What If Deku Had an Overpowered Carnotaurus Quirk for Brutal Combat

The scent of ozone and burnt caramel always reminded Izuku Midoriya of the day his life ended, and the day his life began.

Most children in this superhuman society manifested their Quirks at the age of four. It was an era of miracles, a time when a child might wake up floating above their bed, or sneeze and conjure a small localized thunderstorm. Quirks were celebrated. They were the brilliant, shining steps forward in human evolution. 

But evolution is not always kind. Sometimes, evolution does not reach forward to the stars. Sometimes, it reaches violently backward, plunging its hands into the primordial dirt to drag something ancient, vicious, and bloodthirsty into the present.

Izuku Midoriya was four years old when he learned he was a monster. 

The playground in Musutafu was bathed in the golden, dying light of a late summer afternoon. The air was thick and humid, filled with the sounds of cicadas and the cruel, mocking laughter of children. 

"Is that all you've got?" Katsuki Bakugo sneered, small explosions popping off his palms like miniature firecrackers. He stood over a crying boy who was clutching his scraped knee. Two of Katsuki’s lackeys stood behind him, snickering. "If you’re this weak, you’ll never be a hero. You're just a useless extra."

From the edge of the sandbox, Izuku watched, his small hands trembling. He hadn't manifested his Quirk yet. Katsuki—Kacchan—had manifested his weeks ago, and it had only inflated the blonde boy’s already towering ego. But even without a Quirk, Izuku’s heart beat with the rhythm of a hero. He couldn't just stand there and watch.

"S-Stop it, Kacchan!" Izuku squeaked, throwing himself between the crying boy and Katsuki. He raised his small, trembling fists, tears already pricking the corners of his large green eyes. "Can't you see he's crying? If you keep going, I-I'll stop you myself!"

Katsuki’s crimson eyes narrowed. A cruel, jagged grin spread across his face. "You? Stop me? You don't even have a Quirk yet, Deku! You're nothing!"

Katsuki lunged forward, his right hand crackling with heat and light. He wasn't aiming to kill, of course, but he was aiming to hurt, to burn, to establish his absolute dominance. 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, crossing his arms over his face in a feeble attempt to block the impending blast. He felt the intense heat wash over his skin, smelling the distinct odor of burning sugar. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic, terrified bird trapped in a cage of ribs. I'm scared, he thought. I'm so scared. Help me. Somebody, please help me.

Then, something inside Izuku Midoriya snapped. 

It was not a metaphorical breaking. It was a physical, auditory crack that echoed through his very marrow. The fear in his chest was suddenly engulfed by a localized inferno of primal, overwhelming instinct. 

He didn't feel the explosion. 

When Izuku opened his eyes, the world had changed. He was no longer looking up at Katsuki; he was looking down at him. The playground seemed smaller, the colors muted, sharply focused on movement and heat. 

Katsuki’s triumphant smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated terror. The two lackeys behind him screamed and scrambled backward, tripping over their own feet.

Izuku didn't understand why they were screaming. He tried to ask, What's wrong? but the sound that tore from his throat was not the high-pitched voice of a four-year-old boy. It was a guttural, rattling hiss that vibrated the sand beneath their feet—a sound that belonged in a jungle millions of years dead.

He looked down at his hands. But they were not hands. They were impossibly small, vestigial appendages, pressed tightly against a chest covered in thick, dark green scales. He felt heavy, anchored by a massive, muscular tail that dragged behind him. He blinked, and a nictitating membrane slid across his vision. He could feel the sheer weight of his own skull, heavy and armored, topped with two massive, forward-facing bone-white horns.

Izuku had transformed. He was no longer a little boy. He was a juvenile Carnotaurus, standing a terrifying six feet tall, a bipedal apex predator of the Cretaceous period resurrected in a modern Japanese park. 

"M-Monster!" one of the children shrieked.

Katsuki, fueled by a mixture of panic and furious pride, ignited both his hands. "Get away from me, you freak!" he yelled, thrusting his explosive palms forward. 

The blast struck Izuku right in the chest. It didn't hurt. The thick, osteoderm-studded scales of his Carnotaurus form absorbed the heat and kinetic force as if it were nothing but a warm breeze. But the sudden flash of light and sound triggered an instinct Izuku didn't know he had, an instinct that overrode his rational, gentle mind. 

Threat. 

The predator's brain took the wheel. The heavy, muscular tail behind Izuku lashed out with the speed of a cracking whip. It was a purely defensive, instinctual reflex to clear his blind spot. 

The thick, scaled appendage slammed into Katsuki’s side before the blonde boy could even blink. 

There was a sickening SNAP that silenced the playground. 

Katsuki was launched through the air like a ragdoll, crashing into the metal slide with a hollow clang. He crumpled into the sand, screaming in absolute agony, clutching his right arm. It was bent at a horrifying, unnatural angle. 

Izuku froze. The primal fog in his mind cleared, pierced by the sound of Katsuki’s screams. He looked at his heavy, spiked tail. He looked at the screaming boy. 

No... no, no, no... 

Izuku tried to reach out, to help him, but his vestigial dinosaur arms were useless, barely able to reach past his own chest. He took a heavy, three-toed step forward.

"S-STAY AWAY!" Katsuki shrieked, scrambling backward in the sand, his eyes wide with a terror that would haunt Izuku for the rest of his life. "MONSTER! YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

Parents came running. Teachers from a nearby daycare rushed in. When they saw the scaled beast standing over the broken, bleeding child, there was no hesitation. A man with a telekinetic Quirk hurled a wooden bench at Izuku. A woman with a water Quirk blasted him with a high-pressure hose. 

Izuku, panicked, confused, and heartbroken, curled in on himself. He closed his eyes and wished, with every fiber of his being, to be small again. The scales receded. The horns melted into his skull. The tail retracted into his spine. 

When the adults finally reached the center of the sandbox, they didn't find a monster. They found a four-year-old boy with messy green hair, curled into a fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably into his dirt-stained hands.

But the damage was done. The label was cast. From that day forward, Izuku Midoriya was not a boy who wanted to be a hero. He was a ticking time bomb. He was the beast of Aldera Junior High.

He was the Monster.

Ten Years Later

Aldera Junior High was a loud, chaotic place, filled with teenagers eager to show off the Quirks that would secure their futures in high school. But whenever Izuku Midoriya walked down the hallway, a suffocating silence followed him like a shadow. 

At fourteen years old, Izuku was an imposing figure, a stark contrast to the timid personality that resided within him. The lingering effects of his Transformation-Class Quirk—registered in the national database as Apex Carnotaur—had permanently altered his base human form. 

He was remarkably tall for his age, standing at a broad-shouldered six-foot-two. Patches of dark green, diamond-shaped scales ran along the sides of his neck and down his forearms, tough as Kevlar. His eyes were the most unsettling feature; the irises were a vibrant, luminous emerald, but the pupils were vertical, reptilian slits that dilated and constricted with his emotions. 

"Hey, look out," a third-year student whispered, pulling his friend against the lockers as Izuku walked past. "It’s the Aldera Beast."

"I heard he ate a stray dog in his first year," the other whispered back. 

"I heard he almost killed Bakugo when they were kids."

Izuku heard them. He always heard them. His auditory senses were far sharper than a normal human's. He kept his head down, his posture slouched inward in a desperate, perpetual attempt to make himself look smaller, less threatening. He clutched his worn yellow backpack to his chest, staring intently at his red shoes. 

Just ignore it, Izuku told himself, repeating his daily mantra. Don't get angry. Don't let the heart rate spike. Deep breaths. Calm. Peaceful.

He slid open the door to his third-year classroom and quietly made his way to his desk at the back of the room. As he sat down, the wooden desk creaked ominously under his dense weight. 

"Alright, settle down, everyone!" the homeroom teacher called out, slapping a stack of papers against his podium. "You're all third-years now, which means it's time to start thinking seriously about your futures! I've got these career aptitude test printouts here, but... why bother?" 

The teacher grabbed the stack of papers and dramatically tossed them into the air. "I know you all want to go to the hero track!"

The classroom erupted into cheers. Students activated their Quirks—stretching limbs, shooting small bursts of water, hardening their skin. Izuku did not cheer. He kept his hands flat on his desk, staring straight ahead. 

"Yes, yes, you all have wonderful Quirks," the teacher chuckled. "But remember, no Quirk usage in school! Now, let's see... Ah, Bakugo. You're aiming for U.A. High School, aren't you?"

The classroom fell silent. Katsuki Bakugo sat with his feet propped up on his desk, his arms crossed behind his head. He had grown into a lean, muscular teenager, his spiky ash-blonde hair as unruly as his temper. 

"Don't lump me in with these rejects, teach," Katsuki drawled, a smirk playing on his lips. "I'm not aiming for U.A. I've already aced the mock tests. I'm the only one in this crappy public middle school who has the stuff to make it into the top hero academy. I'm gonna surpass All Might and become the top hero!"

"Oh, right," the teacher said, glancing down at his clipboard. "Midoriya, you're also applying for U.A., aren't you?"

The silence that fell over the room this time was different. It wasn't awe. It was a heavy, suffocating dread. Every eye in the room turned to the back corner. 

Izuku shrank down in his seat, the scales on his neck flushing a slightly darker shade of green. "I... um... yes. I put it as my first choice," he mumbled, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that vibrated in the small room. 

CRASH!

Katsuki’s desk was suddenly flying across the room, smoke pouring from his palms. He vaulted over the chairs, landing directly in front of Izuku's desk. The explosive teenager glared down at Izuku, his crimson eyes burning with a mixture of intense hatred and a deeply buried, fiercely guarded fear. 

"Listen to me, you scaled freak," Katsuki snarled, slamming his hands down on Izuku's desk. The wood splintered and smoked under the heat of his palms. "You think they let monsters into U.A.? They train Heroes. Not feral, brainless animals who can't even control their own instincts!"

Izuku didn't meet Katsuki's eyes. He looked at the smoking wood of his desk. "The... the laws changed, Kacchan. Transformation-class Quirks are perfectly viable for the hero course. I've been... I've been meditating. I have it under control."

"Under control?" Katsuki scoffed loudly, stepping back and gesturing wildly at Izuku's massive frame. "You broke my arm in three places when we were four because you threw a tantrum! If you lose your temper in an exam, you'll kill someone! Your Quirk isn't meant for saving people, Deku. It’s meant for slaughtering them. Do us all a favor and go apply to be a villain—it'd save the pros the trouble of hunting you down later!"

The words felt like a knife twisting in Izuku's gut. The worst part wasn't the cruelty in Katsuki's voice. The worst part was that Izuku, deep down, feared Katsuki was right. 

Whenever Izuku even thought about activating his Quirk, he felt it. The cold, reptilian hunger. The violent surge of predatory adrenaline. His Quirk didn't just change his body; it altered his brain chemistry. The Carnotaurus was an ambush predator, a creature designed by nature to charge, crush, and consume. It didn't possess hands to carefully lift civilians from rubble. It didn't have a soft, comforting visage to calm frightened children. 

It had bone-shattering jaws, piercing horns, and a tail that could level a brick wall. 

"I won't hurt anyone, Kacchan," Izuku said softly, his slit pupils narrowing in sorrow. "I just... I just want to save people with a smile, like All Might."

Katsuki clicked his tongue, a look of pure disgust crossing his face. "You smiling is what gives little kids nightmares, Deku. Stay out of my way."

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Katsuki grabbed his bag and stormed out of the room, followed by his sycophants. The rest of the class quickly filed out, leaving a wide berth around Izuku's desk. 

Alone in the classroom, Izuku let out a long, shaky breath. He reached into his bag and pulled out a scorched, water-logged notebook titled Hero Analysis for the Future, Vol. 13. He flipped it open to a blank page and uncapped his pen. He tried to write, but his hand was trembling too much. 

Am I a monster? he thought, looking at the tough, scaled skin on his knuckles. If a villain attacks, and I use my power... will people look at me the same way they did at the playground? Will they scream?

He closed the notebook, packed his bag, and began the long walk home. 

Musutafu was a bustling city, a labyrinth of skyscrapers, elevated train tracks, and narrow alleyways. Izuku took the long route home, a quiet path that went through a pedestrian tunnel beneath a major overpass. He liked the shadows. The dim light was soothing to his sensitive eyes. 

He was muttering to himself, analyzing a fight he had seen on the news that morning involving the pro hero Mt. Lady. "Her gigantification is incredible for crowd control, but the collateral damage to the city infrastructure is a massive drawback. If she minimized her size shifts to exact moments of impact—"

A strange, squelching sound echoed through the tunnel. 

Izuku stopped. His reptilian ears twitched. The sound was wet, heavy, and accompanied by the vile stench of raw sewage and rotting garbage. 

He turned around slowly. Rising from a manhole cover in the center of the tunnel was a towering mass of dark, viscous slime. It had no distinct shape, save for two bulbous, bloodshot eyes and a gaping maw filled with jagged, liquid teeth. 

"Well, well, well," the Sludge Villain gurgled, its voice wet and distorted. "A medium-sized meat shield with some extra armor. You'll do perfectly. I need a place to hide for a bit."

Izuku took a step back, his heart rate instantly spiking. A villain? Here?

Before Izuku could react, the Sludge Villain lunged. A massive tendril of thick, suffocating sludge wrapped around Izuku's waist, lifting his heavy frame off the ground with surprising strength. The villain flowed over him like a tidal wave of mud, enveloping Izuku's chest, his arms, and finally, his face. 

"Don't struggle, kid!" the villain laughed, forcing the foul-tasting sludge into Izuku's mouth and up his nose. "It'll only take forty-five seconds to hijack your body. It'll hurt a lot, but then it'll be over!"

Izuku couldn't breathe. The sludge was thick, suffocating, burning his lungs. He clawed at his throat, his blunt fingernails scraping helplessly against the liquid substance. It was like trying to grab water. 

Panic set in. His vision began to swim with black spots. I'm going to die, he realized. I'm going to die right here, and no one will even know.

Let me out.

The thought wasn't a conscious one. It rose from the deepest, most primitive part of Izuku's brainstem. The predatory instinct. The Apex Carnotaur. 

Let me out!

Izuku’s slitted pupils dilated until his eyes were entirely black. A low, vibrating hum began to emanate from his chest, shaking the sludge that encased him. 

"What the...?" the Sludge Villain muttered, feeling the sudden, immense heat radiating from the boy's body. "Stop fighting it, you little brat!"

Izuku couldn't stop it if he tried. His survival instincts had seized control. The transformation triggered, localized entirely to his head and neck. 

With a sickening sound of shifting cartilage and expanding bone, Izuku's jaw unhinged and elongated. His teeth fell out, instantly replaced by rows of thick, serrated, dagger-like fangs. The scales on his neck thickened into impenetrable armor, and two massive, curved horns erupted from his brow. 

He didn't need to punch the sludge. He didn't need to grab it. 

Izuku, in a state of sheer panic and feral desperation, opened his massive Carnotaurus jaws and bit down. 

The bite force of a Carnotaurus was estimated to be nearly two tons. When Izuku's jaws slammed shut, the sheer kinetic shockwave displaced the air in the tunnel. He didn't bite a solid object; he bit into the thickest part of the villain's liquid mass, violently thrashing his massive, horned head from side to side like a crocodile performing a death roll. 

"AGH! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" the Sludge Villain shrieked. The intense pressure and violent tearing motion disrupted the viscosity of his sludge. He couldn't hold on. 

Izuku tore a massive chunk of the sludge away from his face, spitting the vile substance against the tunnel wall. He gasped for air, his human lungs burning. The transformation instantly receded, his face shrinking back to its human, albeit heavily scaled, form. He dropped to his hands and knees on the concrete, coughing violently. 

"You little freak!" the Sludge Villain roared, reforming his mass. "I'll tear you apart from the inside out!"

The villain reared back to strike a killing blow. Izuku braced himself, squeezing his eyes shut. 

But the blow never came. 

A massive gust of wind blew through the tunnel, carrying the sudden, unmistakable scent of freedom and power. 

