what if Deku defeat dr doom

The air in the Musutafu commercial district tasted heavily of pulverized concrete, ozone, and the distinct, metallic tang of blood.

 

Sirens wailed in the distance, a mournful, overlapping choir of police cruisers, fire engines, and ambulances rushing toward the devastation. Buildings that had stood proudly that morning now leaned at perilous angles, their glass facades shattered into millions of jagged diamonds that littered the asphalt.

 

Izuku Midoriya—known to the world as the Pro Hero Deku—exhaled a sharp breath. The air leaving his lungs immediately turned to white mist in the unseasonably cold autumn air. Emerald lightning arched violently across his body, crackling with the raw, untamed power of One For All. He kept his output at a steady forty-five percent, his muscles burning with the familiar, dull ache of contained kinetic energy.

 

Danger Sense was humming in the back of his skull. It wasn’t a sharp stab, but a continuous, vibrating pressure, warning him that the threat was still active.

 

"Deku! On your left!"

 

The explosive shout belonged to Katsuki Bakugo. Dynamight blasted through the smoke cloud, using a concentrated burst of nitroglycerin sweat from his palms to propel himself forward. Bakugo’s face was smeared with soot, his domino mask singed at the edges, but his crimson eyes were alight with fierce, unyielding determination.

 

"I see it, Kacchan!" Izuku yelled back.

 

From the center of the debris cloud, a massive slab of a reinforced concrete pillar was hurled toward them at breakneck speed.

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He planted his iron-soled boots into the cracked pavement, feeling the earth give way beneath his immense strength. "Smokescreen!" he muttered. A thick plume of violet smoke erupted from his pores, obscuring the heroes from their enemy's line of sight. Instantly, six tendrils of pure, dark energy—Blackwhip—shot out from his forearms. The tendrils lashed around the incoming concrete pillar, acting as shock absorbers. Izuku grunted, his boots sliding back three inches as he caught the massive projectile, spinning on his heel to redirect its momentum and hurl it harmlessly into an empty parking lot.

 

Their opponent was a remnant of the Paranormal Liberation Front, a fanatic who called himself 'Fracture'. His Quirk allowed him to manipulate the spatial density of inanimate objects, making air as hard as steel or concrete as light as a feather. Fracture was currently levitating amidst a storm of floating debris, laughing maniacally as his Quirk pushed the limits of the district's structural integrity.

 

"You heroes!" Fracture screamed, his voice echoing off the ruined buildings. "You cling to this false society! I'll tear it all down! I'll crush you under the weight of your own precious city!"

 

"Shut up already, you extra!" Bakugo roared. "AP Shot: Auto-Cannon!"

 

Bakugo formed a cylinder with his hands, unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of concentrated explosions. The blasts illuminated the dusty air, striking the floating debris and reducing it to gravel.

 

From the right flank, a massive glacier of ice shot upward, attempting to encase the villain. Shoto Todoroki stood atop a ruined overpass, his right side emitting a freezing fog. "Midoriya, Bakugo, we need to wrap this up," Todoroki said calmly over their earpieces. "Uraraka and Iida are finishing the evacuation, but the structural damage to the subway lines below us is critical. If he keeps this up, the entire block will collapse into the tunnels."

 

Izuku’s mind raced, his analytical habits kicking into overdrive. Fracture’s Quirk requires him to make physical contact with the air molecules to alter their density. He’s creating platforms of hardened air to float. If we can strip away his footing and disorient him, he won't be able to brace himself to use his Quirk offensively.

 

"Kacchan! Todoroki-kun!" Izuku called out, his voice sharp and authoritative. "We do a pincer maneuver! Todoroki, hit him with a flash-freeze to the air around him—make the moisture heavy. Kacchan, blind him from above. I’ll come in from below and secure him!"

 

"Don't tell me what to do, nerd! I was already gonna blast his face off!" Bakugo shouted, though he immediately angled his explosions to rocket skyward.

 

Todoroki nodded simply. "Understood."

 

Izuku crouched low. The familiar warmth of One For All pooled in his legs. He wasn't just a vessel anymore; he was a master of the power passed down through generations. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, feeling the presence of the past users—the Vestiges—watching over him.

 

He bent his knees. One For All: Full Cowling - 45%...

 

Suddenly, a massive, unnatural spike of static erupted in Izuku’s head.

 

It wasn't Danger Sense. The Fourth User's Quirk felt like a prickle of static electricity warning of malicious intent. This was different. This felt like a hook sinking directly into his soul. Izuku gasped, stumbling forward as his vision doubled.

 

Inside the vestige realm, the shadowy landscape of his mind, the air turned a sickly, luminescent green. The First User, Yoichi Shigaraki, stood up abruptly, his ethereal eyes wide with unprecedented alarm.

 

(Izuku!) Yoichi’s voice echoed in Izuku’s mind, sounding faint, as if transmitted through a drowning radio. (Something is pulling!)

 

"Midoriya?" Todoroki’s voice came through the comms, laced with rare panic. "Midoriya, what is that?!"

 

Izuku snapped his eyes open. He looked up, expecting to see Fracture preparing another attack. Instead, he saw something that defied all logic, physics, and reason.

 

High above the Musutafu skyline, the sky was tearing open.

 

It wasn't a portal like Kurogiri’s Warp Gate, which folded space smoothly like a dark mist. This was a violent, jagged laceration in the fabric of reality itself. The edges of the tear burned with an intense, emerald-green light, completely different from Izuku’s own Quirk. Behind the tear, a swirling vortex of cosmic colors—deep purples, abyssal blacks, and flashing neon circuitry—spun in a hypnotic, terrifying mandala.

 

The air pressure plummeted instantly. The sound in the area vanished, replaced by a deafening, low-frequency hum that rattled the fillings in Izuku’s teeth.

 

Fracture halted his attack, staring up at the sky in sheer terror. "What... what the hell is that?! Is that one of yours?!"

 

"Deku! Get out of the way!" Bakugo screamed, abandoning his aerial assault and diving toward his childhood friend.

 

The rift pulsed. A beam of concentrated, arcane energy mixed with geometric, technological rings shot down from the vortex, illuminating the ruined street in a ghostly green spotlight.

 

It locked directly onto Izuku.

 

 

 

Half a multiverse away, in a universe built on the backs of gods, mutants, and armored billionaires, a storm raged over the sovereign nation of Latveria.

 

Thunder cracked like a titan’s whip, illuminating the jagged peaks of the Balkan Mountains. At the highest point of the capital city, Doomstadt, stood Castle Doom. It was a fortress that married medieval Gothic architecture with technology centuries ahead of the rest of the world. Gargoyles carved from dark stone hid plasma-turrets, and ancient stone battlements were shielded by quantum-harmonic force fields.

 

Deep within the subterranean levels of the castle, in a laboratory that could make the brightest minds of Wakanda or Stark Industries weep with envy, stood the absolute monarch of the nation.

 

Victor Von Doom.

 

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his posture rigid and commanding. He wore a tunic of the finest dark green Latverian wool, draped over armor forged of a titanium-vibranium alloy. A heavy, emerald cape cascaded from his shoulders, pooling slightly on the polished obsidian floor. But his most defining feature was the mask. Cold, unfeeling, and molded into a permanent, intimidating scowl, the iron mask hid a face scarred by past hubris, leaving only his eyes visible. Those eyes were currently fixed on a massive, towering construct in the center of the laboratory.

 

The Multiversal Siphon.

 

It was a terrifying amalgamation of arcane sorcery and quantum mechanics. Massive rings of superconducting metal spun around a central core, while glowing runes inscribed in the language of the Vishanti floated in the air, binding the physical machine to the astral plane.

 

"Report," Doom’s voice boomed. It was a rich, baritone sound, filtered through the voice-synthesizer of his mask, giving it a metallic, resonant authority.

 

A team of Latverian scientists, clad in immaculate white coats adorned with the crest of Doom, frantically typed at holographic consoles. At the forefront was a Doombot—a mechanical replica of Doom himself, designed for servitude and combat.

 

"Lord Doom," the Doombot spoke, its voice a perfect, albeit slightly hollow, imitation of its creator. "The arcane-quantum tethers have breached the dimensional barrier. We are successfully scanning the localized sectors of the designated reality."

 

Doom narrowed his eyes, stepping closer to the massive viewport that shielded the control room from the Siphon. "And the energy source?"

 

"Scanning, sire. The target reality is devoid of the X-Gene, and lacks ambient mystical energy comparable to our dimension. However, their population possesses widespread biological mutations they refer to as 'Quirks'."

 

"Irrelevant," Doom dismissed with a wave of his armored gauntlet. "Doom has no interest in the parlour tricks of lesser dimensions. I seek the anomaly. The singularity Richards claimed was purely theoretical. The convergence point of raw, unadulterated kinetic and willpower energy. The fools at the Baxter Building lack the vision to harness the multiverse. Doom does not."

 

Doom had been working on this project for months. The goal was simple, as all of Doom’s goals were: supreme power to ensure supreme order. By siphoning a localized "power singularity" from a parallel universe, he could create an infinite power loop for Latveria’s defense grid, and subsequently, a subjugation network that would bring the entire Earth under his benevolent, iron-fisted rule. To Doom, the world was a chaotic, weeping child. Only under the absolute control of Victor Von Doom could humanity survive itself.

 

"My Lord!" one of the human scientists cried out, his hands flying across a hard-light keyboard. "The arcane sensors are picking up a massive spike! It’s... it’s unprecedented. It isn't ambient energy. It’s localized within a single, biological host in the target dimension!"

