragged himself forward. The ground beneath him wasn't rock. It was smooth. Too smooth. As his hand slid across the surface, he felt faint, geometric grooves etched into the floor. It felt like metal. Cool, impossibly ancient metal.

 

He crawled for what felt like hours, though it could have been minutes. His blood left a dark, glistening trail behind him.

 

Suddenly, a faint, pulsing light caught his functioning eye. A pale, ghostly blue illumination emanating from somewhere ahead.

 

Desperation fueled him. He dragged his battered body toward the light. As he grew closer, the faint illumination revealed the sheer scale of the cavern he had fallen into. But this was no natural cave.

 

Towering above him were massive, sweeping arches of dark, grey-green metal. Intricate, runic carvings that hurt his eyes to look at were etched into the pillars. Massive, dormant statues of armored figures wielding broadswords stood guard along the walls, their faces hidden behind imposing helmets with T-shaped visors.

 

In the center of this monolithic chamber rested a colossal vessel. It looked like a crashed ship, but it was forged with the aesthetic of a medieval fortress. Its hull was scarred and pitted, telling the story of a war fought long before the concept of Quirks had ever entered human history.

 

At the base of the ship was a raised dais. On the dais sat a massive, sarcophagus-like structure, hooked up to thick, dormant cables and strange, metallic machinery. Next to the sarcophagus was a sleek, angled terminal. It was the source of the pulsing blue light.

 

Izuku’s breathing was ragged, wet, and shallow. He was losing too much blood. The edges of his vision were going dark again, threatening to pull him back into unconsciousness.

 

Just to the light, he told himself. Maybe... maybe it's a distress beacon. Maybe someone can find me.

 

He reached the base of the dais and hauled his upper body up the first step. His right hand, slick with his own blood, reached out and slapped against the surface of the glowing terminal to pull himself up.

 

His bloody palm smeared across the interface.

 

Instantly, the pulsing blue light turned a blinding, brilliant white. A low, bass-heavy hum vibrated through the chamber, shaking the dust from the ancient statues. The terminal flared to life, projecting a holographic interface of swirling, intricate geometric patterns that defied earthly technology.

 

Izuku collapsed against the console, his strength entirely spent. He turned his head, watching as the machinery around the massive sarcophagus began to hum and click, gears turning for the first time in eons.

 

Then, a voice spoke.

 

It did not echo in the room. It spoke directly from the terminal, yet somehow, it felt as though it was speaking directly into Izuku’s mind. It was male, impeccably polite, smoothly modulated, and entirely devoid of human inflection.

 

"System boot sequence initialized. Power reserves at zero-point-two percent. Detecting organic bio-signature. Analyzing."

 

Izuku couldn't speak. He could only watch as a beam of blue light swept over his broken body from a node on the console.

 

"Analysis complete," the voice stated calmly. "Subject: Homo sapiens. Age: Approximately fourteen standard Earth years. Physical condition: Critical. Severe skeletal trauma, internal hemorrhaging, acute blood loss. Probability of survival without immediate medical intervention: Zero point zero three percent."

 

I'm going to die, Izuku thought, a strange sense of peace washing over the panic. I'm sorry, Mom.

 

"Scanning genetic markers," the voice continued. "Anomaly detected. Scanning for Argent-mutation traits... Negative. Subject is entirely devoid of dormant Argent-mutation DNA. You possess no 'Quirk', as the current planetary lexicon defines it."

 

The voice paused. For a moment, the holographic rings spun faster.

 

"Curious. My databanks indicate that over eighty percent of the current indigenous population has been infected by ambient Argent radiation, resulting in biological mutations. You are a pure baseline human. A rarity. Let me introduce myself. I am V.E.G.A. I am the sentient intelligence assigned to the Fortress of Doom, and the caretaker of the Sentinel Tomb."

 

Izuku managed a weak, bubbling cough. "V... Vega... help..."

 

"I cannot offer standard medical assistance, Izuku Midoriya. My physical medical drones were destroyed in the crash of this vessel three thousand years ago." V.E.G.A. somehow knew his name, likely extrapolating data from the student ID in his pocket or tapping into the city's surface networks in a fraction of a second. "However, I have initiated a deep-scan of your neural pathways and memory engrams during my triage assessment."

 

The blue light grew warmer.

 

"I have observed the events leading to your current state. You possessed no biological advantages. You were told by your society's apex protector that your ambitions were futile. Yet, when faced with a lethal threat—a threat that paralyzed those with actual power—you engaged without hesitation to preserve the life of another."

 

V.E.G.A.'s voice lost a fraction of its robotic neutrality, adopting a tone of profound solemnity.

 

"Your world values power. They worship the mutated gifts granted by the leaking Argent energy, ignorant of the fact that it is a beacon to the forces of Hell. They believe that power makes a hero. They are fundamentally incorrect."

 

The heavy machinery connected to the sarcophagus suddenly unlatched with a massive hiss of pressurized air. The lid of the tomb slid back, revealing it to be completely empty, save for a dense, glowing bed of red energy at its base.

 

"Will," V.E.G.A. said, the word ringing with heavy significance. "Incorruptible, indomitable will. That is the only weapon that matters against the coming dark. Your body is fragile, broken, and unmutated. But your soul... your soul is a furnace. It is exactly what is required."

 

"Required... for what?" Izuku breathed, his voice barely a whisper.

 

"For the mantle," V.E.G.A. replied. "The seals on the dimensional rifts are weakening. The Hell Priests have located this dimension. The mutations your people call 'Quirks' are merely the first stage of demonic corruption. Soon, they will harvest this world. The previous Slayer fell defending this reality millennia ago, sealing the rift with his final breath. The Earth has been unprotected ever since."

 

A mechanical arm descended from the ceiling, its end fitted with a wide, metallic clamp. It moved with terrifying precision, hovering over Izuku's paralyzed form.

 

"I can save your life, Izuku Midoriya. But I cannot return you to the life you knew. The process will remake you. The Divinity Machine was designed to forge a weapon capable of combating the infinite legions of Hell. It will grant you strength, speed, and resilience beyond mortal comprehension. But it will subject you to unimaginable agony. It will burn away your weaknesses. It will demand everything."

 

Izuku’s vision was narrowing to a pinprick. The cold embrace of death was creeping up his limbs.

 

He thought of his mother, crying in their apartment. He thought of Bakugo, drowning in the sludge. He thought of All Might, looking at him with pity. He thought of a world that smiled while the weak suffered, a world that relied on heroes who treated life-saving like a glamorous stage play.

 

He didn't want to be a smiling hero anymore. That was a child's dream.

 

If monsters were coming... if real, true evil was going to threaten his mother, his classmates, his world... they didn't need a hero who smiled to reassure them.

 

They needed a monster to fight the monsters. They needed a shield that would never break.

 

"Do it," Izuku gasped, his green eyes locking onto the glowing blue terminal, burning with a sudden, ferocious fire that defied his broken body. "Save them. Give me... the power... to save them."

 

"Acknowledged," V.E.G.A. said. "Initiating the Divinity Protocol. May the Maykrs have mercy on your enemies, for you shall have none."

 

The mechanical clamp snapped around Izuku’s torso. He was hoisted into the air, dangling like a broken doll. The clamp swung him over the open, glowing sarcophagus—the Divinity Machine.

 

He was lowered into the basin of crackling red energy. The moment his back touched the surface, the machine clamped shut around him, sealing him in total darkness.

 

Then, the fire began.

 

It wasn't a physical flame. It was an intrusion into the very core of his atomic structure. Izuku screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated torment that was entirely muffled by the thick metal of the machine. The energy invaded his veins, boiling his blood, shattering his already broken bones into dust, only to forcefully rebuild them denser, thicker, interwoven with ancient, cosmic power.

 

His muscles tore apart and re-knit, growing corded and impossibly dense. His nervous system was supercharged, his synapses firing at speeds that would shatter a normal human brain.

 

But the physical pain paled in comparison to the mental forging.

 

The Divinity Machine did not just build a body; it built a mind capable of waging eternal war. It sifted through Izuku's memories. It found his fear—the trembling boy hiding from Bakugo’s explosions—and it incinerated it. It found his insecurity—the endless muttering, the self-doubt, the feeling of uselessness—and eradicated it, replacing it with cold, absolute certainty.

 

It found his hero-worship. It took his reverence for All Might, for the capes and the smiles, and showed him the truth of the universe. It showed him visions of worlds consumed by fire. Billions of souls screaming as colossal, horned beasts tore them asunder. It showed him the Hell Priests, laughing as they fed the innocent to the Gore Nests.

 

The heroic ideals of his youth seemed suddenly frail, naive, and pathetic. A bright smile would not stop a Baron of Hell. A speech about justice would not halt a Cyberdemon. Only violence could stop violence of that magnitude. Absolute, overwhelming, brutal force.

 

The fear was gone. The sadness was gone. The boy who cried because he couldn't be a Pro Hero burned away in the red fire.

 

In his place, something else took root. A rage. An ancient, bottomless, simmering fury. A hatred for those who preyed on the weak. It was a cold anger, calculated and precise, backed by an indomitable, terrifying will.

 

Rip and tear, a voice whispered in the depths of his mind. Not V.E.G.A., but the echoes of the warriors who had come before him. The Night Sentinels. The original Slayer. Rip and tear, until it is done.

 

Inside the machine, Izuku Midoriya opened his eyes. They were no longer the soft, anxious green of a timid teenager. They glowed with an internal, terrifying viridian fire.

 

 

 

Months later. Or perhaps it was only a day. Time had ceased to be a metric Izuku cared about.

 

With a deafening hiss of depressurization, the heavy lid of the Divinity Machine slid open. Plumes of cold, white vapor spilled out over the sides, cascading down the steps of the dais.

 

A hand reached out from the mist and grasped the edge of the machine. It was a hand encased in dark, heavy, articulated armor.

 

Izuku pulled himself up. He stood tall, towering inches above his former height. His posture, once slouched and defensive, was now impossibly rigid, coiled with kinetic, lethal potential.

 

He looked down at his body. He was clad in a masterpiece of ancient combat engineering. The Praetor Suit. It was primarily a dark, aggressive green, plated with dense, angular armor that felt like a second skin. Beneath the plating was a dark, flexible under-suit composed of a synthetic muscle mesh. Heavy gauntlets encased his forearms, with a retractable, serrated blade housing on his left wrist. A massive, stylized helmet rested on a pedestal beside the machine, featuring a dark, T-shaped visor.

 

He didn't feel heavy. He felt impossibly light. He flexed his right hand. The servos in the armor whined softly in perfect synchronization with his movements. He felt no pain. He felt no fatigue. He felt like he could shatter a mountain with a single strike.

 

He picked up the helmet. He stared into the dark visor for a long moment, seeing his own reflection in the polished glass. The boy who wanted to be Deku, the hero who always did his best, was dead.

