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Chapter Text

In the beginning of the story, we get a series of strange flashes, foreshadowing much of what will happen in the future. It is a prophecy, told by a stranger in a strange land broken and fractured in time and told to strangers.

They speak of a mighty ship cracking open a world. Of might armies wedded together in dreadful purpose. Of clashes of light and dark against light and dark, of alien entities seeking to remake the world into their own...

And it all begins in a strange land removed from the universe itself, as an impossibly old Izuku Midoriya wanders over the Ascendant Plane, on a quest that has taken him millennia beyond millennia.

In the main story, when Izuku is given One for All, he feels his soul expand then settle in a contradictory haze, feeling it be planted down in an alien landscape within his own head. It gives him a headache, and when he tells this to All Might he responds that he felt the same as well, though not as bad as Izuku himself, having attributed it to the stress of the situation that he'd been going through in the past. Izuku goes to bed with a migraine, one that doesn't leave him until the next morning.

During his sleep, he has strange dreams. Images of unearthly armies clashing against each other filter into his mind, of strange esoteric forces commingling and creating something new, of ancient entities so far beyond the fundamental principles of the universe and so interwoven into the fabric of reality that to define them as gods would be to define them as lesser than they truly are...

And then, his vision shifts to a strange white orb, floating in an alien realm, trapped on an island in a sea of screams.

The next day, Izuku attends U.A.'s entrance exam and performs the same manoeuvre that he does in canon to save Ochako from the zero-pointer robot. However, during this time, One for All seems to be at war with itself as he tries to use it, and he finds himself in great physical and mental pain as he brings down the zero-pointer, leaving him unconscious as he falls to the ground and Ochako catches him, the powers of Terraformation and Resonance duelling with each other and melding the environment around him with flowers and the shattered images of the past...

And then, as soon as it began, it ended as Izuku fell unconscious, though an echo of One for All's effects remained in the spot where he'd fallen, a Deepsight echo lingering in the world, surrounded by alien flowers.

Ochako finds herself mesmerised by the sight.

When he awakes and after he is healed by Recovery Girl, he goes to tell All Might about the dream that he had the night before, expecting it to be something normal to happen for someone when they receive One for All. To his surprise, All Might doesn't know what to make of the dream, having never experienced such a thing during his tenure as the number one hero. All Might himself wanted to ask Izuku about the strange properties of One for All that he'd seen on the cameras, as One for All had never done such a thing with him before, but Izuku doesn't have an answer to that either. Everything about it is confusing to the two of them, and All Might resolves to chalk it up to One for All gaining power and evolving with passing it onto Izuku.

For now, he'd accept that reality. He would definitely resolve to look more into it once he's settled into into U.A. as a teacher and Izuku's mentor.

Later, Izuku meets with Ochako properly, the latter introduces herself to him and thanks him for saving her as the two become friends, alongside Reiko Yanagi, a quiet girl who offers him cryptic advice and words that don't have much meaning to Izuku. At least not at the moment. Reiko, however, is interested in Izuku because of his strange quirk and its esoteric properties, and resolves to keep an eye on him in the near future.

The Awoken girl decides to keep an eye on her.

However, when they part ways and Reiko meets with her friends Yui Kodai (Ochako's cousin in this story) and Togaru Kamakiri, they are hounded by a group of villains, all of them with a paracausally-powered parasite in their brains, granting the hollow-minded bodies and their master unholy power.

The battle between the two sides is quick and not shown, but by the time the three hero students-to-be are done, all that's left of the villains is ash and dust, lost to the win.

You have unlocked:

New Start suit (Hunter)
New Start suit (Titan)
New Start suit (Warlock)

Beginner's Luck hand cannon

(You better hope that that hand cannon is good at handling yellow bars.)

This is a short start, I know, but I quickly feel the need to state something; a  lot of crossover fics make the mistake of using the same formula: Izuku as the main protagonist with a power from another world, becoming OP as hell and being treated as absolutely perfect with no flaws whatsoever. It's a formula that I've grown exhausted with over the years, and I've come to see it as lazy writing where the author's insert themselves into Izuku Midoriya and treat him as their ideal selves, making everyone else worse by comparison.

It's quite an annoying trend in fics, especially when you're trying to find a good crossover that sounds like it has an interesting premise but are ultimately let down by how generic it becomes in the end. I'm not going to start naming names, but I've had quite a bit of personal experience with this, as it isn't just a problem in the MHA fandom, but in every fandom.

So, allow me to say this:

This is not an overpowered Izuku fic. He is going to be powerful by the nature of One for All and it's abilities (which will be revealed soon), but he is not going to be overpowered. He's is going to have weaknesses, he is going to lose at points. It's not an interesting read if the good guys win all the time.

The way that I'm going to do this is with how Destiny handles power in its lore: if everyone is overpowered, then no one is overpowered. And trust me, there are going to be some people (particularly the villains) who are a lot more powerful than Izuku (which will make the struggle to defeat them all the better. After all, it's hardly an engaging story if the main antagonist can't put up a fight for the hero to struggle against).

(Something funny that I've noticed for a while is that in comparison to a lot of franchises, MHA is pretty low on the power level scale. Put them up against a franchise like Marvel and DC, and for the most part (probably excluding All Might because he once kicked Thanos' arse in the Deadpool manga, and no, I'm not going to provide context for that), they're going to get stomped. And trust me, they're really going to feel the hurt when it comes to the kinds of threats that Guardians regularly have to deal with. Let's see All Might try to punch his way out of a fight with an Ahamkara, or a Hive God, or a Vex Collective.)

Additionally, Izuku is not going to be a perfect human being. He is going to have flaws, and he's going to make mistakes and fail sometimes, of which he is going to need to grow from and overcome. I make it a point to treat none of my characters as self-inserts. If I do, then I'm going to make sure that they're not perfect and feel human in those flaws. No one is perfect, and it's not good storytelling if anyone can be easily swapped out for someone else and nothing would change.

Another point for me to make, which is generally a rule for all of my stories: No. Character. Bashing. I hate character bashing. I find it to be an utterly lazy form of criticism and storytelling, as it always devolves down to the author projecting their own frustrations and anger out onto characters, and subsequently exaggerating all their negative traits and flaws into becoming OOC to hell and back. That's not storytelling; that's an author projecting himself to an unhealthy manner onto a set of characters and using them as punching bags for their anger. If I ever write anything close to character bashing (which I may do, even if I don't notice it. I'm not a perfect writer, I am very well aware of that), I will do my best to try and explain my reasoning for it, and will always make clear the choices and logic behind the reasoning of said characters.

Another point: Izuku may be the main character, but he is not the only character. There are others that exist in the world, and they are going to be having their own character arcs as well. Izuku isn't going to be the centre of the world, and he's not going to be on everyone's thoughts all the time. I've read a lot of stories where the main character (Izuku in this case) is either the centre of the world or on everyone's minds all the time, or usually both. That's not going to happen here. There are going to be other characters with their own agency, and they are going to be moving pieces in the world alongside him, with or without his knowledge.

And finally: no harem. This isn't that kind of story. If Izuku has a love interest, he's only going to have one. There also isn't going to be much horny like some other stories, and probably won't be any at all. Again, this isn't that kind of story.

So those are the guidelines. Moving on from that, you might have noticed that, aside from Reiko being an Awoken, I haven't included any visible elements of Destiny yet. That's because I don't want to reveal all my cards just yet. Trust me, when we get to the USJ, then we're really going to be seeing more of Destiny's universe melding into the setting. It's going to be explosive, and there're going to be some shocking revelations, so stay tuned for that.

Beyond that, there's this idea that I had in that each individual arc would end with a item being opened up like an engram, with the items within being things from weapons and sparrows and even Guardian suits, and that in-between arcs, there would be chapters released that would resemble lore cards and grimoire entries, with some chapters even being constructed to be like entire lore books that would be unlocked throughout the story. Kind of a fun way of weaving together the gameplay of Destiny with how this story would be told. It's always fun to play with the formatting, isn't it?

Chapter Text

Some time later, Izuku returns to U.A. as a student of Class 1-A, and meets his new classmates, that being Ochako and the trio Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri from Class 1-B, who make themselves his friends, even when they all hold secrets.

Izuku, meanwhile, is unsure of what to make of the strange power of One for All, as it seems to both work for him and not work for him, somehow helping him and hurting him at the same time, as if it is in conflict with each other. Even when he uses One for All in Aizawa's quirk application test, during the earliest training exercises, it seems to conflict with each other, like a violent storm within himself. This same pattern carried on through the training exercises during the next week, which focused on the students checking over their uniforms, learning of the rules of engagement, and performing quirkless sparring with each other.

(I'm stretching out the timeline here a bit. I feel that it would've been a lot smarter if there had been prior exercises before jumping straight into battling each other as heroes and villains. Feels a lot smarter that way.)

A week later, the battle trial begins, and Izuku and Ochako are paired up together to face Bakugo and Iida. The fight goes much like it did in canon. However, near the end of it, Izuku is uncertain about how to use the strange powers of One for All and ends up passing out from a stroke, forcing Ochako to have to pick up the slack and win the round for them.

(I'm giving Ochako more of a spotlight in this story. Girl deserves more time in the sun compared to what she got in canon.)

By the end of the round, Izuku is back in the medical wing and All Might has been forced to call the exercise off, not wanting to inflict the same kind of pain onto any of his other students. When he wakes up, Izuku is understandably confused as to what exactly is going on, and so is All Might. He'd never experienced any of this over the long course of his hero career, and neither did his master Nana Shimura. He wouldn't have given One for All to Izuku if he'd known that this would happen to his apprentice. Izuku and All Might resolve to look for answers, and All Might calls Gran Torino for any clues as to what is going on, eventually meeting him in person, though Gran Torino doesn't know either, as Nana never showed any of these traits when using One for All either.

Sometime later, Aizawa is dragging All Might over the coals for the battle trials. As it turns out, the battle trials were never supposed to take place, as they're supposed to be reserved for second year students, especially this early in the year. First year students are supposed to be doing more of the same lessons that they were doing earlier, in that they would be doing safety checks and learning the rules of engagement and so on.

However, All Might was simply using the information that he was given. Turns out that he'd been given the wrong notes, and was simply too inexperienced of a teacher to pick up on the mistake and course correct.

(Thank you, A Clear Pattern of Behavior, for inspiring this little snippet of the story.)

Aizawa is confused by this, as slipups like this are pretty rare and not something that is supposed to happen. At least, not with the new A.I. that's been put in place. However, Aizawa has never liked that A.I., as it seems very faulty, so the two teachers go to talk to it, as well as the engineers that have been tinkering with it.

They go to the central database alongside Nezu and communicate with Failsafe, the new A.I. with an odd split-personality, and the heteromorph sisters that had been brought in as an engineer to work alongside Power Loader named Niik and Itzelas (Aizawa is very confused by the odd names, but doesn't question it), who had been the one to install Failsafe into U.A.. Failsafe states that the mistake had been due to a system update that had been taking place whilst the lesson plans were being constructed, and Niik confirms this as well. She points out that Power Loader can back them up, but Aizawa and Nezu decide that their word is enough, though Aizawa points out that he still isn't a fan of Failsafe, deeming the A.I. as unstable and unsafe, and leaves with All Might and the headmaster.

Then, stepping out of the shadows, Kamakiri thanks Failsafe and the two Eliksni siblings for changing the lesson plans for them. Failsafe and the pair are confused as to why Reiko had told them to fudge the plans, but Kamakiri tells them that they needed to figure out Izuku's abilities. Now they have a head start on it.

And besides, Reiko's got an eye on another student as well.

At the end of the day, Izuku makes his way back home, and Ochako joins him. Izuku is flustered by a girl joining him in going home, but Ochako is more concerned with his own health. After all, he'd passed out in the middle of a training session. Izuku is a bit embarrassed about that, as he would've hated for the battles trials to have been cancelled and ruined everyone's fun just because of himself, but Ochako is worried about the fact that he's showing such little concern for himself and decides to stick around with him for a bit longer.

Elsewhere, Tokoyami is approached by Reiko, who expresses a similar interest in all things darkness like he does. In particular, she has a vested interest in Dark Shadow, who she refers to as his second half. Dark Shadow, meanwhile, is surprised to see Reiko, and she senses something deep within her. Something immensely familiar...

(In this story, Dark Shadow is a female, and she's going to work very differently when compared to canon. You'll understand in the future.)

Elsewhere, Shigaraki and Kurogiri welcome a small army of villains into their bar. They're the villains that don't fit in with any other gang, the murderers and offenders and misanthropists, the people too extreme and hateful for other villain gangs, so much so that they had been cast out and exiled from their old alliances. Now they have gathered together under the allegiance of Shigaraki and his League of Villains to attack U.A., kill All Might, and all the hero students and other children inside as their act of revenge.

But first, Shigaraki tells them that they'll need to undergo some... upgrades, and suddenly a group of creatures march inside, very much different from his Nomu monster that he has at his disposal, and all the villains are dragged away, kicking and screaming, into pods and converters brimming with Resonant energy, ready to be reshaped and moulded into their new forms.

Shigaraki, meanwhile, simply tells Kurogiri to make sure that they're all ready when the time comes over the screams of pain and agony. They have their orders, after all.

Two weeks after they arrive at U.A., Class 1-A and 1-B are taken to the USJ to train together. Aizawa states that usually, it would've been one of the classes going ahead of the other, but it had been decided that it would be better to promote cooperation and establish positive relationships between the students as early as possible. Failsafe leads them there along the way, and they are told that All Might will be joining them soon enough.