 

Doom’s eyes widened slightly beneath his mask. "A living singularity? Fascinating. The energy density?"

 

"It’s compounding, Lord Doom. It appears to be a biological stockpile of power, layered over multiple generations. The sheer mass of the kinetic energy is distorting their local space-time. Sir, the energy signature is so dense, the Siphon cannot extract the energy without extracting the vessel."

 

Doom crossed his arms, his metal gauntlets clinking softly. "Then bring me the vessel. If this creature houses the power of a god, Doom shall dissect it and take that power for himself."

 

"But Lord Doom!" the lead scientist protested, sweating profusely. "The tether is unstable! Pulling physical matter across the dimensional threshold requires exponential power! The Siphon’s containment field might—"

 

Doom turned his head slowly. The glare from his exposed eyes was enough to make the scientist choke on his own words and take three steps back.

 

"Do you presume to lecture Doom on the limits of his own creation?" Doom asked, his voice deathly quiet.

 

"N-no, my Lord! Forgive me!"

 

Doom turned back to the Siphon. "Maximize the output. Channel the geothermal reserves from the lower mantle. And initialize the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak protocol to stabilize the rift. Pull the vessel through."

 

"At once, Lord Doom!"

 

The laboratory shook as immense power surged into the Siphon. The metallic rings spun so fast they blurred into a solid sphere. The runes of the Vishanti flared with blinding, ruby-red light, intermingling with the cold blue of quantum displacement.

 

A tear in reality began to open in the center of the machine.

 

Doom watched, a rare smirk forming beneath his iron mask. Soon, the power of an entire universe’s singularity would be his. And the world would finally kneel.

 

 

 

Back in Musutafu, the world was coming apart.

 

The emerald and purple light from the rift washed over the ruined street, casting eerie, elongated shadows. The gravitational pull of the vortex was immense, but localized. Loose concrete, shattered glass, and abandoned cars were suddenly yanked upward, sucked into the swirling abyss of the tear.

 

Izuku stood at the epicenter of the beam. The light felt heavy, like standing at the bottom of the ocean. It was attempting to pull him upward, but more than that, it felt like it was trying to pull the Quirk right out of his bones.

 

"MIDORIYA!" Todoroki yelled, summoning a massive pillar of ice to anchor himself as the winds began to howl with hurricane force.

 

Izuku gritted his teeth, activating Blackwhip. Six dark tendrils shot down, burying themselves deep into the bedrock of the street, tethering him to the earth. "I'm... I'm okay!" Izuku strained, sweat pouring down his face. One For All: 60%! He boosted his power, trying to fight the gravitational anomaly.

 

Danger Sense flared so violently that Izuku’s vision temporarily whited out.

 

(He’s pulling you, Ninth!) The voice of Daigoro Banjo, the Fifth User, roared in his mind. (Anchor yourself! It's trying to rip us out!)

 

"It's not... taking... me!" Izuku yelled, his boots scraping against the concrete as he was slowly, agonizingly dragged upward, his Blackwhip tendrils straining and snapping the pavement.

 

Suddenly, a terrifying scream pierced the roar of the vortex.

 

Izuku snapped his head to the side. Near a partially collapsed storefront, a civilian who had been trapped beneath the rubble was exposed. It was a young woman, clutching a little girl no older than Eri to her chest. The mother was holding onto a bent rebar with one hand, her feet lifting off the ground as the rift’s gravity caught them.

 

"Help!" the mother shrieked, her grip slipping.

 

Izuku’s heart stopped. The analytical part of his brain shut down. The part of him that calculated percentages, assessed risks, and weighed odds vanished. In its place, the pure, unadulterated instinct of a true hero took over.

 

His body moved before he could even think.

 

Izuku released his Blackwhip anchors.

 

"DEKU, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Bakugo roared, desperately trying to fly toward him, but the opposing winds of the rift were too strong, pushing the explosive hero back.

 

Freed from his tethers, Izuku shot upward, sucked into the sky by the alien beam. But he wasn't flailing. He oriented himself in mid-air. Fa Jin! He released the kinetic energy he had built up in his legs, changing his trajectory mid-flight. He shot horizontally across the gravitational pull like a green meteor.

 

The mother’s grip on the rebar failed. She and her daughter were ripped into the sky, screaming as they tumbled toward the glowing green maw.

 

Izuku intercepted them. He slammed into them mid-air, wrapping his arms securely around the mother and child.

 

"Got you!" Izuku yelled over the deafening roar of the dimensional tear.

 

He looked down. Bakugo was below, looking up with an expression of absolute horror—an expression Izuku hadn't seen on his childhood friend's face since the sludge villain incident years ago.

 

"KACCHAN!" Izuku screamed.

 

He didn't have time to explain. He summoned every ounce of power he had left. He activated Float to momentarily stabilize them, and then used Blackwhip. He wrapped a thick, padded tendril around the mother and child. With a massive swing of his arm, bolstered by Gearshift to ignore the laws of inertia, Izuku hurled the civilians downward, straight out of the beam's influence.

 

Bakugo blasted forward, catching the mother and child roughly but safely, tumbling onto a patch of stable ice created by Todoroki.

 

Bakugo looked up, his eyes wide. "Deku...!"

 

Izuku smiled down at them. It wasn't his brightest smile, but it was the smile of a hero who had done his job. "Tell All Might..." Izuku started to shout, but the words were stolen by the vacuum.

 

Having used his momentum to throw the civilians to safety, Izuku had nothing left to anchor himself. He had surrendered to the pull.

 

The green light intensified, blindingly bright. The vortex widened, resembling a monstrous, mechanical eye.

 

Izuku Midoriya crossed the threshold.

 

The sensation was indescribable. It was as if his body was being disassembled at the molecular level and reassembled simultaneously. He fell through a kaleidoscope of infinite colors and impossible geometries. He saw flashes of realities he couldn't comprehend—a world ruled by apes, a world where the sky was made of fire, a universe of pure, mathematical equations.

 

Through it all, the burning green tether dragged him relentlessly forward. The voices of the Vestiges were screaming in his mind, but their voices were distorted, stretched into infinity by the dilation of time and space.

 

He felt cold. Then blistering heat. Then nothing at all.

 

And then, with the concussive force of a bomb going off, Izuku was violently expelled from the vortex.

 

He crashed hard onto a solid surface, his momentum carrying him forward as he tumbled uncontrollably. His armored boots scraped against the ground, his costume tearing slightly at the shoulder. He rolled a dozen times before slamming into something hard and metallic, the impact knocking the wind out of his lungs in a sharp gasp.

 

Izuku lay on his back, his chest heaving, his vision swimming with dark spots. The oppressive hum of the rift was gone, replaced by the howling of a bitter, freezing wind.

 

He groaned, his entire body aching as if he had been run over by a bullet train. Slowly, he forced his eyes open.

 

The sky above him wasn't the smog-filtered blue of urban Japan. It was a bleak, slate-gray, heavy with snow clouds. Plump, freezing flakes of snow drifted down, landing on his heated skin and hissing as they melted.

 

"Where..." Izuku rasped, his throat feeling like sandpaper.

 

He forced himself to sit up, shivering as the freezing air cut through the torn sections of his hero costume. He tapped his earpiece. "Kacchan? Todoroki-kun? Can anyone hear me? Uravity? Eraserhead?"

 

Static. Pure, unbroken static. It wasn't just interference; it was the sound of a total absence of signal.

 

Izuku pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in his ribs. He looked at his surroundings, and his breath hitched.

 

He was standing in the middle of a sprawling courtyard. But it wasn't any place he recognized. The ground was paved with ancient, dark cobblestones, currently dusted with a thin layer of snow. Surrounding the courtyard were buildings that looked like they belonged in a history textbook about medieval Europe—gothic spires, heavily timbered houses, and iron street lamps that flickered with an unnatural, greenish-blue energy.

 

But looming over the entire village, perched upon a jagged crag of rock, was a castle. It was a monstrous, imposing structure of black stone, bristling with high-tech antennas, satellite dishes, and what looked terrifyingly like artillery cannons.

 

"Where am I?" Izuku whispered to himself. "This... this isn't Japan. Was it a warping Quirk? No, the scale was too massive."

 

Suddenly, Danger Sense flared.

 

It wasn't a massive spike like before, but a sharp, rhythmic pulsing.

 

Clank. Clank. Clank.

 

Izuku spun around, dropping into a defensive stance, his fists raised. One For All: 20%. Green lightning flickered to life around his body, casting an eerie glow on the snow.

 

Emerging from the snowy fog of the main street was a squad of figures. As they stepped into the dim light of the street lamps, Izuku’s eyes widened in disbelief.

 

They were robots. But they were unlike any UA training bots he had ever faced. These were humanoid, standing nearly seven feet tall. They were clad in dark, olive-green metal cloaks that mimicked fabric, with heavy silver armor plating underneath. But the most terrifying aspect was their faces—metal masks, locked in permanent, furious scowls, with glowing red optical sensors that pierced the gloom.

 

There were six of them, marching in perfect, terrifying unison.

 

"Halt," the lead robot commanded. Its voice was mechanical, but possessed an aristocratic, arrogant cadence. It raised its right arm. The gauntlet shifted, panels sliding back to reveal a glowing, huming energy cannon leveled directly at Izuku’s chest.

 

"Unidentified intruder," the machine stated coldly. "You are trespassing in the sovereign domain of Doomstadt. By the decree of the God-King, Doctor Doom, you are under arrest. Surrender, or be eradicated."