 

He pulled the helmet over his head. It locked into the collar of the suit with a satisfying, airtight click.

 

Instantly, the inside of the visor illuminated. A complex, minimalist Heads-Up Display (HUD) booted up. Targeting reticles, armor integrity readouts, and a compass snapped into his field of vision. The sensory feed was staggering. He could hear the micro-vibrations of the earth shifting above them. He could see in multiple spectrums, highlighting the dust motes dancing in the air.

 

In the upper left corner of his visor, a small, blue circular icon pulsed.

 

"Diagnostics complete. Praetor Suit fully integrated," V.E.G.A.'s voice echoed smoothly within the confines of his helmet, clear and crisp. "Vital signs are optimal. Neurological pathways are stabilized. Welcome back."

 

Izuku did not reply. He didn't feel the need to speak. Every unnecessary action was a waste of energy. He stepped off the dais, his heavy boots echoing loudly against the metallic floor. He moved with the terrifying, predatory grace of a supersoldier.

 

He walked toward a weapon rack that had emerged from the floor during his transformation. It held several ancient, rusted blades, but at the center rested a weapon of a different era. A piece of human ingenuity, heavily modified by Sentinel technology.

 

A Combat Shotgun.

 

It was massive, blocky, and completely black, save for a faint red glow emanating from the modification barrel beneath the main muzzle. Izuku picked it up. His gauntlets wrapped perfectly around the grip. He racked the pump. The CHAK-CHAK sound cut through the silence of the tomb like a physical blow.

 

He checked the ammunition display on his HUD. Fully loaded.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A. spoke, addressing him by his new title. There was no hesitation in the AI's voice. "I have tapped into the surface telecommunications network. The local timeline indicates that ten months have passed since your descent."

 

Izuku paused, absorbing the information. Ten months. His mother must be devastated. She must think he was dead. In a way, she was right.

 

"While you were in the Divinity Machine, I have monitored global anomalous activity. The situation has severely deteriorated."

 

A holographic map of Japan projected onto Izuku’s visor. Several areas were blinking with harsh red warning icons.

 

"Argent energy signatures are spiking across the surface. A localized spatial tear has been opened in your immediate vicinity, located at a hero training facility designated as 'the USJ'. The dimensional fabric has been breached. Demonic presence at unsafe levels. Threat to humanity imminent."

 

Izuku stood in the dark cavern, the Combat Shotgun resting casually against his hip. Through his HUD, V.E.G.A. fed him live security footage of the USJ. He saw a massive, domed facility. He saw a horde of grotesque, twisted creatures—Imps hurling fire, Possessed soldiers shambling forward—pouring out of a purple portal.

 

He saw children in hero costumes fighting for their lives. He saw a man with dark hair and a scarf being brutally beaten into the ground by a massive, brain-exposed monstrosity.

 

He saw his former classmates. They were terrified. They were dying.

 

Izuku felt the simmering fury in his chest flare into a roaring inferno. The demons had come to his home. They had dared to touch his world.

 

"Shall I initialize the teleporter system to intercept?" V.E.G.A. asked.

 

Izuku Midoriya gave a single, sharp nod.

 

Behind him, a massive, ringed gateway spun to life, crackling with volatile blue energy. Izuku turned and walked toward the portal. He did not run. He did not rush. He walked with the slow, inevitable stride of death itself.

 

As he stepped into the portal, leaving the ancient tomb behind, he knew one thing with absolute certainty.

 

The heroes of this world might try to arrest him. The villains would try to kill him. But he would let nothing stand in his way.

 

He would rip and tear. Until it was done.

 

The Unforeseen Simulation Joint—affectionately dubbed the USJ by the students of U.A. High School—was an architectural marvel. A massive, steel-ribbed glass dome housed multiple distinct ecological biomes, from torrential downpour zones to simulated urban ruins. It was designed to test the next generation of Pro Heroes against every conceivable natural disaster.

 

It was never designed to hold back the armies of Hell.

 

At the central plaza, near the bubbling fountain, Space Hero Thirteen was concluding their speech about the lethal potential of Quirks. The students of Class 1-A, dressed in their newly minted hero costumes, listened with varying degrees of awe and excitement. Katsuki Bakugo stood near the back, his arms crossed, his grenadier gauntlets gleaming under the artificial lights. He sneered at the speech, his mind still occasionally flashing back to the suffocating dark of the Sludge Villain incident ten months ago. He hated thinking about it. He hated remembering the terror, and he especially hated remembering the pathetic, quirkless face of Izuku Midoriya rushing toward him before the earth swallowed the nerd whole.

 

Izuku was gone. Declared dead after the sinkhole collapsed into an uncharted subterranean chasm. The police had searched for weeks, finding nothing but rubble and a shredded yellow backpack. Bakugo had never attended the memorial. He buried his complicated, churning guilt beneath layers of explosive rage and focused solely on being the best.

 

"Always keep in mind that your powers are not just for fighting," Thirteen’s synthesized voice echoed through the plaza. "They are tools for saving lives. That is the essence of a true—"

 

Thirteen stopped.

 

Aizawa Shouta, known underground as Eraserhead, also went completely rigid. His eyes, usually half-lidded and apathetic, widened as he stared at the plaza’s central fountain.

 

The water in the fountain had stopped moving. It hadn't frozen; it was simply levitating in defiance of gravity, suspended in the air as microscopic vibrations shook the very foundation of the USJ. The ambient temperature inside the dome spiked instantly, turning the climate-controlled air into a stifling, oppressive sauna.

 

"Mr. Aizawa?" Mina Ashido asked, stepping back as the air grew thick with a scent that made her stomach churn. It smelled like sulfur, ozone, and rotting meat.

 

"Get back!" Aizawa barked, his capture scarf unfurling like a nest of agitated vipers. "Thirteen, protect the students!"

 

A pinprick of violet light appeared in front of the fountain. But it didn't expand like a normal warp gate. Instead, it violently tore open, ripping the fabric of reality with a sound like tortured, screaming metal. The portal that stabilized was not the misty, elegant purple of a teleportation Quirk. It was a jagged, swirling vortex of pitch-black and blood-red. Veins of crimson lightning—volatile Argent energy—whipped wildly from the tear, scorching the pavement and melting the brass of the fountain.

 

A pale, slender hand covered by a disembodied face stepped through, followed by the lanky, hunched form of Tomura Shigaraki. Beside him materialized the shadowy mass of Kurogiri, and the towering, muscular, brain-exposed monstrosity known as the Nomu.

 

Following them, dozens of street-level thugs poured out, cheering and brandishing weapons.

 

But then, the portal flickered. The red lightning intensified, arcing violently and striking several of the villainous thugs, instantly incinerating them into ash.

 

Shigaraki flinched, scratching his neck. "Kurogiri... what is this? I told you to keep the gate stable!"

 

"Tomura Shigaraki," Kurogiri’s voice wavered with uncharacteristic panic. "I... I am not doing this. Something is forcing the gate open from the other side. The coordinates... they are changing."

 

Before Shigaraki could respond, a clawed, chitinous hand reached through the red portal. It grabbed the edge of the dimensional tear, burning upon contact, but it did not let go.

 

With a wet, tearing sound, the first demon pulled itself onto Earth.

 

It was an Imp. Roughly the size of a man, its body was a repulsive tapestry of exposed gray muscle, spiked bone protrusions, and glowing, fiery orange eyes. It crouched on all fours, drool dripping from a mandible-split jaw.

 

"What the hell is that?" a thug yelled, raising a baseball bat. "Sensei didn't say anything about—”

 

The Imp lunged. It crossed twenty feet in a microsecond, slamming into the thug. Its claws tore through the man’s chest cavity with the ease of a knife through wet paper. The thug's scream was cut agonizingly short as the Imp ripped his throat out, tossing the gore aside.

 

Suddenly, the portal violently expelled more of them. Dozens of Imps crawled out, followed by towering, rotting humanoid figures in fused, corrupted military armor—Possessed Soldiers, wielding arm-mounted plasma blasters.

 

"Villains?" Eijiro Kirishima stammered, his body hardening instinctively. "No way... those aren't people."

 

Up on the landing, Aizawa pulled down his yellow goggles. His heart hammered in his chest. "Thirteen, evacuate them now! The communications are jammed, someone needs to run back to the school!"

 

Aizawa leaped from the stairs, plunging directly into the fray. He activated his Quirk, his hair standing on end, eyes flashing red as he stared at the horde of monsters. He expected their fiery auras to vanish. He expected them to suddenly grow weak.

 

Nothing happened.

 

An Imp, unbothered by Erasure, conjured a sphere of concentrated Argent fire in its palm and hurled it at the Pro Hero.

 

Aizawa dodged, but the fireball grazed his shoulder. The heat was unimaginable—far hotter than Endeavor’s flames. The fabric of his specialized jumpsuit instantly melted into his skin. Aizawa gritted his teeth, suppressing a scream, and whipped his capture scarf around the Imp’s neck, pulling it close to deliver a devastating knee to its face.

 

The strike connected, cracking bone, but the Imp barely registered the impact. It hissed, its blood burning like acid, and slashed Aizawa across the ribs.

 

My Quirk isn't working, Aizawa realized with a cold, sinking horror. These things... they don't have Quirks.

 

Chaos erupted. The low-level villains who had come to kill All Might realized they were locked in a cage with apex predators. The demons didn't distinguish between hero, student, or villain. They only saw meat. The plaza became a slaughterhouse as the Imps and Possessed turned their plasma rifles and claws on the thugs.

 

"Nomu!" Shigaraki screamed, watching his army get eaten. "Kill the Pro Hero! Kurogiri, scatter the kids!"

 

The shadowy villain expanded, rushing up the stairs to engulf Class 1-A. Bakugo fired an explosion to stop him, but the mist consumed them, dropping different students into the various biomes of the USJ.

 

Down in the plaza, Aizawa was fighting a losing battle. He was blindingly fast, his martial arts impeccable, but the sheer durability of the demons was overwhelming. He managed to crush a Possessed Soldier's windpipe with a desperate, spinning kick, only to be blindsided by the Nomu.

 

The bio-engineered monster moved with All Might's speed. It grabbed Aizawa by the arm, and with a sickening CRACK, snapped the limb like dry kindling. Aizawa screamed, falling to the ground as the Nomu pinned him, its massive hand wrapping around his face, ready to crush his skull.

 

Near the shipwreck zone, Tsuyu Asui, Minoru Mineta, and a battered Denki Kaminari peeked over the water's edge, watching their teacher being destroyed. Tears streamed down their faces. There was no hope. All Might wasn't here.

 

"It's over," Mineta sobbed, clawing at his head. "We're going to die here!"

 

Shigaraki walked through the carnage, ignoring the demons as they feasted on his underlings. He crouched near the pinned, bleeding Aizawa. "You're cool, Eraserhead. But you're just a man. And right now... my game is lagging. Where is All Might?"