"FEAR NOT, YOUNG MAN!" a voice boomed, echoing off the concrete walls with absolute authority. "FOR I AM HERE!"

Izuku opened his eyes. Standing at the entrance of the tunnel, silhouetted by the afternoon sun, was a mountain of a man. He wore a simple white T-shirt and cargo pants, but his golden hair and massive, V-shaped physique were unmistakable. 

All Might. The Number One Hero. The Symbol of Peace. 

"All... All Might?" Izuku coughed, his voice hoarse. 

The Sludge Villain recoiled in sheer terror. "T-The Number One Hero?! What are you doing in a place like this?!"

"TEXAS... SMASH!" 

All Might didn't waste time talking. He pulled back his right fist and threw a punch at the air. The sheer wind pressure generated by the strike created a localized tornado within the enclosed space of the tunnel. The air compressed and exploded forward, slamming into the Sludge Villain with the force of a freight train. 

The villain's liquid body was blown apart instantly, scattered into a thousand globs of inert sludge against the tunnel walls. 

The wind died down, rustling Izuku's messy green hair. He stared in absolute awe. He had watched videos of All Might thousands of times, but seeing the sheer, devastating power in person was something entirely different. It was clean. It was heroic. It was nothing like the violent, tearing desperation Izuku had just used. 

"Are you alright, young man?" All Might asked, his booming voice carrying a genuine tone of concern as he approached. He pulled two large plastic soda bottles from a grocery bag and began rapidly scooping up the scattered pieces of the villain. 

"I... yes. Th-Thank you," Izuku stammered, scrambling to his feet. He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the rough texture of his scales. 

All Might paused for a moment, his blue eyes locking onto Izuku. He took in the boy's towering height, the slitted pupils, and the lingering patches of reptilian armor. For a fraction of a second, the Symbol of Peace's smile faltered, replaced by a look of wary assessment. It was the look a seasoned warrior gives to a potential threat. 

Izuku noticed. He always noticed. His shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his shoes. Even All Might sees it. He sees the monster.

"A powerful-looking Quirk you have there!" All Might boomed, covering his momentary hesitation with his trademark laugh. "But you must be careful! Villain attacks are best left to the professionals. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get this vile sludge to the police!"

"W-Wait!" Izuku blurted out. The words tumbled from his mouth before his brain could stop them. This was his chance. The only chance he might ever get to ask the man who defined heroism the one question that had tortured him for ten years. "Please, All Might! I have to ask you something!"

All Might patted his pocket, ensuring the bottles were secure. "I'm sorry, my boy, but a hero's work is never done! I must be off!" 

All Might bent his knees, preparing to launch himself into the sky. 

Izuku didn't think. Driven by a decade of repressed anxiety and desperation, he lunged forward, his powerful legs propelling him across the gap. Just as All Might leapt into the air, Izuku grabbed hold of the hero's cargo pants. 

The wind ripped past Izuku's ears as they shot hundreds of feet into the air. 

"Hey, hey, hey!" All Might yelled, looking down in shock at the massive teenager clinging to his leg. "What do you think you're doing?! Let go!"

"If I let go now, I'll die!" Izuku screamed over the rushing wind, his eyes squeezed shut. 

"Oh. Right!" 

All Might adjusted his trajectory, aiming for the roof of a nearby three-story office building. They landed with a heavy thud, All Might sliding a few feet across the gravel roof while Izuku collapsed onto his hands and knees, panting heavily. 

"That was incredibly dangerous, young man!" All Might scolded, though he was secretly nursing a sharp pain in his side. He coughed, a small speck of blood appearing on his lip. He subtly wiped it away. "I must go now. Knock on the door downstairs, they'll let you out."

"Wait, please!" Izuku pleaded, standing up. He gripped the straps of his backpack so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I... I have a Transformation Quirk. When I use it... I turn into a dinosaur. A Carnotaurus. It's... it's brutal. When I fight, I can't punch or arrest people gently. I have to use my horns. I have to bite. I have to crush things."

All Might paused, his hand on the railing of the roof. He looked back at the boy. 

"Everyone looks at me like I'm a villain waiting to happen," Izuku confessed, tears welling in his slitted eyes. "They call me a monster. And when I use my power... I feel the instincts. The anger. The hunger. It's so hard to control. So I hide it. I don't use it. But..."

Izuku looked up, locking his emerald, reptilian eyes with All Might's sky-blue ones. 

"Even if my power is terrifying... even if I look like a monster... can someone like me ever become a hero? Can I be a hero who saves people with a smile?"

The silence on the rooftop stretched out, filled only by the distant sounds of city traffic. 

All Might looked at the boy. He saw the sheer physical power bound up in the teenager's frame. A Carnotaurus Quirk. A predator of the highest order. Hero society relied on optics as much as it did on results. Heroes were supposed to make people feel safe. A giant, bloodthirsty dinosaur ripping villains apart in the streets wouldn't inspire hope; it would inspire terror. 

But before All Might could answer, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in his chest. Steam began to pour from his muscular frame. 

Izuku gasped, taking a step back as the Number One Hero was engulfed in a cloud of thick white smoke. 

When the smoke cleared, the towering, muscular god of heroism was gone. In his place stood a skeletal, emaciated man with sunken eyes and clothes that hung off him like a scarecrow. 

Izuku's jaw dropped. "A-All Might? You're... you're deflated! Wait, are you a fake? An imposter?!"

"I assure you, I am All Might," the skeletal man said, his voice raspy and exhausted. He sat down heavily against the rooftop railing, pulling up his oversized T-shirt to reveal a horrifying, spider-webbing scar that covered the entire left side of his chest. "I got this in a fight five years ago. My respiratory system was nearly destroyed, and my stomach was removed. I can only do hero work for about three hours a day now."

Izuku stared in horror. The invincible Symbol of Peace was broken. 

"You ask if you can be a hero with a terrifying power," All Might said slowly, looking out over the city skyline. "The truth is, pro heroes have to put their lives on the line every day. But they also have to be a beacon of light. A symbol of safety. If your Quirk relies on brutality, if you struggle to control your predatory instincts... you pose a risk not just to villains, but to the civilians you're trying to protect."

Izuku felt the air leave his lungs. It was the confirmation of his darkest fear, spoken by the god he worshipped. 

"I cannot simply say 'yes, anyone can be a hero,'" All Might continued, his voice softer, but resolute. "If your power is fundamentally designed to kill, and you cannot control the beast within... perhaps it is best you look into a different career. Police work. Rescue operations where you don't engage in combat. It's not bad to dream, young man. But you have to be realistic."

All Might stood up, walked to the roof access door, and opened it. He looked back one last time at the crushed, devastatingly silent teenager. 

"I'm sorry," All Might said softly, before disappearing down the stairwell. 

Izuku stood alone on the roof for a long time. The golden afternoon sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, dark shadows over the city. 

He's right, Izuku thought, a single tear tracing a path down his scaled cheek. Kacchan was right. The teachers were right. I'm not a hero. I'm just a cage keeping a monster locked inside.

Izuku didn't know how long he walked. He descended from the roof and wandered aimlessly through the city streets, his mind entirely blank. The dream he had clung to for ten years had been shattered in a matter of minutes. 

He was pulled from his numb reverie by the sound of a massive explosion. 

BOOM!

The ground shook beneath his feet. A plume of thick black smoke rose into the sky a few blocks away. The scent of ozone, burning wood, and... burnt caramel reached his nose. 

Izuku's eyes widened. Kacchan.

His legs moved before his brain could process what he was doing. He sprinted toward the smoke, his heavy strides eating up the distance in seconds. He rounded a corner into Tatooine Shopping District and froze. 

The street was a war zone. Storefronts were on fire, windows shattered. A massive crowd of civilians was being held back by a police barricade, while several pro heroes—Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Backdraft—stood helplessly at the edge of the inferno. 

And in the center of the fiery chaos, thrashing violently and roaring in triumph, was the Sludge Villain. 

The bottles, Izuku realized with a sickening jolt of horror. When I grabbed All Might... they must have fallen out of his pockets! This is my fault!

"We can't get close!" Death Arms yelled, shielding his face from the intense heat. "He's taken a hostage, and the kid has a powerful explosion Quirk! Every time the sludge moves, the kid sets off another blast, starting more fires!"

"My quirk is useless here!" Mt. Lady grunted, trapped in her giant form in the narrow two-lane street. "I need at least two lanes to maneuver!"

Izuku pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He peered through the thick black smoke and the roaring flames. 

Trapped in the center of the massive, undulating mountain of sludge was Katsuki Bakugo. The blonde boy was thrashing, his palms firing off massive explosions in a desperate bid for freedom. But the sludge was too thick. It was suffocating him, flowing into his mouth and nose, just as it had done to Izuku in the tunnel. 

Through the chaos, the smoke, and the fire, Katsuki’s crimson eyes met Izuku’s green ones. 

Katsuki wasn't glaring. He wasn't sneering. For the first time in ten years, Katsuki Bakugo looked utterly, helplessly terrified. He was pleading for help. 

The pros were waiting. Waiting for someone with a suitable Quirk. Waiting for a perfect hero to arrive and save the day with a smile. 

But Izuku Midoriya realized in that singular, agonizing heartbeat that there was no perfect hero coming. All Might was out of time. The pros were useless. Katsuki was going to die. 

If your power is fundamentally designed to kill... All Might's voice echoed in his mind.

You're a monster! Katsuki's four-year-old voice screamed.

Izuku dropped his yellow backpack to the pavement. 

I know, Izuku thought, his slitted pupils dilating until his eyes were entirely black. I am a monster. But right now... a monster is exactly what he needs.

Izuku stepped past the police barricade. 

"Hey! Kid, what are you doing?!" Death Arms roared, reaching out to grab him. "Get back here! You'll burn to death!"

Izuku didn't answer. He didn't break into a run. He simply walked forward into the flames. 

With every step he took, his body warped, expanded, and horrified the onlookers. His clothes tore as his muscles ballooned, his spine elongating with a sickening series of cracks. The diamond-shaped green scales on his neck spread like a wildfire, encasing his entire body in impenetrable, osteoderm-studded armor. His legs snapped backward into a digitigrade stance, his feet exploding through his red shoes, replaced by three massive, razor-sharp talons that gouged the asphalt. A massive, heavily muscled tail erupted from his tailbone, acting as a perfect counterbalance. His arms shrank, locking tight against his chest, entirely useless. 

But his head. His head was the stuff of nightmares. 

His skull thickened into a battering ram of bone and scale. Two massive, ivory horns swept forward from his brow. His jaws unhinged, revealing rows of teeth that could shear through a car door. 

By the time Izuku took his fifth step, the timid fourteen-year-old boy was gone. In his place stood the Apex Carnotaur, fifteen feet tall and weighing nearly three tons. 

The crowd fell completely, deathly silent. Even the roaring of the flames seemed to quiet down. 

The Sludge Villain stopped laughing. He looked up at the towering, prehistoric beast standing in the fire. The flames licked at the dinosaur's scales, doing absolutely nothing to the heat-resistant armor. 

"Y-You!" the Sludge Villain stammered, his bloodshot eyes widening in terror. "The brat from the tunnel!"

Izuku didn't speak. He couldn't. His human consciousness was retreating, handing the reins entirely over to the predator. He locked his binocular vision onto the sludge holding Katsuki. 

Prey. Obstacle. Destroy.

Izuku dug his massive talons into the asphalt. The muscles in his thunderous hind legs coiled like industrial springs. 

And then, he charged. 

The Carnotaurus was a speed-focused predator. Izuku didn't just run; he exploded forward with the concussive force of a missile launch. The asphalt beneath his feet shattered, spraying chunks of rock backward into the crowd. He crossed the twenty-yard distance in less than a second, moving at blinding, Mach-1 speeds. 

The pros couldn't even track his movement. One moment the beast was at the barricade, the next, it was upon the villain. 

Izuku lowered his heavily armored head, pointing his massive horns forward. He didn't aim for Katsuki. He aimed for the largest mass of sludge beneath the captive boy. 

IMPACT.

It was like a freight train colliding with a water balloon. Izuku's horns and armored skull slammed into the Sludge Villain's main body. The sheer kinetic force of a three-ton animal moving at such incredible speed created a localized shockwave that blew the surrounding fires completely out. 

"GGAAAAAHHHHH!" the Sludge Villain shrieked as his liquid body was literally displaced by the violent physical trauma. 

Izuku didn't stop. He couldn't use his arms to pull Katsuki free, so he used the only weapons he had. Brutality. 

He drove his head upward, using his horns to violently rip the sludge away from Katsuki's torso. The villain tried to wrap tendrils around Izuku's head, but the Carnotaurus simply clamped his massive jaws around the villain's left eye-stalk. 

With a vicious, primal jerk of his heavy neck, Izuku tore the sludge away, severely damaging the villain's physical anchor. 

Katsuki, suddenly free from the suffocating mass, gasped for air. He was falling toward the pavement, but Izuku deftly swept his massive tail, catching Katsuki softly on the scaled appendage and sliding him out of the danger zone. 

But Izuku wasn't done. The predatory fury was fully unleashed. 

The Sludge Villain tried to retreat, oozing toward the sewer grate. "You psycho! You feral freak!"

Izuku let out a deafening, rattling roar that shattered the remaining windows on the street. He lunged forward, stomping his massive, taloned foot directly onto the villain's remaining mass, pinning it to the street. He lowered his massive jaws, snapping and tearing at the sludge, violently thrashing his head to ensure the villain could not reform. 

It was not a heroic fight. It was a slaughter. It was raw, unfiltered, horrific carnage. 

In the crowd, All Might stood in his skeletal form, clutching a telephone pole. His blue eyes were wide with a mixture of awe and horror. He watched the massive beast tear the villain apart to save his classmate. He didn't hesitate, All Might thought, his heart pounding against his ribs. When all the pros stood by and watched... that boy, despite knowing the terror he would inspire, threw himself into the fire.

Izuku, panting heavily, stood over the defeated, scattered puddles of the Sludge Villain. His chest heaved. The intense combat adrenaline was fading, and his human mind was snapping back to the forefront. 

He realized what he had just done. He realized there were hundreds of people watching him. 

He slowly turned his massive, horned head toward the barricade. 

The civilians were backing away. Some were covering their children's eyes. Death Arms and Kamui Woods looked utterly terrified, their bodies tense and ready to fight him if he made a sudden move. 

Izuku looked at Katsuki, who was sitting on the pavement, coughing up soot. Katsuki looked up at the towering dinosaur, his crimson eyes wide, completely speechless. 

The shame and self-loathing hit Izuku like a physical blow. He squeezed his reptilian eyes shut and concentrated, forcing the transformation to reverse. 

The massive beast shrank. The horns receded. The heavy tail disappeared. Within seconds, Izuku Midoriya was sitting on his knees in the middle of the ruined street, wearing torn clothes, shivering, and staring at the ground. 

The silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity. 

Then, Death Arms marched forward. He didn't look heroic. He looked angry. 

"What the hell is wrong with you, kid?!" Death Arms yelled, standing over Izuku. "Are you insane?! You charged into a hostage situation with a highly volatile, destructive Quirk! You could have killed the hostage! You could have killed yourself! You fought like a rabid animal, not a hero!"

Kamui Woods nodded in agreement. "We had the situation under control. You disrupted an active crime scene. If you can't control your Quirk with more finesse than... than that, you have no business interfering with hero work!"

Izuku kept his head bowed, the scales on his neck flushed dark with shame. Tears leaked from his eyes, falling onto the soot-stained asphalt. They're right. I'm a monster. I just lost control again.

They continued to scold him, lecturing him on the danger of his actions. Across the street, the paramedics were treating Katsuki, praising him for his bravery and the strength of his explosions, completely ignoring the fact that it was the boy's explosions that had worsened the fire in the first place. 

Eventually, the police took Izuku's statement and let him go, deeming his actions a reckless, unauthorized use of a Quirk, but ultimately letting him off with a severe warning due to the circumstances. 