 

Izuku swallowed hard. The air was freezing, the sky was alien, and he was completely alone. He didn't know who 'Doctor Doom' was, but looking at the heavily armed, tyrannical machines in front of him, Izuku knew one thing for certain.

 

Wherever he was, there were no Pro Heroes here.

 

Izuku’s eyes hardened. He lowered his center of gravity, the green lightning intensifying as he prepared for a fight he didn't understand, in a world he didn't know.

 

"I am a Hero," Izuku declared, his voice steady despite the trembling of his frozen breath. "And I don't surrender to villains."

 

The glowing red eyes of the Doombots flared brightly.

 

"Lethal force authorized," the machines said in unison.

 

And in the snowy streets of Latveria, the battle for the multiverse began.

 

 

The six mechanical sentinels raised their energy cannons. The weapons hummed, the air around the muzzles distorting with building heat. Danger Sense spiked in the back of Izuku’s skull—a sharp, stinging needle of warning. These weren't rubber bullets or capture tape. This was lethal plasma.

 

"Lethal force authorized," the machines droned in their eerie, synchronized baritone.

 

Izuku’s mind, trained by years of brutal combat and relentless hero analysis, raced through his options in a fraction of a second. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know local laws. If I engage and destroy them, I could be branded a villain. But if I stay, they’ll kill me. Evasion is the only option.

 

"Execute," the lead Doombot commanded.

 

Six crimson beams of concentrated energy lanced through the snowy air, melting the falling snowflakes into steam instantly.

 

"Smokescreen!" Izuku shouted.

 

A massive, billowing cloud of dense violet smoke erupted from his body, expanding outward with the force of a detonated grenade. The plasma beams pierced the smoke, superheating the air and singeing the edges of Izuku’s costume, but missing his vital organs.

 

"Blackwhip!"

 

From the cover of the blinding purple fog, three tendrils of crackling black energy shot vertically. They wrapped securely around the stone gargoyle of a nearby three-story gothic building. Izuku didn't even wait to check his footing; he retracted the whips with violent force, yanking himself out of the kill zone just as the Doombots adjusted their aim and swept their beams across the cobblestones, turning the street to molten slag.

 

Izuku landed silently on the slate-shingled roof, dropping into a low crouch. His iron-soled boots gripped the frost-covered tiles. He held his breath, creeping toward the edge to peer down into the courtyard.

 

Below, the Doombots stood in the dissipating purple smoke. Their crimson ocular sensors scanned left and right, cutting through the fog like lighthouse beams.

 

"Target lost," one of them reported, its voice carrying clearly up to the roof in the silent, freezing night. "Thermal imaging hindered by unknown chemical smoke. Switching to motion tracking."

 

Izuku slowly backed away from the ledge. He didn't know what kind of sensors they had, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He activated One For All at a mere five percent—just enough to enhance his physical agility without emitting the bright, noticeable green lightning of Full Cowling. Moving with the silent grace of a ghost, he bounded from rooftop to rooftop, leaping over narrow alleyways and sliding under snow-draped chimneys.

 

He didn't stop running for what felt like an hour. His lungs burned, inhaling the razor-sharp, freezing air. His costume, designed for the temperate climate of Japan and heavily damaged by the dimensional vortex, offered almost no protection against the biting Latverian winter. He was shivering violently by the time he finally collapsed behind the bell tower of an old, stone church on the outskirts of the village.

 

Izuku hugged his knees to his chest, trying to conserve body heat. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, leaving behind a profound, terrifying emptiness.

 

"Okay," he whispered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "Okay, Izuku. Think. Analyze."

 

He tapped his earpiece again. "Kacchan? Mr. Aizawa? Uravity? Can anyone hear me?"

 

Nothing. The static had actually vanished; the earpiece was completely dead, the delicate micro-circuitry fried by the electromagnetic anomalies of the rift.

 

He closed his eyes and looked inward, diving into the mental landscape of the Vestige Realm.

 

The realm was darker than usual. The colorful, ethereal chairs of the past users were bathed in a dim, sickly light. Yoichi, the First User, was sitting on the floor, looking exhausted. Daigoro Banjo, the Fifth User, was leaning heavily against a wall.

 

"You guys..." Izuku mentally called out. "Are you okay? What happened?"

 

Yoichi looked up, his pale face drawn tight with worry. (We are intact, Ninth. But... the connection is strained. Whatever that machine was, it didn't just pull you through space. It pulled you through the fabric of reality itself. It tried to tear One For All out of your soul.)

 

(It felt like trying to hold onto a mountain during an earthquake, kid,) Banjo groaned, rubbing his head. (I've never felt power like that. Not even from All For One. This was... cosmic. Mechanical. Cold.)

 

"Where are we?" Izuku asked. "Did we get teleported to another country? Maybe Russia or somewhere in Eastern Europe? The architecture looks European, and it's freezing."

 

Yoichi shook his head slowly. (I do not think so, Izuku. The ambient energy of this world... it is wrong. In our world, the Quirk Singularity permeates everything. Even quirkless people have a distinct genetic resonance. Here? The air is completely devoid of it. But I sense other things. Strange, ancient energies. And... metal. So much metal.)

 

Izuku opened his eyes, the gravity of Yoichi's words settling over him like a lead weight.

 

Another world.

 

He wasn't just lost. He was stranded in a completely different universe.

 

Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to claw its way up his throat. What about Shigaraki? What about All For One? His friends were still fighting a war back home! They needed him! He was the only one who could stop the decay of their society.

 

No, Izuku told himself, slapping his frozen cheeks with both hands to snap himself out of the spiral. Panic won't help. I need a plan. I need to gather information. I need to find out who built that machine, and I need to use it to get back.

 

He peeked around the edge of the bell tower, looking out over the sleeping city.

 

It was a place of extreme contradictions. The village itself looked impoverished. The houses were made of stone and wood, huddled close together for warmth. Plumes of gray smoke rose from modest chimneys. It looked like a setting from a grim fairy tale.

 

But looming over the village was the antithesis of a fairy tale. Castle Doom.

 

It was a monolithic fortress of jagged black rock and gleaming chrome. Even in the dead of night, it buzzed with activity. Spotlights crisscrossed the sky, and Izuku could see the faint, blue glow of energy shields shimmering around its highest spires. The Doombots—the same machines that had tried to kill him—patrolled the castle walls in endless, synchronized loops.

 

"Doctor Doom..." Izuku muttered, recalling the name the machines had used. "The God-King."

 

In all his years of hero analysis, studying the geopolitical landscapes of the world, Izuku had never heard of a country ruled by a 'God-King' named Doom. If this dictator had the technology to pierce dimensions, he was dangerous on a level Izuku could barely comprehend.

 

As the hours passed, the inky black sky gradually lightened to a bruised, dismal gray. Morning had arrived in Latveria, though the sun remained hidden behind a thick canopy of snow clouds.

 

Izuku watched from his high vantage point as the city slowly woke up.

 

There were no cheerful morning broadcasts. There was no bustling commuter traffic. Instead, a loud, oppressive klaxon echoed across the valley, a single, sustained blare that lasted for ten seconds.

 

The citizens emerged from their homes. They wore heavy, drab clothing—grays, browns, and muted greens. They kept their heads down, their shoulders hunched against both the cold and an invisible weight. They moved in silence, forming orderly lines to board dilapidated buses or marching toward factories on the outskirts of the town.

 

Izuku felt a knot twist in his stomach. He had seen the terror in the eyes of citizens during villain attacks in Japan. But this was different. This wasn't the sudden panic of a crisis. This was a deep, systemic, normalized fear. The people of this city were broken.

 

He climbed down from the bell tower, sticking to the shadows of the alleyways. He pulled the torn cowl of his hero costume over his head, though it did little to disguise his bright green hair or the vibrant colors of his suit. He needed a cloak, and he needed information.

 

He crept along the back of a row of shops, eventually hiding behind a stack of wooden crates near a bustling town square. A group of citizens were huddled around a central fountain, waiting to draw water.

 

Izuku strained his ears, his senses heightened by One For All.

 

"Did you hear the alarms last night?" a middle-aged woman whispered, her eyes darting nervously toward a pair of Doombots patrolling the far side of the square.

 

"Hush, Maria," an older man hissed, clutching his bucket tight. "The iron ears are everywhere. You know better."

 

"I'm just saying," she continued, her voice barely a breath. "There was a breach in Sector 4. They say one of the Sentry units was destroyed. Maybe the resistance..."

 

"The resistance are fools," the old man spat softly. "They will bring His wrath down upon us all. Lord Doom provides us with food, with shelter, with protection from the chaos of the outside world. To defy him is death."

 

"But at what cost, Grigori? We are prisoners in our own homes!"

 

"Better a living prisoner than a dead rebel. Keep your head down."

 

Izuku tightened his fists. Protection from the outside world? A living prisoner? It sounded exactly like the ideologies of the villains back home who sought to control society through fear. There were no Heroes here. No All Might to smile and tell these people everything would be alright. There was only a tyrant in an iron mask.

 

Suddenly, the grim quiet of the square was shattered.

 

"Halt. By order of Victor Von Doom, you are found guilty of sedition."

 

Izuku peered around the crates. A teenager, no older than fifteen, had been thrown violently onto the snowy cobblestones by a massive Doombot. The boy’s lip was bleeding, and his hands were frantically trying to gather a handful of scattered, hand-drawn pamphlets that had fallen from his satchel.

 

"No! Please!" the boy cried, scrambling backward. "It's just art! It's just drawings!"

 

A second Doombot picked up one of the pamphlets. Its optical sensors scanned the paper. "Analysis: Propaganda depicting the usurper Reed Richards. Crime: High Treason against the Crown of Latveria."