 

High above them, beyond the glass dome of the USJ, the sky began to warp.

 

 

 

[FORTRESS OF DOOM - ORBITAL DROP TUBE]

 

Izuku Midoriya stood in the cylindrical launch bay. The walls hummed with immense electromagnetic energy. The HUD in his visor glowed with an aggressive, crimson hue, projecting topographical maps of the USJ, structural weak points in the dome, and hundreds of hostile, Argent-infused signatures.

 

"Slipgate positioned," V.E.G.A.’s voice stated, smooth and analytical. "Orbital trajectory locked. The dome's structural integrity is compromised. Impact will be severe."

 

Izuku reached to his back, feeling the cold, familiar grip of the Super Shotgun. He pulled it free, snapping the twin barrels open to check the shells, before snapping it shut with a resonant CLACK. He secured it to the magnetic holster on his thigh, drawing his Combat Shotgun instead.

 

"Demonic signatures escalating," V.E.G.A. continued. "A Class-3 biological anomaly is currently subduing the local hero. It possesses high kinetic shock absorption and rapid cellular regeneration. Advise extreme prejudice."

 

Izuku's viridian eyes narrowed beneath the dark visor. He stepped onto the drop plate.

 

"Initiating descent in 3... 2... 1..."

 

The floor vanished.

 

Izuku plummeted from the atmosphere. He was a 300-pound meteor of green armor and unyielding rage. The Praetor Suit's external thrusters flared, correcting his trajectory, accelerating him toward the Earth at terminal velocity. Friction heated the air around him, turning him into a streaking ball of emerald and orange fire.

 

Through his visor, the USJ grew from a tiny speck to a massive, sprawling target. He didn't brace for impact. He leaned into it.

 

 

 

Back in the plaza, the Nomu raised its fist, preparing to deliver the killing blow to Aizawa’s skull. Shigaraki was laughing, a dry, raspy sound that scraped against the ears.

 

Suddenly, the ambient lighting of the entire USJ flickered and died. Emergency red lights pulsed to life.

 

A sound pierced the screams of the dying thugs and the roaring of the demons. It started as a low, thrumming vibration that rattled the water in the flood zone. Then, it escalated into a heavy, rhythmic, distorted pulse.

 

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

 

It sounded like music. Heavy, impossibly loud metal music, laced with shrieking synthetic guitars and bass pedals that struck like a physical heartbeat.

 

"What the hell is that noise?" Shigaraki hissed, looking around wildly.

 

Before anyone could answer, the central glass dome of the USJ shattered.

 

It didn't just break; it exploded outward, raining thousands of razor-sharp glass shards down upon the plaza. Through the gaping hole in the roof, a streak of green fire crashed directly into the center of the plaza with the force of a tactical missile.

 

The shockwave was catastrophic. The concrete floor buckled and cratered, tossing Imps and Possessed Soldiers into the air like ragdolls. The blast of displaced air knocked Shigaraki off his feet and forced the Nomu to release Aizawa, staggering backward.

 

Dust and pulverized concrete billowed into a thick, choking cloud.

 

The heavy metal music was deafening now, emanating directly from the epicenter of the crater. It was diegetic psychological warfare, pumped through the Praetor Suit’s intimidation speakers, designed to strike primordial terror into the hearts of hellspawn.

 

Every demon in the facility stopped. The Imps dropped the bodies they were eating. The Possessed Soldiers lowered their rifles. A collective, instinctive shudder rippled through the demonic horde. They recognized that music. They recognized the aura.

 

The Slayer has entered the facility.

 

From the dust, a silhouette emerged.

 

He was broad-shouldered, clad in dark, matte-green armor that looked both futuristic and impossibly ancient. The helmet was an aggressive wedge, the dark visor reflecting the fires burning around the plaza. He moved with a terrifying, absolute stillness—no wasted motion, no dramatic posing.

 

Izuku locked his sights on the nearest Imp.

 

The music dropped heavily.

 

Izuku moved.

 

He didn't run like a human. The suit's micro-thrusters engaged, and he dashed forward, crossing fifty feet in a fraction of a second. Before the Imp could even conjure a fireball, Izuku was upon it.

 

He didn't use a quirk. He didn't use an ultimate move. He grabbed the Imp by its spiked shoulders. The demon hissed, sinking its claws into the Praetor Suit's chestplate, only to hear the agonizing screech of its own claws breaking against the impenetrable armor.

 

With a brutal, singular motion, Izuku drove his armored knee into the Imp’s abdomen, folding it in half, then gripped its upper jaw and the top of its head. With a sickeningly wet CRACK, he ripped the demon’s skull entirely in half. Golden, bioluminescent blood erupted over Izuku’s armor.

 

He didn't pause to admire his work. The moment the Imp’s body hit the floor, Izuku whipped out the Combat Shotgun.

 

BOOM.

 

A Possessed Soldier, raising its plasma rifle, had its entire upper torso atomized by a blast of high-explosive buckshot. The recoil of the weapon, which would shatter a normal human's shoulder, barely made Izuku flinch.

 

BOOM. CHAK-CHAK. BOOM.

 

He waded into the horde of demons, a scythe through wheat. It was a macabre, terrifying ballet of violence. This was not hero work. Heroes incapacitated. Heroes captured. The Green Knight only slaughtered.

 

An Imp leaped at him from behind. V.E.G.A.’s tactical feed flashed a proximity warning on his HUD. Izuku didn't even turn around. He simply backhanded the air. The heavy gauntlet caught the leaping Imp in the ribs, shattering its ribcage and sending it flying into a concrete wall with fatal force.

 

He dashed sideways, dodging a volley of superheated plasma. He fired the shotgun, blowing off a demon's leg, then lunged forward for a Glory Kill. He grabbed the staggering demon by the chest, lifted it into the air, and drove his fist through its chest cavity, ripping out its glowing, corrupted heart and crushing it in his palm.

 

A massive surge of bio-energy—health—transferred from the dying demon into the Praetor Suit, repairing minor scuffs and supercharging his nervous system.

 

From the sidelines, hiding behind debris, the students of Class 1-A who hadn't been warped away watched in paralyzed horror.

 

Todoroki Shoto, who had frozen a group of villains near the landslide zone, stood perfectly still, his heterochromatic eyes wide. Bakugo, who had blasted his way out of Kurogiri’s mist and landed near the plaza entrance, was shaking.

 

"What... what the hell is that?" Bakugo whispered, staring at the green-armored giant. "That's not a Pro. He's... he's killing them."

 

"They're not human," Aizawa gasped weakly from the ground, clutching his broken arms. Even the hardened underground hero was terrified by the sheer, unadulterated brutality of the armored figure. "He's... exterminating them."

 

Shigaraki was scratching his neck furiously, drawing blood. "No, no, no! This wasn't the plan! Who is this NPC? Why is he ruining my game?! Nomu! Kill him! Tear his head off!"

 

The Nomu screeched, a horrific, bird-like cry, and charged.

 

Izuku finished stomping an Imp's skull into paste and turned his head. The massive, black-skinned beast was barreling toward him, its exposed brain pulsating, muscles bulging with ungodly kinetic power.

 

Izuku leveled the Combat Shotgun and fired three rapid shots directly into the Nomu’s chest.

 

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

 

The buckshot tore massive, gaping holes in the monster's torso. But before the smoke even cleared, the flesh writhed and stitched itself back together in seconds. Super-regeneration.

 

The Nomu closed the distance and threw a haymaker. The punch broke the sound barrier, aimed squarely at Izuku’s helmet.

 

Izuku didn't dodge. He brought his left arm up, the thickest part of his gauntlet taking the blow.

 

The impact sounded like a bomb detonating. The shockwave shattered the remaining glass in the vicinity. Izuku was pushed back two feet, his boots carving deep trenches into the concrete, but he did not fall. The Praetor Suit’s energy shielding flared bright blue, absorbing the kinetic force.

 

Beneath the helmet, Izuku’s eyes burned. The beast was strong. But it lacked technique. It lacked will.

 

Izuku countered, pulling his right arm back. The Praetor Suit detected the wind-up, charging the gauntlet with raw Argent energy. A Blood Punch.

 

He drove his fist directly into the Nomu’s midsection.

 

The force of the blow was staggering. A shockwave of red energy exploded outward, atomizing three nearby Imps just from the backblast. The Nomu was lifted off its feet, its ribcage caving in with a sickening crunch, and was sent flying across the plaza, crashing through a brick wall.

 

"Warning, Slayer," V.E.G.A. chimed in, the calm voice a stark contrast to the heavy metal music and sounds of slaughter. "The target's biological makeup is specifically designed to absorb and nullify kinetic impact. While your striking force exceeds its absorption threshold by 40%, its cellular regeneration will endlessly repair blunt-force trauma."

 

Izuku stood up straight, watching the Nomu slowly pull itself out of the rubble. The crater in its chest was already smoking, muscles violently knitting back together.

 

"Recommendation," V.E.G.A. continued. "Discontinue concussive force. Employ cellular separation tactics to outpace its regenerative capabilities."

 

Izuku understood. Blunt force was inefficient. He needed to cut it to pieces.

 

He reached to his right hip. The magnetic locks disengaged with a sharp clack.

 

He drew the Chainsaw.

 

It was a brutal, heavy implement of war, the chain lined with monomolecular, Argent-laced teeth designed to carve through the thickest demonic carapaces.

 

Izuku squeezed the trigger.

 

RRRR-VRRRRMMMMMM!

 

The roar of the engine drowned out the music. Black exhaust puffed from the side vents. The chain spun so fast it became a blur of jagged silver.

 

Shigaraki laughed, though it sounded hysterical. "A chainsaw? You think a toy tool is going to hurt my anti-Symbol of Peace?! Nomu, break him!"

 

The Nomu charged again, arms wide, intent on grappling Izuku and tearing him in half.

 

Izuku dashed forward, closing the gap instantly. As the Nomu reached for him, Izuku ducked under the monstrous arms. With a swift, brutal upward slash, he drove the Chainsaw into the Nomu’s left bicep.

 

The monster's shock absorption was useless against a serrated edge moving at thousands of RPM. The blade bit deep, sparking violently as it met the artificially hardened bone. Blood—thick, black, and hot—sprayed in a geyser across Izuku’s visor.

 

Izuku pushed forward, revving the engine harder. The chainsaw shrieked, slicing cleanly through the bone. In less than two seconds, the Nomu’s entire left arm was severed, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

 

The Nomu shrieked in confusion and pain. It tried to regenerate, flesh bubbling at the stump, but before it could, Izuku spun, carrying the momentum of the chainsaw in a wide, horizontal arc.

 

The roaring blade carved directly into the Nomu’s exposed waist.

 

The monster let out a garbled, wet scream. Izuku planted his boot heavily on the Nomu’s thigh for leverage and pulled the chainsaw entirely through the creature's abdomen.