However, suddenly, Failsafe's connection to the USJ is cut off, and the buses that transported them to the grounds explode, stranding them all at the building.

And that is when they are met by the League of Villains, who flood into the USJ grounds and surround the students.

However, this version of the League of Villains is much more dangerous than in canon, as they wield not just various villainous thugs – now reshaped into new forms that Shigaraki refers to as his Reapers, with new technology and weapons that glow with Resonant energy – but also alien creatures wielding unnatural powers providing coordination and limited leadership amongst the villains.

They are the Subjugators, the Harbingers wielding Strand, and the Omens wielding Stasis, acting as commanding officers for Shigaraki and his own pet Nomu, mutated into a horrific abomination and fused together with that strange, alien technology that hums with Resonance.

Shigaraki calls his Nomu the Aspect of Pride, and wonders as to why All Might has not arrived yet. However, he resolves to lure out All Might and bring him to the USJ in the best way possible:

He has Kurogiri scatter the students and teachers all over the USJ and its surrounding grounds, and orders his Nomu and the Dread to hunt them down and kill them.

You have unlocked:

Battle Proven Sparrow

Chapter Text

As they awaken and find themselves scattered across the USJ and the surrounding area outside, Class 1-A and 1-B are forced to fight for their lives against the ravenous villains, facing off not just against the empowered thugs but also the Subjugators and the unearthly powers that the Nomu can summon against them.

Even worse for them is that they are unable to contact the outside world or even reconnect Failsafe to the USJ's security systems due to a jamming field being put in place by a new Dread archetype known as the Devil, a reshaped Eliksni Vandal that has been imbued with the powers of the Nightmares, with the ability to either enlarge itself to the size of a Captain, or project Nightmares of Dregs around it for additional support (yeah, I know that Husks are made from reshaped Eliksni, but I like this idea too much to change it).

This particular Devil is known as Rantheks, Sworn to Shigaraki, and it is the one that is coordinating the Dread across the USJ in Shigaraki's steed alongside operating the jamming field around the grounds.

Over time, most of the students and even the teachers find themselves overpowered by the alien creatures and their minions, unable to keep up the long fight against the unnatural powers that they possess, as if their quirks themselves are being dampened and muted by their very presence.

Izuku is doing even worse than all of them, as One for All seems to be reacting negatively to the lotuses of Resonance around him, the dark powers gnawing at his own quirk and threatening to eat the Light inside him alive. It's almost like One for All is threatening to cannibalise itself.

The only ones that are doing well are the Class 1-B trio, as they work to neutralise not just villains and thugs but also kill the Subjugators and fighting against the Aspect of Pride and its Resonant abilities. Their efforts allow for many of their classmates the chance to run, to find shelter and safety away from the monsters, the chance to survive.

Tokoyami is also doing well, surprisingly, as he ends up summoning a cloak of purple energy around him to push away the surrounding Dread, helped along by the advice of Dark Shadow, who is usually a lot more quiet and demure by nature.

Elsewhere, the teachers and surrounding heroes notice the sudden violence coming from the USJ. After all, it's hard to hide a pair of buses exploding for very long, especially the smoke rising up into the ar. They all move in to intercept and understand what is going on (not All Might yet, however, as he got himself caught up in a series of crimes over the city and doesn't have much time in his buffed-up form left for the day), but find their path impeded by more Dread, having been put into blocking and guard positions around the USJ grounds. Not just Subjugators and the new Reaper enemies, but also Shriekers reconverted into Dread units via Black Fleet technology named Perceptors (think the Zoetic Lockset from the Sundered Doctrine dungeon) and Tormentor commanders known as the Disciples of Pride.

This is very different to how the League of Villains acted in MHA's canon. There is a lot of tactics being used here, more than Shigaraki ever used at the beginning of canon. More than that, many of the students and even the teachers question why Shigaraki is attacking the USJ and trying to kill them. After all, if he has all these resources, and even an army, available to him, then why would he want to waste it all in trying to kill a bunch of children?

And then there is Shigaraki himself, who is different than when he began in canon as well. Instead of acting like a manchild throwing a tantrum, there is a detachedness to him, like he's not quite connected to reality. What's more, he has the ability to restrain his malice. To a point, at the very least. He is still Shigaraki after all.

But on the other side of the USJ, Ochako comes across a greyish-blue shard of bone sticking out of the ground, and finds a strange compulsion in herself to pocket and keep it.

Eventually, All Might arrives at the USJ, having finally punched through the outer defensive lines of Dread outside alongside the rest of the teachers and an army of pro heroes to save his students and fellow teachers. He proceeds to do battle against the Aspect of Pride, putting up an immense fight against it, even when the horrific creature that is the Nomu summons its Disciples of Pride, to assist it, though the Class 1-B trio are able to deal with them.

Then, once the Tormentors are dealt with, the Class 1-B trio recognise that the Devil is the one both coordinating the jamming field and leading the Dread for Shigaraki, and they move to confront it, fighting through the Devil's Reaper and Subjugator guards known as Rantheks' Fearful, and finally putting a bullet into the head of Rantheks himself, putting the reshaped Eliksni out of his misery.

During this battle, one member of the trio ends up getting taken out, but in a flash of Light they're back on their feet. This happens in the background though, and few people notice it.

Eventually, All Might is able to defeat the Aspect of Pride, killing the monster and working with his fellow teachers and heroes to deal with the rest of the Dread in the USJ (though this takes an effort in of itself, and even results in some heroes dying due to the paracausal and powerful abilities that they have at their disposal). Beyond that, Failsafe is able to regain control of the USJ's internal security systems thanks to the death of the Devil, and she sicks the school's fleet of security bots, including Shanks and turrets and Servitors, onto the Dread, wiping many of them out.

As the League of Villains and the rest of the Dread go on the retreat, Shigaraki decides that he doesn't want to leave without a consolation prize and goes to strike a blow on the weakened All Might, intent on killing the number one hero himself-

Only for Izuku to throw him away, thereby getting in the way of his strike.

Izuku disintegrates in a burst of orange light, and dies, right there in the USJ in front of everyone...

And All Might, with a roar of rage at Izuku's death, punches Shigaraki so hard that he is reduced to a splatter on the wall, with which Kurogiri and what's left of the Dread flee the USJ.

But then, Izuku wakes up in an alien world, surrounded by the voices of One for All's past users, living echoes residing in the space that One for All has occupied.

One for All isn't just a transferable quirk; it is a passage into the Ascendant Realm.

One for All is a throne world, a place where the wounded soul of those that control them can retreat to upon their death in the physical world to heal and return.

Originally, it hadn't been powerful enough to do anything but store the disembodied souls of the previous users of One for All until their deaths, but with each passing victory and act of righteousness conducted by each One for All user, the throne world was slowly built piece by piece, utilising a form of sword logic for its construction.

Now, after All Might's long contribution as the number one hero and the thousands of battles that he has fought and won, the throne world is mighty and powerful, and all the previous users of One for All are finally able to begin returning to the real world once more in their physical forms. The only reason that All Might never knew about this aspect of One for All was because it was still too weak to properly function as an adequate throne world. That, and All Might never died during his time.

As long as Izuku and none of the other One for All users are killed in One for All's throne world, then they are effectively immortal.

However, in the material world, All Might doesn't know this, and he is left to kneel down next to the ashes of Izuku Midoriya, surrounded by students that are both horrified by the death of their classmate and the fact that All Might has killed a man right in front of them, villain or not. Some of them even have splatters of blood across them...

And then, through a tear in the fabric of space, Izuku steps through the rift between real space and the Ascendant Plane, much to the shock and amazement of the people around him...

Save for a few.

Elsewhere, Shigaraki's remains (or what's left of them at the very least) are being taken away in a secured train to an high security facility, along with the bodies of theNomu and Dread that had been killed in the USJ for research and study...

Only for a flicker to emerge from him as he is covered by a sickly golden light.

And then suddenly Shigaraki is alive and well, and kills his guards, destroying the entire train and the bodies of the Nomu and Dread that he was being taken away with in a burst of Resonant energy before transmatting away.

Shigaraki is something new. Something that is using the powers of the Darkness to become a dark parody of the forces that have come before, in a past once-forgotten.

Tomura Shigaraki is a Darkbearer, a parallel to the Lightbearers, reshaped by the Darkness through Stasis and Strand and Resonance and gaining powers to rival that of the Guardians of old. He even has a dark mockery of a Ghost, something that he refers to as a Wraith, a Ghost-like partner that, instead of choosing Shigaraki to be raised, instead was made specifically for him. Worse yet, because the Darkness is linked to memory, consciousness, and other metaphysical properties, he still retains the memories of his life before his first death and resurrection.

And he's not the only one.

(This is all essentially me taking Destiny's basic formula and completely flipping it on its head. In this story, the one with the throne world deep in the Ascendant Plane is the good guy, and the one with the ability to resurrect themselves from the dead on the spot with a Ghost is the bad guy.

Who says that crossovers can't play with the formula?)

Shigaraki transmats himself into the bar, and finds himself with Kurogiri and Doctor Garaki, and All for One...

All for One, the big bad of MHA and the driving force behind the actions of most of its major villains...

All for One, who has been Taken.

He's no longer himself. He has been made a servant, an unwilling slave who had his soul ripped out of his body and reconstructed to become loyal to his new master, a hollow echo of who he once was.

Then, Shigaraki and his minions, including the Taken All for One, are called upon by an eldritch force through a relic of Darkness, speaking through a Shade of Taken energy.

She calls herself the Mother, an eldritch entity with unknown origins, who has taken command of the remains of the Black Fleet, as well as bending the will of the Taken, Dread, Scorn, and other Darkness factions still in existence to herself.

Herself, or itself. Whatever the Mother is, whatever its dark origins are, whether it drudged itself from the Sea of Screams in the Ascendant Plane or made through more artificial means, whether it was constructed by the combined will of the Taken or born from the drudged-up memories of an Echo, it is now a force capable of bending the paracausal nature of the world itself to its - her - will.

And through her, she commands the Ascendancy, the gathering of likeminded and paracausal entities scattered across the Earth and beyond, working to create a new future and carve their destiny into the universe itself.

Shigaraki is angered to know that he lost at the USJ, and wants to know why the Dread and Black Fleet technology that he'd given to his villains and Nomu had failed so much. The Mother, speaking through her Echo, tells Shigaraki that the fault for the failings of the Dread and Darkness technologies are Shigaraki's own, not anyone else's. He had been the one to rally his villains and given them their technology, to reshape them into Dread much like the rest of their forces, and he had been the ones to deploy his Nomu and the Subjugators and Tormentors and Perceptors in the way that had caused them to fail. Only a bad painter blames his brush, and he has been very careless with the canvas that he has been painting upon.

Shigaraki, upon hearing those words, is bitter at the fact that he has failed, only for the Mother to tell him that he hasn't failed. In actuality, he has succeeded in his mission.

His distraction at the USJ had drawn away All Might and the heroes from the city, and allowed their allies in the Order of Nezarec to raid the HPSC and retrieve their data caches on the Pyramid Ship that they had in their possession, including its location and where they were attempting to construct a new Radial Mast.

The Mother informs Shigaraki to be patient, that he will have his time soon enough. For now, Shigaraki should get to healing his wounds and taking account of his losses. She will contact him and the rest of the Darkbearers for when the time is right.

Her Shade fades away, and the Taken All for One leaves with her. Shigaraki demands to know from Garaki how the Nomus are doing, and Garaki responds that it's going well enough. The Nomu are reacting well with the Black Fleet technology that has been granted to them by their new benefactor. Soon, they will have over a dozen High End Nomu capable of leading the rest of the Dread alongside Shigaraki.

But that's not the project that Garaki is interested in. Not anymore. He's more interested in the restoration of his master, All for One, through the usage of his sentient quirk and the vestige that he has in his possession. The Mother seems to be interested in Garaki's efforts as well, and has gifted him access to a valuable treasure. One that would allow him to complete his House of Ruin project and grant his master the godhood that he deserves.

Shigaraki simply wishes him luck in that regard, and goes to confer with Kurogiri and his Wraith - who he has named Hana - about their next moves.

They need to contact Stain and the Queen Bee, and let them know that the next part of their plan is now in play.

You have unlocked:

Awakening suit (Hunter)
Awakening suit (Titan)
Awakening suit (Warlock)

Enlightened Self scout rifle

Preceptor shotgun

Explosive Curriculum rocket launcher

Chapter Text

Back with the heroes, Izuku is being looked over by Recovery Girl and a team of medics, all the while All Might is utterly amazed and confused as to how he is alive. After all, he had watched him die himself. Izuku begins to explain, but even he isn't sure how to explain it. When he tells All Might about the previous wielders of One for All in the throne world, still attempting to manifest the power that they need to return to the real world, All Might tells him to stop joking, not enjoying the idea that Izuku is joking or lying about his dead master being alive, but when Izuku makes clear that he isn't making it up, All Might can't find anything to say, already emotionally exhausted from having not only killed a man with his bare hands - still covered in his blood, no less - but also watching his successor die right in front of him.

And then later, when All Might is told that, through recordings and observations, the Nomu at the USJ seemed to possess multiple quirks, as well as the fact that the train transporting Shigaraki's remains and the bodies of the Nomu and the Dread was destroyed, he suffers from an emotional breakdown at the realisation that - despite all his best efforts, despite crushing the man's head between his hands into a bloody paste and dragging his body to the incinerator personally - All for One is still alive and active.