The sun had completely set by the time Izuku began the long walk home. The streetlights flickered overhead, casting long, lonely shadows on the sidewalk. His body ached from the rapid transformation. His heart ached even more. 

He had proven to everyone, including himself, that he could only solve problems with sheer, terrifying brutality. 

"Deku!" 

Izuku stopped. He turned around to see Katsuki running toward him, panting heavily, his arm bandaged from the sludge encounter. 

"Kacchan?" Izuku asked softly. 

Katsuki stopped a few feet away, glaring at Izuku with a complex mix of fury, pride, and an agonizing realization of his own weakness. "Listen to me, you feral freak! I didn't ask for your help! I didn't need saving, especially not by a monster like you! I was fine! I had it under control!" 

Katsuki breathed heavily, his fists clenched at his sides. He looked at Izuku's imposing, scaled frame, and for the first time, he didn't see just a threat. He saw the sheer, undeniable reality of Izuku's power. 

"Don't think you can look down on me!" Katsuki yelled, his voice cracking slightly. "I'm still going to be the Number One Hero! You hear me?!" 

Katsuki spun around and stomped off down the street, leaving Izuku standing alone in the glow of the streetlight. 

Izuku let out a small, tired sigh. At least he's okay, he thought. 

He turned to continue his walk home, only to jump backward in shock. 

Standing at the entrance of a narrow alleyway, blocking his path, was the skeletal form of All Might. 

"A-All Might?!" Izuku gasped. "What are you doing here? Did you come to scold me too? I know I messed up. I know I lost control. I shouldn't have—"

"I AM HERE!" 

In a burst of steam and expanding muscle, All Might transformed into his towering, heroic form, flexing his massive biceps. But almost instantly, he coughed up a spray of blood and deflated back into his skeletal state, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. 

"Right. Pushing my limit," All Might muttered. He looked up at Izuku, his expression deadly serious. 

"Young Midoriya," All Might said, stepping out of the shadows. "I come to you with an apology, a correction, and an offer."

Izuku blinked, utterly confused. "An apology?"

"I told you on that roof that a hero must be a symbol of safety," All Might said, his blue eyes piercing through the dim light. "I told you that your power was too terrifying, too brutal to inspire hope. I was wrong."

Izuku's breath hitched in his throat. 

"Today, I saw pro heroes stand by and watch a child suffocate because they lacked the proper Quirks," All Might continued, taking a step closer. "I stood by and watched because I lacked the time. We were all bound by our limitations, our fears, and our concern for optics."

All Might pointed a bony finger directly at Izuku's chest. 

"But you. A timid boy who is terrified of his own shadow. You saw a life in danger, and you cast aside your fear of how the world would perceive you. You embraced the monster, not out of malice, but to save a life. You did what I could not do."

Tears, hot and fast, began to spill from Izuku's slitted eyes. He clenched his jaw, trying to hold back a sob. 

"A Quirk does not dictate the heart of a hero," All Might said, his voice ringing with absolute conviction. "A sword can be used to slaughter the innocent, or it can be used to slay the dragon. Your power is brutal, yes. It is feral. It is terrifying. But today, that terror saved a boy's life."

All Might stopped directly in front of Izuku and bowed his head slightly. 

"Izuku Midoriya. I retract my previous statement. You can become a hero."

The words shattered the dams holding back Izuku's grief. Ten years of repression, fear, bullying, and self-hatred came pouring out of him. He fell to his knees on the concrete, clutching his chest as he sobbed uncontrollably, the heavy, grating sounds of his cries echoing down the empty street. 

All Might placed a warm, heavy hand on the boy's shaking shoulder. 

"But," All Might added softly, waiting for Izuku to look up. "If you are to survive in this society, and if you are to attend U.A. High School, you cannot rely purely on feral instinct. A beast unleashed is a danger. A beast controlled is a weapon of justice."

Izuku wiped his eyes with his scaled forearm, looking up at the emaciated hero. "What... what are you saying?"

"I am offering to train you, Young Midoriya," All Might smiled, a genuine, warm expression that didn't need a muscular physique to inspire hope. "I have a Quirk to pass on, yes, but before we even discuss that, I must teach you how to master the Apex Carnotaur. I will teach you how to channel your brutality. How to use your sheer physical force without losing your mind to the predator."

All Might stood tall, the wind rustling his oversized clothes. 

"I will help you prove to the world that even the most terrifying monster can be the greatest hero. Do you accept?"

Izuku looked at his hands. He saw the scales. He saw the blunt, thick nails. He thought of the jaws, the horns, the sheer, devastating carnage he was capable of unleashing. He would never be a clean hero. He would never be a gentle savior. 

But if he could stand between the innocent and the wicked... if he could be the terror that villains feared in the dark... that was enough. 

Izuku looked up at All Might, his vertical pupils narrowing with a newfound, unbreakable resolve. 

"Yes," the Carnage Hero said. "I accept."

The ten months leading up to the U.A. High School Entrance Exam were a crucible of blood, sweat, and thousands of consumed calories. 

Dagobah Municipal Beach Park had been a sprawling, illegal dumping ground for years, choked with rusting refrigerators, rotting tires, and the rusted husks of abandoned cars. But for Izuku Midoriya and his mentor, the Number One Hero All Might, it was the perfect, isolated dojo. 

All Might’s training regimen was twofold. First was the physical aspect. Sustaining the Apex Carnotaur transformation required an astronomical amount of energy. The Carnotaurus was a massive, warm-blooded predator with an incredibly high metabolism. If Izuku transformed without the proper caloric reserves, his body would begin to cannibalize its own muscle tissue, leading to severe cramps, exhaustion, and eventually, a total blackout. To counter this, All Might had Izuku eating nearly ten thousand calories a day—massive portions of protein, rice, and dense nutrient shakes. 

Then came the heavy lifting. Izuku was not allowed to use his Quirk to move the trash. He had to haul the rusted trucks and sunken appliances using his base human form. Due to his permanent mutant traits—his six-foot-two frame, broad shoulders, and dense, scaly musculature—Izuku was already far stronger than the average teenager. But All Might pushed him beyond his limits, forging his human body into a foundation strong enough to handle the violent neurological and physical whiplash of shifting into a three-ton apex predator.

But the second part of the training was the most difficult: the mental conditioning. 

"Control the beast, Young Midoriya!" All Might would shout from atop a pile of cleared debris, watching as Izuku, fully transformed into his fifteen-foot Carnotaurus state, thrashed against a stack of crushed cars. "Do not let the predator dictate your targets! You are a hero, not a hunter! Focus! Breathe!"

It was agonizing. Whenever Izuku transformed, the ancient, reptilian part of his brain—the amygdala—flared with aggressive, predatory adrenaline. The world shifted into a hyper-focused lens of movement, heat, and raw, violent instinct. He wanted to bite. He wanted to charge. He wanted to tear something apart.

To master it, All Might subjected Izuku to intense, high-stress meditation. Izuku would transform, and All Might would stand directly in front of him, unflinching, forcing the beast to look the Symbol of Peace in the eye and stand perfectly still. It took months before Izuku could hold the form for more than five minutes without giving in to the urge to lash out. 

Slowly, but surely, the fourteen-year-old boy learned to hold the reins of the monster. He learned that he didn't always need to go full beast. He developed a "hybrid" form—compressing the mass of the Carnotaurus into a dense, humanoid shape. In this state, he retained his human arms and bipedal posture, but gained the thick osteoderm armor, the heavy counter-balancing tail, the digitigrade dinosaur legs, and a terrifyingly sharp set of teeth and horns. It was still brutally violent, but it allowed him a wider range of motion in tight spaces.

By the morning of the U.A. Entrance Exam, Dagobah Beach was spotless, the golden sand gleaming under the early morning sun. And Izuku Midoriya was ready.

The towering gates of U.A. High School loomed like a fortress. Thousands of aspiring heroes swarmed the entrance, chatting nervously, showing off minor Quirk displays, and laughing with their friends. 

When Izuku Midoriya stepped onto the campus, the laughter within a twenty-foot radius died instantly. 

He didn't mean to be intimidating. He wore a simple black middle school uniform that strained against his broad shoulders. But his sheer height, the thick patches of dark green, Kevlar-like scales on his neck and forearms, and those unsettling, slit-pupiled emerald eyes made him look less like an applicant and more like a seasoned pro hero—or a notorious villain. 

The crowd naturally parted for him. Students whispered behind their hands, throwing nervous glances at the heavy, thudding sound of his large shoes hitting the pavement. 

Just keep your head down, Izuku told himself, gripping the straps of his backpack. Deep breaths. Don't look at them. You're just here to take a test.

"Out of my way, Deku!" 

A harsh, familiar voice barked from behind him. Izuku stopped and turned to see Katsuki Bakugo marching up the pathway. The ash-blonde teenager glared daggers at Izuku, his red eyes burning with that familiar, defensive hostility. 

"Kacchan," Izuku acknowledged, his deep, baritone voice rumbling in his chest. 

"Don't think just because you put on some muscle and learned a few parlor tricks that you're in my league," Katsuki sneered, stepping into Izuku's personal space. Despite Katsuki's bravado, he had to tilt his head up to look Izuku in the eye. "I saw what you did to that Sludge bastard. You're a reckless, mindless animal. U.A. is gonna take one look at your feral ass in the practical exam and throw you in a cage where you belong."

Izuku didn't flinch. Ten months ago, he would have curled in on himself and apologized. But ten months of looking the Number One Hero in the eye while trapped in a monstrous body had fundamentally changed him. The predator inside him didn't fear Katsuki Bakugo. 

Izuku simply blinked, his inner nictitating membrane sliding sideways across his eye in a distinctly reptilian motion. 

"We'll see, Kacchan," Izuku said calmly. "Good luck on the exam."

Katsuki clicked his tongue in pure annoyance, shoving past Izuku and storming into the building. Izuku let out a steadying breath and followed. 

The written portion of the exam was a breeze. Izuku had spent his entire life obsessively analyzing hero laws, physics, and quirk mechanics. But the real challenge lay in the auditorium, where the Voice Hero: Present Mic was explaining the rules of the Practical Exam. 

"HEEEEYYYY EVERYBODY! CAN I GET A 'YEAH'?!" Present Mic screamed into the microphone. 

The auditorium was met with dead, uncomfortable silence. 

Izuku sat near the back, his large frame squeezed into the small auditorium seat. He listened intently as Present Mic explained the point system: One-Pointers, Two-Pointers, and Three-Pointers scattered across a massive faux-cityscape. The goal was to destroy as many as possible within a ten-minute time limit. 

Robots, Izuku thought, a grim, jagged smile touching the corners of his lips. They're just robots. Not living things. No blood. No civilians.

For the first time in his life, Izuku Midoriya realized he wouldn't have to hold back. 

"Excuse me, sir!" A tall boy with glasses and stiff, robotic posture stood up, pointing a rigid finger at the stage. "On the printout, there are four types of villains! If this is a misprint, U.A., the most prominent academy in Japan, should be ashamed of that foolish mistake! And you, in the back!"

The boy suddenly pivoted, pointing his finger directly at Izuku. 

"You've been exuding a terrifying, murderous aura this entire time! Your heavy breathing and intimidating posture are distracting the rest of us! If you are just here to act like a thug, you should leave immediately!"

Every head in the auditorium turned to look at Izuku. The boy with glasses was clearly brave, but as he locked eyes with Izuku's slit pupils, he visibly swallowed hard, a drop of sweat forming on his brow. 

Izuku’s scales flushed slightly. He realized his heart rate had been steadily climbing in anticipation of the fight. He bowed his head slightly. "I apologize. I was just... anticipating the practical. I'll quiet down."

"R-Right. See that you do," the bespectacled boy said, sitting down stiffly. 

Present Mic quickly defused the situation, explaining that the Fourth Robot was a Zero-Pointer—a massive obstacle meant to be avoided. With the rules established, the students were ushered to buses and transported to their respective testing grounds. 

Test Center Battle Center B

Izuku stood before the massive, towering gates of the faux-city. Dozens of other applicants milled about, stretching, muttering to themselves, and sizing up the competition. 

Izuku didn't stretch. He closed his eyes and began to strip off his shirt, carefully folding it and placing it with his belongings. The applicants around him backed away, murmuring in shock as they took in the heavy, armor-plated musculature of his torso and the dense, diamond-shaped scales running down his spine. 

He took a deep breath, filling his massive lungs. He reached inward, past the anxiety, past the fear, and unlatched the heavy iron door in his mind. 

Wake up, he told the beast. 

A low, guttural vibration emanated from Izuku's chest. His bones began to pop and crack. The applicants nearby gasped and scrambled away as Izuku's body rapidly expanded. 

His legs snapped backward into thick, digitigrade limbs, his feet bursting from his specially designed tear-away shoes to reveal three massive, scythe-like talons. A heavy, muscular tail tore through his specially tailored pants, slamming onto the pavement with a thud that shook the ground. His neck thickened, his jaw elongating into a terrifying, tooth-filled maw, and two massive ivory horns sprouted from his brow. 

In a matter of seconds, Izuku stood in his hybrid form—an eight-foot-tall, armored, bipedal dinosaur-man. He retained his human arms, though they were thickly scaled, but his primary weapons were undeniable. 

"What the hell is that?!" a random applicant shrieked. 

"Is that a villain? Did they let a villain in?!"

"RIGHT, LET'S START!" Present Mic's voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "WHAT'S WRONG? THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL FIGHTS! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

The gates hadn't even fully opened. There was only a narrow gap, barely wide enough for a car. 

Izuku didn't wait for the doors to part. His powerful, digitigrade legs coiled, and he exploded forward with the force of a cannonball. 

The applicants barely registered his movement. There was only a blast of displaced air, a terrifying roar, and the sound of heavy talons tearing the asphalt to shreds. Izuku slipped through the narrow gap in the gates at blinding speed, leaving the rest of the applicants standing in stunned silence at the starting line. 

"H-Hey! He's getting a head start!" someone yelled, and the rest of the crowd finally panicked, surging forward into the city. 

Inside the faux-city, Izuku’s senses were dialed to maximum. His binocular vision locked onto movement three blocks down. Two green, tread-based robots—One-Pointers—rolled around the corner, their optical sensors glowing red. 

"Target acquired," the robotic voice droned. 

Izuku didn't stop. He accelerated. The Carnotaurus was designed by evolution for one thing: explosive, linear speed. He was moving at nearly seventy miles an hour, his heavy tail keeping his balance perfect. 

He didn't throw a punch. He didn't even use his arms. 

Izuku lowered his heavily armored skull. 

CRUNCH.

He rammed the first One-Pointer dead center. The kinetic force of his three-ton hybrid body moving at highway speeds shattered the robot's outer casing instantly. Metal shrapnel exploded outward as the robot was crushed flat beneath Izuku's talons. 

The second One-Pointer tried to pivot its guns, but Izuku violently whipped his heavy tail around. The spiked appendage struck the robot's head unit with the force of a wrecking ball, decapitating the machine in a shower of sparks and twisted wire. 

"Two points," Izuku's distorted, gravelly voice hissed through his serrated teeth. 

The beast in his mind roared in approval, urging him further. More. Destroy. Hunt.

For the next eight minutes, Test Center B became a hunting ground. Izuku was an absolute blur of primal violence. 

He bounded up the side of a building, using his massive leg strength to parkour off the concrete, launching himself into the air to intercept a flying Two-Pointer. He clamped his massive jaws around the robot's wing, the sheer bite force cleanly shearing through the high-grade steel alloy like it was aluminum foil. He dragged the machine down to the ground, stomping on its core to ensure the kill. 

Three Three-Pointers cornered him in a narrow alleyway, firing a volley of rubber missiles. 

Izuku didn't dodge. The missiles struck his osteoderm armor, exploding in bursts of smoke, doing absolutely nothing to the dense, prehistoric scales. He let out a deafening roar that vibrated the glass in the surrounding buildings and charged. 