 

The top half of the Nomu slowly slid off its bottom half, a cascade of dark organs and blood spilling onto the plaza floor. The regeneration quirk went haywire, trying to connect two halves that were separated by a pool of gore, ultimately failing. The light faded from the creature’s eyes.

 

The plaza fell utterly, completely silent.

 

Even the diegetic heavy metal music emanating from the Praetor suit faded into a low, threatening hum.

 

Izuku stood amidst a literal lake of blood and dismembered demonic corpses. He shook the chainsaw once, flicking the gore from the blade, and reattached it to his hip. He drew the Super Shotgun, snapping it open, ejecting the spent shells. They hit the floor with two distinct clinks that echoed like gunshots in the silence.

 

He loaded two fresh shells. Clack.

 

Slowly, the dark, blood-splattered helmet turned toward Tomura Shigaraki.

 

Shigaraki fell backward onto his hands, scrambling away. The arrogant villain who had spoken of killing heroes like it was a video game was hyperventilating. True, primal terror gripped his heart.

 

"K-Kurogiri..." Shigaraki stammered, pointing a trembling finger at the green giant. "Get me out of here. Get me out now!"

 

"Tomura, the Nomu—"

 

"Forget the Nomu! Warp us out!"

 

Kurogiri immediately expanded, wrapping around Shigaraki. Izuku leveled the Super Shotgun and fired, but the blast of hot buckshot only phased through the purple mist just as the two villains vanished, fleeing the USJ.

 

Izuku lowered the weapon. The threat was neutralized. The remaining low-level thugs who hadn't been eaten were unconscious or weeping in terror. The few surviving Imps had scrambled back into the unstable red portal before it collapsed entirely, severing the connection to Hell.

 

"Area clear. Demonic presence eradicated," V.E.G.A. reported. "The local heroes are severely injured, but their vital signs are stabilizing. The adolescent combatants are unharmed, though experiencing elevated heart rates and shock."

 

Izuku turned his gaze toward the stairs.

 

Aizawa was staring at him, his face pale, clutching his ruined arms. Nearby, Thirteen was battered but awake. And standing just twenty feet away, fists clenched, teeth gritted, was Katsuki Bakugo.

 

Bakugo stared at the green armor. He looked at the massive, terrifying weapons. He looked at the brutalized corpse of the Nomu—a monster that had just seconds ago seemed invincible.

 

"Who..." Bakugo's voice wavered, a rare crack in his explosive facade. "Who the hell are you?"

 

Izuku looked at his childhood friend. He looked at the boy who had told him to take a swan dive off the roof. He looked at the boy he had sacrificed everything to save.

 

Beneath the helmet, Izuku’s expression remained perfectly stoic, an icy mask of absolute focus. He felt no anger toward Bakugo anymore. He felt no admiration. He felt... nothing. The petty squabbles of heroes and villains, of quirks and quirkless, were so infinitesimally small compared to the cosmic war he was now a part of.

 

Izuku did not speak. He didn't offer a reassuring smile.

 

He simply turned his back on them.

 

"Slipgate ready, Slayer," V.E.G.A. announced.

 

A swirling vortex of blue energy materialized in the air before Izuku. He stepped forward.

 

"Wait!" Eijiro Kirishima yelled, running forward, his voice cracking. "Are you a Pro? What's your agency? You saved our lives!"

 

Izuku paused just before the portal. He glanced over his shoulder. The dark visor revealed nothing. The blood dripping from his armor painted the picture of a grim reaper, not a savior.

 

He stepped into the slipgate. With a sharp flash of blue light and a sound like a thunderclap, the portal collapsed.

 

The Green Knight was gone, leaving behind only the horrific evidence of his wrath, and a room full of aspiring heroes who had just realized exactly how small they truly were.

 

 

 

[FORTRESS OF DOOM - COMMAND BRIDGE]

 

Izuku materialized on the teleporter pad, the cool, sterile air of the ancient Sentinel ship washing over him. The massive, gothic architecture of the fortress was illuminated by dim, ambient blue lighting. Through the massive front observation window, the curvature of the Earth hung silently in the void of space.

 

He walked to the central command console. As he approached, robotic maintenance arms descended from the ceiling, spraying pressurized cleansing foam over his armor, washing away the demonic blood and gore, leaving the green plates pristine once more.

 

He reached up and disengaged the helmet locks. With a hiss of depressurization, he pulled the helmet off and set it on the console.

 

Izuku Midoriya stared at the holographic projection of the globe. His face was pale, his jaw set, his viridian eyes burning with an intense, unyielding light.

 

"Mission successful, Slayer," V.E.G.A. said from the console speakers. "The dimensional breach at the USJ has been sealed. The Earth's authorities are currently securing the perimeter. You have altered the probability of survival for Class 1-A to one hundred percent."

 

"It was a scouting party," Izuku finally spoke. His voice was deeper than it used to be. The nervous tremor was gone, replaced by a gravelly, resonant calm. "The Priests are testing the defenses of this dimension."

 

"Affirmative," V.E.G.A. replied. "The entity known as Tomura Shigaraki possesses a biological companion capable of spatial manipulation. The Hell Priests utilized his quirk to anchor their slipgate to your reality. They will attempt it again."

 

Izuku placed his armored hands on the console, leaning forward to study the global map. Several new, smaller red blips were beginning to pulse deep within the urban centers of Japan.

 

"Gore Nests," Izuku stated softly.

 

"Correct. They are planting anchors in the shadows of the city. As they consume local biomatter, the barriers will weaken further."

 

Izuku picked up his helmet. He looked at his own reflection in the visor. He wasn't a student anymore. He wasn't a hero in training. He was the only thing standing between his world and utter annihilation.

 

"Track the signatures, V.E.G.A.," Izuku commanded, sliding the helmet back onto his head. The HUD flared to life, casting his face in shadows. "We're going hunting."

 

"Acknowledged. Rip and tear, Slayer."

 

"Until it is done."

 

The world did not know what to name the nightmare that had saved them.

 

Within twenty-four hours of the Unforeseen Simulation Joint anomaly, the media had ignited into an uncontrollable firestorm. News helicopters circled the patched-up glass dome of the USJ like vultures. Every major network in Japan, and soon the globe, broadcasted the shaky, pixelated cellphone footage captured by a terrified low-level villain who had managed to escape before the slaughter concluded.

 

The footage was a chaotic blur of smoke, fire, and red emergency lights. But cutting through the center of it was a figure clad in dark, matte-green armor. The audio captured the heavy, rhythmic thud of a shotgun, the horrific, chainsaw-induced shrieks of the Nomu, and the diegetic, aggressive heavy metal music that seemed to emanate directly from the armored giant.

 

The public discourse was fractured. Online forums dubbed him the "Green Knight," the "Emerald Ghost," or simply the "Doom Slayer." To the civilians who had grown increasingly cynical of the commercialized, flashy Pro Hero industry, this brutal figure was a dark messiah. He hadn't stopped to give a speech. He hadn't worried about collateral damage to the facility. He had descended from the heavens, eradicated a threat that had paralyzed Pro Heroes, and vanished without asking for a dime or a round of applause.

 

To the authorities, however, he was a living, breathing catastrophe.

 

Deep within the sterilized, high-security boardroom of the Hero Public Safety Commission in Tokyo, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. The President of the HPSC, a sharp-featured woman with cold, calculating eyes, sat at the head of a massive obsidian table. The holographic projection of the green-armored figure hovered in the center of the room, rotating slowly.

 

"I don't care if the internet thinks he's the second coming of the Symbol of Peace," the President said, her voice a whip crack of authority. "He is an unregistered, unlicensed, and highly lethal vigilante. He used military-grade firearms and bladed weapons to publicly execute over forty individuals."

 

"With respect, Madam President," Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi interjected. He stood near the projection, his trench coat wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes betraying his lack of sleep. "We are hesitating to classify the casualties as 'individuals.' The coroner’s office is in a state of absolute panic. The bodies recovered from the USJ... they aren't human. Not completely."

 

Tsukauchi tapped a button on his tablet, replacing the Slayer’s image with autopsy photos of the Imps and Possessed Soldiers. The HPSC board members visibly recoiled.

 

"They possess zero traces of the human genome, save for the corrupted soldiers, whose DNA has been violently rewritten by an unknown radiation source," Tsukauchi explained grimly. "They didn't have Quirks. Their biology defies natural evolution. Furthermore, the weapons the vigilante used... the ballistics team is baffled. The buckshot recovered from the scene is composed of an alloy that doesn't exist on the periodic table. The explosive residue burns hotter than white phosphorus."

 

"What about his Quirk?" a board member demanded. "Teleportation? Super strength? Weapon manifestation?"

 

"Eraserhead was on the ground," Tsukauchi gestured to the corner of the room.

 

Aizawa Shouta sat in a leather chair, both of his arms heavily casted and resting in slings. His face was wrapped in bandages, leaving only his dark, tired eyes exposed. The aura of apathy he usually projected was completely absent. He looked like a man who had stared into an abyss and watched it blink.

 

"He didn't use a Quirk," Aizawa’s voice was raspy, barely above a whisper. "I was watching him. My Erasure was active before the dust blinded me. There was no Quirk factor to erase. Every ounce of kinetic force, every leap, every strike... it was pure, unadulterated physical power augmented by his armor."

 

"A quirkless man in a mech suit did this?" The President scoffed. "Impossible. The Nomu creature was bio-engineered to trade blows with All Might. You expect us to believe a man with a gun overpowered it?"

 

"He didn't overpower it with blunt force," Aizawa corrected, his eyes narrowing at the memory. "He surgically dismantled it. He recognized its shock absorption and bypassed it by physically separating its limbs with a motorized blade. He didn't fight like a Pro Hero. He didn't fight to capture. He moved with... perfect, absolute lethality. He is a soldier fighting a war we didn't even know was happening."

 

The President slammed her palm on the table. "He is a murderer. The bedrock of our society relies on the public trusting us to handle villains humanely and through the justice system. If the public realizes there are monsters out there immune to Quirks, and that their only savior is a gun-toting butcher, the entire Hero Society will collapse. Find him, Detective. Use whatever Pro Heroes you need. Endeavor, Hawks, Edgeshot. Find the Green Knight, and bring him in. Alive."

 

Tsukauchi looked at Aizawa. Aizawa looked back. Both men shared the same unspoken, terrifying thought.

 

If Endeavor tries to arrest that thing, Endeavor is going to die.

 

 

 

[ORBITAL FORTRESS OF DOOM - ARMORY]

 

Three hundred miles above the Earth's surface, in the vacuum of low orbit, Izuku Midoriya sat in silence.

 

The Armory of the Fortress was a sprawling, circular chamber lined with weapon racks, holographic weapon-modification benches, and dormant Sentinel tech. The ambient lighting was a cool, clinical blue, casting long shadows across the dark metal floors.

 

Izuku sat on a heavy steel bench, stripped to the waist.