The students, meanwhile, are traumatised and nervous. Many of them were there to see Izuku die and All Might turn Shigaraki into a pulp, as well as being hunted down by the Dread and the League of Villains and watching several heroes die at their hands, and are suffering from nightmares about it. Reiko is helping Tokoyami through it, and so are a lot of other students for each other, but their scars, both mentally and physically, are still too raw to be helped. In fact, it's getting so bad that many of the hero course students are actively avoiding Izuku because his sudden death sits at the core of their dreams. Izuku is saddened at this fact, but isn't quite able to internalise the fact that they're avoiding him because he died right in front of all of them and is acting incredibly nonchalant about it.

Indeed, Izuku seems to actively be downplaying any thoughts about thinking about his previous death. This raises some concerns with a lot of people, particularly All Might and Ochako, and the former tries to get him to talk about it whilst the latter confesses that she feels like she can't help her friend (to the shard of blueish-grey bone, for a reason that she can't put her finger on) and resolves to try and stay by his side as much as he can.

Bakugo, meanwhile, is horrifically shaken by the sight of Izuku dying, and begins to question himself, wondering what would've happened if Izuku had actually taken that swan dive a long time ago.

But all those resulting questions and quandaries will have to wait, as the Sports Festival is fast approaching, and it cannot be stopped by a mere villain attack. The students of Class 1-A and B are forced to put aside their fears and traumas to get ready for the event that may decide their careers and their futures.

It is something that the teachers have been trying to cancel, recognising that the students were too traumatised by the events of the USJ, being hunted by the League of Villains, All Might killing someone, heroes dying, and one of their classmates dying as well. Not to mention how said League of Villains had an army of monsters at its disposal, the Dread, as well as that Nomu creature, and from what Shigaraki had been saying, they had the ability to manufacture more. It was just too big of a risk to even consider allowing the Sports Festival to go through, especially when considering how the League had managed to invade U.A. grounds before. A massive security overhaul was already being put in place to make up for the previous shortcomings that allowed for such an attack to occur, even if it's made clear that no one could've expected a small army to show up on U.A.'s campus, and that there was no way that they could've predicted it.

However, it's too late. There's too much money been put into the Sports Festival, and it's become a major part of the student curriculum. It has to go through, overwise a lot of prospectus hero students may have their careers harmed in the long run if it was to be cancelled. Plus, shutting down the Sports Festival could communicate weakness to the League and might make them react once more, especially with the recent attacks by some cultish group on the HPSC and the fear that any lack of action or changing of plans in response to these incursions might generate within the populace.

The Sports Festival will be going ahead. The teachers are able to quadruple the amount of heroes that will be protecting the event, but it's a consolation prize in their eyes.

However, as the authorities and those inside U.A. begin to examine the strange devices that had been recovered from the USJ - the discarded ones that the Dread had been using - they begin to hear whispers through the lingering Resonance found in them, and begin to feel compulsions as the Voice in the Darkness begins to quietly speak to them, telling them not of Final Shapes, but of Harmony.

In particular, Hatsume Mei in the support department becomes fascinated by the devices that the villains in the USJ were using and begins to look for ways to replicate them, much to the joy of the growing whispers in her mind.

Later, Aizawa and All Might are talking with Nezu about the plans for the Sports Festival. For once, the two teachers are in agreement on something, as they consider it to be a massive security risk with the threat of the League of Villains and their Dread forces, on top of that cult attacking the HPSC on the same day, which is much too coincidental for it to be so. That suggests that there is an alliance for villain factions growing in the underworld, with the means to strike anywhere. Aizawa rightfully calls it bread and circuses, trying to distract the world from how bad things have been.

Sadly, there is little that Nezu can do, despite everything that he has tried. The school board have made their stance clear, and U.A. has too many sponsors that focus heavily on the Sports Festival to consider letting it drop. If it was cancelled, then it would be bad news for not just U.A., but everyone in and linked to it. Aizawa and All Might are unhappy about this, not wanting to put their students in any more needless risk, but there is nothing to be done now.

So instead, Aizawa wants to focus on the appearance of one of the Dread forces in the USJ. The Devil, which looked almost identical to the engineers working on Failsafe, that being Niik and Itzelas (who have now grown to their full Captain sizes over the years), and Aizawa suspects that there is some sort of link to that. Nezu, however, shoots this down quickly, viewing the supposed connection to be simply built on a coincidence, and that people have had similar quirks before. Nezu tells Aizawa that he shouldn't start distrusting his fellow staff members over a supposed connection built on loose evidence, and that is enough to pacify Aizawa for the time being.

However, it is clear that Aizawa still has his suspicions.

Aizawa and All Might leave, and Nezu is left on his own, until a figure emerges from a shimmer of blue light. A transmat directly into his office.

One Reiko Yanagi, who asks why he hasn't cancelled the Sports Festival, talking to him as if she was his equal, like a co-worker and not her headmaster.

Nezu tells her that the school board have been insistent, as well as the HPSC, and Reiko is quick to assert that the HPSC are simply trying to save face. With the forces of Darkness on the rise once again, they need a solid front against their enemies, not throwing a wool over the eyes and pretending that everything is fine. And her orders, as well as the words of the Archon Council, were clear: the Sports Festival was too risky to allow to continue. Not from the reports that their agents have been passing over to them.

Nezu simply states that he tried everything that he could, and Reiko, thankfully, acknowledges this, thanking him for at least trying. She tells Failsafe and Nezu to simply do their best with what they have. She'll put her best agents in the Festival and keep things from going haywire.

She leaves to give her reports to the Archon Council, but not before quickly commenting that it's been a miracle that they've kept it quiet for this long. Humanity deserved a chance at peace after all that it had been through. It's just a shame to see it come to an end. Nezu, in response, tells her that they need to be strong now. The time of peace is coming to an end. Now humanity needs to wake up to its hidden past. Reiko nods to him and leaves...

…As elsewhere, Yui and Kamakiri are talking to their fellows in Class 1-B, and offer to help them understand what went down at the USJ and the bigger part that they all now have to play in it.

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Chapter Text

The Sports Festival begins, and this time, it is a lot different than in canon. The first round of the Sports Festival is a race just like in canon, but there are a lot of things different about it, as it is just as much an obstacle course as it is a race, with alternating platforms and villain-pointer robots serving as obstacles for the students to face against. It's basically a classic Destiny traversal through the open world. Class 1-A is sent right into the fight as they battle against their fellows in Class 1-B and the other courses through the obstacle course, fighting through the villain-pointers and making their way through the jumping puzzles to achieve victory.

Interestingly, a majority of Class 1-B are able to pass this round via working together and assisting each other in the race in comparison to their fellows in Class 1-A who – for the most part – prioritise gaining first place and achieving victory, meaning that the latter of the two classes end up taking up a majority of the space within the class, with some members from Class 1-A having been left in the dust.

In the end, a total of forty-eight students are able to pass, being made up of Class 1-A, B, Mei from the support department, and Shinso from Gen-Ed, alongside a few others.

The second round is where the real differences begin, as the remaining competitors are separated into teams and told that to pass to the tournament stage, they must complete a timed battle trial in which they must save multiple civilians – in this case, the civilians are practice dummies – as well as complete certain objectives such as collecting fake money stolen from a bank and so on, all the while being hounded by an army of villains, that being villain-pointer robots – with one-pointer serving as minor foes, two-pointers as mini-bosses and elites, and three-pointers as bosses and majors – and place them in a designated shelter to earn points, which will add to a total amount for the end of the match. Additionally, extra points will be rewarded for displays of teamwork and positive interactions between teammates to work towards a singular objective. Once the time limit has been reached, the four teams that have the most points will move on to the tournament round, and the other three teams will be disqualified.

In essence, the second encounter plays out like a raid/dungeon encounter.

Izuku is placed on a team with Reiko, Ochako, and Tokoyami, and they get to work on saving the dummy civilians and defeating the hordes of villain-pointer bosses, with Izuku and Ochako prioritising the civilians, Tokoyami taking on the one-pointers and the mini-bosses, and Reiko taking out the major foes and the boss bots.

However, through working together, the team realises that there is a hidden puzzle within the combat trial, and their efforts to solve end up unlocking the final boss, that being a souped-up variant of the villain-bots that, upon defeating, allows the team to pass just as the time comes to an end, clinching victory with just a few seconds to spare.

They are the last team to succeed. The first team to pass the test, composed of Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Momo, were the quickest and more efficient of the teams to pass, using simplistic and brutal tactics against the villain-bots, but this came at a cost of proper teamwork and coordination within the group in pursuit of victory, losing them points in the long run. The next team to pass, that being composed of Yui, Kendo, Tetsutetsu, and Kamakiri, had been able to spot and solve the puzzle early on in the battle, but were only able to defeat the final boss through a long struggle of attrition throughout the match. The final team, meanwhile, composed of Shinso, Hatsume, Ibara, and Ojiro, were able to save all the dummy civilians but were unable to defeat the boss of the match and gain its points to push them to the top team.

Yui and Kamakiri seem to be holding back their true strength and are rankled by it but continue to do so on Reiko's orders. The time to reveal themselves has not yet arrived.

During their time, Izuku is approached by Todoroki once more, who ends up revealing that he is disturbed by how Izuku was killed and brought back to life at the USJ, and exposits onto the green-haired boy his own backstory, which is much of the same in canon except for one major difference:

Touya Todoroki died when Shoto was just a baby. Genuinely died via overloading his quirk in their old home and burning the entire building down with him, attempting to kill Shoto, Endeavour, and his entire family in a suicide attack. The entirety of his family was scarred from the fire, with Rei being hospitalised from the sheer amount of burns, leaving her horrifically burnt and withered even to this day.

Meanwhile, all that was left of Touya was a burnt skeleton, still trying to kill baby Shoto and get his father to notice him even to his last moments.

Now, in this story, Endeavour's abuse of Shoto and his children is born not just from a desire to surpass All Might through them – maybe it's not even that anymore – but a strangling grief over the loss of his first child and a need to make sure that his children would be strong enough to face any challenge that came their way.

Now, the rest of the family has gone their separate ways. Rei has divorced from Endeavour, becoming Rei Himura once more. Natsuo has moved out and taken on the Himura name as well, whilst Fuyumi, while keeping the Todoroki name, has moved out and quit her job as a teacher to care for Rei full-time, as she is unable to take care of herself from her burns and injuries.

Shoto, meanwhile, has stayed with Endeavour and has been raised to become not so much the ultimate successor, but the ultimate hero; the one who could never be beaten and surpass All Might to become a hero who could never be hurt, who could never lose anyone or be hurt much like Endeavour had lost Touya.

However, because of all of this, Shoto has developed a phobia of his own fire, not just out of a desire to spite Endeavour but also as a trauma response to Touya's attack when he was a baby, leaving him with burn marks not just on his face but also a larger portion of his body. This also makes summoning his fire difficult, as even after years of physical therapy and healing, those burn scars are still sensitive to heat and leave him in pain when it is summoned.

Truthfully, Todoroki no longer knows if he even wants to be a hero. He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life anymore. All that he knows is that he wants to spite his father for everything that he has done, and make sure that he can't do what he did to anyone else ever again.

But beyond all that...

Todoroki can't understand why his brother had to die while Izuku got a second chance at life.

Izuku doesn't have an answer.

Todoroki leaves and the battle tournament begins, and once again it is a lot different than in canon, as the teams remain intact and the tournament is structured like a Crucible match, or a Trials of Osiris stand-off. Each team with be paired off with each other, and the four teams will battle in four versus four matches. Then, when two teams remain, they will face off against each other, and the winning team will be split off into pairs of two, then the losing pair will battle each other for third place, and then the winning pair will battle and decide the winner of the tournament.

However, because Iida was unable to enter the third round, Tensei ends up leaving Hosu to go to the stadium to cheer up his little brother, sparing him from meeting and being crippled by Stain.

Meanwhile, Ojiro and Ibara suddenly drop out of the tournament due to not remembering what happened during the round and not feeling that they deserved to pass, and as such their places are given over to Mina and Monoma, leading them to pass on to the next phase of the competition.

First up, it is Izuku's team going up against Shinso's. However, before their battle, the team is warned about Shinso's quirk by Ojiro and Ashido, and as such go into the fight aware of Shinso's power.

The two begin their match with Reiko and Ochako taking on Mina and Monoma, Hatsume fighting Tokoyami (or rather, using him to advertise her inventions) whilst Izuku faces off against Shinso. Unfortunately, Ojiro and Ibara's forewarning isn't enough, as Shinso gets the chance to use his quirk on Izuku-

When suddenly they are both assaulted with visions. Izuku of black pyramids and rotting gardens, of simple life living short, simple lives, of seas of screams, of cutting blades, and a figure in black. Shinso of spheres and lush meadows, of endless life living in endless complexity, of a Black Garden filled with Light and Life, of the insides of a sphere that smells like vanilla, and of a woman in white.

And in both their visions, they stand at the foot of a tree of silver wings.

And then, the visions begin to speak to them.

The figure in black speaks to Izuku. Speaks to him of swords and blades and the simplicity they bring. Speaks to him until his ears bleed. Speaks to him until his mind is overwhelmed by the desires of the strong to cut away the world until only the perfect, final shape remains.

The woman in white speaks to Shinso directly. Speaks of him and the power of his words and wisdom. Shows him visions of a forgotten past, an uncertain future, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, their little lights could prevail against the encroaching darkness.

Then, the brainwasher finds himself in a strange world made of godly righteousness, surrounded by old, dead figures of heroes past, who tall him that he is not welcome into their world and ejects him.

Violently.

(Think of it as something from Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.)