 

The crowd in the square gasped, but not a single person stepped forward. Mothers covered their children's eyes and turned away. Men stared at the ground. They were terrified.

 

"Penalty," the first Doombot intoned, raising its arm. The gauntlet hummed, a crimson light glowing brightly in the center of its palm, aimed directly at the weeping boy's head. "Immediate termination."

 

Izuku’s breath caught in his throat.

 

No trial. No arrest. Just an execution in the middle of the street.

 

Danger Sense wasn't warning him of a threat to himself. But his soul, the very essence of One For All, was screaming.

 

Izuku remembered All Might's words. Meddling when you don't need to... is the essence of being a Hero!

 

The Doombot’s weapon whined, reaching critical charge.

 

"STOP!" Izuku roared.

 

The crowd gasped. The Doombots snapped their heads toward the alleyway just as a streak of emerald lightning exploded from the shadows.

 

One For All: Full Cowling - 30%!

 

Izuku crossed the distance of the square in a microsecond. The snow beneath his boots vaporized into steam from the sheer kinetic friction. He didn't use a punch; he needed to keep his hands free to protect the boy.

 

He launched himself into the air, spinning rapidly to generate immense centrifugal force.

 

"Shoot Style: St. Louis SMASH!"

 

Izuku’s iron-soled boot collided with the side of the executioner Doombot's head.

 

The impact was deafening, like a canon firing in an enclosed room. The titanium-alloy neck of the machine snapped instantly. Sparks, oil, and severed fiber-optic cables erupted from the joint as the Doombot’s head was completely sheared off its shoulders. The massive, heavy body of the robot was launched sideways by the force of the kick, crashing through a stone wall and collapsing into a heap of sparking wreckage.

 

Izuku landed perfectly in a three-point crouch between the terrified teenager and the second Doombot. He stood up slowly, the green lightning of One For All crackling fiercely around his body, his eyes glowing with an intense, unyielding fury.

 

The town square descended into absolute, paralyzed silence.

 

The citizens stared in disbelief. Someone had just destroyed one of Doom's invincible sentries with a single blow. And it was a boy. A boy in a strange, colorful green suit with rabbit-like ears hanging from his torn cowl.

 

The second Doombot assessed the situation with cold, mechanical efficiency.

 

"Unidentified metahuman anomaly detected. Matching profile of the Sector 4 intruder." The robot raised its own gauntlet, aiming at Izuku. "Threat Level: Maximum. Protocol: Eradication."

 

"Run," Izuku said, glancing over his shoulder at the teenager. "Get out of here! Now!"

 

The boy didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted into the crowd, which was finally breaking into a panicked stampede, fleeing the inevitable crossfire.

 

The Doombot fired a continuous, sweeping beam of plasma.

 

Izuku didn't dodge; he couldn't risk the beam hitting the fleeing civilians behind him. "Blackwhip!" He summoned a thick, dense weave of black tendrils, forming a makeshift shield in front of him. The plasma beam struck the energy shield, hissing violently. The heat was immense, singing the hair on Izuku’s arms, but the pure emotional energy of Blackwhip held fast.

 

Izuku pushed forward, sprinting directly into the beam behind his shield.

 

When he was within two meters, he dropped the shield, ducked under the robot's arm, and delivered a devastating uppercut. "Manchester Smash!"

 

His fist slammed into the robot's chest plate. The vibranium-laced titanium buckled inward with a sickening crunch. The force of the blow lifted the seven-foot machine off the ground and shattered its internal power core. It fell to the cobblestones, completely inert.

 

Izuku exhaled a cloud of white breath, the lightning fading from his skin.

 

He had done it. He had saved the boy.

 

But his victory was short-lived.

 

From the wreckage of the first Doombot, a high-pitched, piercing frequency began to emit from its severed head. It was a distress beacon, bouncing directly off the communication towers of Castle Doom.

 

A deep, rumbling sound began to shake the ground. It sounded like a swarm of angry hornets, amplifying by the second.

 

Izuku looked up. Over the jagged peaks of the castle, a swarm of black dots appeared against the gray sky. Dozens of them. Then, hundreds of them.

 

The skies over Latveria were suddenly filled with a legion of Doombots, their thrusters burning blue, their eyes glowing an angry red, all converging on the town square.

 

"Oh, no," Izuku whispered, stepping back.

 

Danger Sense didn't just spike; it exploded. It felt like someone had driven a nail into his forehead. The sheer amount of malicious, lethal intent bearing down on him was suffocating.

 

The first wave of twenty Doombots descended into the square, forming a perfect, terrifying perimeter around Izuku. They didn't speak. They didn't demand surrender. Their AI had already categorized him as a maximum-level threat to the regime of Victor Von Doom.

 

All twenty raised their hands.

 

Izuku gritted his teeth. One For All: 45%!

 

The square erupted into a blinding light show.

 

Izuku moved faster than the human eye could track. He became a green blur, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings, utilizing Shoot Style to launch devastating kicks. He shattered a third robot, then a fourth. He used Blackwhip to grab a falling chunk of masonry and hurl it like a cannonball, taking out two more in mid-air.

 

But for every Doombot he destroyed, three more landed to take its place.

 

"Target is highly evasive," one of the machines calculated. "Deploying localized harmonic forcefields."

 

Five Doombots slammed their fists into the ground. A dome of crackling, translucent blue energy erupted around the square, trapping Izuku inside.

 

Izuku landed in the center of the square, panting heavily. He bounded toward the shield and threw a 45% punch at it. "Smash!"

 

The barrier rippled, absorbing the kinetic impact completely, and then violently repelled him backward. Izuku skidded across the snow, clutching his bruised fist. Kinetic absorption? Like the Nomu? No, it's energy dispersal. Pure physical force won't break it unless I go 100%, and if I break my arm now, I'm dead.

 

"Execute."

 

The Doombots didn't fire individual blasts this time. They unleashed a continuous, intersecting grid of plasma beams, leaving zero room for evasion.

 

Izuku activated Float and Danger Sense, twisting his body in mid-air, slipping through the microscopic gaps in the deadly laser grid. It was a dance of pure survival, pushed to the absolute limits of human reaction time. But he was getting tired. The cold was slowing his muscles, and the dimensional trip had already drained his stamina.

 

A beam grazed his left shoulder, slicing through the fabric of his suit and searing his flesh. Izuku cried out, tumbling to the ground.

 

He barely had time to roll away before the cobblestones where he had fallen were reduced to glowing craters. He scrambled to his knees, surrounded by thirty armed machines.

 

He was cornered.

 

I can't beat this many without using 100%, Izuku thought desperately, wiping blood from his cheek. If I do, I'll be defenseless afterward. But if I don't...

 

He closed his eyes, preparing to call upon the devastating power of Fa Jin and Gearshift to tear the dome apart, regardless of the cost to his own body.

 

Suddenly, a metallic sphere the size of a baseball rolled through the legs of a Doombot and clattered to a halt right in front of Izuku.

 

It wasn't a bomb. It pulsed with a strange, pale blue light.

 

BWEEEEEEP.

 

An agonizingly high-pitched frequency erupted from the sphere, followed by a shockwave of rippling blue electromagnetic energy. The pulse washed over the entire square.

 

The effect was instantaneous.

 

The harmonic forcefield dome flickered and vanished. The Doombots, all thirty of them, suddenly seized up. Their glowing red eyes flickered erratically before dying out completely. With a synchronized chorus of heavy, metallic thuds, the machines collapsed to the ground, completely paralyzed by the localized EMP.

 

Izuku lowered his arms, staring at the mechanical graveyard in shock.

 

"In here! You green-haired fool, hurry!"

 

Izuku whipped around. A heavy iron grate covering the sewer system in the corner of the square had been pushed aside. A figure clad in a thick, grimy cloak was beckoning him frantically from the darkness of the hole.

 

Danger Sense remained entirely dormant. Whoever this person was, they meant him no harm.

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He dashed across the square, leaping feet-first into the open manhole just as the sky above began to buzz with the approach of a second, larger swarm of Doombots.

 

The cloaked figure slammed the heavy iron grate shut above them, plunging them into the dank, freezing darkness of the Latverian catacombs. The muffled sounds of plasma blasts raining down on the empty square echoed above them.

 

"Move," a gruff voice commanded.

 

A flashlight clicked on, cutting through the gloom. Izuku found himself surrounded by five people. They were heavily armed with makeshift weapons—rifles retrofitted with strange energy coils, stun batons, and EMP grenades. They wore tattered military surplus gear, their faces smeared with dirt and grease.

 

The one who had called him down pulled back his hood. He was a man in his late thirties, with a jagged scar running down his cheek and eyes that looked like they had seen a lifetime of war.

 

"I don't know who the hell you are, kid," the man said, shining the light on Izuku’s torn hero costume and the still-crackling green sparks of his Quirk. "But you've got more guts than brains, taking on a Sentinel patrol in broad daylight."

 

Izuku stood up straight, ignoring the stinging pain in his shoulder. He bowed deeply, a habit ingrained in him by years of Japanese politeness. "Thank you for saving me. I'm... I'm a Hero. My hero name is Deku. Are you... are you rebels?"

 

The group exchanged incredulous looks. One of the women in the back, holding a massive, custom-built sniper rifle, scoffed. "A hero? What are you, some kind of American mutant? One of the X-Men? Or an Avenger?"

 

Izuku blinked. "X-Men? Avenger? I don't know what those are. I'm from UA High School in Japan."