 

The physical changes wrought by the Divinity Machine were stark. He was no longer a scrawny, malnourished teenager. He possessed the physique of a Greek god carved from granite, muscles corded and dense with cosmic energy. But his skin was a roadmap of violence. Faint, glowing red scars spider-webbed across his chest and back—the permanent marks of the Argent fire that had remade him.

 

He held a microfiber cloth and a bottle of high-viscosity synthetic oil. In his lap rested the dismantled components of the Combat Shotgun. With methodical, hypnotic precision, he cleaned the barrel, oiled the pump-action rails, and checked the structural integrity of the firing pin.

 

He moved with the mechanical efficiency of a machine, yet there was a deep, underlying reverence in his actions. These weapons were not tools; they were extensions of his will.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A.’s voice filled the armory, emanating from the ceiling nodes. "I have completed the decryption of the anomalous data packets intercepted during the USJ engagement."

 

Izuku did not pause his cleaning. He simply slid the barrel assembly back into the receiver with a sharp, satisfying clack.

 

"The demonic entities were not acting autonomously. The spatial tether was generated by an immensely powerful source of concentrated Argent Energy hidden within the city of Musutafu. The signature matches that of a Gore Nest—a biological gateway used by the armies of Hell to terraform and corrupt localized environments."

 

Izuku picked up a heavy, twelve-gauge explosive shell, inspecting the brass casing before slotting it into his bandolier.

 

"I have triangulated the Gore Nest's location," V.E.G.A. continued, projecting a massive holographic map of Musutafu’s underground industrial sector. "It is situated beneath an abandoned shipping warehouse. However, the warehouse is currently serving as a front for a subterranean compound operated by a localized criminal syndicate known as the Iron Claws."

 

Izuku raised an eyebrow. A Yakuza group.

 

"My thermal and bio-scans indicate that the Iron Claws have been exposed to raw Argent Energy," V.E.G.A. explained. "It is highly probable they believe it to be a new form of Quirk-enhancing narcotic. They are intentionally siphoning the energy, unaware that it is slowly rewriting their DNA, mutating them into Possessed husks. Furthermore, they are kidnapping civilians from the slums to feed the Gore Nest, accelerating its growth."

 

Izuku stopped moving.

 

The silence in the armory grew heavy, suffocating. The cold, logical part of his brain processed the tactical data, but the roaring furnace of his soul ignited at the mention of abducted civilians. The monsters had found willing accomplices in humanity's lowest scum.

 

Izuku stood up. He walked over to the armor stand where the Praetor Suit rested.

 

He didn't need to speak for V.E.G.A. to know what he wanted.

 

"Initializing drop sequence. I have analyzed the compound's architectural schematics," V.E.G.A. said, seamlessly adapting to Izuku's intent. "A direct orbital drop would collapse the subterranean roof, potentially crushing the civilian captives. I recommend a tactical infiltration. Stealth protocols are optimal until the hostages are secured."

 

Izuku stepped backward into the armor station. The robotic arms descended, lifting the heavy green plates and locking them around his limbs, his torso, his neck. The hissing of pressurized seals echoed in the room. He reached out and grabbed the Heavy Assault Rifle from the rack, a sleek, rapid-fire ballistic weapon equipped with a micro-missile pod, alongside a suppressed tactical sidearm.

 

Finally, he picked up the dark helmet. He stared into the visor, feeling the phantom weight of his past life brushing against his mind. He let the memory of his weakness burn away in the fires of his purpose.

 

He slid the helmet on. The HUD flared.

 

"Slipgate opening," V.E.G.A. announced. "Target: Musutafu Industrial Zone. Objective: Secure civilians, purge the corruption, destroy the Gore Nest. Happy hunting."

 

Izuku racked the bolt of the Heavy Rifle and stepped into the vortex.

 

 

 

[MUSUTAFU INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SUBTERRANEAN COMPOUND]

 

The rain was falling in thick, heavy sheets, washing the grime from the streets of the industrial district. The abandoned warehouse looked like any other decaying relic of the pre-Quirk era—rusted corrugated metal, broken windows, and overgrown weeds.

 

But beneath the surface, the Iron Claws were thriving.

 

In a concrete bunker fifty feet underground, two Yakuza thugs armed with illegal assault rifles stood guarding a heavy steel bulkhead. They were sweating profusely despite the chill of the underground. Their skin had taken on a sickly, pallid hue, and their veins pulsed with a faint, unnatural red light beneath their flesh.

 

"You got any more of that red dust?" one of the thugs scratched at his neck, his eyes twitching violently. "I swear, since the boss started bringing that stuff in, my Quirk is off the charts. I can bend steel pipes with my bare hands."

 

"Boss says we gotta wait," the other grunted, though he looked equally strung out. "The thing in the basement... the big meat-plant. It needs more 'fertilizer' before it bleeds out more dust. The cleanup crew is bringing in three more strays from the Red Light District tonight."

 

"Good. The sooner we feed it, the sooner we get—"

 

The thug's sentence was cut short as the dim fluorescent lights in the hallway suddenly died with a sharp electrical pop.

 

The corridor plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

 

"Hey! What the hell? Backup generator!" the first thug shouted, fumbling in his pockets for a flashlight.

 

Above them, clinging effortlessly to the ceiling like a predatory spider, Izuku Midoriya watched.

 

His suit had shifted into stealth mode. The heavy, thumping intimidation speakers were deactivated. The servos in his joints were entirely silent. Through his visor, the world was painted in the crisp, high-contrast blues and oranges of thermal imaging. The two thugs glowed brightly, their internal body temperatures unnaturally high due to the Argent corruption.

 

He didn't use a heavy weapon. This was precision work. This was the Master Chief in the shadows.

 

Izuku dropped from the ceiling, landing between the two men without making a single sound. He moved with terrifying, fluid grace. Before the first thug could even click his flashlight on, Izuku’s hand shot out in the darkness. His armored fingers clamped over the man’s mouth, while his other hand grabbed the base of the thug's skull.

 

A sharp, violent twist. A sickening snap that echoed softly in the dark. The thug went limp instantly.

 

Izuku lowered the body to the floor gently to avoid noise. The second thug, hearing the rustle of fabric, spun around blindly, raising his rifle.

 

"Kenji? Kenji, you there?"

 

Izuku drew his tactical combat knife from his chest sheath—a heavy, serrated blade coated in a light-absorbing polymer. He stepped into the man's guard, batting the rifle barrel away with his left forearm while simultaneously driving the knife up beneath the thug's jaw, severing the brainstem instantly.

 

He caught the dead weight, lowering the second body next to the first. Two hostiles eliminated. Zero alarms triggered.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A. transmitted directly into his neural interface. "I have infiltrated the compound's closed-circuit network. The security grid is primitive. I am disabling their internal comms and locking down the perimeter doors. They are trapped in here with you."

 

"Hostages?" Izuku whispered.

 

"Two floors down. Sub-level three. Six civilian bio-signatures detected in a holding cell. Warning: there is a high concentration of corrupted hostiles guarding the cell block. Proceed with caution."

 

Izuku wiped his blade on the thug's jacket and sheathed it. He drew the suppressed tactical sidearm. He approached the heavy steel bulkhead.

 

"Overriding electronic lock now," V.E.G.A. said.

 

The heavy door hissed and slid open. Izuku stepped into the sprawling, multi-level underground complex. It looked like an old subway terminal converted into a black market bazaar, but it was horrifyingly desecrated. The concrete walls were beginning to grow thick, pulsing veins of dark red flesh. Strange, bony protrusions jutted from the ceiling, dripping viscous fluid. The Yakuza hadn't just found a Gore Nest; they were letting Hell terraform their hideout.

 

Izuku moved along the upper catwalks, a silent ghost in green armor. He functioned with perfect military efficiency. He encountered patrols of three to four thugs at a time. He didn't engage in prolonged combat. He used the suppressed sidearm to put precise, three-round bursts into their skulls before they could even draw a breath to shout. He used his grappling hook—the Meat Hook attachment he was working on, currently functioning as a mobility tool—to swing across gaps and drop on enemies from above, snapping necks and crushing windpipes with his heavy boots.

 

It was a masterclass in tactical infiltration. He was surgical. He was methodical.

 

He reached sub-level three. The holding cell was a rusted iron cage suspended over a shallow pit. Inside, six civilians—a mix of homeless men and terrified runaway teenagers—huddled together, weeping silently.

 

Guarding them were six Yakuza enforcers. But these men were too far gone. The Argent energy had mutated them heavily. Their skin was cracked and glowing red, their eyes burned with demonic hellfire, and their quirks had violently warped. One man had arms that had mutated into massive, bone-plated scythes. Another was spewing localized hellfire from his mouth.

 

They weren't human anymore. They were Possessed.

 

Izuku Holstered his sidearm. Stealth was no longer required for this floor. The civilians were shielded by the cage, meaning he didn't have to worry about crossfire.

 

He drew the Heavy Assault Rifle.

 

Izuku stepped out from the shadows of the catwalk, standing in full view of the mutated guards.

 

One of them, the man with the scythe arms, turned and hissed. "Intruder! Get him! Tear him apart for the Nest!"

 

The intimidation speakers in the Praetor suit clicked on.

 

A low, vibrating bassline began to thrum through the air, vibrating the rusted metal of the cages. The heavy metal music dropped with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

 

Izuku leaped from the catwalk, plunging thirty feet to the ground floor. The micro-thrusters in his boots fired, cushioning his landing with a shockwave that cracked the concrete.

 

He didn't wait for them to charge. He dashed forward.

 

He raised the Heavy Rifle and engaged the micro-missile pod. A barrage of six miniature rockets screamed across the room, detonating against the chest of the fire-breathing Yakuza. The explosion tore the man to bloody ribbons, splashing the walls with glowing gore.

 

The scythe-armed mutant leaped at Izuku, bringing his bone-blades down in a crushing cross-slash. Izuku didn't dodge. He caught both bone-blades in his armored hands. The kinetic force pushed Izuku back an inch, but he held firm. The mutant’s eyes widened in shock as it realized the green armor wasn't yielding.

 

With a guttural roar, Izuku twisted his wrists, snapping the bone-scythes clean off the mutant's arms. He drove his boot into the creature's kneecap, shattering the joint, and as the mutant fell forward, Izuku grabbed it by the throat and crushed it with a sickening squelch.

 

The remaining four guards opened fire with a mix of modified weapons and energy quirks. Blue kinetic shielding flared brilliantly around Izuku’s armor, absorbing the impacts like rain against a window.

 

Izuku swapped weapons in the blink of an eye, drawing the Combat Shotgun. He dashed sideways, strafing the room with terrifying speed.

 

BOOM. A guard’s head evaporated into red mist.

 

CHAK-CHAK. BOOM. Another guard was blown clean in half, his torso flying backward into the wall.