Shinso wakes up on the ground, bleeding from his eyes and nose and ears as the rest of his team is soundly defeated. Izuku is shocked to see what has become of his opponent, even as he himself is suffering similar wounds, but the brainwasher is rushed away first to Recovery Girl, and then to hospital once it is discovered that he isn't waking up.

Everyone is left in confusion about this, and it is eventually decided that Izuku's connection of One for All and its throne world, not to mention how the past wielders living within One for All, grants him a form of immunity to mind control quirks. However, it still doesn't explain the violence of the rejection of Shinso's attempt to control him, at least until Izuku is able to talk with the One for All users and they reveal just how dangerous someone intruding into the throne world is, as a single breach into the throne world can create a entryway for anyone to break in.

Meanwhile, on route to the hospital, Shinso's ambulance is intercepted by armed men and women with mutated bees burrowed into their brains and controlling their bodies and minds, and they steal Shinso away to interrogate him for how he was able to enter One for All's throne world.

Back at the Sports Festival, Bakugo's team goes up against Kendo's, but the Class 1-A fighters are able to overpower Kendo's team and defeat them just as viciously as they had before. Todoroki is nervous to work alongside Bakugo due to his explosive quirk, his own burns itching every time they sound off, the heat making them ache. However, he is able to keep going due to his ice powers and win the match, though the frost is beginning to get to him.

Elsewhere, Izuku ends up meeting with Endeavour, who is much more dour in this story than in canon. He's still as blunt and serious as in the main story, but there's a serious sense of melancholy to his actions and words, as he tells Izuku to simply prove that his son is the strongest person there is.

Izuku, however, tells Endeavour that Todoroki is his own person and can make his own choices, and leaves. There's no bashing speech like in a lot of fanfics, there's no condemnation, there's just that simple statement, and then he leaves. And that stings a lot more than anything else that Izuku could've said.

Soon, Izuku's team goes up against Bakugo's team, and instead of fighting his childhood bully, he goes to battle Todoroki, and encourages him to think about himself and not his father, to put his life before anyone else's and think for himself for once.

And that is what gets Todoroki to accept himself and embrace his fire, pushing away the words of his father and finally beginning the path to put his past demons to bed as he unleashed his flames-

Just as Bakugo finally lands a hit on Izuku, sending him out of the ring along with the rest of his team.

Bakugo's team wins.

His, and the rest of his team's, brutal and simplistic tactics overwhelm Izuku and his team and any plans that they lay for themselves, and they lose. Hard.

(This is kind of my response to all the fanfics where Izuku wins the Sports Festival. There are so many of them out in the wild now that it's become cliché, and this is just my way of saying that he doesn't need to win the Sports Festival to have character growth and development, or just to show off how awesome he is or whatever.)

Izuku's team is defeated and Bakugo's moves up to face off against each other. However, Izuku finds that he doesn't really mind this, as he helped Todoroki begin the process of healing and self-recovery.

Now all that's left is to figure out what to do with Endeavour...

Elsewhere, Reiko speaks with Yui and Kamakiri, and the latter two are a bit miffed that they've had to hold themselves back, and that Reiko held herself back to. After all, they could've wiped the floor with that Bakugo fellow easily if they went all out. Reiko quickly reminds them that they would've killed Bakugo and his team if they went all out, and tells them that being taken out this early instead of making it all the way to the top of the Sports Festival is good for them: it nets them enough contacts to make the connections that they'll need in the immediate future, and also obscures them enough from any of the wrong eyes, at least for a while.

It's a temporary solution, though, as Reiko is well aware that they can't keep their true abilities secret forever. But right now, all she can think about right now is the immediate future.

For now, Yui and Kamakiri would attend to the rest of Class 1-B. They'd managed to bring Ibara and Kosei into the circle so far, but the others would need more convincing, but once they brought Kendo and Monoma in with them, the rest would follow. Meanwhile, she needed to talk to Nezu and Failsafe, and get a progress report from their agents...

Meanwhile, Bakugo and Todoroki are paired off against Yaoyorozu and Kirishima, and the former pair are able to defeat the latter after a long struggle. Kirishima and Momo are put against each other for third place, and Momo ends up coming out on top and claiming third place for herself.

And then it is the final match of the Sports Festival, of Bakugo and Todoroki facing each other, ready to decide the winner of the event-

Only for Todoroki to announce that he is not only dropping out of the Sports Festival, but he's also leaving U.A. and the hero course.

Izuku is shocked to hear this, having not expected the advice and help that he gave Todoroki to result in this, and Bakugo is furious at the thought of being handed a victory that he hasn't earned, as Todoroki's dropping out means that he is automatically made the winner of the Sports Festival. So, when the award ceremony comes, he ends up throwing his medal to the ground and stomping off, claiming that he hadn't earned it and didn't want it from a hollow victory.

(In this story, Bakugo isn't tied to the podium like in canon. I find that scene to be a bit funky, and not in a good way.)

Combined with the haunting images of Izuku dying in the USJ, and Bakugo has been left with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Elsewhere, Izuku catches up with Todoroki, and asks to know why he's leaving, as he had never expected Todoroki to make a move such as the one he just did. Todoroki then explains that Izuku's words during their match had inspired him to finally look at himself and what he wants in his life, and explains that the only reason that he wanted to be a hero was to spite his father, and even then that had been vague and nebulous. He had no real idea what he wanted to do with his life beyond that goal, and now, he was finally feeling the weight of it on him.

It was time he started thinking about himself for once, and not his father.

So, he leaves U.A., and moves in with his older brother to begin searching for a new purpose in his life. Izuku is left stunned, as he had never expected things to go this way at all.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Izuku doesn't need to do anything at all about Endeavour, as, in his confusion and desire to understand why his son made the decision that he had, he realises on his own that he has done nothing but abuse his own children and heir out of misguided grief and anger at the world, and has completely destroyed any connections that he has to his family - or rather, the people that he could've once called family.

However, he can't just stop being the number two hero, and he can't just air out his dirty laundry like that. If he did step down, then Rei and his children would lose all their sources of income, as he had been paying for Rei's care and none of his other children were working (as again, Fuyumi had quit her teaching job to take care of Rei full time) so they had no independent sources of income. So, for now, he was stuck as the number two hero, swallowing down his own guilt and living in misery, all alone at the top thanks to the consequences of his own actions.

He ends up confessing it all to All Might though, and while the number one hero rightfully vocalises his disgust at Endeavour and what he has done, he refuses to help him, telling Endeavour that he must make up for his crimes on his own, with no one else, as his own punishment.

It is a messy situation that leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mouths, and Izuku is left uncertain about how to feel about the entire event. Even when he talks about it with All Might and the previous One for All users inside the throne world, all that they can say is that life is messy and complicated, and rarely has a happy, conclusive ending. All Might himself details about when he had made an arch-nemesis out of Destro during the days of the Meta Liberation Army, only for it to end not with a climatic battle, but with Destro burning down his own organisation out of guilt over how far it had strayed from a political activist group into a terrorist organisation, and allowing himself to be handed over to the authorities. He ended up dying in prison, and it had left All Might feeling incredibly bitter over the event simply due to how it had left him with a lot of inconclusive emotions that he would now never be able to resolve.

Sometimes, real life rarely leaves room for satisfying endings.

But there are other things to worry about. Throughout the Sports Festival, many of the spectators and participants have complained about bees swarming over the stadium, and of many of them, heroes and civilians alike, being stung by bees.

However, these bees are being controlled by Kuin Hachisuka, the Queen Bee, who's insects have ben mutated and reshaped by paracausal forces, the same forces that have reshaped herself into a servant to a darker cause.

Now, her bees are enhanced by Resonant energies, and the larvae that are injected into the people that they sting - negating their need to go through the eye and removing their most obvious tell - will wriggle their way into their brains and take them over, adding them to her new hive mind and turning them all to her collective purpose, all in the name of her new dark master.

Reiko reports this to the Archon Council alongside Nezu and Failsafe, and they inform her to track down the one known as Hitoshi Shinso, as evidence points to the Queen Bee's minions having been the ones to kidnap him.

His last known location? Hosu.

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Competitor's Promise suit (Hunter) = Champion's cloak
Competitor's Promise suit (Titan) = Victor's Mark
Competitor's Promise suit (Warlock) = Winner's Bond

Medallion exotic sword

Championship bow

Runner-Up jumpship

Chapter Text

After a short break, Class 1-A and B are brought back to U.A.. However, it isn't a completely joyous experience for many of them, as they are still reeling from Todoroki's departure from the hero course and are unsure of what to think about it.

However, it isn't as good of a victory as the winners would like. As it turns out, many pro heroes are not approving of their methods in winning the Sports Festival. During the various matches, Bakugo and his teammates, even Momo, hadn't been working well together and using simplistic brute force to win their battles, making them seem battle hungry and reckless.

By contrast, Izuku's team, though they had lost the Sports Festival, had worked well together and showed support for each other during each event, accomplishing objectives and showing great synergy with each other in more complex manoeuvres and displays. This ends up impressing the pro hero audience more than Bakugo's team did, and nets them more in the way of offers.

Bakugo's team and their simplistic, devastating methods had granted them victory in the short term, I.E. winning the Sports Festival, but Izuku's team and their more complex tactics, and taking each other into consideration, had netted them the long-term, more sustainable victory.

(Much of the Sports Festival (outside of the Todoroki storyline) is centred around the deconstruction of Sword Logic and its simplicity through Bakugo and showcasing how ultimately self-defeating the ideology is and how the 'Survival of the fittest' mentality only tends of work in the short term, especially when in comparison to those that act in defiance of the Sword Logic and embrace complexity and thinking about things in the long term, such as Izuku and his teammates.)

Meanwhile, Class 1-B are given their internships, and Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri their internships in and near the city of Hosu, and Nezu informs them that Failsafe has detected paracausal readings emanating from within the city. If Shinso is there, then they're going to need to put up a hell of a fight to get him back.

Later, Ochako goes back home and studies the strange spiked greyish-blue bone that she had taken from the USJ. She begins to hear whispers in her head as she hums an eight-note tune to herself.

And Aizawa, meanwhile, begins to experience dreams. Dreams that affirm his methods of teaching and encourage him to be more affirming about it, to be more brutal. If he really wants to see his students survive the cutting of the blade, then he needs to carve away their weaknesses himself until nothing but strength remains.

Elsewhere, Shigaraki is meeting with Stain, much like in canon. However, there is a stark difference here to canon itself, as Stain isn't working alone anymore.

He's a leader of the Order of Nezarec, and he's here to finalise his plans with Shigaraki and his Dread forces and Nomu in the League of Villains, along with the Queen Bee and her many bodies, for the League's attack on Hosu and the terror that they'll bring.

Soon enough, Izuku finds himself on his internship in Hosu with Gran Torino, but he finds that he isn't able to learn much from All Might's mentor. One for All is simply in such a different state than it was with All Might, with the infused powers of Light and Darkness coursing through him, on top of the alien aspect of the throne world and the previous users inside it, that Gran Torino simply doesn't know where to start. The real danger for Izuku comes in trying to use One for All in any kind of combat capacity, as both the Light and Darkness in One for All clash against each other, and require Izuku to achieve a form of balance within himself before he can use them for combat.

Izuku, meanwhile, is dealing with feelings of self-deprecation due to his loss at the Sports Festival and not feeling worthy of One for All. His confusion at the visions that he has experienced thanks to One for All doesn't help in this as well.

Meanwhile, Ochako takes her internship with Mirko, who tries to help her unlock her anger and fighting style and get her to start being a much more aggressive fighter. Ochako, meanwhile, has taken her shard of bone with her, and has begun to draw a strange language into her notebook. A language that is almost infectious...

However, he will soon get his chance as the city of Hosu comes under attack from both the the League of Villains and their Nomu and Dread, the Nomu themselves spreading a paracausal Fungal agent known as Egregore with each death that they bring about, either through their killing or through being killed themselves.

Soon, Hosu is overrun by Nomu and Dread alike, with Reapers, Weavers, Attendants, Devils, Grim, Husks, Omen and Harbinger Subjugators, Perceptors, and Tormentors marching alongside Resonance-infused and Egregore-infested Nomu, spreading death and despair wherever they go, and generating more Egregore.

Even worse is when two new Dread variants show up on the battlefield.

The first is known as the Sightless, a wispy ghost-like figure primarily serving as a melee-specialist, covered in pale white robes and is able to turn invisible using Deepsight (I wanted to use all the Darkness elements when making the new Dread enemies, not just Stasis, Strand, and Resonance), with the only way to see them being the use of Deepsight buffs.

The second is the Gestalt, a colony of skeletal humanoids that resemble human corpses, armed with shotgun-like pistols and small arms and serving as the Thrall-type enemy within the story. However, if too many in a colony of them are put alongside each other, then they can merge together to form a larger Gestalt creature, a bulbous monster with many arms and legs like something out of Still Wakes the Deep, that acts like the Ogre/Abomination of the faction.

Hosu would become the MHA equivalent of a patrol zone, filled to the brim with Dread and Nomu that are attempting to take over the city and infuse it with Egregore, linking the minds of the Nomu together to make them even more effective at killing anything and anyone that stands in their way.

The heroes rush to Hosu to try and push back the League of Villains, but find themselves being pushed back by the Dread and the Nomu and are unable to go through the fields of Egregore spreading all across the city as they are killed in droves by the reshaped villains and alien creatures at their command, not to mention the Resonant technology that they possessed.