 

The scarred man narrowed his eyes, studying Izuku intently. "Japan? Kid, there hasn't been a mutant or a metahuman allowed inside the borders of Latveria in twenty years. And nobody wears spandex in Doomstadt unless they have a death wish."

 

He gestured down the long, winding tunnel of the catacombs. "Walk. The EMP will only fry their primary circuits for five minutes. Once their secondary systems reboot, they'll scan the thermal tracks. We need to get to the Safehouse."

 

Izuku fell into step behind the man, the other rebels flanking him. The catacombs were ancient, built of crumbling stone bricks and smelling of damp earth and rust. Above them, the distant, muffled thud of Doombot patrols searching the city was a constant, terrifying reminder of their predicament.

 

"You said you're a hero," the scarred man said over his shoulder as they navigated the labyrinth. "My name is Kael. We're the Latverian Liberation Front. Or what's left of it. We saw you shatter a Mark-IV Sentry with a single kick. That's not normal. Not even for an enhanced."

 

"It's my Quirk," Izuku explained gently, though he felt a growing sense of dread. The complete lack of recognition of standard hero terminology was solidifying Yoichi's theory. "It's called One For All. Where exactly am I, Kael-san?"

 

Kael stopped walking. He turned around, shining the flashlight squarely on Izuku’s face.

 

"You're in Latveria, kid," Kael said softly, his voice devoid of any hope. "You're in the center of a sovereign nation ruled by a tyrant with a mind that rivals gods and the magic of a demon."

 

Kael stepped closer. "You're in the domain of Doctor Victor Von Doom. And whatever rock you crawled out from under, you'd better pray you can crawl back. Because in Latveria, Heroes don't win. Heroes die."

 

Izuku stared back, his emerald eyes reflecting the harsh light of the flashlight. The cold of the catacombs was nothing compared to the chill that settled over his heart. He was trapped in a nightmare. A world completely subjugated by a single, terrifying villain.

 

But as Izuku looked at the exhausted, desperate faces of the rebels around him—people who had risked their lives to save a stranger—he felt the familiar, unyielding warmth of One For All flare within his chest.

 

"I don't know this Doctor Doom," Izuku said quietly, his voice echoing in the damp tunnels. "And I don't know how I got here. But where I come from, a Hero's job is to protect people who can't protect themselves. As long as I'm here... I won't let anyone else die."

 

Kael stared at the young boy, searching his face for any sign of arrogance or deception. He found neither. Only an absolute, terrifying conviction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The deeper Izuku descended into the catacombs beneath Doomstadt, the more the air felt like a physical weight pressing against his chest.

 

The tunnels were a labyrinth of forgotten history. Ancient Roman stonework gave way to medieval brick, which in turn was scarred by the routing of modern fiber-optic cables and thick, humming power conduits. It was a physical representation of Latveria itself—a country where antiquity and hyper-advanced technology were violently welded together.

 

Kael led the way, his flashlight cutting through the oppressive gloom, while the other four rebels formed a tight perimeter around Izuku. They moved with the silent, practiced efficiency of people who had spent their entire lives being hunted.

 

Izuku clutched his injured left shoulder. The plasma burn wasn't deep—the reinforced polymer of his hero costume had absorbed the worst of the thermal shock—but it stung fiercely, a throbbing reminder of his new reality. He focused on his breathing, a technique learned from Endeavor, keeping his heart rate steady to stave off the biting cold.

 

"We're close," Kael muttered, pausing at a junction where three tunnels intersected. He tapped a specific sequence on a seemingly blank patch of mossy stone.

 

A holographic keypad shimmered into existence. Kael pressed his thumb against a biometric scanner. The stone wall ground heavily, sliding back to reveal a heavy blast door made of solid steel. It hissed as it opened, releasing a wave of warm, stale air.

 

"Get inside. Quickly," the female sniper ordered, keeping her weapon trained down the dark tunnel they had just traversed.

 

Izuku stepped through the threshold, and the blast door sealed shut behind him with a resonant, final thud.

 

He found himself standing on a rusted catwalk overlooking a massive, subterranean cavern. It looked like an old, decommissioned subway station, but it had been transformed into a makeshift shantytown. Tents made of scavenged tarps and thermal blankets were clustered together. Dim, flickering halogen work lights hung from the cavern ceiling, casting long, mournful shadows.

 

There were perhaps two hundred people down here. As Izuku walked down the metal stairs behind Kael, dozens of eyes turned toward him.

 

They were the eyes of the desperate. Elderly men with hollow cheeks, women clutching sleeping infants, and children wrapped in layers of oversized, filthy clothing. They looked at Izuku’s bright green costume, his red boots, and his vibrant, unruly hair with a mixture of confusion and profound wariness. In a world devoid of color, Izuku was a walking target.

 

"Kael," an older woman wearing a grease-stained medic's apron hurried forward. "You're late. We heard the klaxons. The Doombots..."

 

"We ran into a patrol in the square, Elara," Kael said, his voice exhausted. He gestured to Izuku. "This kid... he took them out. All of them. Saved Toma from a summary execution."

 

Elara’s eyes widened behind her cracked spectacles. She looked at Izuku, taking in his youth and his bloodied, burned shoulder. "You fought a Sentinel squad and survived? Who are you?"

 

"My name is Midoriya Izuku," he said, offering a polite, albeit strained, bow. "My hero name is Deku."

 

"Hero?" Elara echoed, exchanging a bewildered look with Kael. She shook her head. "Never mind that. Sit down on that crate, boy. Let me look at that burn."

 

Izuku complied, wincing as Elara peeled back the ruined fabric of his shoulder pad. She applied a strange, foul-smelling blue gel from a military-grade medkit. The pain vanished instantly, replaced by a soothing numbness.

 

"Thank you, Elara-san," Izuku said softly.

 

He looked around the cavern. Back in Japan, during the height of the war against the Paranormal Liberation Front, UA High School had been turned into an evacuation center. He had seen terrified civilians huddled on cots. But there was a fundamental difference between the people at UA and the people here.

 

The people in UA had hope. They believed the Heroes would win. They believed tomorrow would be better.

 

The people in this cavern had no hope. Their eyes were flat, resigned to a miserable existence in the dark.

 

Kael returned a moment later, handing Izuku a tin cup filled with lukewarm, synthetic broth. "Drink. It tastes like wet cardboard, but it has the calories you need."

 

Izuku took a sip. Kael was right about the taste, but the warmth spreading through his chest was welcome. "Kael-san... back up there, you said this country is ruled by Doctor Doom. Who is he? Is he like All For One? A shadow broker who controls the underworld?"

 

Kael let out a harsh, barking laugh. Several people nearby flinched at the sound.

 

"A shadow broker?" Kael sat on an overturned bucket across from Izuku. "Kid, you really are from another universe. Doctor Doom doesn't hide in the shadows. He is the sun. He is the sky. He is the law."

 

Kael leaned forward, his scarred face illuminated by the harsh work lights. "His real name is Victor Von Doom. Decades ago, Latveria was ruled by a petty, cruel dictator named King Vladimir. The country was starving. Doom... he was a local boy, a Romani. But his intellect was unmatched by anyone on the planet. He left, traveled the world, studied sciences that would make your head spin, and unraveled ancient magics that defy human comprehension."

 

"Magic?" Izuku interrupted, his analytical mind struggling. "You mean a Quirk? A mutation?"

 

"No," Kael said firmly. "Not a mutation. Magic. Spells. Sorcery. The kind of power that bends reality by speaking ancient tongues. He returned to Latveria in a suit of armor he forged himself. He overthrew the king in a single night. And the people cheered."

 

"They cheered?" Izuku asked, bewildered. "But... he's a tyrant."

 

"He saved them," Elara interjected softly, wrapping a fresh bandage around Izuku’s shoulder. "Under Doom, poverty was technically eradicated. Disease is cured within days using his science. Crime is non-existent. The trains run exactly on time. He protects our borders with an army of machines, and no nation on Earth—not the United States, not Wakanda, not Atlantis—dares provoke him."

 

"Then why are you down here?" Izuku asked, looking around the dismal cavern. "If he cured disease and stopped crime, why is there a resistance?"

 

Kael’s eyes hardened. "Because the cost of his 'utopia' is our souls. Crime is zero because if you speak out of turn, if you read a banned book, if you draw a picture of a foreign hero—like Toma did today—a Doombot disintegrates you in the street. There is no trial. There is only Doom's will. We are not citizens, Midoriya. We are pets. We belong to him."

 

Izuku felt a cold chill wash over him that had nothing to do with the temperature of the catacombs.

 

He thought of Hero Society back home. It was flawed. It had created villains like Shigaraki and Toga by casting out those who didn't fit the mold. But the core of it—the ideal that All Might represented—was freedom. The freedom to smile, to live, to pursue happiness.

 

Peace without freedom isn't peace, Izuku thought, his fists clenching on his knees. It's a prison. And Doctor Doom is the warden.

 

"You can't fight him, kid," Kael said, misinterpreting Izuku’s silence for despair. "He wears armor made of a metal that can take a blast from a nuclear warhead. He commands an army of thousands. He can cast spells that turn men to ash. If you try to play the hero here, you won't just die. You'll bring his wrath down on all of us."

 

Inside Izuku's mind, the Vestiges stirred.

 

(He sounds like All For One,) the Second User muttered, his voice echoing in the ethereal darkness. (Obsessed with absolute control.)

 

(Worse,) Nana Shimura corrected gently. (All For One rules through fear and manipulation, breaking society from the outside. This Doom... he has convinced the world that his cage is a sanctuary. He is a dictator who believes he is the savior.)