He caught the first Three-Pointer by its mechanical arm with his jaws, violently violently thrashing his head backward to rip the limb entirely out of its socket. He used his immense momentum to shoulder-check the second robot, sending it crashing through the brick wall of a faux-deli. The third robot prepared to fire a localized net, but Izuku dropped low, performing a sweeping kick with his dinosaur legs, his scythe-like talons cleanly slicing through the robot's treads, immobilizing it before he crushed its head under his heel. 

Other applicants finally caught up, but they could only watch in awe and terror. The streets were littered with the mangled, violently torn remains of the robotic threats. 

"Don't get near him!" a boy with an electricity quirk yelled, backing away as Izuku tore a Two-Pointer in half with his jaws. "He fights like a rabid animal! He'll kill us!"

High above the battleground, in the darkened observation room, the U.A. faculty watched the screens with a mix of fascination and deep concern. 

"Applicant Midoriya Izuku," Nezu, the principal of U.A., chimed in, taking a sip from his teacup. "A Transformation-Class Quirk. Apex Carnotaur. My, my, what a ferocious display. He’s already broken seventy points, and he hasn't even used his hands."

"He fights like a savage," the Blood Hero: Vlad King noted, crossing his arms. "There's zero finesse. It's all brute force, charging, and biting. If he uses that level of violence on a human villain, he’ll kill them instantly. Is he even in control of himself?"

Sitting in the corner, wrapped in his yellow sleeping bag, Shota Aizawa watched Izuku's feed intently. His tired, bloodshot eyes tracked the boy's blinding speed. 

"Look closely," Aizawa mumbled, his voice dry. "He looks feral, but he's not attacking blindly. Notice how he positions his tail to shield the other applicants from shrapnel when he rams the targets. Notice how he only bites the structural joints, neutralizing the threat without completely vaporizing the expensive cores. He's hyper-aggressive, yes, but he is completely aware of his surroundings. He's holding the beast on a very short, very tight leash."

All Might, standing in his muscular form in the back of the room, beamed with pride. You’ve done it, Young Midoriya. You’ve mastered the fear.

"Let's see how he handles the final test," Nezu smiled, his paw hovering over a large red button on the console. "Time to deploy the obstacles."

Back in Test Center B, the ground suddenly began to tremble. 

Izuku froze, dropping the chassis of a crushed One-Pointer from his jaws. He tasted dust in the air. His reptilian ears swiveled, picking up a deep, rhythmic booming sound from the center of the city. 

A massive shadow fell over the street. 

The buildings at the end of the avenue shattered like glass as the Zero-Pointer emerged. It was a colossal, tread-based behemoth, easily the size of a skyscraper, dwarfing everything around it. It let out a mechanical groan, raising a massive arm and bringing it down on the street, completely obliterating a five-story building. 

The shockwave sent dust and debris flying, knocking several applicants off their feet. 

"It's the Zero-Pointer!" someone screamed. "Run! It's too big!"

The panic was instant. Applicants scrambled over each other, turning tail and fleeing toward the entrance gates. 

Izuku felt the primal urge to retreat. Even the Carnotaurus, an apex predator, recognized when a creature was too large to fight. The sheer scale of the machine screamed danger to his reptilian brain. He turned to run with the others. 

"Ow! Help! My leg is stuck!"

Izuku stopped. His sensitive ears picked up the faint, desperate cry over the roaring of the giant machine's engines. 

He whipped his head around, scanning the dust cloud. Through the debris, he saw a girl with bobbed brown hair—the same girl who had smiled at him near the entrance gates, completely unafraid of his imposing form. She was trapped beneath a massive slab of concrete that had fallen from a crumbling building, right in the direct path of the Zero-Pointer's massive treads. 

The colossal machine was rolling forward, its unfeeling optical sensors oblivious to the girl on the ground. 

Izuku's pupils dilated. The fear vanished, instantly replaced by a surge of adrenaline so powerful it threatened to tear his heart in two. 

She's going to be crushed. 

"Hey! Come back! It'll kill you!" an applicant yelled as he ran past Izuku. 

Izuku didn't listen. He closed his eyes and shattered the mental iron door holding his Quirk back. 

He didn't just need the hybrid form. He needed everything. 

Izuku let out a roar so deafening, so fundamentally terrifying, that the fleeing applicants tripped over themselves in sheer terror. His body violently expanded, tearing the remainder of his pants to shreds. His spine elongated, his posture dropping entirely horizontal to the ground. His human arms shrank into useless, vestigial appendages against his chest. His skull thickened into a massive, wedge-shaped battering ram of solid bone. 

Izuku Midoriya fully transformed into the fifteen-foot, three-ton, prehistoric monster. 

He didn't look heroic. He looked like a creature born from a nightmare. 

Izuku dug his massive, scythed talons into the asphalt. He didn't have arms to lift the debris off the girl. He didn't have telekinesis to move her. He only had one weapon. 

Kinetic force. 

Izuku dropped his head, pointing his massive ivory horns forward, and initiated the Meteor Charge. 

The acceleration was instantaneous and explosive. The sheer muscular power in his hind legs shattered the street behind him, leaving craters in the asphalt. He moved faster than any biological creature of his size had any right to move. He was a blur of dark green scales and bone, tearing down the street at over a hundred miles an hour, locked on a direct collision course with the Zero-Pointer's left tread. 

The brown-haired girl squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the end as the shadow of the giant tread loomed over her. 

But the end didn't come. 

KA-THOOOOOOM!

The impact sounded like a bomb going off. 

Izuku slammed head-first into the colossal metal treads of the Zero-Pointer. He didn't try to bite it. He didn't try to push it. He used the sheer, unstoppable momentum of his three-ton body moving at maximum velocity to deliver a hyper-concentrated strike to the machine's weak point: the axle joint of the treads. 

The dense osteoderm armor on his skull took the brunt of the impact, protecting his brain, but the kinetic shockwave had to go somewhere. It traveled directly into the machine. 

Thick steel warped and shrieked. The massive bolts holding the tread assembly together sheared off like plastic. The sheer force of the blow violently derailed the Zero-Pointer's left tread, throwing the colossal machine entirely off balance. 

With a screech of tearing metal, the skyscraper-sized robot tilted to the left, its momentum carrying it forward until it crashed spectacularly into a row of abandoned buildings, missing the trapped girl by mere feet. 

The dust settled, revealing a scene of utter devastation. The Zero-Pointer was a smoking, sparking ruin, completely immobilized. 

And standing before it, panting heavily, steam rising from his overheated, scaled body, was the Apex Carnotaur. 

"T-TIME'S UP!" Present Mic's voice stuttered over the loudspeaker, clearly shocked by the sheer magnitude of the destruction. 

Izuku stood frozen for a moment, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. The adrenaline crash hit him like a physical blow. The caloric drain of fully transforming and executing the Meteor Charge was immense. His vision blurred, and his massive legs began to tremble. 

With a pained, guttural hiss, the transformation rapidly reversed. The scales melted away, the horns receded, and the tail vanished. Izuku collapsed onto the ruined asphalt in his human form, completely naked from the waist up, his body covered in sweat and bruising. He lay on his back, staring up at the faux-sky, utterly exhausted, his stomach letting out a loud, painful growl. 

"U-Um..." a soft voice called out. 

Izuku weakly turned his head. The brown-haired girl had managed to pull herself out from under the debris. She was covered in dust and had a nasty scrape on her leg, but she was alive. She limped over to him, her wide brown eyes staring down at his large, muscular frame. 

Izuku flinched, instinctively turning his face away. She's going to scream. She saw the monster. She's going to call me a freak.

"Thank you," she said, her voice shaking with genuine emotion. 

Izuku blinked, looking back at her. "Y-You're... you're not afraid of me?"

The girl offered him a bright, brilliant smile, despite the pain in her leg. "Afraid? You just took down a building-sized robot to save me! You were amazing! It was like watching a real-life Kaiju movie, but... heroic! I'm Ochaco Uraraka. Thank you so much... um..."

"M-Midoriya," Izuku rasped, feeling his cheeks flush a bright red, entirely contrasting his fearsome mutant features. "Izuku Midoriya."

Before he could say anything else, an elderly woman in a nurse's outfit—Recovery Girl—arrived, handing out gummies and healing the injured. Izuku accepted a handful of high-sugar gummies, eating them ravenously to stave off the starvation cramps, while Uraraka thanked him once more. 

As Izuku slowly got to his feet, pulling his spare shirt from his locker bag, he felt eyes on him. He looked toward the entrance gates. The rest of the applicants were staring at him, no longer with just fear, but with a profound, terrified respect. 

He had passed. The monster was going to U.A.

One week later, the holographic acceptance letter arrived, confirming Izuku’s place in U.A.’s Hero Course, Class 1-A. He had scored a respectable thirty rescue points for saving Uraraka, but his villain points were staggering—eighty-five points, putting him squarely in first place, above even Katsuki Bakugo. 

Standing in front of the massive door labeled "1-A", Izuku took a deep, steadying breath. He adjusted the collar of his U.A. uniform. The school had graciously tailored it to accommodate his broad frame and the thick patches of scales on his neck, but he still felt like a beast stuffed into a suit. 

He reached out and slid the giant door open. 

"Take your feet off the desk! It is disrespectful to the upperclassmen who sat there before you, and to the artisans who crafted the desk!" 

Izuku instantly recognized the stiff, robotic voice of the boy with glasses from the auditorium. He was currently lecturing Katsuki Bakugo, who was lounging in his seat with his feet propped up, looking entirely bored. 

"Like I care, Four-Eyes," Katsuki scoffed, popping a small explosion in his palm. "What middle school are you from, anyway? You look like a stuck-up extra."

"I am Tenya Iida, from Somei Private Academy!" the boy declared proudly. 

"Somei? So you're an elite, huh? I'm gonna have fun crushing you," Katsuki sneered. 

"Crushing me?! That's cruel! Are you truly aiming to be a hero?!" Iida gasped, taking a step back. As he did, he noticed the massive figure standing in the doorway. 

The entire classroom fell silent. 

Izuku stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching the frame. His reptilian eyes scanned the room, instantly taking in the varied quirks and personalities of his new classmates. There was a boy with dual-colored hair, a girl with frog-like features, a boy with a crow's head. It was a diverse group. 

But Izuku's presence was suffocating. The sheer aura of a top-tier apex predator naturally put the human nervous system on edge. 

Iida stiffened, recognizing Izuku from the auditorium. He marched toward the door, his movements rigid. 

"You!" Iida announced, pointing his hand like a blade. "I am Tenya Iida. I must apologize! I misjudged you during the orientation! You realized there was a practical, hidden aspect to the exam, didn't you?! You saved that girl from the Zero-Pointer at great personal risk! I had no idea you were so perceptive, and your Quirk... it is truly a terrifying display of power!"

"Oh, um, I didn't realize anything," Izuku stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, his deep voice startling a few of the students who hadn't heard him speak yet. "I just moved before I could think."

"Deku!" 

Uraraka popped up from behind Iida, her face breaking into a massive, bright smile. "You made it! I knew you would! That Meteor Charge thing you did was so cool! You totally wrecked that giant robot!"

Izuku's scales flushed red again. "O-Oh, Uraraka-san. It's good to see you too."

"Tch." Katsuki glared out the window, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked like it might shatter. He had seen the final scoreboards. Izuku had beaten him. The feral, brainless monster had scored higher than him. It was an insult Katsuki refused to swallow. 

"If you're just here to make friends, you can pack up your things and leave." 

A tired, muffled voice came from the floor outside the classroom. Izuku looked down. Lying on the ground in a bright yellow sleeping bag was a haggard-looking man with messy black hair and a scruffy beard. He unzipped the bag and stood up, pulling a juice pouch from his pocket. 

"It took you all eight seconds to quiet down. Time is limited. You kids aren't rational enough." 

The man stepped into the classroom, his deadpan eyes scanning the students. When his gaze landed on Izuku, the man paused for a fraction of a second, analyzing the heavy musculature and the slitted pupils. 

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Nice to meet you." 

The class stared in shock. This tired, homeless-looking guy is a U.A. teacher?!

Aizawa reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out a stack of U.A. gym uniforms. "It's kind of sudden, but put these on and go out onto the field."

The sun was high and bright over the massive dirt field behind the school. Class 1-A stood in a cluster, wearing their blue and white gym uniforms. Izuku’s uniform was specially designed with a tear-away slit in the lower back, though he hoped he wouldn't need to use it. 

"A Quirk Apprehension Test?!" the class shouted in unison. 

"What about the entrance ceremony? Or orientation?" Uraraka asked, looking deeply concerned. 

"If you're going to become a hero, you don't have time for such leisurely events," Aizawa said dryly, turning his back to them. "U.A.'s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are. That's also how the teachers run their classes. You kids have been doing these standard physical tests since junior high, right? Tests where you aren't allowed to use your Quirks. It's irrational."

Aizawa turned and pointed a finger at Katsuki. "Bakugo, you finished first in the practical exam. What was your best result for the softball throw in junior high?"

"Sixty-seven meters," Katsuki answered confidently. 

"Then, try doing it with your Quirk." Aizawa tossed Katsuki a standard baseball. "You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the circle. Hurry up. Give it all you've got."

Katsuki stepped into the throwing circle, a vicious grin spreading across his face. He stretched his arms, sparks already dancing across his palms. "You asked for it."

He wound up, and as he threw the ball, he unleashed a massive explosion from his right hand. "DIE!" 

The ball rocketed into the sky, propelled by the concussive force of the blast, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. It soared over the horizon until it was just a speck. 

Aizawa held up a small device. It beeped, displaying a number. "Know your own maximum first. That is the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero." 

He turned the screen toward the class. It read: 705.2 meters.

The class erupted. 

"Over 700 meters? Are you kidding me?!"

"We can use our Quirks as much as we want?! This looks like so much fun!"

"Awesome!"

Aizawa's eyes narrowed, a dark, menacing aura radiating from him. "Fun? You have three years to become heroes. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time? Alright. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be punished with expulsion."

The class gasped in horror. 

"We're free to do what we want with the circumstances of our students," Aizawa smiled, a terrifying, predatory grin that almost rivaled Izuku's. "Welcome to U.A.'s hero course!"

Izuku clenched his massive fists, his slitted pupils narrowing. Expulsion. He's testing us under extreme pressure. He wants to see if we break.

"Test one. 50-meter dash," Aizawa announced, pointing to a marked track. 

Izuku lined up against Tenya Iida. Iida dropped into a perfect sprinter's stance, the engine pipes in his calves humming with latent power. 

Izuku didn't use a standard stance. He closed his eyes and focused on his lower half. 

He didn't need a full transformation. He only needed the engine. 

With a sickening crunch of shifting bone and expanding muscle, Izuku's legs violently altered. His pants tore perfectly along the seams designed by the support company. His knees inverted, his thighs bulged with dense, prehistoric muscle, and his feet expanded into the massive, three-toed talons of the Carnotaurus. 

The sound of his transformation made the students nearby flinch. 

"Ready?" a robotic camera drone announced. 

Izuku dug his talons into the dirt track, carving deep grooves into the earth. The Carnotaurus was built for absolute, explosive acceleration. 

"Go!"

BANG.

Iida fired his engines, shooting forward at an incredible speed. 

But Izuku vanished. 

There was only a thunderous CRACK as the earth beneath his talons exploded, sending a shower of dirt backward. Izuku cleared the fifty meters in three massive, leaping strides, crossing the finish line in a blur of green scales. 

"1.85 seconds," the drone announced as Izuku crossed the line. 

"3.04 seconds," it announced a second later as Iida crossed. 

Iida skidded to a halt, staring at Izuku in absolute shock. "Incredible! Your leg strength is beyond human comprehension! You beat my engines with pure biological power!"

"T-Thanks," Izuku panted, reversing the transformation in his legs to save calories. He felt a dull ache in his bones, but ignored it. 

"Test two. Grip strength."

Izuku was handed a small electronic grip-meter. He didn't even transform. He just squeezed with his base, mutant-enhanced musculature. 