Izuku finds himself caught in the madness of the attack on Hosu, and ends up getting stung by a bee in the panic. However, his connection to the Light and Dark allows him to sense the parasitic larvae crawling up through his body, meaning that he can get it out of him. However, that means scratching deep into his skin and tearing apart his flesh to get to it, eventually having to settle for using a shattered piece of glass as a knife to dig it out, leaving part of his flesh bloody and raw and exposing the bone underneath as he stomps on the parasitic larvae, killing it.

However, it's suddenly the least of his problems as he is attacked not by the Dread or the Nomu, but by the Queen Bee's unwilling thrall, all of them extensions of the Queen Bee's will and attempting to infect him with the bee larvae by projectile vomiting it into his mouth and wounds (kind of like the rage zombies from 28 Days Later), all in an attempt to gain access to One for All's throne world...

But Izuku, in a brief moment of panic, momentarily gains Prismatic balance and uses the Dark and Light to burn away the larvae, saving himself and severing the Queen Bee's connections to her bodies around him, though it unfortunately results in their deaths.

In this transcendence, Izuku is also able to interact with the Darkness of the Egregore, and begins to use his Light to burn them away, giving the heroes the chance to finally advance and begin taking on the Dread themselves.

And that is when Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri make their move. They had been chasing paracausal energies all throughout the city of Hosu, and had been using the chaos of the attack as a cover to investigate. Now using the disaster as cover, the three begin to go to work, wiping out entire platoons of Dread and even taking out a few Nomu along the way before they're able to link up with Izuku.

However, that's when they realise that the League of Villains' attack is just a smokescreen: the real purpose of the attack is for the Queen Bee to infect as many bodies as she can, whether they be dead or alive, and add them to her collective consciousness. What's more, she's using a link into the Ascendant Plane to command her larvae and bodies alongside the Dread, and is creating new monsters known as the Stingers (basic bee-themed creatures that serve as support enemies utilising Strand and Stasis-based attacks, known as the Wasp (Strand) and Mosquito (Stasis) respectively) and the Quills (insectoid monsters that serve as major boss and mini-boss type enemies) alongside the possessed hordes known as the Infested and swarmer units known as the Surge (which are basically flying flocks of explosive bees, fulfilling the roll of the Cursed Thrall/Fanatic archetype), creating a new faction known as the Swarm.

(Basically, Queen Bee and her Swarm are becoming the eighth Destiny faction.)

So, the three students, alongside Izuku (who's connection to the Light and Dark has allowed him to begin rapidly healing from his wounds) jump through the rift to the Ascendant Realm to face the Queen Bee, fighting through wave after wave of Dread and mindless bodies to get there as they traverse the Sea of Screams.

But during this time, Reiko gets taken out by a stray shot, and ends up falling to the ground as a corpse...

Only for a little drone to materialise next to her and revive her in a burst of light.

Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri are all Guardians, the first Lightbearers of a new age. Reiko is the Warlock Fireteam leader wielding the Arc Chaos Reach super, Yui is a Titan wielding the Void Twilight Arsenal super, and Kamakiri was a Hunter with the Hunter Blade Barrage super. Together, this new Fireteam, plus Izuku and his connection of One for All's throne world, are able to breach through the Queen Bee and League of Villains defences and lay siege to the Proxy of Royalty, a mindless Psion who had become infected with one of the Queen Bee's parasites and turned into a vessel of the Queen's control over her growing number of bodies in Hosu.

After an intense struggle, the fireteam and Izuku are able to put the poor Psion out of his misery and kill him, severing the Queen Bee's connection to her various hosts in Hosu and causing all the bees in her freshly made victims to self-destruct, killing them all instantly.

But that doesn't stop the rest of the League, as they still command their Nomu and Dread, and the Swarm's forces, including the infested heroes that had been infected before the battle, are acting in support for them as they move to conquer the rest of Hosu.

Tokoyami, meanwhile, would find himself trapped in Hosu as well, and would end up slipping into a portal made by the Nomu's obelisks...

Right into the Ascendant Plane.

Tokoyami would be lost for a long time lost in the Ascendant Plane, jumping over obstacles and trying his best to avoid the strange shadowy beings that always tried to kill him. However, soon enough, he would reach a strange structure in the middle of the grey, otherworldly landscape, guarded by more Nomu, and all of them led by a dark, hulking monster wielding a massive scythe.

A Hive Knight, one that had been turned into a Nomu monstrosity with the quirks needed to command the rest of the Nomu in the city.

Through the visions and portals around the inhuman creature, thanks to a strange power that Dark Shadow refers to as his Deepsight, Tokoyami realises that the Hive Knight, known as the Aspect of Wrath, is the one coordinating the attack on Hosu and attacks him, supported by Dark Shadow as he battles against the beast and its Nomu guards, known as the Wrathful Aspirants.

The Aspect of Wrath strikes back by stabbing Tokoyami in the chest, killing him.

Tokoyami dies... but then Dark Shadow gives off a flash of light, and Tokoyami suddenly returns from the dead, confused of what just happened, only to realise what is going on at the moment, put it out of his mind, and then get back to work in taking down the Hive Nomu and its minions.

The Hive Nomu puts up a good fight, but Dark Shadow ends up casting a strange set of powers for Tokoyami, beams of electricity from his hands, and lands the finishing blow on the hybrid Knight, killing it and its lesser Nomu, and crippling the attack on Hosu as Tokoyami flees through the portal and back into the material world, where the remaining Nomu's attacks have weakened in coordination.

Soon enough, with Tokoyami crippling the Nomu leadership and Izuku draining the Suppressors and purifying the spreading Egregore with One for All, the heroes are able to form a blockade around Hosu and stop the League's forces - the Dread, the Nomu, and the Swarm - from advancing any further.

However, despite this setback, the heroes are still on the backfoot, as many people, both heroes and civilians, have died during the battle, including all the fresh victims of Queen Bee's parasites, the rest reduced to blubbering, walking husks. Shigaraki and Kurogiri have left Hosu, but their army remains, and not even All Might is able to dislodge them from the city.

The heroes are forced to quarantine the city and leave it to fend for itself, allowing the monsters inside to complete their takeover, even without the Egregore spreading any further. Soon enough, the Dread are fitting Black Fleet technology all over the city to protect them from any aerial/orbital bombardment, and are now in the process of making more Dread, more Nomu, and more Swarm monstrosities for their forces, churning them out like a factory line.

If any hero tries to step into Hosu, they will do it alone. The city belongs to the forces of Darkness now.

And on top of that, the League of Villains have won in another way, as while they were unsuccessful in getting enough new bodies for Queen Bee to inhabit, they succeeded in spreading terror across hero society, fuelling descent and despair, and thereby providing more fuel for the Cult of Nezarec for them to generate more of their Nightmares, providing them even more power than before.

Despite the setbacks and complications, this is a complete and total victory for the League and the forces of Darkness.

But there were others that were in the city as well. Kirishima is present at the Hosu maelstrom, and he ends up getting cornered by a group of the Dread...

And is killed by them.

But after the battle, when all the Dread locking down the city and the Nomu and Swarm keeping the heroes and forces of Light away, a lone Ghost, escaping from the Sea of Screams and the wilds of the Ascendant Realm, finds Kirishima's body and resurrects him, his body rising up with no memory of his past life and no idea of what's going on, and wanders off into the shadows of the city, lost and confused as monsters prowl the streets, eager to feast on his Light.

And elsewhere, Ochako has been cradling her shard of bone close to her, and it has been whispering to her. It has been talking to her about the flaws of hero society, about how it exploits her, about how it only allows those with the strongest, flashiest quirks to thrive, how not all men are born equal, and that it is commercialised injustice, a commodification of the meaning of the word 'Hero'.

The whispers point out all the flaws in hero society, and Ochako cannot bring herself to think that they are wrong.

Then, the bone whispers secrets to her. Secrets about her friends, secrets about Izuku and One for All and things that not even her friends know about themselves.

And so, she hears the whispers. And she listens.

And then she begins to whisper back.

And then, at the end of her internship, she shows Mirko her notebook, and the viral language inside makes Mirko just that little bit more agreeable as she whistles an eight-note tune to herself.

Ochako's smile becomes crooked.

You have unlocked:

Hosu's Lament suit (Hunter)
Hosu's Lament suit (Titan)
Hosu's Lament suit (Warlock)

Repurposed Purpose assault rifle

Shard of Lament scout rifle

Chapter Text

With Hosu put under siege, all those students who could be recovered from the city have been returned to their respective schools, including U.A.. Many of the students in the hero course, especially Mina and Kaminari, are fearful at Kirishima being missing and are desperate to find their friend, but with Hosu locked down and the Dread, Nomu, and Swarm marching through the city and rounding up everyone still remaining in there, the heroes aren't willing to risk another attack all for a rescue that's probably already been lost, as cynical as it sounds.

Hosu has been lost, and the heroes are barely holding the line as it is. The said truth is that whoever's left in the city has already been lost.

Reiko, meanwhile, is working to coach the rest of her class, alongside Yui and Kamakiri, through the traumas of Hosu, both experiencing and witnessing it, when they are suddenly called away to Nezu's office. Failsafe has found something for them, a link to Shinso through the Order of Nezarec.

However, they are intercepted by Aizawa, who is starting to seriously suspect that things are going on outside his purview. For one, he's received reports from heroes in Hosu about the three's valiant actions... whilst also showing skills and a level of power and control far outside what they have displayed at the Sports Festival. Secondly, those same reports claimed that the three of them had taken severe, even fatal wounds, but immediately got back up, seemingly showing an ability to recover from mortal injuries.

Of course, those reports may have been confused in the frantic evacuation of Hosu, but with everything that's been going on now, he needs to start connecting dots before more things start going wrong. And there's too much strange going on at the moment for him to not start seeing things.

And quite frankly, on top of the Devils seem amongst the Dread, the Dread themselves, the Nomu and the Swarm, the League of Villains at the USJ and now Hosu, now he needs to start wondering if his students aren't hiding stuff from him as well.

Reiko simply retorts that they are Vlad King's students, not Aizawa's, and the three of them walk away once Nezu calls them to his office over the intercom once again, having seen their interaction over the CCTV via Failsafe.

Aizawa is left on his own, stewing in his suspicions and with the voices in his head egging them on.

In Nezu's office, the three secret Lightbearers are met by Nezu and the Eliksni twins, Niik and Itzelas, who inform them that members of the Order of Nezarec have been spotted leaving Hosu, with someone resembling Shinso in their care, and then handing him off to unknown agents. They don't have any other leads on Shinso at this time, only this.

It's not much, but Reiko figures that it's enough at the very least.

And so begins the dungeon that I have referred to as Binding Terror, with Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri transmatting into the edges of Hosu and meeting with one of their agents on the field, Pop-Step, who guides them down to the entrance to the Order of Nezarec's lair, with the three Lightbearers making their way inside.

From then on, the three enter into their first encounter, encountering their first enemies of the dungeons:

The Hive of the Hidden Swarm, who have all been claimed by the Order of Nezarec and the Nightmares that they wield, their minds having been hollowed out to make room for the terror of Nezarec, his Nightmares infused into their empty souls. They have been grown in vast quantities via the derelict shards of the Leviathan scattered across the surface of the Moon, Calus' old cloning technology used to make mindless Hive clones in vast quantities, and the spaces in them where their worms once were had been replaced by slivers of Nightmare infused flesh, connecting them to the horrors of the Nightmares and Nezarec's will. Beyond that are the cult's cloned reserves of braindead Psions, who are themselves empty-minded Psion major-units (think the Psion Flayers) that have been cloned from the remains of the Leviathan and infused with the Nightmares in order to act as directors for the Hive of the Order of Nezarec, becoming the key propagators of the Nightmares. Then, there are the special variant of Tormentor that the cult utilises, having been made from cloned slivers of Nezarec's body, the same flesh that has been infused into the braindead Hidden Swarm Hive, serving as the enforcers of Nezarec's will, and even taking on his appearance from the Roots of Nightmares raid.

Finally, there are the disciples of Nezarec themselves, former villains and followers of Stain's will whom have allowed themselves to be killed and turned into Darkbearers just like Stain himself, ready to serve both his will and that of the Mother's on his behalf.

The first encounter of the dungeon has the fireteam of three charging through the warehouse that the Order of Nezarec has occupied, tearing through the mindless Hive of the Hidden Swarm and pulling apart the Slivers of Nezarec, killing the soulless clones of their dark god and terminating the life of one of the Disciples as well.

However, a group of brainless Psions, infused with the power of the Nightmares appear, and they use their paracausal telepathic abilities to throw the three Lightbearers out of the physical world...

And into a realm called the Nightmare Realm, the unified consciousness of the Nightmares made into a physical landscape, sparking the first exploration and traversal section of the dungeon as Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri are forced to explore the crimson landscape and defeat the Nightmares that the Order of Nezarec conjures forth to destroy them.

It is during this time that we learn of how the Order of Nezarec came to be, how there had been a great explosion of light across the world two hundreds years ago, which begat the emergence of quirks into the world, along with what seemed like a collective amnesia that blanketed much of the world. The Acolytes of Nezarec, led by a man known as Mykel and continuing on through the nightmares of their dark god.

The three Lightbearers move on through the first traversal section through a recreation of the streets of Naruhata within the Nightmare Realm and onto the second encounter against the first boss of the dungeon:

The Nightmare of Knuckleduster, Exiled Righteousness.