 

Izuku looked Kael in the eyes. "I understand what you're saying, Kael-san. But where I come from, a Hero doesn't look the other way just because the villain is strong. When people are crying out for help, a Hero's body moves on its own."

 

Kael stared at him, a mixture of pity and frustration in his eyes. "Ideals don't deflect plasma blasts, kid."

 

 

 

High above the catacombs, standing at the apex of the world, Victor Von Doom sat upon his throne.

 

The throne room of Castle Doom was a cathedral dedicated to the ego of one man. Banners of dark green and gold hung from the soaring, vaulted ceilings. Suits of ancient armor lined the walls, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with hyper-advanced server banks processing trillions of calculations per second.

 

Doom sat completely motionless. His vibranium-laced armor gleamed in the dim light. His emerald cape was draped immaculately over the armrests.

 

At the base of the dais, a Doombot Prime stood at attention. A massive holographic projector in the center of the room was looping the security footage from the town square.

 

The footage showed the green-haired boy. It showed him moving at speeds that distorted the camera's frame rate. It showed him shattering a Mark-IV Sentry with a single, devastating kick.

 

Doom watched it in silence. He raised a gauntleted hand, and the footage froze precisely at the moment of impact.

 

"Computer," Doom's voice resonated, deep and commanding, filtering through the mask. "Analyze the kinetic output of the intruder's strike."

 

"Acknowledged," the castle's AI hummed. "Kinetic output exceeds standard human limitations by a factor of ten thousand. No trace of mutant X-Gene detected. No trace of cosmic radiation, gamma exposure, or mystical enhancement. The energy is generated internally, compounding upon itself."

 

Doom leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his metal knuckles. Behind the cold iron of his mask, his brilliant mind raced, connecting variables at speeds that dwarfed the supercomputer.

 

"The Multiversal Siphon," Doom murmured. "The biological singularity we detected in the parallel dimension. The anomaly that ruptured the containment field."

 

"Affirmative, Lord Doom," the AI responded. "Facial recognition matches the biological entity pulled through the rift during the localized space-time collapse three hours ago."

 

Doom stood up. He walked slowly down the steps of the dais, his heavy boots echoing like funeral bells in the cavernous room. He stepped into the holographic projection, walking completely around the frozen image of Izuku Midoriya.

 

Doom observed the torn costume, the youth of the boy's face, the desperate, fierce glare in his eyes.

 

"A child," Doom said, a hint of genuine amusement lacing his voice. "The infinite cosmos is a place of boundless irony. The cumulative power of an entire universe’s biological evolution—a singularity of kinetic force—is housed within a bleeding heart in spandex."

 

Doom turned his back on the hologram, his cape swishing grandly.

 

"This boy is a battery. A vessel for a power he clearly does not fully understand, and certainly does not deserve. With that internal energy matrix, Doom can bypass the geothermal limitations of the Siphon. Doom can power the Multiversal array indefinitely."

 

He looked at the Doombot Prime. "Track his trajectory from the square."

 

"Lord Doom, the anomaly vanished into the Sector 4 subterranean aqueducts. Thermal tracking was interrupted by a localized electromagnetic pulse. We suspect the remnants of the Latverian Liberation Front intervened."

 

Doom scoffed. The sound was sharp and metallic. "The Resistance. Cockroaches hiding in the walls, believing they are wolves. They are beneath my direct intervention. But they possess something that belongs to Doom."

 

Doom walked toward a large console near the throne. He pressed a single button, overriding the entire communication network of the nation.

 

"Prepare a broadcast," Doom ordered. "I shall not waste my Sentinels digging through the mud. The boy will come to me. It is the nature of his kind."

 

 

 

Back in the safehouse, the fragile quiet was shattered by a piercing, electronic squeal.

 

Everyone in the cavern jumped. Izuku sprang to his feet, One For All instantly humming beneath his skin, ready for an attack.

 

But there was no explosion. Instead, every single screen in the cavern—from the old CRT televisions scavenged from junkyards, to the cracked holographic tablets, to Elara's medical monitors—flickered violently. The static cleared, replaced by a dark, green background.

 

In the center of the screens, a symbol appeared. It was a stylized, metallic crest.

 

Then, a face appeared.

 

Izuku’s breath caught. He was looking at a mask of pure iron. The design was brutal, aristocratic, and utterly devoid of humanity. The eyes behind the mask were visible, however, and they were terrifying. They were the eyes of a man who looked upon the world and saw only pieces on a chessboard.

 

The cavern fell into a dead, terrified silence. Even the infants stopped crying, as if the sheer aura of the man on the screen transcended the broadcast.

 

"Citizens of Latveria," the voice boomed. It was a rich, powerful baritone, synthesized with a metallic edge that made it sound like the voice of a wrathful god.

 

"This is your liege. This is Doom."

 

Kael visibly paled, taking a step back. "No..." he whispered.

 

"Doom has graced you with peace. Doom has given you a sanctuary from a chaotic, decaying world. In return, Doom demands only absolute obedience."

 

The camera angle shifted slightly, focusing tighter on the iron mask.

 

"Today, that obedience was broken. An anomaly—a green-haired boy possessing a volatile, unregistered power—has trespassed within my borders. He has destroyed my property. And the sensors indicate he is currently being harbored by the treasonous vermin in Sector 4."

 

Izuku felt the blood drain from his face. Dozens of eyes in the cavern slowly turned toward him. The fear in the air was palpable, thick enough to choke on.

 

"Hear me, Sector 4," Doom’s voice continued, chillingly calm. "Doom is not a cruel monarch to those who are loyal. But Doom’s patience is not infinite. You have a choice. Deliver the boy to the gates of Castle Doom by nightfall."

 

The screen flashed red for a fraction of a second.

 

"If the sun sets and the boy is not in my custody, Doom will assume the entirety of Sector 4 is in open rebellion. I will authorize a localized plasma bombardment. The sector will be razed to bedrock. Every man, woman, and child will burn in the fires of their own treason."

 

Doom leaned forward, his eyes boring through the screen, feeling as though they were looking directly into Izuku’s soul.

 

"The clock is ticking. Doom's word is absolute."

 

The screens went black. The cavern was plunged back into the dim glow of the work lights.

 

For ten seconds, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

 

Then, chaos erupted.

 

"He's going to kill us all!" a man screamed, grabbing his hair in terror.

 

"We have to give him up! We have to throw him out!" a woman wailed, clutching her child tightly.

 

Several of the rebels raised their weapons, their hands shaking, aiming their rifles at Izuku.

 

"Stand down!" Kael roared, stepping between Izuku and the armed rebels. "Put the guns down! He saved Toma! He saved one of ours!"

 

"And now Doom is going to incinerate a thousand of ours!" the sniper yelled back, tears streaming down her face. "Kael, you heard him! It's an orbital strike! We can't fight that! We have to hand the kid over!"

 

Izuku stood frozen. His heart hammered in his chest, so loud it deafened him to the screaming arguments around him.

 

He's going to kill everyone, Izuku thought, his mind racing. An entire sector of the city. Thousands of people. Just to get to me.

 

This wasn't a villain playing a game. This wasn't Shigaraki trying to tear down society in a blind rage. This was calculated, cold-blooded arithmetic. Doom viewed these people as utterly expendable.

 

(He is bluffing,) the Second User snarled in Izuku's mind. (A ruler does not slaughter his own workforce so casually!)

 

(He isn't bluffing,) Nana Shimura replied, her voice trembling with sorrow. (Look at their faces, Second. They know he's going to do it. He's done it before.)

 

Kael grabbed his rifle and racked the charging handle. "Listen to me! Doom wants us to turn on each other! That's how he breaks us! We are not handing over a child to the butcher! We evacuate the cavern! We use the lower tunnels and head for the mountains!"

 

"There's no time!" Elara cried, pointing at her watch. "Nightfall is in forty minutes! We have elderly people here, Kael! We have wounded! We can't outrun a plasma bombardment!"

 

The cavern was tearing itself apart. The desperation was turning into violence.

 

"STOP!"

 

Izuku’s voice wasn't just loud; it carried the resonance of One For All. It echoed off the stone walls with a physical force, shocking the entire cavern into instant silence.

 

Izuku walked out from behind Kael. He looked around at the terrified faces. He saw the mothers, the trembling old men, the exhausted fighters.

 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his torn cowl. He looked at it for a moment—the symbol of the hero he was trying to become. He gripped it tightly in his uninjured hand.

 

"You don't have to run," Izuku said, his voice remarkably steady. "And you don't have to fight."

 

Kael turned to him, his eyes wide. "Kid, what are you doing?"

 

"He wants me," Izuku said, looking Kael directly in the eye. "He doesn't care about you. You're just leverage to force me out of hiding."

 

"You can't go to him," Elara said, stepping forward, her hands shaking. "You don't understand what he does to people with powers in those labs. He'll vivisect you. He'll tear you apart to see how you work."

 

Izuku managed a small, sad smile. It was a smile that mirrored All Might's in its essence—a smile meant to reassure others, even in the face of death.

 

"I've faced monsters before," Izuku said quietly. "I know what pain is. But I didn't become a Hero to hide in the dark while innocent people burn."

 

Kael grabbed Izuku by the good shoulder. "Midoriya, listen to me. This isn't a comic book. This is suicide. You are walking into a slaughterhouse."

 

Izuku gently, but firmly, removed Kael's hand. The sheer physical strength in the boy's grip made the hardened rebel leader pause.

 

"A Hero's job," Izuku said, quoting the core tenet of his soul, "is to risk their life to turn promises into reality. I promise you, nobody in this sector is going to die today."