CRUNCH. 

The machine shattered in his hand, wires and plastic fragments falling to the grass. 

"Uh, Aizawa-sensei?" Izuku asked nervously, holding up the broken handle. "I broke it."

Aizawa just sighed and marked down a perfect score on his clipboard. "Test three. Standing long jump."

Izuku transformed his legs again, leaping entirely over the sandbox and landing outside the designated zone. 

"Test four. Repeated side steps." 

Izuku's massive frame made him slightly slower here compared to the smaller, more agile students like Mineta, but his sheer stamina kept him in the upper percentiles. 

Throughout the tests, the class watched him with a mixture of awe and intimidation. Izuku was dominating the physical exams with terrifying, monstrous efficiency. 

Katsuki Bakugo watched from the sidelines, his teeth grinding together so hard they threatened to crack. He's not even using his full form, Katsuki thought, his palms sweating nitroglycerin in pure anger. He's treating this like a game. The feral bastard is holding back!

"Test five. The softball throw," Aizawa finally announced. 

Students took their turns. Uraraka scored an "Infinity" by removing the ball's gravity entirely. 

"Midoriya. You're up," Aizawa called out. 

Izuku stepped into the circle. He held the small white baseball in his heavily scaled hand. 

He looked out at the open field. He could throw it normally, relying on his mutant arm strength, but that wouldn't be his maximum. To truly excel, he needed to use the Carnotaur's primary weapon. 

"Midoriya," Aizawa said, his voice dropping to a low, warning tone. "I watched your entrance exam footage. You have immense power, but it is feral. If you lose control of yourself here, even for a second, and endanger this class, I will erase your Quirk and expel you on the spot. Prove to me that you hold the reins."

Izuku met Aizawa's tired, piercing gaze. He didn't flinch. He nodded once. 

Izuku stepped to the front edge of the circle. He turned his back to the field. 

He didn't trigger a full transformation. He focused all his energy on his lower spine and his lower half. The sickening crunch of bone echoed across the silent field as his legs shifted into the massive digitigrade limbs once more. But this time, he allowed the tail to form. 

The heavy, spiked, three-hundred-pound appendage tore through the slit in his pants, slamming into the dirt with a heavy thud. 

Izuku tossed the baseball lightly into the air, about head height. 

Then, he moved. 

He planted his massive right talon, using it as a pivot point. He twisted his torso with incredible, violent torque, spinning a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees in a fraction of a second. The heavy, muscular tail acted like a colossal baseball bat, moving so fast it broke the sound barrier with a sharp CRACK that made the class cover their ears. 

The side of his scaled tail struck the baseball perfectly in mid-air. 

The sheer kinetic force of the impact flattened the ball for a millisecond before it was launched forward. The ball didn't just fly; it rocketed across the sky, creating a visible ring of displaced air as it vanished into the clouds. 

Izuku completed his spin, dragging his tail across the dirt to bleed off the momentum, bringing himself to a controlled, perfect stop within the circle. 

He reversed the transformation instantly, pulling the tail and legs back into his human form, panting softly as he turned to face Aizawa. 

"I am in control, Sensei," Izuku said, his slitted eyes locked on the teacher. 

Aizawa stared at the boy for a long moment. A slow, terrifying smile crept onto the underground hero's face. He held up the device. 

810.5 meters.

The class was stunned silent. 

"He beat Bakugo's score?!" Kaminari gasped, his jaw hitting the floor. 

"With just his tail?! He didn't even fully transform!" Kirishima cheered, throwing a fist in the air. "That's so manly! It's terrifying, but manly!"

"DEKU!" 

A roar of pure, unadulterated fury shattered the awe. 

Katsuki Bakugo exploded forward, his hands crackling with massive bursts of fire. His red eyes were wide with a manic, furious disbelief. The boy he had bullied for ten years, the feral freak he had deemed a worthless monster, was objectively, undeniably stronger than him. 

"Tell me how you did that, you scaled freak! Fight me right now!" Katsuki screamed, lunging for Izuku's throat. 

Izuku's pupils dilated. His heart rate spiked. Threat. The predator instinct flared, demanding he transform, demanding he crush the threat charging at him. 

But before Izuku could react, thick, grey cloth shot forward, wrapping around Katsuki's torso and arms, binding him tight. 

Katsuki struggled, but the cloth was like steel wire. "What the hell?! This cloth is stiff!"

"They're weapons for capture made of carbon fiber woven with metal wire of a special alloy," Aizawa growled, his hair standing on end, his eyes glowing a fierce red. "Stop making me use my Quirk over and over. I have dry eye."

Aizawa released Katsuki, the cloth unspooling and returning to the teacher's neck. Aizawa's eyes returned to normal, and his hair dropped. 

"We're wasting time. Whoever's next, step up." 

Katsuki stood frozen, trembling with rage. He glared at Izuku, looking like he wanted nothing more than to murder him on the spot. But Aizawa's threat hung heavy in the air. Katsuki slowly backed away, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, seething in silent fury. 

Izuku let out a long breath he didn't realize he was holding. He walked back to the group, keeping his head down. 

"That was amazing, Midoriya!" Uraraka beamed, completely ignoring the fact that he looked like a walking dinosaur a moment ago. "Your Quirk is so powerful!"

"Yeah, man, you're like a total beast!" Kirishima grinned, slapping Izuku on the back. His hand bounced off the hard scales on Izuku's shoulder. "Whoa, these scales are tough! We have similar Quirks! I can harden my body too!"

Izuku looked around. They weren't screaming. They weren't calling him a villain. They were looking at him with respect, acknowledging his strength. 

For the first time in ten years, Izuku allowed a small, genuine smile to cross his face. 

The tests concluded an hour later. Aizawa projected the final rankings on a hologram. 

Izuku's heart pounded as he searched for his name. He didn't just pass. 

1. Yaoyorozu Momo

2. Todoroki Shoto

3. Midoriya Izuku

4. Bakugo Katsuki

He was third. He had beaten Kacchan. 

"By the way, I was lying about the expulsion," Aizawa said casually, turning off the hologram. "It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your Quirks."

The class erupted into a mixture of relief and outrage, while Yaoyorozu sighed, noting it was obvious to anyone paying attention. 

"With that, we're done here," Aizawa said, turning to walk away. "There are handouts with the syllabus and such in the classroom. When you get back, look them over."

As the class began to head back to change, Aizawa paused, glancing over his shoulder at the massive, scaled teenager walking among the others. 

Midoriya Izuku, Aizawa thought, pulling his sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. He has the raw, destructive capability of a natural disaster. His power is inherently violent, geared entirely toward brutal slaughter. And yet, he possesses the restraint to hold it back, and the drive to use it for others.

Aizawa smiled grimly. 

He's a walking contradiction. A monster trying to be a saint. Let's see if the hero world accepts you, Carnage Hero, or if it pushes you until the beast finally breaks free.

The next day at U.A. High School brought an air of electric anticipation. After a morning of mundane core classes, the afternoon signaled the true beginning of their Hero Course curriculum. 

"I AM..." a booming voice echoed from the hallway, right before the massive door to Class 1-A slid open with a dramatic bang. "...COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!"

All Might stood in the doorway, clad in his Silver Age hero costume, his cape billowing behind him despite the lack of wind. The classroom instantly erupted into cheers and gasps of awe. 

"It's All Might!" Kaminari yelled, practically vibrating in his seat. 

"Wow, he really is a teacher!" Kirishima grinned, leaning over his desk. 

"That's a costume from the Silver Age, isn't it?" Tsuyu Asui noted, putting a finger to her chin. 

Izuku sat near the back, his slit pupils widening in genuine admiration. Even after ten months of training with the man on a trash-covered beach, seeing the Symbol of Peace in his full heroic regalia never failed to send a shiver of inspiration down his spine. 

"Foundational Hero Studies!" All Might announced, marching to the front of the podium. "For this class, we'll be building up your hero foundation through various trials! Let's get right into it! This is what we'll be doing today... Battle Training!" 

He pointed dramatically to the wall, where panels suddenly slid open, revealing numbered metal suitcases. 

"And to go with that, these! Costumes made based on your Quirk registrations and requests you sent in before school started. After you change, gather at Ground Beta!"

Izuku felt a surge of nervous excitement as he walked to the wall and pulled out suitcase number eighteen. His costume request had been heavily modified from his original, childhood sketches. A traditional full-body spandex suit was impossible for a Transformation-Class Quirk that drastically altered his size, bone structure, and mass. If he wore a standard suit, he would rip it to shreds the second he shifted into his hybrid or full-beast form. 

Ten minutes later, Class 1-A filed out of the tunnel leading to Ground Beta, a massive, sprawling faux-cityscape designed for combat simulations. 

"They say the clothes make the man, young men and ladies!" All Might boomed, standing in the center of a wide street, hands on his hips. "Be fully aware... from now on, you are heroes!"

The students looked incredible, their costumes ranging from tactical armor to sleek, aerodynamic suits. But as Izuku stepped out of the shadows of the tunnel, the chatter died down. 

Izuku’s hero costume was built purely for function, restraint, and accommodation of his terrifying biology. He wore no shirt; his broad, heavily muscled chest and the thick, dark green osteoderm scales running down his neck and shoulders were fully exposed to the open air. His torso was strapped into a heavy, dark-green tactical harness made of specialized, hyper-elastic support material designed to stretch to over triple its size without snapping. 

He wore loose, heavy-duty black cargo pants with a massive slit running down the tailbone, secured by a flexible, expanding belt. His shoes were entirely open-toed, practically sandals made of reinforced steel and rubber, allowing his feet to rapidly expand and sprout talons without hindrance. Covering the lower half of his face was a steel, muzzle-like rebreather mask, designed to protect his human jaw and neck while intimidating enemies, though it was designed to unhinge the moment his jaw elongated. 

He looked less like a traditional hero and more like a heavily armored super-soldier crossed with a biological weapon. 

"Whoa, Midoriya," Kirishima said, walking over and admiring the harness. "Your costume is intense! Going shirtless is super manly! But won't you get cold?"

Izuku rubbed the back of his neck, his scales flushing a dark hue. "O-Oh, well, the Carnotaurus is a massive, warm-blooded predator. My internal body temperature is usually around a hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit, so I actually overheat really easily. Plus... if I wear a shirt, I just rip it when I transform."

"Makes sense!" Kirishima laughed. 

Uraraka bounded over, clad in a sleek, pink-and-black astronaut-themed suit. "Deku! Your costume looks great! It's so intimidating! I should have written what I wanted... mine ended up being a skintight bodysuit. It's a little embarrassing."

Izuku’s eyes widened, and he immediately looked away, staring intensely at a nearby brick wall as his face burned. "N-No! It looks great, Uraraka-san! Very heroic!"

From across the gathering, Katsuki Bakugo glared. His costume was heavily militant, featuring massive, grenade-shaped gauntlets on his forearms. He sneered at Izuku's exposed scales and tactical harness. He thinks he's a big shot, Katsuki thought, his teeth grinding. He thinks he doesn't even need armor because he is the armor. I'll blow those scales right off him.

"Now, it's time for combat training!" All Might announced. 

"Sir!" Iida raised his hand, clad in a bulky, medieval-knight-inspired suit of armor. "This is the battle center from the entrance exam. Will we be conducting urban cityscape battles again?"

"No, we're going to move ahead two steps!" All Might held up a finger. "Most villain fights you see on the news take place outside. However, statistically, heinous villains are more likely to appear indoors. Kidnapping, house arrest, black markets... in this hero-saturated society, truly smart villains hide in the shadows!"

All Might pulled a small script from his pocket and began reading from it, much to the students' amusement. 

"For this test, you'll be split into villains and heroes and fight two-on-two indoor battles! The villains have hidden a nuclear weapon inside a building. The heroes must either apprehend the villains or secure the weapon within the time limit. The villains must protect the weapon or capture the heroes."

All Might brought out a lottery box to draw teams. 

Izuku held his breath as the lots were drawn. 

Team A: Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochaco. 

Team D: Bakugo Katsuki and Iida Tenya.

Izuku let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He looked at Uraraka, who gave him a determined thumbs-up. Then, he felt a burning gaze on the side of his head. He turned to see Katsuki staring at him, a feral, terrifying grin stretching across his face. Katsuki drew a thumb across his own throat. 

"And the first two teams to fight will be... these guys!" All Might thrust his hands into two separate boxes, pulling out two balls. "Team A will be the Heroes, and Team D will be the Villains! Everyone else, head to the monitor room!"

Ground Beta - Building C

The building was a towering, five-story concrete structure. Iida and Katsuki had been given five minutes to head inside and set up their defenses. 

Izuku stood outside the entrance with Uraraka, unrolling a blueprint of the building. His heart was hammering against his ribs, not out of fear of the exercise, but out of the sheer, heavy anticipation of fighting Katsuki. 

"Deku?" Uraraka asked gently, noticing his rigid posture. "Are you okay? You're sweating a lot."

"I'm fine," Izuku said, his deep voice muffled slightly by his metal rebreather mask. "It's just... Kacchan. He's going to come straight for me."

"Bakugo? The guy who throws explosions?" Uraraka frowned. "He seems really angry all the time. He made a scary face at you during the drawing."

"We grew up together," Izuku explained, tracing the routes on the blueprint with a thick, blunt finger. "When we were four, my Quirk manifested before I knew how to control it. I... I hurt him pretty badly. Ever since then, he's hated me. He thinks my Quirk makes me a mindless monster. And after yesterday's Quirk Apprehension Test, where I beat his score... his pride won't let this go. He won't care about the nuclear weapon. He's going to hunt me down to prove he's stronger."

Uraraka looked at Izuku's heavy, scaled shoulders, then up at his nervous, slit-pupiled eyes. It was still so hard for her to reconcile the terrifying dinosaur that crushed the Zero-Pointer with the anxious, polite boy standing in front of her. 

"So, what's the plan?" she asked, her expression hardening with resolve. 

Izuku's eyes narrowed, his analytical mind kicking into overdrive. "If he comes for me, Iida will be left alone to guard the weapon. Iida is incredibly fast, but his engines require a clear runway to build up momentum. In a cramped room, his mobility is severely limited. 

"Uraraka, I want you to play the objective. I'm going to act as bait. When Kacchan ambushes us, I'll engage him and draw his fire. You use the distraction to slip away and find the weapon. Once you locate it, tell me on the comms. Don't engage Iida alone if you can help it—just hide and wait for me to finish with Kacchan."

"You're going to fight him one-on-one?" Uraraka asked, looking worried. "His explosions are really strong."

Izuku slowly reached up and unclasped his metal muzzle, letting it hang loosely around his neck. He needed to be able to bite if necessary. He closed his eyes, and a low, guttural vibration rumbled in his chest, vibrating the concrete beneath their feet. 

"My scales can handle the heat," Izuku said, opening his eyes. They were completely black, save for the thin, vertical sliver of glowing emerald in the center. "And I'm not going to hold back anymore."

"NOW, LET'S START THE INDOOR COMBAT TRAINING!" All Might's voice blared over the PA system. 

Izuku and Uraraka slipped through an open window on the ground floor, stepping into a dimly lit, labyrinthine hallway. The air was stale, smelling of old dust and concrete. 

"Careful," Izuku whispered, his reptilian ears twitching, scanning for the slightest sound. "Keep your center of gravity low."

They advanced slowly down the hallway, turning a corner near a stairwell. Izuku's heightened senses were going haywire. He could smell it. The distinct, sharp scent of burning sugar and nitroglycerin. 

Above!

"Uraraka, move!" Izuku barked. 

He shoved her violently backward just as Katsuki vaulted over the staircase railing from the second floor, his right hand extended and crackling with raw, blinding energy. 

Katsuki didn't hold back. He unleashed a massive explosion, aimed directly at Izuku's head. 

The blast engulfed the hallway in a blinding flash of orange and red, shattering the windows and sending a shockwave of heat that licked at the ceiling. In the monitor room, the class gasped as the cameras flared white. 