 

He closed the distance on the final two. He didn't even shoot. He grabbed one by the face, smashing his skull repeatedly into a steel support beam until the metal dented and the skull gave way. The last guard tried to run, screaming in absolute terror. Izuku aimed the shotgun at his legs and fired, blowing his knees out. As the guard collapsed, sobbing, Izuku walked up calmly, placed his massive boot on the back of the man's head, and applied pressure until it popped like a rotten melon.

 

The heavy metal music faded back down to a low, ambient rumble.

 

Izuku stood amidst the carnage. He engaged the cooling vents on his suit, releasing a hiss of white steam. He walked over to the holding cage.

 

The civilians inside were completely paralyzed with fear. They had just watched a green demon slaughter their captors with a brutality that rivaled any villain. They cowered as Izuku approached.

 

He reached out and grabbed the thick iron lock securing the cage door. With a casual flex of his wrist, he shattered the lock into pieces and pulled the heavy door open.

 

Izuku stepped back, giving them space. He didn't speak. He simply pointed his shotgun down the hallway toward the stairs that led to the surface.

 

"The perimeter doors are unlocked," V.E.G.A.'s voice broadcasted externally from the suit, translated into perfect, reassuring Japanese. "The hostiles on the upper levels have been neutralized. Follow the emergency lights to the surface. Local authorities have been anonymously tipped off and are waiting three blocks away. Do not look back."

 

The civilians scrambled out of the cage, bowing frantically to the silent green giant before running for the stairs.

 

Izuku watched them go, his HUD tracking their bio-signatures until they were safely out of the compound.

 

Once they were clear, the temperature in the room plummeted. The walls surrounding the pit in the center of the room began to writhe.

 

"Civilians secure, Slayer," V.E.G.A. said, the AI's tone shifting to battle-readiness. "I am detecting massive dimensional instability directly beneath you. The Gore Nest is aware of your presence. It is forcibly accelerating the terraforming process."

 

Izuku stepped to the edge of the pit and looked down.

 

At the bottom of the cavernous lower level was the Gore Nest. It was an abomination of biology and dark magic. A massive, beating heart of corrupted flesh, the size of a city bus, anchored to the floor by thick, pulsing arteries. It was surrounded by a sea of bones, human remains, and jagged teeth. Floating above the nest was a sphere of crackling red energy—the tether holding the dimensional rift open.

 

"Time to rip and tear," Izuku murmured.

 

He dropped into the pit.

 

The moment his boots hit the fleshy floor, the Gore Nest shrieked. It was a sound that didn't belong on Earth—a chorus of a thousand tortured souls screaming in unison. The red sphere of energy flared violently, spitting out bolts of red lightning.

 

The portal opened.

 

Dozens of Imps dropped from the tear. But they weren't alone. From the portal stepped a Hell Knight. A towering, nine-foot-tall mass of pale, muscular flesh and dense bone plating, its face completely devoid of eyes, possessing only a gaping, drooling maw.

 

But worst of all, stepping out from behind the Hell Knight, was a figure that made Izuku’s blood run cold.

 

It was human. Or, it used to be.

 

He was clad in the tattered, burning remnants of a Pro Hero costume. He was massive, built like a tank, with skin that had turned obsidian black and cracked to reveal molten magma beneath. Horns curled from his forehead, and his eyes burned with intelligent, malicious hellfire.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A. warned. "Scanning the anomaly. That is... or was... the Pro Hero known as 'Blast Furnace'. He was reported missing three months ago during a villain raid in Hosu. He has been subjected to advanced demonic corruption. He is acting as the guardian of this nest."

 

The corrupted hero, Blast Furnace, let out a booming laugh that shook the cavern. He reached behind his back and drew a weapon that made Izuku’s eyes narrow. It was a colossal, hell-forged double-barreled shotgun. Beneath the barrels was an underslung chain mechanism attached to a jagged, wicked meathook.

 

"The Hell Priests warned us about you," the corrupted hero rumbled, his voice a distorted, demonic echo of a human. "The anomaly. The mortal who defies the dark. You are nothing but meat for the grinder!"

 

Blast Furnace aimed his weapon. The meathook shot out with a screech of grinding chains, rocketing toward Izuku.

 

Izuku dashed sideways, the hook violently embedding itself into the wall behind him. The corrupted hero pulled the chain, rocketing his massive body forward with terrifying speed, leveling the double-barrel.

 

Izuku brought up his Combat Shotgun to block, but the Hell-forged blast hit him point-blank in the chest.

 

The kinetic force was absurd. Izuku was thrown backward through the air, crashing through a concrete pillar and slamming into the fleshy wall of the cavern. The Praetor Suit’s shielding flared violently, flashing red as it absorbed the catastrophic damage.

 

Izuku hit the ground, rolling to his feet instantly. He didn't feel pain, but he felt the concussive shock rattle his teeth.

 

The heavy metal music erupted, faster and more violent than ever before.

 

The Hell Knight roared, leaping into the air to bring both of its massive fists down on Izuku’s position. Izuku dashed backward, the Hell Knight’s impact cratering the floor. Izuku swapped to the Heavy Assault Rifle, unloading a continuous stream of armor-piercing rounds into the Knight's face, but the bone plating deflected most of it.

 

He was outflanked. The Imps were throwing fireballs, the Hell Knight was charging, and Blast Furnace was racking another shell into his hell-shotgun.

 

Izuku needed to divide and conquer.

 

He locked his sights on the Hell Knight. He dashed forward, sliding on his knees under the beast's swinging arm. As he slid beneath it, he drew his Combat Shotgun and fired a sticky bomb modification directly onto the Hell Knight's kneecap.

 

BEEP-BEEP-BOOM.

 

The explosion blew the Knight's leg completely off. The massive beast toppled over, roaring in agony. Izuku didn't waste the opportunity. He vaulted off the beast's severed stump, launching himself onto the Hell Knight's back. He drew his retractable wrist blade—the Doomblade—and drove it with all his might into the base of the beast's skull, severing its spinal cord and scrambling its brain.

 

He ripped the blade out, leaping off just as Blast Furnace fired another volley. The buckshot shredded the dead Hell Knight's corpse, barely missing Izuku.

 

"You're fast, little mortal!" Blast Furnace bellowed, throwing his meathook again.

 

This time, Izuku didn't dodge. He caught the massive metal hook with his left hand. The serrated edges bit into the gauntlet, sparking wildly.

 

Blast Furnace grinned, pulling the chain to drag Izuku toward him.

 

But Izuku anchored his boots into the floor. The servos in the Praetor suit whined as he fought the pull. He let the corrupted hero drag him forward, but he used the momentum.

 

As he was pulled into point-blank range, Izuku didn't shoot. He pulled his right arm back, the gauntlet charging with raw, red energy.

 

A Blood Punch.

 

He unleashed the strike directly into the center of Blast Furnace's chest.

 

The impact was like a meteor strike. The shockwave blew the surrounding Imps entirely apart. The corrupted Pro Hero’s ribs shattered inward, his magma-like blood spraying across the cavern. He was sent flying backward, dropping his Hell-forged shotgun, crashing into the fleshy base of the Gore Nest.

 

Izuku didn't let up. He walked over to the dropped weapon. The Super Shotgun. It was heavy, perfectly balanced, and radiated dark power. He picked it up, snapping the barrels open. The shells inside were massive. He snapped it shut.

 

Blast Furnace slowly tried to rise, clutching his caved-in chest. "The Priests... will consume this world..." he gurgled.

 

Izuku stood over him. He aimed the newly acquired Super Shotgun directly at the corrupted hero's head.

 

"They can try," Izuku said, his voice cold as the void of space.

 

He pulled the trigger.

 

Both barrels discharged simultaneously. The sheer force of the blast atomized the upper half of Blast Furnace's body, ending the corrupted hero's misery.

 

Izuku pumped the weapon, ejecting the massive shells, and turned his attention to the Gore Nest. The heart was beating frantically, defenseless.

 

He walked up to the colossal, fleshy mass. He plunged his armored hands deep into the thick, fibrous arteries protecting the heart. With a guttural roar, using the full, terrifying strength of the Divinity Machine, Izuku ripped the arteries apart. He grabbed the core of the Gore Nest and crushed it entirely.

 

The nest shrieked one final time before the fleshy walls began to dissolve, turning into gray ash. The portal above them sparked violently and collapsed, severing the connection to Hell.

 

The cavern went silent.

 

Izuku stood in the ash, holding his new Super Shotgun. He inspected the underslung meathook. It was a perfect addition to his arsenal.

 

"Gore Nest destroyed," V.E.G.A. confirmed. "Dimensional stability returning to normal parameters in this sector. However, before the network collapsed, I managed to extract a data fragment from the corrupted hero's neural link."

 

Izuku attached the Super Shotgun to his back. "What did you find?"

 

"Blast Furnace was not corrupted by accident. He was selected. The data fragment contains communications with a Hell Priest. The Priest is coordinating the localized Gore Nests to weaken Earth's dimensional barrier for a massive invasion. And, Slayer... the coordinates of the Priest's communications..."

 

V.E.G.A. paused, an extremely rare occurrence for the AI.

 

"The Hell Priest is broadcasting from within the upper echelons of the Hero Public Safety Commission headquarters. The corruption has already reached the top of your society."

 

Izuku stood in the dark, the ash falling around him like snow. His eyes burned furiously beneath the visor. The very people who claimed to protect the world were the ones selling it to Hell.

 

"Mark the target," Izuku said, opening a slipgate back to the Fortress. "We have work to do."

 

 

 

[MUSUTAFU POLICE DEPARTMENT - EVIDENCE REVIEW ROOM]

 

Detective Tsukauchi paused the security footage.

 

He and Aizawa sat in the dark room, the only light coming from the monitor. They had acquired the internal CCTV footage from the Iron Claws' compound shortly after the police raided the now-abandoned, ash-filled facility. The civilians had given deranged testimonies about a green demon saving them, but seeing the footage was entirely different.

 

The screen showed the frozen image of Izuku executing the Yakuza guards with the Combat Shotgun.

 

"Look at his footwork," Tsukauchi pointed a pen at the screen, his hand trembling slightly. "He clears corners like a Tier-1 special forces operator. He doesn't waste movement. He doesn't pose. He transitions from stealth to loud combat flawlessly. This isn't a vigilante, Shouta. This is a highly trained military asset."

 

Aizawa stared at the screen. He watched the way the armored figure caught the mutant's bone-blades and snapped them like twigs.

 

"You're wrong, Naomasa," Aizawa said quietly.

 

Tsukauchi frowned. "Wrong about what?"

 

"You said he fights like special forces," Aizawa leaned closer to the monitor, staring into the dark, reflectionless visor of the Green Knight. "Special forces are trained to neutralize threats efficiently, yes. But they are still human. They hesitate. They feel fear, even if they control it. I watched this man fight the Nomu. I am watching him slaughter these mutants."