 

Izuku turned away from the crowd. He walked over to the metal stairs leading up to the blast door.

 

Inside his mind, the Vestiges stood in unison.

 

(Are you sure about this, Ninth?) Yoichi asked. There was no judgment in the First User's voice, only immense pride.

 

I'm sure, Izuku thought back. If I fight him out here in the city, the crossfire will kill thousands. I have to take the fight to him. To his castle. To his territory. I have to draw his attention completely.

 

Izuku reached the top of the stairs. He hit the release mechanism for the blast door.

 

As the heavy steel ground open, Izuku paused. He looked back over his shoulder at Kael, Elara, and the silent, awe-struck citizens of Latveria.

 

"If... if things go loud," Izuku said, his green eyes flashing in the dim light, "keep your heads down."

 

He stepped through the door, letting it seal behind him.

 

The walk back to the surface was a blur. Izuku's mind was completely focused, slipping into the hyper-analytical state he used during his most desperate battles.

 

Doom is relying on technology and magic. His robots are strong, but their movements are rigid. Doom's armor is likely the same. He expects me to surrender. He expects me to break under the pressure of his threat.

 

Izuku climbed the ladder leading out of the catacombs and pushed the iron grate aside.

 

He stepped out into the freezing Latverian twilight. The sky was bruising into a deep purple, the snow falling heavier now.

 

In the distance, perched like a black vulture over the city, Castle Doom loomed. Its gates were open. Two massive rows of Doombots lined the bridge leading to the entrance, standing like a mechanized honor guard, waiting for their prisoner.

 

Izuku Midoriya didn't run. He didn't activate Full Cowling.

 

He simply put his torn cowl over his head, letting the frayed edges catch the freezing wind, and began the long walk up the mountain toward the throne of the God-King.

 

He was terrified. But beneath the terror, a roaring fire had been ignited.

 

Victor Von Doom believed he could control everything through fear. He believed humanity was a weeping child that needed to be caged.

 

It was time for Doctor Doom to learn what a true Hero was.

 

 

 

The road to Castle Doom was not built for walking. It was a steep, winding incline of smooth obsidian stone, designed to make anyone approaching the fortress feel small, vulnerable, and utterly exposed.

 

Izuku Midoriya walked alone.

 

The wind howled down from the jagged peaks of the Balkan Mountains, carrying a bitter, freezing sleet that bit into Izuku’s exposed skin and plastered his ruined costume to his shivering frame. Yet, he kept his posture impeccably straight. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. He was the sole representative of Hero Society in a universe that had never known its light, and he refused to look afraid.

 

Even though he was terrified.

 

Lining the black stone bridge that spanned the abyssal moat of the castle were the Doombots. There were hundreds of them. They stood at perfect attention, shoulder-to-shoulder, a gauntlet of iron and crimson optics. As Izuku walked past them, their heavy, mechanized heads turned in unison, tracking his every movement with an audible, synchronized whir of servo-motors.

 

Danger Sense was doing something entirely new. It wasn't spiking with the sharp, stabbing pain of an immediate attack. Instead, it was vibrating with a low, sickening hum that settled deep in Izuku’s stomach. The Quirk wasn't warning him of a single threat; it was reacting to the environment itself.

 

The castle. The robots. The very air around him. It was all hostile. It was all a weapon.

 

(Steady your heart, Ninth,) the voice of Nana Shimura echoed softly in his mind. Her presence was a warm, comforting blanket against the freezing Latverian wind. (He wants you intimidated. He wants you broken before you even cross the threshold.)

 

I know, Izuku thought back, keeping his eyes fixed on the towering iron gates ahead. But the sheer scale of this... he commands an army, but he doesn't need them to fight. He uses them as a display of absolute control. He’s trying to crush my willpower.

 

(Then do not let him,) the Second User practically growled. (You carry the will of eight generations, boy. We have faced the Demon Lord of our world. Do not bow to the tyrant of this one.)

 

Izuku took a deep breath, letting the freezing air fill his lungs. He reached the massive gates of Castle Doom. They were forged from a dark, lustrous metal that Izuku didn't recognize, etched with complex, geometric circuitry that glowed with a faint, pulsing blue light.

 

As he approached, the gates did not creak or grind. They slid open in utter, terrifying silence, operated by repulsor-lift technology that defied the castle's medieval aesthetic.

 

Izuku stepped over the threshold.

 

The interior of Castle Doom was a jarring juxtaposition. The walls were made of ancient, rough-hewn stone, draped with heavy emerald tapestries bearing the crest of the God-King. Yet, the lighting was provided by sleek, floating luminescent orbs, and the polished floors reflected the soft hum of energy fields.

 

"Proceed," a disembodied, mechanical voice echoed through the grand hallway. "The Master awaits."

 

Izuku walked. His analytical mind was in overdrive, cataloging everything. Hidden plasma turrets disguised as gargoyles near the vaulted ceiling. Heat sensors in the floor tiles. The walls are lined with a vibranium-alloy mesh—I can see the microscopic weave where the stone is chipped. A 100% Smash might not even break through the outer wall. I'm in a cage.

 

He passed through three sets of blast doors before finally arriving at the heart of the fortress.

 

The throne room.

 

It was vast, easily the size of the USJ dome back at UA. A massive, arched window dominated the far wall, looking out over the snow-swept mountains, framing the room in the dying light of the bruised purple sky.

 

And there, sitting upon a throne forged of shattered metal and dark stone, was Victor Von Doom.

 

Izuku stopped twenty paces from the dais. He stood in the center of a circular mosaic bearing the Latverian crest. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the crackle of a massive fireplace on the eastern wall.

 

Doom did not move. He sat leaning slightly to his left, one armored elbow resting on the arm of the throne, his metal fist propping up his chin. His emerald cape draped over him like a shroud. The firelight flickered against his iron mask, casting long, demonic shadows across his cold, unfeeling faceplate.

 

For a long minute, neither of them spoke. Doom was examining him, stripping him down with his gaze.

 

"You are smaller than the localized disruptions suggested," Doom finally spoke.

 

His voice was a physical force. It wasn't loud, but it possessed a bass resonance that rattled the sternum. It was the voice of a man who had never once in his life been interrupted.

 

"But then," Doom continued, his tone dripping with aristocratic boredom, "power rarely cares for the aesthetic of its vessel. You walked into my domain, anomaly. You surrendered to spare the vermin in the slums below. A predictably pathetic, altruistic gesture."

 

Izuku planted his feet, squaring his shoulders. "I didn't come here to surrender. I came here to tell you to leave them alone. If you want me, you deal with me."

 

Doom let out a low, metallic chuckle. "You make demands of Doom? In his own hall?" Doom slowly sat up straight, placing both gauntleted hands on the armrests. The sheer imposing presence of the man seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. "You misunderstand your position, child. You are not a negotiator. You are raw material. You are a biological battery that has mistakenly wandered into the laboratory of a god."

 

Izuku’s eyes narrowed, the emerald green irises hardening. "I know what you are. I've met men like you before. Men who think power gives them the right to treat people like objects. You call yourself a god? Gods don't hold children hostage to get what they want. Villains do."

 

The temperature in the room seemed to plummet.

 

"Villain," Doom repeated, tasting the word, finding it thoroughly distasteful. "A crude, binary term used by small minds to categorize that which they cannot comprehend. You view the world through the lens of a comic book, boy. Good and evil. Heroes and villains."

 

Doom stood up. He was a towering figure, radiating an aura of sheer, indomitable superiority. He did not walk down the steps of the dais; he simply stood at its edge, looking down at Izuku as one might look at an insect.

 

"Look out that window," Doom commanded, pointing a gauntlet toward the glass. "Beyond these mountains, the world is devouring itself. Nations wage war over trivial resources. Mutants are hunted by machines, only to rise up and hunt humanity in return. So-called 'Heroes' squabble amongst themselves, causing billions in collateral damage to uphold a fragile status quo that rots from the inside out."

 

Doom brought his hand to his chest. "I do not seek to destroy. I seek to perfect. Under Doom, there is no war. There is no famine. There is only order. The Multiversal Siphon requires an infinite power source to expand Latveria's aegis across the globe. You carry a dimensional singularity within your fragile, mortal frame. Surrender it to me, and you will have the honor of fueling the salvation of Earth."

 

Izuku remembered Kael's words in the catacombs. A living prisoner. He remembered the terrified citizens in the square, and the Doombot executing a teenager for holding a drawing.

 

"A peace built on fear isn't peace," Izuku said, his voice ringing clearly through the cavernous hall. "If you have to put a gun to everyone's head to make them behave, you haven't saved them. You've just imprisoned them. A true Hero... a true Hero smiles to give people hope. To let them know they're safe to be who they are."

 

Izuku raised his fists, dropping into a low, balanced combat stance.

 

"I won't give you this power. It was entrusted to me to protect people from tyrants exactly like you."

 

Doom stared at him for a long, silent moment. Then, he slowly sat back down on his throne. He crossed his right leg over his left and leaned back, resting his chin on his hand once more.

 

"How profoundly tedious," Doom sighed. "Very well. Struggle, if it serves your ego."

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. The time for talking was over.

 

One For All: Full Cowling - 45%!

 

The throne room was instantly bathed in brilliant, blinding emerald light. Violent arcs of kinetic lightning tore up the polished floor beneath Izuku’s boots as he vanished from sight.

 

He moved faster than a bullet. He didn't attack head-on; he knew Doom's frontal defenses would be impenetrable. Izuku used Blackwhip, shooting two tendrils to the vaulted ceiling to slingshot himself upward, bouncing off a massive stone pillar to attack from the blind spot above and behind the throne.