The three Guardians proceed to go to war with the Nightmare of the infamous vigilante, and begin to learn the mechanics that they need to follow to defeat this enemy: they must first kill squads of Nightmare Psions known as the Dreamcatchers, who must be killed as they are protecting a pair of Nightmare Tormentors known as the Dreamcarvers. Killing the Dreamcarvers would then drop their scythes and allow the Lightbearers to pick them up and deal damage to the boss, whilst at the same time the third of their party tracks down and kills the Nightmare Wizards known as the Dreamweavers, as they are the ones behind the locking mechanisms of the Nightmare Realm and trapping them inside.

Soon enough, with enough damage dealt by the Dreamcarvers' own weapons, the Nightmare of Knuckleduster is defeated alongside the Dreamweaver Wizards, and with the Wizards' deaths, the mechanisms of the Nightmare Realm swing from one way to another...

And the fireteam are deposited back into the real world once more, beginning the next traversal section as they find themselves deposited in an underground network controlled by the Order of Nezarec, explaining how they have been able to move their forces around without anyone noticing. The three Guardians explore the catacombs, fighting through the braindead Hive and their Psion leaders, all the while they begin to learn more about Stain, and how he fell in with the original Acolytes of Nezarec.

As it turns out, on the day that Stendhal was going to evolve into Stain, after his beatdown from Knuckleduster, the mad vigilante had ended up running into All Might, and presented himself and his ideology before the number one hero, believing deep in his heart that his idol would believe in him...

Only for his hero to call him a mad, murdering monster, and attempted to arrest him. Stendhal was arrested, and the encounter left him despondent and depressed, believing that everything that he had come to believe in was all for nothing...

In the present, the three Guardians would enter their third encounter, a maze-like warren filled with portals connecting the Nightmare Realm and reality together, and must face off against a new pair of Nightmares...

The Nightmare of the Crawler, Bonded Pair.

And the Nightmare of Pop-Step, Bonded Pair.

To defeat them, two of the Guardians must focus on taking down the Nightmares at the same time, and collect the remaining Nightmare energies from them to deposit them into Annihilator Totem banks known as Pain Totems, which would allow the third of their Guardians to move themselves into the Nightmare Realm and kill the Psion Councilor-like enemies known as the Eyes of Nezarec, the ones who are summoning the Nightmares into the real world. This is repeated three times – with the Psions conjuring back the two Nightmares each time – along with killing the Tormentors guarding the Pain Totems and the additional Hive enemies, until all three Psions are dead and preventing them from summoning enough Nightmare energy to trap the three Guardians in a dream state forever, therefore enacting a full party wipe.

Once the third encounter is completed, the fireteam moves onto the next traversal section, which involves them jumping back and forth between reality and the Nightmare Realm to get between sections that they can't move through. Within reality, the team jump through hoops and platforms and fight against Psion snipers and Shriekers, whereas in the Nightmare Realm they must content with Hive Knights radiating with Nightmare energy alongside Tormentors.

During this time, the fireteam would learn more about Stendhal's backstory, in how, after he was arrested, he was broken out of prison by members of the Acolytes of Nezarec, inducted into the cult and made to serve their leader, a withering man known as Mykel. Stendhal would be bombarded with Nightmare energies, his mind twisted and bent to serve Nezarec's will...

Only for the mad murdering vigilante to emerge not a slave, but a master, having forced his way through the Nightmares through sheer force of will, something that no one else has ever done before, and becoming a prophet of the cult, eventually killing Mykel and taking leadership of the Acolytes for themselves.

Then, the fireteam would come across their fourth encounter, and would see several Psions standing atop multiple Pain Totems, guarded by Nightmare-infused Tormentors and a swarm of Hive alongside Hive Knights known as the Vessels of Pain. Here, the fireteam learn about the Order of Nezarec's current plans:

They are attempting to push the Nightmare Realm onto the real world and manifest the Nightmares of everyone in the cult, giving them the chance to manifest Nezarec into reality once more.

The fireteam press onto the fourth encounter, moving to terminate the Psions that are channelling the Nightmare Realm's energies into the Pain Totems and pushing those energies into reality. However, the only way that they are able to kill the Psions is to hunt down and kill the Vessels of Pain, using their Nightmare energies to conjure forth the Nightmare Realm and kill the Tormentors that are bonded to the Psions, terminating both them and the Psions and exposing the Pain Totems to the fireteam, allowing them to be destroyed. This mechanic is repeated as many times as needed to destroy the Pain Totems and terminate all major enemies, allowing the fireteam to begin to move on once more through their last traversal section.

Through this traversal, the fireteam must move through a world in which the Nightmare Realm and reality are merging together, superimposing the Nightmare Realm of Naruhata into reality and causing more Nightmares to manifest. Soon enough, the three Guardians are fighting through hordes of Hive Nightmares and their Tormentor and Psion masters.

All the while, the three Guardians would begin uncovering the last pieces to the mystery of Stendhal and the Acolytes of Nezarec, and learn about how, when Stendhal murdered Mykel and became the leader of the cult, he had been approached by the Mother. The Mother offered to grant him the power to make his dreams of a better, fairer hero society a reality.

Stendhal would agree and allow himself to be murdered, the Mother resurrecting him as a Darkbearer. Taking up the name of Stain, the cult leader would then sacrifice his followers to be killed as well, turning them all into Darkbearers as well. The Mother would then present Stain and his followers with the Scarlet Keep on the Moon and the Lunar Pyramid underneath, and would teach them how to use the Nightmares for their own purposes as she hollowed out the minds of the Hive of the Hidden Swarm ruling the Moon, ripping out the worms in their bodies and rendering them as mindless puppets, ready to be filled with a new purpose.

She would then show them the fragments of the derelict Leviathan scattered across the Lunar surface, and the cloning vats that the former Emperor Calus once used to create his army of Loyalist Cabal, and show them how to clone fresh Hive, Psion, and Tormentor bodies from its wreck.

Then, she would present to them the greatest gift of all:

Nezarec's corpse, from which they could clone his flesh.

Now, with an army of mindless Hive of the Hidden Swarm under their control, the flesh of Nezarec sitting where their worms once did and imbued with the power of the Nightmares, alongside the Psion clones needed to direct and control them, and the Tormentors cloned from Nezarec's body to serve as their enforcers, the Acolytes would evolve into the Order of Nezarec, and, under the leadership of Stain, would seek to use their new abilities and power – from the vast army of Hive under their control, to the Nightmares, to the fleet of Hive tomb ships and Seeders that the Hidden Swarm used to command from the Scarlet Keep to even the remains of the Derelict Leviathan which they used to turn the Moon into a massive cathedral and the Lunar Pyramid underneath – to make Stain's dreams a reality and conjure forth a better, fairer world for all of hero society...

By blanketing the entire planet in terror and fear using the Nightmares, and summoning forth their dark master, Nezarec, the Final God of Pain, into reality once more.

Soon enough, the three Guardians enter into the last encounter with the Order of Nezarec, where they find the world split into two between reality and the Nightmare Realm.

There, they find not one, but two final bosses for them to face off against.

In the real-world segment of the boss fight, they have Starservant, Preacher of Pain, an Order of Nezarec cultist and Darkbearer commanding Stasis and Strand, as well as the one using the Pain Totems to channel the Nightmare Realm and push it into the real world...

And in the Nightmare Realm, the Nightmare of All Might, Justice Immortal.

Starservant is binding himself to the Nightmare of All Might to keep himself immune from attack, so the fireteam must jump between reality and the Nightmare Realm to defeat them both. Killing the multiple Dreameater Psions and harvesting their Nightmare energies before channeling them into the Pain Totems, allowing them to jump into the Nightmare Realm.

Once they're in the Nightmare Realm, they kill the Tormentors guarding the Nightmare of All Might. However, they are unable to destroy the All Might through conventional means, and as such must once again use the Tormentors' scythes to deal damage to the Nightmare, weakening its connection to Starservant and allowing them to do damage to the mad prophet via channelling the Pain Totems back into him, turning his own Nightmare abilities against him. Doing so will summon forth Knightmare Hive Knights known as Demented Splinters, which must be defeated to gain the Nightmare buff. It is only with the Nightmare buff that they are able to deal damage to Starservant, stopping him from initiating a full party wipe, with the process repeated as many times as needed before, eventually, the fireteam are able to destroy the Nightmare of All Might and expose Starservant and destroy his physical form.

Then, they crush his Wraith, and end him for good.

With Starservant and the Nightmare of All Might dead, the Nightmare Realm is dispelled and the Order of Nezarec's plans are foiled... for now, at least. Reiko has no doubt that Stain and his followers will try again soon, and whilst they'd foiled the cult's plans here, they still don't understand the full extent of their goals or how they fit into the Mother's wider ambitions. Worse yet, they've yet to find Shinso, who is still missing and with no clue as to where he's gone to.

Reiko hums, and contacts Nezu and Failsafe, instructing them to relay a message to the Archon Council, informing them of what they have learnt about Stain and the Order of Nezarec's objectives, alongside their failure to secure Shinso. He's lost to them for now, but at least they have a better idea of who their enemies are.

She then gives a call to Ibara and Kosei, who reports that they've brought Komori and Kuroiro over. She thanks them for their work, and then tells them to gather the rest of Class 1-B together. Recent events are forcing them to speed up their timetable.

Then, she tells Yui and Kamakiri to gather Izuku and Tokoyami together at her place.

It's time that they started preparing for the storm to come.

You have unlocked:

Terrorbound suit (Hunter)
Terrorbound suit (Titan)
Terrorbound suit (Warlock)

Shuddering Fear exotic pulse rifle

Waking Pain hand cannon

Oneirophobia sword

Chapter Text

In the aftermath of Hosu, Izuku leaves his internship, even more confused about One for All and the powers that it has given him. Even worse is when he talks to All Might about it, All Might is utterly flummoxed, as One for All never did any of this stuff for him before. All it ever did was give him super strength and nothing more. Not even his mentor, Nana Shimura, had this kind of reaction from One for All. These new esoteric abilities that One for All is giving Izuku, and the previous visions that have come with it... this is something beyond All Might's capabilities. Not even the previous wielders of One for All, communicating to Izuku through his dreams and unconscious moments, are unable to provide many answers. Despite their being sheltered within One for All's throne world, they still don't understand how the throne world truly functions.

This is confounded even more by Tokoyami approaching him, telling him that he has been having strange dreams ever since Hosu, dreams of gardens and gardeners and spheres alongside pyramids and final shapes and figures in black, just like Izuku

However, the two wouldn't have much time to think about the strange events that they have been experiencing, as the end of term exams has begun, and the students are placed against the teachers for their exams.

However, some of these tests have been changed, as the mechanics and objectives of each individual exam have been changed to resemble that of a dungeon from D2. Now, they don't just have to run to the exit to pass. Now, they must complete a random objective during the exam to pass too, having to fight against Villain-Pointer robots before defeating their assigned teacher as the final boss.

What's more, Aizawa has begun to put more emphasis on the students using all their strength and power to pass. He has become slightly more intense in his tests and lessons, continuously pushing the students to try and get them past their weaknesses and come out of his increasingly ramped up training stronger than ever. The students and teachers put it down to Aizawa being annoyed at how, save for Izuku's team and the most powerful members of 1-A, his class had found themselves pushed out of the Sports Festival by members of Class 1-B and is seeking to bridge the supposed gap between them.

However, none of them hear the increasing whispers in Aizawa's head. Nor the whispers in several other classmates as well.

Soon enough, the exams begin, and Izuku is placed with Bakugo, who abandons him to go fight against All Might, leaving Izuku to complete the objective on his own. Izuku ends up managing to complete the objective, and the rest of the exam plays out much of the same as in canon. However, this time, because he abandoned Izuku to go fight All Might, leaving the green-haired boy to complete the objective on his own, Bakugo ends up failing the exam, forcing him even more into a growing well of despair and confusion within himself...

And elsewhere, Ochako finds a friend in Tsuyu, and hums an eight-note tune to her as she goes to hang out with Izuku once more...

But that will have to wait, as Izuku and Tokoyami are suddenly approached by Reiko, who invites them to Ibara's home to find the answers they seek.

Meanwhile, All Might meets with Nezu and Naomasa as they discuss the events of Hosu and the USJ, and everything that happened there. All Might is disturbed to learn that the few Dread bodies that they'd been able to recover from Hosu before it was locked down are completely unrecognisable to forensics, and that, aside from the Reapers, their DNA is utterly unrecognisable, as if All for One had been creating them from scratch. What confuses them even more is the Egregore that the Nomu, Dread, and Swarm had been spreading across Hosu, as well as the strange black obelisks that they had been wearing, on top of the quirk-surprising devices that they had been spreading across the city, which was the same technology that the Dread and the League of Villains were using in the USJ.

However, what flummoxed the forensics in the police department the most was that all these devices and obelisks had no internal wiring to them. No circuitry, no electrics, no nothing. They just seemed to be useless clumps of solid metal. And yet they had been able to project power onto the world. Like someone had infused them with a quirk.

Or with something supernatural. Or paranormal.

But that's just the start of their problems. The Dread and Nomu occupying Hosu and using it to build their army is bad enough, but now the Swarm are on the rise, and there's no telling how many people that they've infected and turned into their puppets and monsters. Things were just steadily getting worse and worse by the day.

With no other way of chasing up leads, the authorities decide to send the strange obelisks and shards of black technology to I-Island for them to analyse and decipher further. There, David Shield and his daughter Melissa have amassed several black obelisks and Egregore samples which they begin to study and try to deconstruct and even replicate...

Alongside their other project that they've been working on with the backing of the HPSC.

And meanwhile, Hatsume is becoming obsessed with the shard of black technology that she was given, its latent corruption slowly beginning to infect her.