 

Aizawa swallowed hard.

 

"He doesn't fight like a man who was trained," Aizawa whispered, a profound sense of dread settling in his stomach. "He fights like a man who has been doing this for a thousand years. He fights like he is the apex predator of the universe."

 

Tsukauchi sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. "The HPSC wants him brought in. The President is demanding a task force."

 

"Then the President is an idiot," Aizawa said bluntly. "If she sends Pro Heroes after him, he will break them. He spared those civilians because they were innocent. But if someone stands between him and whatever war he's fighting... God help them."

 

Tsukauchi looked back at the frozen image of the Slayer. "Then what do we do, Shouta?"

 

Aizawa closed his eyes, the phantom pain in his broken arms throbbing.

 

"We stay out of his way."

 

The rain falling over Hosu City was black, choked with the ash and smog of a dozen simultaneous fires. Sirens wailed in a dissonant, never-ending chorus that echoed off the high-rises. The city was bleeding.

 

For Tenya Iida, the chaos of the burning city was nothing more than background noise to the roaring furnace of his own grief.

 

He sprinted down the slick, rain-washed alleyways, his Engine Quirk propelling him forward with violent, jagged bursts of speed. His breath hitched in his throat, his eyes burning behind the rectangular lenses of his glasses. He wasn't acting like a hero-in-training. He wasn't acting like the proud, rule-abiding class representative of U.A.’s Class 1-A. He was a boy consumed by a singular, blinding desire for vengeance.

 

Tensei, Iida thought, his brother’s paralyzed, hospital-bound form flashing in his mind’s eye. I will find him. I will make him pay.

 

The Pro Heroes were busy battling the sudden, inexplicable outbreak of Nomus in the city center. Iida had slipped away. He knew the Hero Killer’s modus operandi. Stain targeted isolated, dark areas. He hunted those who strayed from the pack.

 

Iida rounded a corner into a dead-end alley, the stench of copper and raw sewage hitting him like a physical wall. He skidded to a halt, his boots splashing in a shallow puddle of rainwater and blood.

 

There, pinned against the brick wall with a blade through his shoulder, was the Pro Hero Native. And standing over him was the nightmare that had broken the Ingenium legacy.

 

But Chizome Akaguro—the Hero Killer known as Stain—was not the man the police dossiers described.

 

Iida froze, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. The figure standing in the alleyway was terrifyingly altered. Stain still wore his trademark tattered red scarf and bandages, but beneath them, his body had been warped by an unnatural, cosmic power. Jagged, pale bone-plating protruded from his forearms and shins, resembling corrupted, ancient armor. His skin was a sickly, ashen gray, laced with pulsing veins of neon-red energy.

 

Most horrifying of all was the weapon in his hand. It wasn't a standard steel katana. Stain held a hilt made of dark, pitted metal, from which erupted a blade of crackling, pure red Argent energy. It hummed with a volatile, blistering heat that vaporized the raindrops before they could even touch it.

 

"Another false idol?" Stain’s voice was a wet, resonant rasp that sounded like two grinding tombstones. His eyes, completely black save for glowing red irises, locked onto Iida.

 

"I am... I am the younger brother of Ingenium!" Iida screamed, his voice cracking with adolescent fury as he raised his leg, his exhaust pipes whining. "You paralyzed him! You took away his dream! I have come to stop you!"

 

Stain slowly turned his head. The red energy blade in his hand pulsed in time with his corrupted heartbeat.

 

"Ingenium. A man who ran for fame and corporate sponsorship. A fake," Stain sneered, the red veins on his neck bulging. "And you... you use your power for personal vendettas. You are completely blinded by your own selfish desires. The Priests of the Dark Realm opened my eyes. They showed me the truth of this world. Society is diseased. And they gave me the scalpel to excise the rot."

 

"Shut up!" Iida roared.

 

He engaged his Recipro Burst, the engines in his calves exploding with blue fire. He crossed the alley in a fraction of a second, aiming a devastating, high-speed kick directly at Stain’s head.

 

To Iida’s horror, Stain didn't even try to dodge.

 

A split-second before the kick connected, a translucent, hexagonal shield of crimson Argent energy flared to life in front of Stain’s forearm. Iida’s armored leg smashed into the shield.

 

The impact sounded like a bomb detonating, but the shield didn't yield a single millimeter. Instead, the kinetic force violently rebounded. Iida’s leg shattered inside his armor.

 

Iida screamed, tumbling backward through the air and crashing into the garbage-strewn pavement.

 

Stain moved with a speed that eclipsed even the Nomu. He closed the distance instantly, his combat boots slamming onto Iida’s chest, pinning the boy to the ground. The Hero Killer raised the crackling Argent blade.

 

"Your brother was weak," Stain whispered, a long, abnormally grotesque tongue slithering over his cracked lips. "You are weaker. I accepted the Hellfire to cleanse this world of impurities like you. Die, child, and serve as fuel for the true dawn."

 

Stain plunged the energy blade downward.

 

Iida squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the end.

 

BOOM.

 

The sound was not an explosion of fire, nor was it the crack of a Quirk. It was the deafening, atmospheric displacement of a sonic boom occurring at ground level.

 

A streak of matte-green and blinding blue light crashed into the alleyway wall just above Stain’s head. The sheer kinetic shockwave of the impact shattered the brickwork and hurled Stain backward off of Iida.

 

The Hero Killer flipped gracefully through the air, landing on his feet, his Argent blade held at the ready, his red eyes narrowing in sudden, instinctual caution.

 

The dust and debris slowly cleared. The rain hissed as it struck superheated metal.

 

Standing between Iida and the Hero Killer was a towering colossus. The armor was an aggressive, dark green, heavily plated and scarred from a hundred untold battles. A dark, T-shaped visor stared back at Stain, devoid of any human emotion. In the giant’s hands rested a massive, double-barreled Super Shotgun, the underslung meathook dripping with rainwater.

 

Iida, gasping for breath on the ground, stared up at the broad, armored back. He recognized the figure instantly from the leaked HPSC footage.

 

The Green Knight. The Doom Slayer.

 

"Demonic corruption detected," V.E.G.A.’s voice chimed inside Izuku Midoriya’s helmet, the HUD instantly highlighting Stain’s weak points and the erratic flow of Argent energy in his veins. "Target identity: Chizome Akaguro. He has undergone partial biological synthesis with Argent plasma. His combat parameters match that of a Night Sentinel defector class. A Marauder."

 

Izuku stood perfectly still. The servos in his Praetor suit hummed with lethal anticipation.

 

Stain stared at the armored figure. He didn't attack immediately. The Hero Killer could sense it. The aura radiating from the green giant was not the aura of a Pro Hero. There was no vanity, no desire for public approval, no hesitation. There was only absolute, terrifying conviction.

 

"I know you," Stain rasped, lowering his stance. "The ghost of the USJ. The media calls you a vigilante. A rogue. But I see the truth. I see the blood on your armor. You do not fight for the cameras. You kill the rot."

 

Izuku said nothing. He pumped the Super Shotgun. Clack-clack.

 

"The Hell Priests warned me of you," Stain continued, stepping to the side, his Argent blade casting a sinister red glow against the wet brick walls. "They called you the great anomaly. They said you are a force of mindless destruction. But looking at you... I see a fellow crusader. You execute the false monsters. I execute the false heroes. Together, with the power the Underworld provides, we could purge this society. We could build a world of true justice!"

 

Beneath the helmet, Izuku’s viridian eyes hardened into chips of ice.

 

He had seen the Divinity Machine. He had seen visions of entire dimensions swallowed by the Hellscape, billions of souls screaming in eternal agony, harvested to feed a cosmic war engine. He had seen the Gore Nests. He had seen demons tearing children apart.

 

And here stood a grown man, a petty serial killer with a warped god complex, lecturing him about "justice" while actively using the power of those same world-eating demons to murder a teenager in a back alley.

 

Izuku found Stain pathetic.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A. warned. "The target’s Argent shield is impenetrable to standard ballistics. You must intercept him during his attack animations. Exploit his offensive momentum."

 

The heavy metal music began to bleed through the Praetor suit's intimidation speakers. It started as a low, thrumming bassline, vibrating the puddles on the ground.

 

Stain’s eyes narrowed. The lack of response enraged him. "You reject my vision? You defend these fakes? Then you are just another obstacle on the path to purity!"

 

Stain vanished.

 

He didn't just run; the Argent energy in his blood allowed him to Dash, violently tearing through the air. He appeared instantly on Izuku’s left flank, bringing the crackling red crucible-blade down in a devastating arc.

 

Izuku didn't block. He sidestepped, the red blade missing his helmet by millimeters, the heat scorching the paint. Izuku brought the stock of the Super Shotgun up, aiming for Stain’s jaw.

 

Stain’s reflexes were ungodly. He raised his free hand, and the red hexagonal Marauder shield flared to life, absorbing the blow. The kinetic rebound pushed Izuku back half a step.

 

Stain immediately followed up, spinning on his heel and unleashing a horizontal wave of pure Argent fire from his blade.

 

Izuku dashed backward, the fiery crescent carving a deep, molten trench into the pavement where he had just stood. He swapped weapons instantly, the Super Shotgun vanishing to his magnetic hip holster, replaced by the Heavy Cannon. He aimed and fired a sustained burst of heavy caliber rounds.

 

Stain raised his shield, the bullets ricocheting harmlessly off the red energy with a sound like ringing bells. Stain pushed forward, closing the gap, his shield raised.

 

"Your weapons are useless against conviction!" Stain roared, leaping into the air, bringing the blade over his head.

 

Izuku waited. The tactical feed in his visor tracked Stain’s movement.

 

Wait for it, Izuku thought, his breathing perfectly regulated, his heart rate steady at a calm fifty beats per minute despite the chaos.

 

As Stain reached the apex of his swing, he had to drop his shield to put both hands on the hilt of his blade. In that microsecond, Stain's eyes flared with a bright, luminous green flash—the universal telegraph of an overextended Marauder.

 

Izuku swapped back to the Super Shotgun.

 

BOOM.

 

He fired point-blank into Stain’s exposed chest before the blade could fall.

 

The impact was catastrophic. The blast of hell-forged buckshot shattered Stain’s chest armor and completely disrupted his kinetic momentum. A shockwave rippled through the air. Stain let out a gargled cry of shock and pain, his body instantly staggering backward, utterly paralyzed by the concussive force.

 

He was vulnerable.

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He dashed forward, swapping to the Plasma Rifle. The weapon hummed with blue-hot energy. Izuku unleashed a blinding barrage of plasma bolts directly into the staggered Hero Killer. The superheated plasma seared Stain’s corrupted flesh, melting the bone plating on his arms and legs.

 

Stain hit the wall, sliding down to one knee. He was breathing heavily, his red blood mixing with the rainwater. He looked up, genuine shock painting his terrifying features.

 

"How...?" Stain gasped. "The Priests said this power was absolute..."