 

"Smokescreen!" Izuku released a massive, dense cloud of purple smoke to obscure his movements, blinding the room's optical sensors and Doom's own visual feeds.

 

He engaged Fa Jin, his legs glowing fiercely as he stored kinetic energy during his ricochet. He aligned himself perfectly, descending toward the seated dictator like a green meteor.

 

If I can knock him out with one strike, I can hack the Siphon and find a way home! Izuku thought. "St. Louis—!"

 

Doom didn't look up. He didn't even move his head.

 

He merely raised the index finger of his right hand.

 

A microscopic, hyper-dense localized gravity well erupted exactly two inches in front of Doom's face.

 

Izuku slammed into it at Mach 1.

 

The sound was like a thunderclap. Izuku felt his forward momentum instantly, violently inverted. It was like kicking a mountain made of solid titanium. The kinetic force of his 45% attack had nowhere to go, violently reflecting back into his own body.

 

Izuku screamed as his right leg buckled in agony. The gravity well repelled him, sending him flying backward through the air. He crashed hard onto the marble floor, skipping like a stone across water before slamming violently into a suit of decorative armor, shattering it to pieces.

 

(Izuku!) Yoichi cried out. (What happened?!)

 

"G-gravity manipulation," Izuku choked out, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. He pushed himself up on shaking arms. His leg wasn't broken, but the muscle fibers were screaming. "He didn't even touch me."

 

As the purple smoke cleared, Doom remained seated in the exact same position, looking utterly unbothered.

 

"A combination of kinetic storage, tactical obfuscation, and energy-based prehensile appendages," Doom analyzed aloud, his voice devoid of any surprise. "Fascinating. Your 'Quirk' is not a single ability, but an amalgamation. A biological patchwork. Impressive for a primate. Useless against Doom."

 

Izuku gritted his teeth. Physical attacks won't work if he can manipulate gravity fields with a gesture. I have to overload his processing speed!

 

Izuku stood up, ignoring the pain. He activated Danger Sense to its maximum capacity, feeling the room's layout in his mind. He needed to be unpredictable.

 

He dashed forward again, this time zig-zagging in a chaotic, erratic pattern, utilizing Gearshift to alter his speed dynamically. He accelerated, then instantly decelerated, breaking the laws of inertia to throw off the targeting computers he assumed were in Doom's mask.

 

He approached from the left flank, unleashing a barrage of Air Force flicks.

 

Boom! Boom! Boom!

 

Compressed bullets of pure wind pressure tore across the room, aimed at the joints of Doom's armor.

 

Doom simply raised his left hand, his palm facing outward.

 

This time, it wasn't technology.

 

A shimmering, geometric mandala of crimson light flared into existence before him—the Shield of the Seraphim. The Air Force blasts struck the magical barrier and dissipated harmlessly into glowing red sparks, barely causing the shield to ripple.

 

Danger Sense suddenly shrieked—a piercing, agonizing spike that felt like a hot iron behind Izuku’s eyes.

 

"My turn," Doom whispered.

 

Doom muttered a single, guttural syllable in a language that sounded like grinding stones and burning ash. He snapped his fingers.

 

The floor beneath Izuku’s feet literally exploded into ethereal, crimson energy. Thick, glowing bands of magical ruby light shot upward like vipers.

 

Izuku tried to dodge. He activated Fa Jin for a burst of explosive speed, but the magic did not obey the laws of physics. It didn't track his physical body; it tracked his life force.

 

The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak coiled around Izuku’s ankles, instantly locking his legs together. He fell forward, but before he could hit the ground, more bands erupted from the air itself, wrapping around his wrists, his torso, and his neck.

 

Izuku was hoisted into the air, suspended spread-eagle three feet off the floor.

 

He roared in frustration, flaring One For All to 60%. The green lightning raged against the ruby bands, but the magic didn't budge. It didn't burn, it didn't stretch. It was an absolute, immutable force. The harder he pushed against it, the tighter it constricted, slowly crushing the breath from his lungs.

 

"You rely entirely on physical force," Doom said, finally standing from his throne. He walked slowly down the dais, his cape trailing behind him. "Kinetic energy. Speed. Strength. Admirable traits for a street brawler. But you are fighting a man who has conquered the mystic arts and bound the laws of physics to his will."

 

Doom stopped directly in front of the suspended, struggling boy.

 

"Your power is a hammer, boy. And Doom is the anvil."

 

Izuku gasped for air, his eyes wide with a mixture of pain and realization. He couldn't move a single millimeter. His physical strength, the power of All Might, the legacy of the Vestiges—none of it mattered against an opponent who could paralyze him with a word.

 

He had lost.

 

In less than three minutes, without Doom even unsheathing a weapon or throwing a punch, Izuku was completely and utterly defeated.

 

"Let... let me go," Izuku strained, his face turning red from the constriction of the magical bands.

 

"In due time," Doom replied coldly. He turned his head slightly. "Prime Unit. The anomaly is secured. Prepare the Multiversal Siphon for immediate extraction."

 

"Affirmative, Lord Doom," the mechanical voice echoed from the walls.

 

Doom reached out a cold, steel-clad hand and grabbed Izuku roughly by the jaw. The metal was freezing, and the grip was like a vice.

 

"Do not despair, child," Doom mocked, his eyes narrowing behind the iron mask. "Your sacrifice will ensure that this world never suffers the chaos of yours. You will die a martyr for the glory of Latveria."

 

Doom released him and turned his back. The Crimson Bands floated through the air, dragging the helpless Izuku behind Doom like a macabre balloon as the dictator strode toward a heavy set of doors at the rear of the throne room.

 

The descent into the lower levels of the castle was a blur of agonizing constriction and mounting terror. Izuku’s mind raced desperately, trying to commune with the Vestiges, to find some hidden application of his Quirks to break the magic.

 

(We cannot break this with brute force!) Banjo yelled, his voice strained as if he too were being squeezed. (It’s not matter! It’s conceptual!)

 

(Rest, Izuku!) Yoichi pleaded. (Save your strength! The machine... we must prepare for the machine!)

 

The doors to the subterranean laboratory hissed open.

 

Izuku was dragged into a room that looked like the control center of a starship married to an occult temple. And in the center, towering to the ceiling, was the Multiversal Siphon.

 

It was a monstrosity of spinning, super-conducting rings, arcane runes, and massive containment tubes crackling with violent blue quantum energy. It hummed with a frequency that made Izuku’s teeth ache and caused Danger Sense to become a constant, paralyzing drone in the back of his mind.

 

"Lock him in," Doom commanded.

 

The Crimson Bands floated Izuku toward the center of the machine. He was forcefully slammed back against a cold, metallic slab. Massive, hydraulic clamps locked over his wrists, ankles, and waist, sealing over the magical bands.

 

"No, wait!" Izuku yelled, struggling violently against the restraints. "You don't understand what this power is! It's not just energy! It's people! It's wills! You can't just take it!"

 

Doom stood at a master console, his fingers flying across a holographic interface. "There is nothing in this universe, or any other, that Doom cannot take."

 

Doom slammed a palm onto a large activation rune.

 

The Siphon powered up.

 

The massive rings surrounding the slab began to spin, blurring into a solid sphere of metal. The arcane runes carved into the floor ignited with blinding red light.

 

Then, the tethers struck.

 

They weren't physical needles. They were beams of concentrated, metaphysical energy—a hybrid of sorcery and quantum displacement. Four beams shot from the machine, striking Izuku directly in the chest, the head, and the palms of his hands.

 

Izuku arched his back, a scream tearing itself from his throat.

 

It was agony on a level he had never comprehended. Breaking his arms and legs using 100% at the Sports Festival was a dull ache compared to this. The machine was bypassing his flesh, bypassing his bones, and latching directly onto his soul. It felt like hot hooks were being dragged through his consciousness, pulling the very essence of his being outward.

 

The air in the laboratory began to distort. Green, ethereal energy—the raw, stockpiled power of One For All—began to leak from Izuku’s body, siphoned upward into the containment tubes of the machine.

 

"Yes," Doom whispered, watching the energy readouts on his console spike exponentially. "The power of a singularity. Magnificent."

 

Izuku’s vision began to white out. The pain was too immense. His heart fluttered, struggling to beat as his life force was violently drained.

 

(HOLD ON!)

 

The voices of the Vestiges were screaming. Not in warning, but in shared agony. Izuku could see flashes of them—Nana falling to her knees, Banjo clutching his chest, Yoichi reaching out a desperate hand.

 

The green energy flowing into the tubes turned erratic. It began to spark violently, warring with the blue and red containment fields.

 

"Output exceeding theoretical limits," a Doombot warned from a nearby terminal. "Containment fields fluctuating by 40%."

 

"Compensate with the geothermal grid!" Doom roared, his eyes fixed on the struggling boy. "Do not let it escape!"

 

Izuku couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. The physical world was fading away, replaced by the blinding, searing light of the extraction process. He felt the grip on his soul slipping.

 

I... I can't... Izuku thought, his consciousness fracturing. I'm sorry... All Might...

 

With a final, violent surge of the Siphon, Izuku Midoriya’s eyes rolled back in his head, glowing a brilliant, blinding white.

 

The pain suddenly stopped. The roar of the machinery vanished.

 

Izuku was no longer strapped to the cold metal slab in Latveria. He was falling through a void of absolute, silent darkness, plunging deeper and deeper into the very core of his own soul.

 

He was being pulled into the Vestige Realm. But this time, it was not for council.

 

It was for war.