Meanwhile, at the day's end, Izuku and Tokoyami are led by two members of Class 1-A, that being Komori and Kuroiro, to Reiko's house, said girl having collected the rest of Class 1-B as well. The two boys are confused as to why they are there and what is going on, with Tokoyami haunted by something that happened to him in Hosu, but the two members of 1-B are silent for the time being, leading them into Reiko's home...

And into a lush garden, patterned by pictures of spheres and trees and wolves and women in white veils covering the walls.

Izuku and Tokoyami are surprised by the garden and the pictures on the walls, and Reiko - now greeting them alongside the rest of Class 1-B that has yet to join them, alongside Yui and Kamakiri, as well as Nezu, Failsafe, and Niik and Itzelas - responds by handing them a book. A book that they've labelled Encounters (a lore book, essentially), which details the long list of events and recounts of people who have encountered strange instances of seemingly supernatural activity, some of them featuring visions and dreams of women in white, of spheres and gardens, and others of figures in black, obsidian pyramids, horrors beyond the comprehension of man, and endless, eternal darkness. Reiko refers to them as visions of Light and Darkness respectively.

Reiko finally begin to explain herself to them all, stating that a long time ago, something happened. Something that changed the world. It is revealed that, a thousand years ago, something happened in the past. Something that wiped away all of humanity's previous history and slowly began to bring quirks into the world, an event known as the Great Forgetting. No one knows what happened during the Forgetting, and no one knows what happened before it. Nothing about humanity's history or culture survived the Disaster. Not any previously existing religions, not any cultures or practices, nothing at all. The slate had pretty much been wiped clean, and mankind was left to pick up the pieces.

Reiko then goes on to explain that there were those that attempted to track the changes and understand what had happened to them. However, overtime, what they considered to be their true mission changed to be the one that visited them in all their dreams, from the first explorer of secret pasts down to the modern day, to Nezu sitting in U.A.. A sacred mission, to protect this sparkling jewel of a world against the forces of darkness, against a threat hiding in the shadows and gathering its strength, ready to strike out when the time is right.

That time is now. And they, all of them, are to be the ones to see mankind through into the new world.

Tokoyami doesn't have any patience for it, though. In an uncharacteristic move for him, Tokoyami drops all his fanciful, artistic language, and demands to know what the hell is going on. Because he died, in that other world. He died. He remembered dying, then he remembered waking up and killing that Tormentor with a new power, something other than his quirk.

He died that day.

But Reiko refutes that. Tokoyami didn't die that day. He's already dead. He's been dead for a long time.

Tokoyami died a stillborn. It was his Ghost, Dark Shadow, that brought him back.

Tokoyami doesn't believe it, calling her a liar. But then Dark Shadow appears over his shoulder, dissolving her shadowy form and revealing herself to be a little one-eyed drone.

A Ghost.

Tokoyami is shocked by this, and Reiko tells him not to worry. She died a stillborn too, and summons a Ghost of her own, one named Porter. Turns out that Reiko had been using her strange powers in what she calls the Light, or more specifically what she calls Solar, to simulate a quirk, just like Dark Shadow had been using a cloaking mechanism and gravitational shrouds to mimic a quirk for Tokoyami as well. Yui and Kamakiri had died young as well, caught in two separate villain attacks and resurrected by their Ghosts known as Mob and Knives respectively.

Tokoyami is shocked by all of this, as is Izuku and the other members of Class 1-B, but Reiko continues. Over the years, an alliance has been growing fat with strength in the background. An alliance that has wetted itself against the forces of darkness before, and is gathering the strength to do so again. It has been guided by those that have seen what is to come in their dreams, and just like their enemies, it is ready to move as well.

Tokoyami is still in shock, Izuku is confused as to what to think about all this, but the likes of Monoma and Kendo don't believe any of it for a second, demanding to be shown proof that anything that they are saying is true. Reiko nods to their assertion...

And then she summons forth a strange ornate device, something she calls an Awoken Beacon, and summons from it a portal to the Ascendant Realm, beckoning them through and travelling across what she calls a Ley Line, all the way to-

A world of purple skies and shining marble towers, commingling with harsh buildings with harsher geometries and other bulbous structures kit bashed from spare parts.

This is the Waking City, a city in the Reef - in orbit in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter - made when the Dreaming City was completely lost to its curse and abandoned by the Coalition, swallowed whole by the Taken. Now, it is a home for said Coalition, stretching out from the forsaken borders of the Dreaming City to the edges of the Tangled Shore.

And said Coalition has evolved into the Court of Light, a place where the Awoken of the Reef, the armies and refugees of the Imperial Cabal, and the Eliksni of the House of Light, along with any other Lightbearers and human/Exo forces that were not effected by the events of the Great Forgetting. What's more, the Court of Light is led by the Archon Council, a collection of Eliksni, Cabal, Awoken, and others that now lead the Court, including once-Scribe now Kell of House of Light Eido and Kell of House of Judgement Variks, Taurun, Ca'aurg, Tha'arec of the Imperial Cabal, Austyn, Ylaria, and Sjari of the Awoken, Quinn Laghari of the Neomuna (or at least, what's left of them after Neptune was ravaged by the Harmony)…

And finally Orin, formerly the Emissary of the Nine, now freed and representing the few remaining Guardians of the first generation.

Reiko begins once more, and begins by saying that before the events of the Great Forgetting, there was a grand war between the forces of Light and Darkness. Within the Pale Heart of the Traveller, the leader of the Black Fleet and forces of Darkness, the Witness, was attempting to reshape the universe to suit its image, but was killed before it could complete its twisted ambitions.

However, upon the moment of the Witness' death, the Traveller had let out a burst of energy that seemed to reset the entirety of Earth, and disappeared into the Ascendant Realm. The forces of Darkness were scattered and fell apart, and what was left of the Coalition were left to pick up the pieces with the disappearance of the majority of their leaders.

Since then, the Coalition had made their home in the Reef, and evolved into a new society in the Court of Light, mixing together human, Awoken, Cabal, Eliksni, and Neomuni traditions and culture to become something new. They had made steps to breach and colonise the Oort cloud and the Kuiper Belt, and had even drawn up plans to return to Riis and Torobatl to reclaim the homes of the Cabal and Eliksni once more, all the while they were finishing off the forces of Darkness, weakened and scattered by the loss of the Witness.

However, things were beginning to shift, and the forces of Darkness were beginning to rally to each other once more. The Taken and Dread have gained leadership, and factions on Earth are beginning to use the Darkness. The Swarm and Order of Nezarec are proof of this. And for some reason, all of them are working together for a shadowy figure known as the Mother in an alliance called the Harmony. The emergence of Ghosts from the Ascendant Realm to create a new generation of Lightbearers is proof that the war between Light and Darkness is about to reignite, and recent events in Hosu have forced the Court of Light to move up their timetable, which is why they're all there now. And just to add onto the pile of problems that were beginning to build up, Shinso had gone missing.

Izuku asks why Shinso's disappearance is so important, and Reiko explains to him that Shinso had managed to break into One for All's throne world, exposing a weakness to it. Izuku is shocked to know that Reiko knows about One for All and is casually revealing it to everyone around them, but Reiko doesn't stop. What is happening is too critical for such an important secret to remain so.

Shinso had managed to breach into the throne world, which means that there is a way for non-One for All users to enter it. And if Shinso has gone missing, then that means that he has been captured and the forces of the Harmony are attempting to find that way into the throne world as well. Izuku shakingly asks why One for All is so important, and Reiko explains that throne worlds are connected to the Ascendant Realm, and Izuku's is one made from Light and Darkness right at the beginning of the new age for Earth and the Sol System.

Throne worlds aren't just spontaneously constructed. They're made through the wills of the users, either through Sword Logic or Bomb Logic, and Izuku's was one with Darkness and Light commingled together in a way that had only been seen in Eleusinia before it was overrun by Oryx and his Taken, and that one had been artificially made. If someone had made a throne world right at the moment of the Traveller's disappearance, then it was no doubt linked to the Traveller itself, meaning that there was a way for them to find it.

And the Harmony are hunting for the Traveller in the Ascendant Realm, meaning that if they're able to breach One for All, then they have a chance of finding the Traveller.

So the Court of Light needs the throne world to find the Traveller first, and make sure that the Harmony don't-

This proves to be too much for Izuku and Tokoyami. Their minds have been overloaded with revelations and truth-bombs, and the two demand to go back home. Reiko is hesitant, but eventually acquiesces, recognising that they have undergone a lot of revelations in the last few hours and that they need some time to process everything. Class 1-B, meanwhile, decide to stay and hear Reiko and her lot out.

However, in a fit of anger over such a drastic revelation being hidden from him, Tokoyami demands that Dark Shadow leave him, forcing his Ghost to stay behind in the Waking City and leaving him on his own as Izuku follows after him.

By now, the reality of what is happening around and to Izuku is finally beginning to get to him. The trauma of the USJ and the loss of Hosu, on top of his death and revival in the throne world, Todoroki's departure from the hero course, Kirishima's probable death, and now the reveal that everything that he believed in was either wrong or small and that he's now part of a intergalactic feud threatening the split the Earth in two, it was becoming too much for him, and he finds himself spiralling into his own thoughts, even when he tries to supress them and move on with his life as if nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, Reiko is worried about Izuku, as she hadn't expected that kind of reaction from him. All her observations had marked him as someone who would jump into danger to help others, no matter what. Orin tells her that everyone has their breaking point, and it seems like Izuku is beginning to reach his.

Reiko has no response to that. All she can do now is keep on moving.

Right now, there are paracausal energies being detected from the place known as I-Island, and she and her fireteam are being sent to investigate.

And elsewhere, Kirishima, who now simply calls himself Red now, is guided by his Ghost known as Riot out of Hosu and onto a plane to I-Island, where they think the paracausal energies emanating from the floating city may lead them to any other Lightbearers scattered across the globe.

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Truthsworn hand cannon

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Painful Awakening rocket launcher

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Chapter Text

Izuku is overwhelmed by the enormity of everything that he has learnt and is desperately trying to wrap his head around everything that has been revealed to him. He can't even find it in himself to tell All Might about it, and so he keeps quiet on the subject, with not even the previous wielders of One for All able to help him, as not even they truly understand the scope of the conflict that is breaking out around them. All Might is able to tell that something is wrong, but isn't able to figure out what, though he does come to the conclusion that it is linked to the USJ and Hosu and tries to comfort him about it, though it is to little effect.

The finals come and go, but Class 1-A are in no mood to celebrate with two of their numbers down, Todoroki having left and Kirishima gone missing. In an attempt to alleviate their concerns and troubles, All Might would invite Izuku to I-Island for a spell, and would introduce him to Melissa and David Shield whilst they are working on a new project together, one sponsored by the HPSC, apparently.

But, Izuku and his friends in Class 1-A aren't alone on the island, as Reiko - along with Yui and Kamakiri - has followed them here as well, having been tracking the paracausal energies that have been emanating from I-Island and trying to figure out what the scientists there are working on. Izuku is still conflicted about what to think about Reiko and her allies, and is resistant to her trying to bring him into the Court of Light's fold, finding it difficult to understand the sheer gravity of the stakes that are at hand, not to mention how he is still reeling from his previous death, the sheer amount of pain that trying to use the Light and Darkness causes him when they're not in balance, and everything that has happened and that he has been told.

It is here that Izuku's canon characterisation and the what has happened in this story really begin to clash. In MHA's canon, Izuku is someone with a inate desire to save others, even to the point of risking his own life and pushing himself near to death is doing so. And he does so with little to no regret, as he always considers the lives that he has saved to have been worth it.

However, here, he has experienced dying, both the terror and pain of it, and he realises that he doesn't like it at all. However, the throne world and One for All is the only way that he feels that he can be a hero, and this leaves him feeling incredibly conflicted, tired, and frustrated, on top of the trauma of having experienced pain and death like he'd never done before, making him fearful and questioning his place in the hero course and whether or not he really can be a hero.

Reiko then hits him with a difficult question: why does he want to be a hero? Izuku isn't sure how to answer at first, but then honestly says: to be a hero like All Might and save others.

Reiko then asks him what he would be if not a hero.

Izuku doesn't have an answer.

Elsewhere, Kirishima, now known as Red, arrives on the island, guided along by his Ghost, Riot.

Meanwhile, All Might goes to talk to David about what he has found out about the League of Villains' technology and is shocked to hear that David knows next to nothing about it all, same as the forensics back home. However, David does realise that the tech that he's brought to I-Island bears a remarkable resemblance to all that weird tech the HPSC had tasked them with investigating, though he doesn't tell All Might this. That project is still classified.

Meanwhile, Izuku would continue to tour the artificial island alongside Melissa but would find himself growing ill as the Darkness artifacts stored within I-Island's vaults would continue to interact with the Pyramid down below. Elsewhere, Tokoyami would wonder about the island on his own, followed in secret by his Ghost, Dark Shadow.

However, that is when Queen Bee and her countless bodies consumed by her hive mind attack the island, seeking the secrets and powers within the floating artificial construct. All Might and the heroes rush to the defence of the island, but find themselves overwhelmed as the parasitic hive mind begins to add more and more bodies to their collective consciousness. Not even David Shield, Melissa's father, is safe, as he is infected with one of the bee larvae and turned into another extension of the Queen Bee's will.

During the fighting, Tokoyami is killed once again, only for him to be revived by Dark Shadow, who apparently followed her Risen Lightbearer to I-Island to try and reconcile with him. Tokoyami would assume that Ibara and Reiko sent her there after him, but Dark Shadow responds that she followed him on her own. Tokoyami doesn't believe her, but they are forced to put aside their differences for the time being to deal with the Swarm.