"A surprise attack from the start?!" Mineta shrieked. "Bakugo's trying to kill him!"

As the smoke cleared in the hallway, Katsuki landed heavily on his feet, a vicious, triumphant smirk on his face. "Take that, you feral piece of—"

His voice died in his throat. 

Izuku was still standing. He hadn't dodged. He had raised his thick, heavily armored forearms to shield his face. The sleeves of his U.A. costume were singed, but the dark green osteoderm scales beneath were completely unharmed. They didn't even look scorched. Izuku lowered his arms, his slit pupils locking onto Katsuki with a chilling, predatory focus. 

"A glancing blow," Izuku rumbled, his voice dropping an octave as the adrenaline began to alter his vocal cords. 

"Deku, are you okay?!" Uraraka coughed, waving the smoke away. 

"I'm fine!" Izuku called back without breaking eye contact with Katsuki. "The plan, Uraraka! Go!"

Uraraka nodded, her face pale but determined. She turned and sprinted down the opposite corridor, heading for the upper floors to find the weapon. 

Katsuki ignored her entirely. His eyes were locked on Izuku. The blonde boy's hands popped and cracked with small, rapid-fire explosions, betraying his barely contained fury. 

"Running away? Typical," Katsuki spat, rolling his shoulders. "I knew you were all talk, Deku. You've got some tough skin now, so what? You think you can stand in a ring with me? I'm going to blow you to pieces and make you realize you're still just a worthless pebble on my path to Number One."

Izuku slowly widened his stance, rolling his heavy shoulders. The air around him seemed to grow heavier. 

"You've been calling me a monster for ten years, Kacchan," Izuku said softly, his chest rising and falling with deep, measured breaths. 

"Because you are!" Katsuki yelled, launching himself forward with an explosive blast from his palms, closing the distance in a millisecond. He aimed a vicious right hook right at Izuku's jaw. 

Izuku didn't flinch. He didn't block. 

Crunch. 

With a sickening sound of rapidly shifting bone, Izuku's jaw unhinged and elongated. In a fraction of a second, his human mouth was replaced by the terrifying, serrated maw of the Carnotaurus. 

Katsuki’s fist connected, not with human skin, but with a wall of impenetrable, bone-white teeth and dense reptilian armor. The impact sent a shockwave up Katsuki’s arm, making him grit his teeth in pain as his knuckles bruised against Izuku's jaw. 

Before Katsuki could recoil, Izuku’s elongated jaws snapped forward, not aiming for flesh, but clamping entirely over Katsuki’s right gauntlet. 

"What the—?!" Katsuki gasped, his eyes widening as the immense, two-ton bite force of the prehistoric beast crushed the thick metal of his grenade-bracer like a soda can. 

Izuku swung his heavy, horned head to the side, violently tossing Katsuki through the air. The blonde teenager slammed into the concrete wall, cracking the plaster, before slumping to the floor. 

Izuku stepped forward. He didn't revert his face. He allowed the transformation to spread. The sickening sound of snapping cartilage and stretching muscle echoed through the hallway. Izuku's spine elongated, dropping his posture into a heavy, hunched stance. His legs snapped backward into the digitigrade, scythe-clawed limbs of his beast form. The heavy, counter-balancing tail tore through the slit in his pants, slamming onto the floor tiles with a heavy thud. 

He didn't go full beast. He remained in his eight-foot-tall hybrid form, preserving his human arms, but maximizing his brutal, close-quarters combat potential. Two massive ivory horns sprouted from his brow, pointing directly at Katsuki. 

"You want the monster, Kacchan?" Izuku hissed, his voice distorted through the serrated teeth, sounding like two grinding millstones. "Here I am."

Katsuki pushed himself off the floor, his face contorted in absolute rage. He looked at his crushed right gauntlet, then up at the towering, horned demon standing in the hallway. The sheer terror he had felt at age four bubbled up in his chest, but he violently shoved it down, transmuting the fear into pure, explosive fury. 

"Don't mock me!" Katsuki roared. 

He propelled himself off the wall, using explosions from his boots and his good left hand to careen toward Izuku like a torpedo. He aimed a point-blank, maximum-output blast directly at Izuku's chest. 

BOOM!

The explosion was deafening. The concrete floor beneath them cratered. 

But Izuku didn't fall. The Carnotaurus was incredibly dense. Izuku absorbed the concussive force, letting his heavy tail act as an anchor to keep him rooted to the ground. As the flames washed over him, Izuku retaliated with the most basic, brutal attack in his arsenal. 

A headbutt. 

Izuku thrust his heavy, horned skull forward through the smoke. The flat, armored expanse between his horns slammed squarely into Katsuki's chest. 

The air was violently driven from Katsuki's lungs. He was launched backward like a cannonball, sliding across the linoleum floor and crashing into a metal support pillar. 

Katsuki gasped, struggling to draw breath. His ribs felt like they were on fire. He looked up, his vision blurry. 

Izuku was already moving. The hybrid form was terrifyingly fast. In two massive, leaping strides, Izuku closed the gap. 

Katsuki barely had time to raise his arms to guard. Izuku didn't punch. His human arms were too short and lacked the proper leverage in this hunched posture. Instead, Izuku spun, pivoting on his left talon. His heavy, spiked tail whipped around with the speed of a rotor blade. 

The tail slammed into Katsuki's guard. The kinetic force was overwhelming. Katsuki’s guard was shattered instantly, the impact sweeping his legs out from under him and sending him spiraling into the air. 

As Katsuki fell, Izuku lunged, pinning the blonde boy to the ground beneath one of his massive, three-toed talons. Izuku leaned over him, his elongated jaws parting to release a hot, foul-smelling hiss of steam. 

In the monitor room, the class watched in absolute, horrified silence. 

"He's completely dominating him," Todoroki murmured, his mismatched eyes wide as he watched the screen. "Bakugo's explosions are powerful, but Midoriya's raw physical specs are simply in another dimension. It's like watching a bear fight a hornet."

"Midoriya's fighting style is... so brutal," Yaoyorozu whispered, placing a hand over her mouth. "He doesn't throw punches. He rams, he bites, he uses his body weight. It's purely predatory."

Aizawa, standing in the back, narrowed his eyes. He's holding back, the underground hero noted. He could have impaled Bakugo with those horns on the headbutt. He used the flat of his skull to inflict blunt force trauma instead of a lethal puncture. The kid is angry, but he's in total control of the beast.

Back in the hallway, Katsuki lay pinned beneath Izuku's foot. The humiliation burned hotter than any of his explosions. This wasn't a fight. This was a beatdown. The Deku he knew—the crying, weak, pathetic Quirkless loser—was gone. 

"Get... off... me!" Katsuki snarled, blood trickling from his lip. 

He pressed his left palm directly against the sole of Izuku's talon and let loose a rapid succession of staccato explosions. The intense, concentrated heat right on the sensitive pads of the dinosaur's foot finally made Izuku flinch. 

With a roar of pain, Izuku stumbled backward, lifting his foot. 

Katsuki scrambled away, panting heavily. His right arm hung uselessly, the crushed metal gauntlet digging painfully into his forearm. His chest heaved, his uniform torn and scorched. 

"You think... you think you've won?" Katsuki gasped, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He reached with his left hand, grabbing the metal pin on his uncrushed left gauntlet. 

"Young Bakugo, stop!" All Might's voice suddenly blared over the comms, laced with genuine panic. "Are you trying to kill him?! If you use that inside, you'll bring the building down!"

"If he's a monster, he'll survive this!" Katsuki screamed, his finger hooking through the metal pin. "The support company designed these gauntlets to store my nitroglycerin sweat! The more I sweat, the stronger the blast! And right now, I'm sweating bullets!"

Izuku's slitted pupils contracted to pinpricks. His heightened senses could smell the sheer volume of explosive fluid sloshing inside that gauntlet. If Kacchan pulled that pin in this enclosed hallway, the concussive force wouldn't just burn him; it would vaporize the surrounding walls and potentially collapse the floor above them. 

Where Uraraka was. 

Izuku couldn't dodge. If he dodged, the blast would travel down the hall and take out the support pillars. He had to block it. He had to absorb the entire blast himself. 

But the hybrid form wouldn't be enough to tank a localized explosion of that magnitude. He needed maximum mass. He needed maximum armor. 

"Die, Deku!" Katsuki roared, yanking the pin. 

Time seemed to slow down. 

A blinding, localized sun ignited at the end of Katsuki's gauntlet. The air pressure in the hallway instantly spiked, the heat sucking the oxygen from the room. A massive, roaring pillar of fire and kinetic energy erupted forward, completely filling the corridor, tearing up the floor tiles and melting the steel light fixtures overhead. 

In the fraction of a second before the blast hit, Izuku Midoriya stopped holding back. 

He didn't just open the door to the beast. He tore it off its hinges. 

ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!

A roar so loud, so fundamentally prehistoric that it violently shook the entire foundation of Building C, erupted from the center of the hallway. The sound waves were so intense they shattered every remaining pane of glass in a three-block radius. 

Katsuki’s blast hit. 

But it didn't travel down the hall. It hit a wall of impenetrable, dark green scales. 

In the center of the inferno, Izuku had fully transformed. The fifteen-foot-tall, three-ton Apex Carnotaur stood completely horizontally, its massive, heavily armored back arched to absorb the brunt of the explosion. The dense osteoderms glowed cherry-red under the intense heat, but they did not yield. 

The sheer size of the dinosaur completely plugged the hallway. The blast washed over Izuku, but it could not pass him. He was a biological shield, absorbing the wrath of a bomb to protect the structure behind him. 

The heat was agonizing. It felt like standing on the surface of the sun. The beast inside Izuku's mind thrashed in panic, screaming in pain, demanding he retreat, demanding he flee the fire. 

No! Izuku's human consciousness roared back, seizing the reins of the monster with an iron grip. I am a hero! Advance! Crush the threat!

Through the smoke and the roaring flames, Katsuki watched in absolute disbelief. 

The blast was dying down, but the shadow in the smoke wasn't falling. It was moving forward. 

Thud. Thud. Thud. 

The massive, three-toed talons cracked the scorched concrete with every step. 

Izuku charged through the dying flames. The Carnotaurus burst from the smoke, its scales smoking, its terrifying jaws parted in a silent snarl, its eyes burning with an emerald fire. 

"No way..." Katsuki whispered, paralyzed by a primal, inescapable terror. 

Izuku didn't use a tail whip. He didn't bite. He used his speed and his mass. 

He lunged forward, dipping his massive head low. 

SLAM.

Izuku drove Katsuki backward, slamming the blonde boy entirely through the plaster wall and pinning him against the solid concrete structural support beam of the building. 

The entire structure groaned under the impact. 

Silence fell over the hallway, save for the crackling of small fires and the heavy, rattling breathing of the giant dinosaur. 

Katsuki Bakugo was pinned to the wall, his feet dangling inches off the ground. 

Izuku hadn't bitten him. He hadn't headbutted him. 

Izuku had positioned his head so that Katsuki's torso was trapped perfectly between the two massive, curved ivory horns. The sharp tips of the bone spikes were driven deep into the concrete wall on either side of Katsuki's neck, trapping him in a cage of unbreakable bone. 

Katsuki didn't move. He couldn't. If he shifted even an inch to the left or the right, the razor-sharp edge of the horn would sever his jugular. 

Izuku leaned in. The heavy, terrifying mass of the Carnotaurus skull was mere inches from Katsuki's face. Hot, humid breath, smelling of raw meat and ozone, washed over Katsuki's pale features. The giant, slitted emerald eye rotated downward, locking onto Katsuki's trembling crimson eyes. 

The message was clear. It wasn't spoken, but it resonated in the very marrow of Katsuki's bones. 

I am the Apex. You are alive because I allow it.

Katsuki’s arms fell limply to his sides. The explosions in his palms died out completely. For the first time in his entire life, Katsuki Bakugo was utterly, completely broken. 

"Deku...!" Uraraka's voice suddenly crackled over the earpiece Izuku had miraculously managed to keep in his ear. "I found the weapon! Iida is guarding it on the fifth floor! But the building shook so hard he got distracted! I can try to make a run for it!"

Izuku didn't speak. He couldn't in this form. 

He slowly pulled his horns out of the concrete wall, releasing Katsuki. The blonde boy slumped to the floor, coughing, his eyes wide and vacant, staring blankly at the scorched ground. 

Izuku let out a low, rumbling huff. He turned his massive body around, his tail swishing through the rubble, and positioned himself in the center of the hallway. He looked up toward the ceiling. 

Then, he bent his massive hind legs. 

CRACK.

Izuku jumped. The three-ton dinosaur launched itself straight up, shattering the concrete ceiling of the second floor, bursting onto the third floor, then jumping again, tearing through the fourth floor. 

It was a terrifying, violent elevator ride. 

On the fifth floor, Iida was frantically looking around, trying to find the source of the structural tremors. "What in the world is Bakugo doing down there?! The objective is the weapon!"

"Now's my chance!" Uraraka yelled, leaping from her hiding spot behind a pillar, sprinting toward the papier-mâché missile in the center of the room. 

"I won't let you, Hero!" Iida shouted, dropping into his stance and firing his engines. He rocketed across the room, far faster than Uraraka could run. 

But before Iida could reach her, the floor beneath him exploded. 

Concrete chunks the size of cars flew into the air as the massive, horned head of the Carnotaurus burst through the floorboards. 

"GYAAAH!" Iida shrieked, instantly hitting the brakes and tumbling backward as the fifteen-foot dinosaur hauled its massive body up through the crater, completely blocking Iida's path to the weapon. 

Izuku stood at his full height, his head scraping the ceiling of the fifth floor. He let out a rattling, triumphant hiss, keeping his binocular vision locked firmly on Iida, who was too paralyzed by shock to even activate his engines. 

Uraraka sprinted past the massive beast, throwing herself onto the fake nuclear weapon and wrapping her arms around it. 

"Secured!" Uraraka cheered. 

In the monitor room, the silence was deafening. The students stared at the screens in utter disbelief. They had just watched a classmate rip through three floors of solid concrete using sheer, biological leg strength, just to assert absolute dominance over the battlefield. 

All Might stood silently for a moment, his hands trembling slightly, not from fear, but from an overwhelming sense of pride. The boy had faced a lethal attack, protected his teammate, neutralized the threat without causing lethal harm, and secured the objective. 

All Might grabbed the microphone. 

"HERO TEAM... WINS!" 

The declaration shattered the tension in the room. Kirishima let out a massive breath, running a hand through his red hair. "That was... that was the craziest thing I've ever seen. Midoriya is an absolute monster. But like, a heroic monster!"

"He completely broke Bakugo," Kaminari gulped, looking at the screen showing the blonde boy still sitting motionless on the second floor. "Did you see his face? I thought Bakugo was going to wet his pants."

"The way he used his body to shield the hallway from the explosion," Yaoyorozu noted, her eyes shining with newfound respect. "He took the full brunt of a localized blast just to ensure the structural integrity of the building above him remained intact. It was incredibly self-sacrificing. His power is terrifying, but his heart is undeniable."

Aizawa watched the screen, his expression unreadable. He has the destructive power of a top-tier Pro, but he needs to learn how to minimize collateral damage. Tearing through three floors of a building to reach the objective is a fast track to getting sued by the city. Still... he controlled the beast.

Back on the fifth floor, the adrenaline was finally leaving Izuku's system. The massive caloric drain of the full transformation, combined with the agonizing pain of the burns on his back, hit him like a freight train. 

With a pained groan, Izuku shrank rapidly. The scales receded, the horns vanished, and his spine snapped back into its human shape. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, wearing nothing but his tattered green tactical harness and his torn pants, panting heavily. 

"Deku!" Uraraka ran over, kneeling beside him. "Are you okay?! Your back is covered in burns!"

"I'm... I'm okay," Izuku gasped, coughing up a small puff of smoke. "Just... hungry."