 

"The Priests lied," Izuku’s voice finally resonated from the suit. It was deep, modulated by the helmet, sounding less like a human and more like the inevitable tolling of a funeral bell. "They are using you. You are nothing but a parasite feeding on a cosmic cancer."

 

Stain roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated fanaticism. "I am the hand of judgment!"

 

He threw a handful of throwing knives. Izuku didn't even bother to dodge; the steel blades shattered harmlessly against his chest plate. But the knives were a distraction. Stain followed right behind them, his speed pushed to its absolute limit. He swung his Argent blade low, aiming for the joints behind Izuku’s knees.

 

Izuku jumped, activating his thrusters to hover briefly in the air. While airborne, he aimed his arm canon and fired a localized frag grenade directly at Stain’s feet.

 

The explosion launched Stain into the air.

 

Izuku fired the meathook from the Super Shotgun. The heavy, serrated blade shot upward, embedding itself deep into Stain’s shoulder.

 

Stain shrieked in agony as Izuku violently yanked the chain, pulling himself through the air directly toward the airborne Hero Killer. The music peaked, a chaotic, shrieking guitar solo that matched the sheer violence of the moment.

 

As Izuku hurtled toward him, he pulled his right fist back. The gauntlet glowed with volatile, concentrated red energy.

 

A Blood Punch.

 

Izuku slammed his fist directly into Stain’s chest while they were both in mid-air.

 

The concussive shockwave shattered the windows of every building in the alleyway. The blast of energy completely overloaded the Argent corruption within Stain’s body. The red glow in the Hero Killer’s veins violently short-circuited. His Argent crucible blade shattered into a million pieces of red glass, dissolving into the rain.

 

Stain was launched downward like a meteor, crashing into the pavement with enough force to create a crater.

 

Izuku landed heavily a moment later, his boots cracking the asphalt.

 

The music slowly faded, leaving only the sound of the pouring rain and the distant sirens.

 

Iida watched in horrified awe. The fight had lasted less than forty-five seconds. The Hero Killer, who had just effortlessly dismantled a U.A. student and a Pro Hero, had been completely, systematically dismantled by the Green Knight.

 

Stain lay in the crater, his bone-armor shattered, the demonic corruption violently purged from his system by the concussive force of the Blood Punch. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, coughing weakly, but the red, demonic glow had faded from his eyes. He was just a man again. A broken, deluded man.

 

Izuku walked slowly toward the crater. He drew the Doomblade from his wrist housing. The serrated blade hummed with lethal intent.

 

Stain looked up at the looming green figure. He didn't beg. He simply bared his teeth in a bloodstained grin. "Do it. Show them... show them what a true hero must do to cleanse the world. Kill me."

 

Izuku stood over him. The Doomblade was inches from Stain’s throat.

 

Inside the helmet, the fires of rage burned hot. This man had tried to murder one of his former classmates. This man had willingly accepted the power of Hell to feed his own ego. It would be so easy. A flick of the wrist, and the stain on society would be wiped clean permanently.

 

"Slayer," V.E.G.A.’s voice was soft, devoid of its usual tactical urgency. "His Argent corruption has been neutralized. He poses no supernatural threat. He is entirely human."

 

Izuku stared down at Stain. He saw the madness in the man’s eyes. He saw the desperate, pathetic need to be proven right. If Izuku killed him now, he would be validating Stain’s twisted philosophy. He would be proving that he was just a monster who killed whatever was in front of him.

 

But Izuku Midoriya was not a monster. He was the shield that guarded humanity. And even broken, corrupted humans were still human.

 

Izuku retracted the Doomblade with a sharp snikt.

 

Stain’s grin faltered. Confusion flickered in his eyes. "What...? Why do you hesitate? Strike!"

 

Izuku reached down, grabbed Stain by the collar of his tattered shirt, and hauled him effortlessly to his feet. With his other hand, he balled his armored fist and delivered a precise, measured, and devastating left hook to Stain’s jaw.

 

Stain’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed, instantly unconscious.

 

Izuku dropped him to the ground. He reached into one of the compartments on his utility belt, producing heavy, high-tensile zip ties. In seconds, he had Stain hogtied, utterly immobilized.

 

The threat was over.

 

Izuku turned around. Iida was still on the ground, clutching his shattered leg, his eyes wide behind his rain-streaked glasses.

 

Izuku walked over to the boy. Iida flinched, expecting the brutal vigilante to finish what Stain had started. But Izuku simply knelt beside him.

 

"Medical analysis," V.E.G.A. broadcasted through the suit’s external speakers, the AI's smooth voice breaking the tension. "Tibia and fibula fractures detected. Severe contusions. However, no arterial bleeding. You will survive, Tenya Iida."

 

Iida stared at the dark visor. "You... you know my name?"

 

Izuku didn't answer. He couldn't. If he spoke with his true voice, Iida would recognize him. The boy who was supposed to be dead.

 

"Why did you spare him?" Iida demanded, his voice shaking with a mix of pain and adrenaline. "He is a monster! He paralyzed my brother! He was going to kill me! After everything he's done... why let him live?"

 

Izuku stood up, towering over the boy. The rain washed the demonic blood from his armor.

 

He didn't speak, but he allowed V.E.G.A. to deliver the message.

 

"We are the sword that hunts the shadows," V.E.G.A. stated, the translation perfect, carrying the weight of the Slayer's intent. "We combat the eternal dark. Chizome Akaguro is a criminal, a murderer, and a fool who dabbled in powers he could not comprehend. But he is human. He belongs to the justice of your world."

 

Izuku reached to his hip and drew the Combat Shotgun. He pumped it once, the sound echoing loudly in the alleyway.

 

"We do not kill humans," V.E.G.A. finished. "We kill demons."

 

Suddenly, the sound of roaring flames cut through the rain. The temperature in the alleyway spiked.

 

Izuku turned his head. At the entrance to the alley stood the massive, burning figure of Endeavor, the Number Two Hero, alongside a heavily breathing Todoroki Shoto.

 

Endeavor’s eyes widened as he took in the scene. He saw Native bleeding against the wall. He saw Iida injured on the ground. He saw the Hero Killer tied up and unconscious.

 

And standing over them all was the target the HPSC had placed at the top of their most-wanted list. The Green Knight.

 

"You!" Endeavor bellowed, his flames flaring wildly with righteous fury. "The vigilante! Stand down immediately and surrender your weapons, or I will incinerate you where you stand!"

 

Endeavor raised a massive fist, a sphere of superheated, blue-white fire charging in his palm.

 

Todoroki gasped, looking at the armored figure. "Dad, wait! He saved them!"

 

Endeavor ignored his son. "I said stand down!"

 

Izuku Midoriya looked at Endeavor. He looked at the man who had abused Todoroki, the man who cared more about his rank than his family. Another false idol, in a way. But still just a human.

 

Izuku did not raise his weapon. He simply holstered the shotgun on his back.

 

He raised his left arm. The Praetor suit’s interface linked with the Fortress of Doom.

 

"Slipgate opening," V.E.G.A. confirmed.

 

A swirling vortex of blue energy tore open the air directly behind Izuku.

 

"Don't you dare ignore me!" Endeavor roared, unleashing a massive torrent of fire—a Flashfire Fist—directly at the armored giant.

 

Izuku stepped backward into the portal. The blue vortex collapsed instantly, vanishing a microsecond before Endeavor’s flames washed over the space, scorching the brick wall into black glass.

 

The alleyway was empty, save for the heroes and the tied-up villain.

 

Endeavor cursed violently, his flames dying down as he stomped into the alley. He looked down at Stain, then at Iida.

 

"Are you alright, boy?" Endeavor grunted, his frustration palpable.

 

Iida nodded weakly, his eyes still locked on the spot where the green portal had been. He looked at Shoto, who had run to his side.

 

"Midoriya... was right," Shoto muttered softly, almost to himself, looking at the destruction caused by the brief, terrifying battle. "The world is bigger than just heroes and villains."

 

Iida clenched his fists in the wet pavement. He had come here seeking vengeance. He had almost lost his life, and his soul, to his own darkness. But the Green Knight—a man who looked like a demon of war—had shown him the difference between a petty murderer and a true guardian.

 

A true guardian didn't fight out of hatred for the enemy. He fought out of an absolute, unyielding duty to protect the weak.

 

 

 

[FORTRESS OF DOOM - COMMAND DECK]

 

Izuku stepped out of the teleporter pad, the quiet hum of the ancient Sentinel ship welcoming him back. The adrenaline of the fight slowly drained from his system, leaving the cold, burning resolve that fueled him.

 

He walked to the central console and removed his helmet. He ran a hand through his messy, sweat-drenched green hair. He was tired, but the Divinity Machine in his blood ensured he would never need sleep again.

 

"You exhibited remarkable restraint, Slayer," V.E.G.A. commented, the holographic globe illuminating the dark room. "Sparing the corrupted human has caused a statistical shift in the planet's sociopolitical trajectory. By leaving him for the authorities, you have reinforced the structural integrity of their legal system, whilst simultaneously discrediting the Hero Killer's ideology."

 

Izuku leaned heavily against the console. "He was a pawn. The Priests used his anger to test my capabilities. They gave him Marauder tech."

 

"Affirmative," V.E.G.A. brought up the tactical telemetry from the fight. "The localized Argent shielding and the Crucible blade indicate that the Hell Priests are actively equipping their human sympathizers with advanced Sentinel weaponry. The threat escalation is proceeding faster than anticipated."

 

Izuku stared at the map of Japan. The red warning beacons—the Gore Nests—were beginning to multiply. The disease was spreading.

 

"Where is the source, V.E.G.A.?" Izuku asked, his voice low and dangerous. "Where is the Priest?"

 

"Tracking the residual energy from Chizome Akaguro’s corruption has yielded a definitive vector," V.E.G.A. replied. The map zoomed in rapidly, bypassing Musutafu, bypassing Hosu, and centering on a massive, fortified compound in the heart of Yokohama.

 

"The signal originates from the Kamino Ward. However, it is not a standard Gore Nest. The dimensional instability in that region is catastrophic. A Hell Priest is physically present, and he has allied with a local biological anomaly of unprecedented power."

 

Izuku’s eyes narrowed. "Who?"

 

"The local database refers to him only as 'All For One'. He is using his Quirk to siphon Argent energy directly from the Priest, merging demonic magic with stolen human mutations. They are preparing to tear the sky open, Slayer. They are preparing for Hell on Earth."

 

Izuku picked up his helmet. He looked at the reflection of his own eyes in the dark visor. The boy who had cried on a rooftop was a distant memory. He was the Doom Slayer now.

 

"Prepare the BFG-9000," Izuku commanded, his voice devoid of fear, echoing with the promise of utter devastation. "We're going to Kamino."

 

"Acknowledged. Weapon systems unlocked. May the Maykrs have mercy on them."