Iida cautiously walked over, his robotic armor clanking. He looked down at Izuku with a mixture of profound awe and fear. "Midoriya-kun. Your Quirk is... it defies logic. The sheer physical power you possess is staggering. I yield. You have bested me completely."

"T-Thank you, Iida-kun," Izuku smiled weakly, forcing himself to his feet. 

The three of them made their way down the stairwell to the second floor. 

Katsuki was still sitting against the wall, staring at the cratered floor. His pride, his ego, his entire worldview—the belief that he was the absolute pinnacle of their generation—lay shattered in pieces around him. 

Izuku saw him and felt a sudden, terrible pang of guilt. The predatory haze was completely gone, leaving only the soft-hearted, anxious boy behind. 

Izuku ran over to Katsuki, instantly dropping to his knees and bowing his head low. 

"Kacchan! I'm so sorry!" Izuku cried out, his voice returning to its normal, higher-pitched tone. "Did I push too hard?! I didn't mean to scare you that badly! Are you hurt?! I tried to make sure the horns didn't graze you, but I was moving so fast and my depth perception in that form is a little wonky! I'm so sorry!"

Uraraka and Iida stopped in their tracks, their jaws dropping in unison. 

The students in the monitor room collectively sweatdropped. 

"Wait," Kaminari deadpanned. "Is he... is he apologizing for winning?"

"The juxtaposition is giving me whiplash," Jiro muttered, rubbing her temples. "He goes from a bloodthirsty Kaiju to a crying cinnamon roll in five seconds."

Katsuki slowly raised his head. He looked at Izuku, who was frantically waving his hands and asking if he needed to go to Recovery Girl. 

The rage didn't return. The explosions didn't fire. 

Katsuki just looked at the boy who had pinned him to a wall with prehistoric horns, realizing for the first time in his life that the "monster" he had bullied for a decade wasn't a monster at all. 

He was just a hero who was far, far stronger than him. 

Katsuki grit his teeth, tears of sheer frustration welling in the corners of his eyes. He roughly shoved Izuku's hands away, standing up on shaky legs. He didn't say a word. He didn't look back. He just turned and limped down the hallway, vanishing into the shadows of the building. 

Izuku watched him go, letting out a soft, sad sigh. The rivalry wasn't over. The Battle Trial had cemented Izuku’s dominance, but it had also ignited a fire in Katsuki Bakugo that would not be easily extinguished. 

"Come on, Deku," Uraraka said softly, placing a hand on his scaly shoulder. "Let's go back to the monitor room."

Izuku nodded, standing up tall. As they walked out of the building and back into the sunlight, Izuku felt a strange sense of peace settle over him. 

He had unleashed the beast. He had used his brutality. And he hadn't killed anyone. He hadn't lost his mind. 

The Apex Carnotaur was terrifying. But it was his. And he was going to use it to save them all.

The bus ride to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint was supposed to be a reprieve, a mundane transition between the exhausting physical conditioning of foundational hero studies and whatever specialized rescue training awaited Class 1-A. But for Izuku Midoriya, there was no such thing as a reprieve. 

He sat near the back of the bus, his massive frame taking up a seat and a half. He was clad in his specialized hero costume—the heavy, dark-green tactical harness that stretched across his bare, heavily muscled chest, and the reinforced cargo pants designed to accommodate his reptilian biology. His thick, scaly tail rested heavily on the floorboard, occasionally twitching with latent nervous energy. He kept his metallic rebreather muzzle securely fastened over his lower face, hiding the serrated, predatory teeth that rested behind his human lips. 

"Say, Midoriya," a blunt, croaking voice called out. 

Izuku blinked, his slitted emerald pupils dilating as he looked across the aisle. Tsuyu Asui, the frog-quirk user, was staring directly at him, her large, unblinking eyes filled with a calm curiosity. 

"Y-Yes, Asui-san?" Izuku replied, his deep baritone vibrating through the metal of his mask. 

"I generally say what's on my mind," Tsuyu said, placing a finger on her chin. "Call me Tsu. Your Quirk is really amazing. You completely overpowered Bakugo during the Battle Trial. But... it's also incredibly scary. When you transformed in the hallway, it felt like the air got colder. It's more like a villain's Quirk, isn't it?"

The bus fell silent. Several students visibly winced at Tsuyu's blunt observation. Katsuki Bakugo, sitting two rows ahead, stiffened, but surprisingly, he didn't turn around to yell. He just kept his crimson eyes locked on the window, his jaw clenched so tight it looked ready to snap. 

Izuku looked down at his large, blunt-nailed hands. The diamond-shaped green osteoderms that coated his forearms caught the sunlight filtering through the windows. 

"It's... it's a fair observation, Tsu," Izuku said softly, his voice tinged with a heavy, chronic sorrow. "The Carnotaurus was an apex predator. My Quirk doesn't just change my body; it changes my brain chemistry. When I transform, I feel... hungry. I feel aggressive. It's a power designed entirely for brutal, lethal combat. For a long time, I thought I was just a monster waiting to happen."

"But you're not!" Uraraka chimed in from the front, turning around in her seat. "You saved me from that giant robot in the entrance exam! You threw yourself in front of a bomb to protect the building during the Battle Trial! Who cares if you look a little scary? Your heart is one hundred percent hero, Deku!"

Kirishima pumped a fist in the air. "Yeah, man! It’s super flashy and ridiculously strong! Pro heroes need that kind of stopping power! Look at Endeavor; his flames are terrifying, but he's the Number Two Hero!"

Izuku offered a small, appreciative nod, though the anxiety didn't fully leave his chest. Endeavor can control his flames, Izuku thought. I have to constantly fight the urge to bite the head off anyone who surprises me.

"We're here," Aizawa’s tired, muffled voice called out from the front of the bus. "Stop messing around and get off."

The Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ for short, was an architectural marvel. It was a colossal, domed facility that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Inside, the massive space was divided into distinct, sprawling environmental zones: a ruined cityscape, a mountainous rocky zone, a raging inferno, and a massive, deep artificial lake. 

Waiting for them at the entrance was the Space Hero: Thirteen, clad in her iconic, puffy white astronaut suit. 

Class 1-A gathered around, listening in awe as Thirteen explained the purpose of the facility. But it was the second half of her speech that made Izuku’s blood run cold. 

"As I am sure many of you are aware, my Quirk is called Black Hole," Thirteen explained, holding up a thick, padded finger. "It can suck up and tear apart any matter at a subatomic level. It is incredibly useful for clearing debris in disaster zones and saving people from being crushed."

She lowered her hand, her tone shifting to something much more grave. 

"However... it is also a power that can easily kill."

The students shifted uncomfortably. 

"Some of you have Quirks like that as well," Thirteen continued, her visor panning across the crowd, lingering for a fraction of a second on Izuku's towering, scaled form, and Katsuki's explosive gauntlets. "In our superhuman society, Quirks are heavily regulated, and the requirements for lawful use are strictly enforced. We often forget how fragile human life is. One wrong move, one loss of temper, one instance of losing control of your power... and you could end a life in an instant."

Izuku swallowed hard. His right hand instinctively drifted to his metal muzzle. Thirteen was speaking the exact fears that kept him awake at night. If he ever truly lost control of the beast, he wouldn't just hurt someone. With two tons of bite force and fifteen feet of armored muscle, he would slaughter them. 

"Today's lesson is about stepping away from combat," Thirteen declared. "You will learn how to use your Quirks to save lives, not to take them. You will learn the true essence of what it means to be a hero!"

The class erupted into cheers, clapping enthusiastically. Izuku allowed himself a small, relieved sigh. Rescue training. No fighting. No predatory instincts to suppress. Just helping people. 

Then, the lights went out. 

The massive, stadium-style floodlights lining the dome flickered violently before dying completely, plunging the USJ into a dim, eerie twilight. The large fountain in the center plaza began to sputter and choke, the water pressure failing. 

"What's going on?" Kaminari asked, looking up at the darkened glass ceiling. "Is the training starting already? Like, a sudden blackout scenario?"

Aizawa didn't answer. The underground hero's posture shifted instantly from slouched and lethargic to hyper-tense. He took a step forward, his hand diving into his scarf to grip his yellow capture goggles. 

Down in the central plaza, directly in front of the sputtering fountain, the air began to tear. 

It started as a small speck of impossibly dark purple mist, but within seconds, it expanded outward, warping and spiraling into a massive, swirling vortex. The mist looked like a tear in the fabric of reality itself. 

Then, a hand reached out of the portal. 

It was a pale, sickeningly thin hand, gripping the edge of the mist as if pulling a curtain aside. A young man stepped out. He was covered in disembodied, grayish hands, clutching his face, his arms, and his chest. Through the fingers of the hand covering his face, a single, bloodshot eye peered out, manic and cold. 

Following him, stepping out of the shadows of the portal, came a horde. Dozens, then scores of people poured into the plaza. Some were mutated, looking like grotesque animals; others carried crude, rusted weapons. Their eyes were wild, hungry, and full of malice. 

And behind them, stepping heavily onto the concrete, was a nightmare made flesh. It was a hulking, muscular monstrosity with pitch-black skin, a beak-like mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, and most horrifying of all, an exposed, throbbing brain protruding from the top of its skull. 

"Stay together and don't move!" Aizawa roared, his voice cracking like a whip across the silent facility. "Thirteen, protect the students!"

"What is that?" Kirishima asked, taking a step back, his voice trembling. "Is this like the entrance exam? Are they fake villains?"

Izuku's heightened, predatory senses flared to life. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and the scales on his arms flushed dark. His slitted pupils dilated instantly. He didn't just see the intruders; he could smell them. He smelled rust, sweat, ozone, and the distinct, coppery tang of old blood. 

The beast in his mind woke up, slamming its heavy claws against the iron door of his consciousness. Threat. Kill. Survive.

"Those aren't fakes," Izuku growled, his voice dropping to a terrifying, vibrating rumble. "They're real."

"Villains," Aizawa confirmed, pulling his goggles over his eyes. "They've infiltrated the facility."

The young man covered in hands—Shigaraki Tomura—looked up at the terrified students on the entrance platform. He scratched at his neck furiously, his nails digging into his own flesh. 

"Where is he?" Shigaraki muttered, his voice raspy and dry. "I went through all the trouble of bringing this whole crowd... and All Might, the Symbol of Peace, isn't here? I wonder if he'll show up if we kill some of these kids?"

The words echoed in the massive dome. 

Before anyone could react, the swirling purple mist behind Shigaraki suddenly expanded, shooting upward and rocketing toward the entrance platform at blinding speed. 

"I won't let you!" Aizawa shouted, leaping forward, his capture scarf unraveling. 

But he was too slow. The purple mist—a villain named Kurogiri—manifested directly in front of Class 1-A, his yellow, glowing eyes narrowing into crescents. 

"Greetings," the mist intoned politely, though his voice lacked any warmth. "We are the League of Villains. It may be presumptuous of us, but we have invited ourselves into the home of the heroes, U.A. High School, in order to have All Might, the Symbol of Peace, take his last breath."

Kirishima and Bakugo lunged forward, ignoring Thirteen's orders. Bakugo unleashed a massive explosion directly into the mist's center. 

"Did you think we'd just stand here and let you?!" Katsuki roared. 

The smoke cleared, but Kurogiri was completely unharmed. The physical attack had passed right through him. 

"My, my, that was dangerous," Kurogiri said softly. "You students are excellent golden eggs. But my job is to scatter you, and torture you to death."

The purple mist expanded violently, sweeping over the students like a tidal wave. 

Izuku felt the ground vanish beneath his feet. The world dissolved into a swirling vortex of purple and black. He reached out frantically, trying to grab Uraraka's hand, but his heavy fingers closed around empty air. 

No! Izuku thought, his stomach dropping. Where am I going?!

The darkness broke, instantly replaced by the blinding glare of the USJ's emergency lights. Gravity reasserted itself, and Izuku found himself in freefall. 

He looked down. He wasn't falling toward concrete. He was falling toward a massive, churning expanse of dark water. He had been warped to the Flood Zone. 

"Midoriya!" a voice screamed. 

He glanced to his left. Mineta, the short, grape-haired boy, was flailing his arms as he fell. A few yards away, Tsuyu was already contorting her body into a perfect diving position. 

Izuku didn't have time to contort. He hit the water. 

The impact was like hitting a brick wall. The cold water rushed up to meet him, instantly sapping the heat from his warm-blooded body. He opened his mouth to gasp, but swallowed a lungful of chlorinated water instead. 

Panic set in. Pure, unadulterated, biological panic. 

Izuku Midoriya was an incredibly strong teenager. But with his dense, mutated musculature, his thick osteoderm scales, and the massive, counter-balancing tail weighing him down, he possessed absolute zero buoyancy. 

He didn't float. He sank like an anvil. 

I can't swim! Izuku realized, thrashing his arms wildly. The water was suffocating him. He tried to kick his legs, but his human feet couldn't find purchase in the liquid environment. He was sinking fast, the light from the surface growing dimmer and dimmer. 

Through the murky water, he saw dark shapes darting toward him. Villains. They wore scuba gear and possessed aquatic mutant traits—webbed fingers, gills, shark-like fins. They were in their element. They were coming to drown him. 

Izuku closed his eyes. The predator inside him roared in frustration, but a Carnotaurus was a terrestrial hunter. It had no power here. 

Suddenly, something wrapped tightly around his waist. It was thick, slimy, and incredibly strong. 

He was jerked upward with massive force. The water rushed past his ears, and a second later, he broke the surface, gasping violently for air. 

"Ribbit! I've got you, Midoriya!" 

Tsuyu Asui had her long, prehensile frog tongue wrapped securely around Izuku's heavy torso. She was swimming powerfully with her legs, dragging his immense weight toward a small, capsized tour boat floating in the center of the artificial lake. She already had Mineta tucked under one arm. 

With a final, powerful heave, Tsuyu threw Izuku onto the deck of the boat. He landed with a heavy thud, instantly rolling onto his side and coughing up water, his chest heaving. 

"Th-Thanks, Tsu," Izuku gasped, pulling his metal rebreather down to his chin so he could breathe properly. He shivered violently. The Carnotaurus biology demanded high internal heat; the cold water was already causing his muscles to cramp. 

Tsuyu vaulted over the railing, landing softly beside him. She dropped a sobbing Mineta onto the deck. 

"Are you okay, Midoriya?" Tsuyu asked, tilting her head. "You sank incredibly fast. Your bone density must be off the charts."

"Yeah," Izuku shivered, gripping his knees. "I'm a terrestrial fighter. Water is... my worst enemy."

"We're going to die!" Mineta wailed, pulling at his purple hair. "Did you see those guys?! They're real villains! They're going to kill us!"

"Panic won't help us, Mineta," Tsuyu said calmly, though her large eyes darted nervously over the water. 

Izuku forced himself to stand up. He ignored the cold. He ignored the cramps. He walked to the edge of the boat and peered down into the water. 

The water was boiling with movement. Dozens of aquatic villains were circling the boat like sharks smelling blood. 

"Look at 'em up there," a raspy voice echoed from the water. A villain with a shark-like head breached the surface, grinning maliciously. "A frog, a midget, and a kid in a harness. We got the easy targets, boys! Let's sink the boat and tear 'em apart!"

A heavy impact slammed into the side of the boat. The metal hull groaned. Another impact hit the port side. The villains were ramming the vessel, trying to capsize it. 

"They're sinking us!" Mineta screamed, throwing his sticky purple spheres into the water, but they just bobbed uselessly on the surface. 

Izuku’s slitted pupils contracted. He analyzed the situation with terrifying speed, his mind cutting through the panic like a knife. 

They have the advantage in the water. We have no ranged attacks. Tsu is strong, but she can't fight twenty aquatic villains while protecting Mineta and me. If the boat sinks, we die.

He looked at his hands. He thought of Thirteen's warning. A Quirk that can easily kill. 

If he used his power here, he wouldn't be fighting robots. He would be fighting flesh and blood. If he hit a human being with the force he used to destroy the Zero-Pointer, he would shatter them. He would kill them. 

I don't want to kill anyone, Izuku thought, his heart pounding. But if I hold back... Tsu and Mineta will die.

Another massive impact rocked the boat. A large dent appeared in the metal deck. Water began to seep in. 

I have to control it, Izuku resolved. I have to unleash the beast, but keep its jaws shut. Blunt force only.

Izuku turned to Tsuyu, his eyes burning with an emerald intensity that made the frog-girl take a step back. 

"Tsu," Izuku said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, commanding tone. "Take Mineta. Get to the edge of the boat. When I tell you to, jump as far as you can toward the shore. I'll clear a path."

"What are you going to do, Midoriya?" Tsuyu asked, her eyes wide. "You said you can't swim."

"I can't," Izuku said, reaching up and completely unbuckling his metal muzzle, tossing it onto the deck. "But I can sink."

Without another word, Izuku turned and dove headfirst off the side of the boat. 

"Midoriya!" Tsuyu gasped. 

"Is he crazy?!" Mineta shrieked. "He just committed suicide!"

Under the water, the villains saw the massive teenager plunge into their domain. 

"Ha! The idiot jumped in!" the shark-villain laughed underwater, a stream of bubbles escaping his mouth. "Tear him to shreds!"

Five villains lunged for Izuku, wielding rusted pipes and knives. 

But Izuku didn't try to swim. He didn't flail. He exhaled the air from his lungs, increasing his negative buoyancy, and plummeted straight down. 

The artificial lake in the Flood Zone was thirty feet deep. Izuku hit the solid, reinforced concrete floor of the pool with a heavy thud. He landed in a crouch, the water pressure pressing heavily against his eardrums. 

Through the murky water above, he saw the villains diving down after him, thinking he was a helpless, drowning victim. 

Focus, Izuku told himself. Do not bite to kill. Do not use the horns to pierce. Break their bones, but leave them breathing.

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut. Wake up.

The water around him began to boil. 

The transformation was instant and violent. He didn't shift his torso; he needed his human arms to keep his profile somewhat aerodynamic. He focused entirely on his lower half. 

His legs snapped backward with a sickening crunch that resonated through the water. His thighs expanded into massive, heavily armored pillars of prehistoric muscle. His feet burst into three-toed, scythe-like talons that instantly dug deep into the concrete floor, anchoring him. The massive, spiked tail erupted from his spine, acting as a perfect rudder. 

The villains swimming down suddenly stopped, their eyes widening in horror as they saw the massive, digitigrade legs form in the darkness below. 

"What the hell is that?!" one of them garbled. 

Izuku looked up. His slitted eyes pierced the gloom. 

He didn't swim. He coiled his massive, mutated legs, dropping his hips low to the concrete floor. The sheer kinetic energy building in his muscles caused the water around his legs to cavitate, creating thousands of tiny bubbles. 

Three. Two. One.

Izuku Midoriya didn't swim out of the water. He launched himself like a biological torpedo. 

The concrete floor beneath him shattered under the immense, explosive force of his leap. Izuku shot upward at an utterly terrifying velocity, entirely bypassing the resistance of the water through sheer, overwhelming kinetic force. 

He slammed into the first villain in a fraction of a second. He didn't even use a weapon; he just rammed the man with his thick, scaly shoulder. The impact in the dense liquid environment was devastating. The villain’s ribcage cracked audibly, and he was propelled upward, caught in the slipstream of Izuku's launch. 

Izuku broke the surface of the water like a breaching leviathan. 

A massive geyser of water erupted into the air, blowing the remaining villains backward. 

"TSU! NOW!" Izuku roared, his voice tearing through the chaos. 

Tsuyu didn't hesitate. She grabbed Mineta, coiled her powerful frog legs, and leaped high into the air, soaring over the heads of the panicked villains. 

Izuku was suspended in mid-air, fifty feet above the water, at the apex of his jump. Gravity began to pull him back down. 

As he fell, three villains tried to intercept him, leaping from the water with sharp blades. 

Izuku’s predatory instincts flared. Obstacles. Crush them.

He shifted his upper body. His jaw unhinged, transforming into the massive, serrated maw of the Carnotaurus. He didn't aim for their heads or vital organs. 

He snapped his massive jaws around the torso of the closest villain, ensuring his teeth didn't pierce, but using the blunt, crushing force of his jaw muscles. The man screamed as his collarbone and shoulder gave way under a fraction of the beast's two-ton bite force. 

Izuku swung his heavy head, using the man in his jaws as a bludgeon, violently slamming him into the other two airborne villains. The collision knocked all three of them out cold in mid-air. 

Izuku plummeted back down, aiming for the shallow water near the plaza's shore. 

He landed with a cataclysmic CRASH. 

The impact of his three-ton hybrid body hitting the shallow water created a massive, localized tsunami. The sheer force of the wave swept outward, catching the remaining villains in the lake and violently washing them ashore, slamming them into the concrete retaining walls of the plaza. 

Izuku stood up slowly from the crater he had made in the shallow water. He panted heavily, spitting a mouthful of chlorinated water onto the concrete. He reversed the transformation, shrinking back into his heavy human form to conserve calories. His chest heaved, and his tactical harness was soaked. 

He looked around. Dozens of villains lay groaning on the concrete, clutching broken arms, cracked ribs, and shattered collarbones. None of them were dead. But they were completely, utterly broken. 

Izuku looked at his hands, trembling slightly. I did it. I controlled it. I didn't kill anyone.

"Midoriya!" 

Tsuyu landed softly on the concrete next to him, dropping Mineta, who immediately fell to his knees, kissing the solid ground. 

"That was incredible, Midoriya," Tsuyu said, her eyes wide with genuine awe. "You jumped from the bottom of the lake? The sheer power... it's like you're not even human."

Izuku offered a weak, tired smile. "Just... applying physics. Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine," Tsuyu said, though her gaze shifted past him, toward the center of the massive dome. "But... I don't think Mr. Aizawa is."

Izuku turned. They had landed on the edge of the central plaza, hidden slightly behind a cluster of artificial boulders. From their vantage point, they had a clear view of the fountain. 

What Izuku saw made his blood run colder than the water in the lake. 

Aizawa was fighting like a demon. The underground hero was a blur of motion, his capture scarf whipping out to incapacitate villain after villain. He was dodging knives, avoiding blasts of fire, and erasing Quirks with relentless efficiency. 

But there were too many. And he was getting tired. 

"He's amazing," Mineta whispered, peering over the rock. "He's taking them all on by himself!"

"No," Izuku muttered, his highly perceptive eyes catching the details Mineta missed. "His movements are slowing down. His hair keeps dropping. His Quirk gives him dry eye; he can't keep erasing their powers forever. It's a war of attrition, and he's losing."

As if on cue, a hulking villain with four arms managed to land a glancing blow on Aizawa's shoulder. The hero stumbled, a hiss of pain escaping his lips. 

Before Aizawa could recover, the pale, hand-covered villain—Shigaraki—lunged forward with terrifying speed. 

Shigaraki reached out, his hand grasping Aizawa's right elbow. 

"Your Quirk involves erasing other people's powers by looking at them," Shigaraki rasped, a cruel, manic smile spreading across his chapped lips. "But it has a limit, doesn't it, Eraser Head? Your hair drops when you blink."

Aizawa's eyes widened. He blinked. 

The effect was instantaneous. Shigaraki's Quirk—Decay—activated. The sleeve of Aizawa's jumpsuit crumbled into dust. The decay spread immediately to the flesh beneath, turning muscle and bone into gray, crumbling ash. 

Aizawa let out an agonizing scream, violently tearing himself away from Shigaraki's grip, but the damage was done. His right elbow was completely obliterated, the skin flayed open, bleeding profusely. 

"Sensei!" Izuku gasped, his hands gripping the edge of the boulder so tightly his claws began to dig into the stone. 

"You're cool, Eraser Head," Shigaraki chuckled, taking a step back. "But you're not the final boss. Nomu."

The massive, black-skinned monstrosity with the exposed brain stepped forward. 

Aizawa gritted his teeth, his eyes glowing red as he glared at the beast. He threw his capture scarf, wrapping it around the Nomu's arm, and pulled with all his remaining strength, aiming a desperate, powerful kick at the creature's chest. 

Aizawa's combat boots slammed into the Nomu. 

The creature didn't even flinch. 

"It's no use," Shigaraki said softly. "Nomu has been bio-engineered to be as strong as All Might. He possesses Shock Absorption. Your physical attacks mean nothing."

Before Aizawa could retract his leg, the Nomu reached out with blinding, impossible speed. It grabbed Aizawa's left arm and snapped it like a dry twig. 

The sound of the bone breaking echoed across the silent plaza. 

Aizawa screamed, falling to his knees. The Nomu didn't stop. It raised its massive, muscular fist and brought it down directly onto Aizawa's face. 

CRUNCH.

The hero's head slammed into the concrete, shattering the ground beneath him. Blood pooled instantly. The Nomu stood over him, pinning the broken hero to the ground, casually twisting Aizawa's already broken arms in a display of sickening, effortless cruelty. 

Behind the boulder, Mineta slapped both hands over his mouth, tears streaming down his face as he muffled his own screams. Tsuyu's eyes were wide with pure terror, her body trembling uncontrollably. 

Izuku couldn't breathe. 

The sight of his teacher—the man who had defended him, the man who had pushed him to be better—being slaughtered like an animal triggered something deep, ancient, and violent inside Izuku's mind. 

The iron door holding the beast back began to warp and bend. The predatory instincts didn't just wake up; they raged. The Carnotaurus demanded blood. It demanded to tear the monstrosity apart. 

Move, Izuku told his body. I have to save him. I have to move!

But his legs were frozen. The sheer, overwhelming aura of the Nomu paralyzed him. He realized, with a sickening jolt, that even in his full beast form, he might not be strong enough to beat that thing. 

"Kurogiri," Shigaraki said, looking over his shoulder as the purple mist materialized beside him. "Did you kill thirteen?"

"The space hero is incapacitated," Kurogiri reported. "However... there is one problem. One of the students managed to escape the facility. He is running to get help."

Shigaraki froze. He raised a hand to his neck and began to scratch. Slowly at first, then frantically, tearing at his own skin until blood welled up under his fingernails. 

"Game over," Shigaraki muttered, his voice trembling with psychotic rage. "It's game over. If dozens of pros show up, we can't win. It's a game over... let's go home."

Izuku blinked. They're leaving? Just like that?

Shigaraki stopped scratching. He turned his head slowly, his single visible eye panning across the plaza, until it locked directly onto the cluster of artificial boulders near the shoreline. 

He had heard Mineta's muffled whimpers. 

"But before we leave," Shigaraki whispered, a sickening, terrifying smile stretching across his face. "Let's smash some of the Symbol of Peace's pride. Let's kill some kids."

Shigaraki vanished. 

He didn't run; he moved with an explosive burst of speed that Izuku could barely track. In the blink of an eye, the villain covered in hands crossed the fifty yards of concrete and appeared directly in front of the boulder. 

Tsuyu gasped. Mineta froze. 

Shigaraki raised his hand, his pale fingers outstretched. He didn't aim for Izuku. He didn't aim for Mineta. 

He aimed directly for Tsuyu's face. 

Time dilated. The world slowed to a sickening crawl. 

Izuku watched the hand approach his classmate. He knew what that Quirk did. He had just seen it decay Aizawa's arm. If all five fingers touched Tsuyu's face, she wouldn't just be hurt. She would crumble into dust. She would die. 

No. 

The word wasn't a conscious thought. It was a complete, total rejection of reality. 

I will not let anyone die in front of me.

The iron door in Izuku's mind didn't just open. It was violently, irreparably blown to pieces. 

The mental chains holding the Apex Carnotaur snapped. Izuku Midoriya stopped holding back. He stopped calculating. He surrendered himself completely and utterly to the monster. 

Shigaraki's fingers were a millimeter away from Tsuyu's skin. 

BOOOOOOM!

A shockwave of sheer, localized physical displacement erupted from beside Tsuyu. 

Izuku didn't just transform; he exploded into his final form. The transformation was so fast, so violently sudden, that the displacement of air created a concussive blast that physically blew Shigaraki backward before the villain's fingers could make contact. 

The boulder they were hiding behind shattered into dust as the massive, fifteen-foot-tall, three-ton apex predator stood up, eclipsing the emergency lights of the USJ. 

Izuku was gone. The Carnage Hero had arrived. 

He didn't speak. He didn't analyze. 

The Carnotaurus threw its massive, horned head back and unleashed a roar that defied description. It was a guttural, rattling, primordial scream of absolute fury. The sound waves were so intense they visibly distorted the air. The water in the Flood Zone violently rippled. The remaining glass in the USJ’s ceiling cracked. 

Every single villain in the plaza, including Shigaraki, froze in absolute, bone-chilling terror. It was a biological response to the roar of an apex predator. Their human instincts screamed at them to run, to hide, to survive. 

"What... what the hell is that?!" Shigaraki gasped, landing on his feet, his single eye wide as he stared up at the towering, dark-green dinosaur. 

The Carnotaurus locked its binocular, emerald-slitted eyes onto Shigaraki. 

PREY.

Izuku dug his massive, scythe-like talons into the concrete. The ground cratered beneath him. He coiled his powerful hind legs and launched himself forward. 

He didn't run. He became a blur of armored death. 

"Nomu!" Shigaraki shrieked, panic finally piercing his manic facade. 

The Nomu, lacking any human instinct or fear, dropped Aizawa's broken body and stepped directly into Izuku's path, raising its massive, muscular arms to block. 

Izuku didn't slow down. He lowered his heavily armored skull, aiming his two massive ivory horns forward. 

Meteor Charge.

The three-ton dinosaur, moving at over a hundred miles an hour, collided head-on with the bio-engineered monstrosity designed to kill the Number One Hero. 

The impact was cataclysmic. 

The kinetic shockwave generated by the collision was so massive it created a visible ring of compressed air that expanded outward like a bomb blast. The concrete floor of the central plaza was instantly pulverized into a crater fifty feet wide. The sheer wind pressure ripped the low-tier villains off their feet, throwing them through the air like ragdolls. The water from the Flood Zone was blown backward in a massive, tidal surge. 

Tsuyu wrapped her tongue around a heavy metal railing, clutching Mineta tight to her chest as the hurricane-force winds washed over them. She squinted through the dust and debris. 

In the center of the crater, the dust began to settle. 

Izuku had not been stopped. 

The Nomu, the creature that had absorbed Aizawa's attacks without flinching, had been violently driven backward. Izuku's massive, bone-white horns were buried deep into the thick, muscular meat of the Nomu's forearms, which the creature had crossed in a desperate guard. 

The Nomu's feet had dug twin trenches into the concrete as Izuku pushed it back with sheer, overwhelming horsepower. 

The Carnotaurus let out a hot, steaming hiss through its serrated teeth, leaning its massive weight forward, locking eyes with the dead, mindless stare of the bio-weapon. 

Shigaraki stared in utter disbelief. His ultimate weapon, his masterpiece, was being physically pushed backward by a high school student. 

"Shock absorption..." Shigaraki muttered, his voice trembling. "Nomu has shock absorption! Blunt force shouldn't work!"

Izuku, lost entirely to the predatory haze, understood the mechanical resistance of his prey instantly. 

He felt the Nomu pushing back. The creature was incredibly strong, matching the dinosaur's three tons of forward momentum. Izuku realized that simply ramming it wouldn't be enough. The kinetic energy was being absorbed by the creature's rubbery muscles. 

If blunt force doesn't work... the predator reasoned, a terrifying, guttural growl vibrating in its throat. 

Izuku violently jerked his head back, pulling his horns free from the Nomu's arms with a sickening tearing sound. Black blood sprayed into the air. 

He didn't retreat. 

The Carnotaurus unhinged its massive jaws, revealing rows of dagger-like teeth, and lunged for the Nomu's exposed neck. 

Then I will tear you to pieces.

The Kaiju clashed with the Bio-weapon, and the USJ ran red.