As such, the three boys try to fight back against them in any way that they can manage, and Melissa would try to activate the island's security network, only to find that the relics and obelisks that had been sent to them from the mainland was messy with their systems. Even the Pyramid down below seemed to be generating interference.

Soon enough, she is able to activate I-Island's security systems, only to find that they have been subverted by both Pyramid influence and Swarm corruption to lock down the island and attack the heroes, with the leader of the Swarm's forces, the Swarm-Prince, Darkness Conduit, taking All Might and several others hostage and attacking and killing anyone who got in their way, turning I-Island into a demented hell house puckered by explosions and ravaged by war.

Soon, the Queen Bee's hordes begin flowing down into the underbelly of I-Island, looting and pilfering and killing and consuming as they go. Izuku and Reiko follow them down, and find that the mindless hordes are swarming around the island's more secretive project, the one being sponsored by the HPSC:

A Pyramid Ship, filled with Black Fleet technology, and a fully functional Radial Mast, along with a Black Fleet Light suppressor that begins dampening the powers of the Light within Reiko and Izuku, leaving the Darkness powers in Izuku to run amuck and begin destabilising the throne world itself.

And from this Pyramid, David, Sam, and the rest of I-Island's staff and scientific community have been picking apart a device that the HPSC has designated as a Radial Mast, a device that seems to interact with the technology that the League of Villains and the Dread, Nomu, and Swarm had been using.

The Queen Bee's minions go on the attack, and Reiko and Izuku are forced to flee. It is then that they realise that the Queen is using the Pyramid Ship to birth more of her parasitic bees and spread them out, and has now connected herself to the Pyramid Ship and taken control of it, raising it up from the ground and using it to spread a swarm of bees all across I-Island, infecting hundreds of people, and creating more Stinger and Quill monsters to begin spreading her Swarm across the world.

So, Izuku is forced to team up with Reiko and her fireteam, alongside Melissa and Tokoyami as they go to war with the Swarm to free I-Island, taking down throngs of bee-infected civilians alongside Stinger and Quill enemies from the Swarm, only for their powers to be dampened by the Radial Mast currently on the ship. Even worse is when the Queen Bee starts pulling forces from the Ascendant Plane to assist her.

Not the Dread, but an army of Scorn, led by the undead Virixas, Once-Kell, in a past life a ruler of the House of Wolves, now one of many Kells reborn into Scorn and the Queen Bee's right hand monster alongside the Swarm-Prince.

Reiko would explain to Izuku and Tokoyami that the Scorn are a horde of undead Eliksni risen by tainted Ether and commanded by the mad Archon known as Fikrul the Fanatic. Since the death of the Witness, Fikrul has been working to regain control over his Scorn, and now has raised almost every dead Eliksni in the Sol System into his Scorned army. However, they'd all been scouring the Ascendant Realm for the past two hundred years, no dount searching for the Traveller on their own.

If the Scorn were here now, on top of one of Fikrul's prized lieutenants, an undead Kell, then that meant that Fikrul had thrown his lot in with the Mother and the Harmony, meaning that the forces of Darkness had a massive army at their beck and call.

And it is these Scorn that ends up killing one of the members of Class 1-A, one Kyoka Jiro.

Elsewhere, Red ends up running into some other members of Class 1-A, including Mina who'd accompanied Izuku and some others in their class onto the island. However, to her horror, he doesn't remember her or any of their friends, and Reiko quickly realises that he has become a Lightbearer thanks to his Ghost Riot exposing himself.

Now, with not just the Swarm but the Scorn hounding on them, on top of Jiro's death, Izuku is forced to try and return to his state of balance and equilibrium that he was back in Hosu, but finds that he is unable to conjure forth the Light like he did back then, only to find that, with the Light suppressor online, he is unable to do so and is left rolling in the Darkness.

This leaves Reiko and her fireteam, on top of Tokoyami and the newly arrived Red, to battle against the Swarm-Prince and its Swarm and Scorn forces as they moved to protect the Light Suppressor and destroy them. However, because of said Light Suppressor, the Guardians find themselves unable to properly access their abilities, leaving them vulnerable to the forces of the Black Fleet.

This extends to many of the heroes themselves, as they find many of their quirks useless thanks to the Light Suppressor, including All Might, who finds himself in pain just as much as Izuku himself.

However, upon hearing that the Guardians are struggling against the Swarm-Prince and its forces and countless more people are dying, in parallel to Hosu, instead of embracing the Light, Izuku instead decides to gives himself to Darkness, and conjures forth the powers of Strand and Stasis to destroy the Swarm and Scorn enemies hounding him.

In embracing the Darkness, Izuku creates a large enough blast to destroy the Light suppressor and the Swarm Prince as they are being taken away to the Queen Bee's Pyramid ship, killing dozens of Swarm and Scorn monsters as well as the Swarm-Prince, but also destroying his physical body and returning him to One for All's throne world once again. This leaves him alone with the throne world with the past wielders, stewing in his second death and how much pain it had given him.

However, the Queen Bee's Swarm and Scorn forces are still in play, the vast swarms of Bee parasites are beginning to spread out across the ocean and are reaching the coast, and no one - not the heroes and not the Court of Light - can bring their forces to bear out of fear of being infected. On top of that, the Pyramid Ship is still operational and hovering over the damaged I-Island, the Queen's minions harvesting the artificial island and all the people trapped inside, and even spreading secondary factories for the parasites, defences, and shielding to protect the Queen from their enemies.

I-Island has just become a patrol zone, filled to the brim with Swarm and Scorn building hives and lairs all over the artificial island. Overhead, the Pyramid ship continues to pump out swarms of parasitic bees that are moving closer and closer to the Japanese coast and the surrounding island nations, and even to the coast of Asia. And whilst the Swarm continue to spread their egregore and build their nests, the Scorn continue to pilfer the bowels of I-Island for its technologies and inventions, as well as fortify the structure for any oncoming assault.

There's no time to delay. With Izuku out of commission for the time being, Reiko, Yui, and Kamakiri must gather as many of their allies as they can - Red, Tokoyami, and others - and make their move on the Pyramid Ship as soon as they can. But first, they must break through its defences.

And to do this, they are joined by a new ally, one that shocks the rest of the Class 1-A members on the island:

Kyoka Jiro, who has just been raised by a Ghost named Jackie into a Lightbearer.

You have unlocked:

Infectious Aura suit (Hunter)
Infectious Aura suit (Titan)
Infectious Aura suit (Warlock)

Swarm fusion rifle

Stinger trace rifle

Quill linear fusion rifle

Apiphobia submachine gun

Chapter Text

Class 1-A are shocked to see Jiro alive again, especially Mina, but are horrified when Jiro reveals that she doesn't remember who any of them are. As far as she knows, the only reason that she knows her name is Jiro is because it was written on a bloody badge in her pocket. Reiko is forced to break her cover in front of people that she isn't sure she can complete trust and reveals to them that when Lightbearers are risen from death, they don't retain any memories from their past. They are rendered as blank slates, ready to be filled with experience once more.

The members of Class 1-A are confused by this, but Reiko doesn't have the time to explain anything more to them. Non-Lightless people can't go out into the open, they'll be picked off by the parasitic bees and infected, if not mauled to death by the Swarm and Scorn forces outside. All Might tries to fight against the forces of the Queen Bee, but even he is unable to face off against them for long and is forced to retreat, his connection to One for All and its Light and Dark properties granting him a limited form of immunity to the parasites.

The other heroes that try to go outside and fight against the Queen Bee's army, not so much. Those who aren't lucky enough to be killed by the Swarm and Scorn forces are infected by the parasitic bees and turned into rabid extensions of the Swarm's will, the newly minted Infested turning on their kin and attacking the uninfected, adding even more to the ranks of the Swarm.

No one else can go outside. No one but the Lightbearers. And no one can bring their forces to bear with the parasitic bees still swarming out of the Pyramid.

The Guardians will need to step up.

Quickly, Reiko and her fireteam identify three positions in which the Swarm and Scorn are using the protect the Pyramid floating above: a Swarm Hive that is turning captured humans and newly-made Infested being turned into Stingers and Quills, a Scorn Lair which is bringing in more Scorn forces through Ascendant portals, and finally the central tower of I-Island, which has been turned into a Darkness-empowered forcefield generator protecting the Pyramid Ship from attack. All of this is coordinated by one of the Queen Bee's newest lieutenants, once a Baron of House of Dusk, now Kalliks, Duskless Baron, a Scorn raised from when Fikrul wiped out what was left of the House of Dusk.

The Guardians are forced to split into three groups, with each experienced Lightbearer taking on one of the New Light under their wing. Yui takes Jiro, Kamakiri takes Red, and Reiko takes Tokoyami.

And so, the three pairs of Lightbearers go on to complete their missions, with Yui and Jiro taking on the Swarm hive and stopping their ability to create more of their advanced forms from the local population and Kamakiri and Red destroying the Ascendant portal bringing in more Scorn, all the while Reiko and Tokoyami ascend the tower and blow the generator inside it to kingdom come, exposing the Pyramid Ship to infiltration.

All of this, along with disrupting the efforts of the Swarm and Scorn to organise their efforts on the ground below, helps to lure out the undead Kalliks, and in the fireteam moving through the ravaged basement of I-Island, where the remnants of the Pyramid Ship's presence once lingered, in a strike-like mission that transforms into an exotic quest, all ending in them eliminating Kalliks and his Scorn minions, and leaving the path to the Pyramid Ship open for them to attack.

But the stakes are now higher than ever. Much of I-Island's population has been wiped out, and the rest are still under extreme threat. The Swarm and Scorn are still running rampant over the island, and the parasitic bees, humming with Resonance, are still spreading out and are about to reach the Japanese coast line.

It's time for a raid, which I have dubbed the Obsidian Swarm raid, which would take place through what is now designated as the Infested Pyramid due to the Swarm and Scorn populating it and for all the Egregore that is covering the walls (think of it as similar to the Vow of the Disciple raid).

So, Reiko and her fireteam make their way to the Infested Pyramid in the first traversal system, completing a jumping puzzle along mounds of Egregore stretching high into the sky like towers and filled to the brim with Swarm enemies, as well as a stolen Scorn Ketch that they must breach and fighting through the Scorn inside.

Their first encounter, they must fight on the outside of the Pyramid Ship to gain entry and besting the Swarm Lords (a trio of pro-heroes that were infected and mutated into bee monsters) in combat, requiring them to travel alongside the edge of the Pyramid's outer body, through the gaps and groves, killing off the Swarm Lords and accompanying Scorn lesser units and collecting their Resonant artifacts to gain entry, all keyed to a specific timecode.

Once they've entered the ship, the fireteam begin their second traversal section through the hallways of the Infested Pyramid. It is in this raid that we find two more variants of the Scorn Chieftain, one of them using Stasis, and the other one using Strand. During this, the team are forced to use Scorn totems to smash through the defences of the Pyramid, particularly the Strand totems to disrupt its systems and open passageways for them, therefore introducing the fireteam to the first mechanic of the raid.

It is during this traversal section that the team begins to learn more about the Queen Bee, and what happened to her years ago, how she had been captured by the heroes after the events of the Vigilantes manga, and how she had been broken out by the forces of the Harmony and subjected to their experiments, being infused with Resonance and the flesh of the Worm Gods, and being mutated into being able to create new swarms of bees.

It is also here that the fireteam learns of the fate of the Queen Bee's current host, one Rin Yaritezawa, a civilian girl who had been kidnapped by the League of Villains once the Queen Bee had been broken out of prison and subjected to all sorts of experiments to make her a suitable host.

Their second encounter involves shutting down the production of the bee parasites, which would involve them killing Scorn Abominations known as the Royal Incubators (similar to the Caretaker), who are visibly mutated with bee larvae growing in their necrotising stomachs. However, they are protected by Strand shields, so the fireteam must kill the specialised Wasp units known as the Standard Bearers and acquire their Strand Artifacts to empower the Strand Totems, shutting down the shields and allowing the fireteam to target and kill the Incubators, picking up their Resonant larvae to access and expose the cores to the genetic factories, allowing them to destroy them.

With the production line of the bees shut down, the fireteam are able to move through the lines of stalled bee production and scale the walls in their next traversal section, discovering that the bees are being grown from the skinned remains of the corpse of the Word God Xita, as her remains had been harvested and symbiotically linked to the Queen Bee, the dead flesh being hung up on the walls and used to grow more parasitic wasps.

Meanwhile, the fireteam continue to learn more about Rin and what happened to her, how the League of Villains had torn her apart to put her back together, how, though moments of lucidity, she remembered how the painful process in which they'd turned her into a Nomu and pulled her mind apart to make her a suitable host for the Queen Bee, as well as being infused with the Queen Bee and having her mind deconstructed to become the monster's host.

Soon enough, the fireteam would find themselves in their third encounter, which would have them going through the incubator factory for the Swarm's Stinger and Quill mutations. The fireteam would have to fight their way through Swarm enemies led by Scorn Chieftains and Abominations known as the Men-In-Waiting and the Court Jesters respectively, and timing themselves on specific plates to unlock three sets of codes to shut down the factory. Once they have the codes, they must then destroy the Scorn major enemies and their Swarm attendants guarding the crystalised Swarm units, before using the codes to not only shut down the factory but also destroying the Swarm units still being incubated.

The fourth traversal section would have the team moving through the labyrinth hallways of the Infested Pyramid, passing through the stalled factory lines and weaving through the now-decaying remnants of old experiments in which the Swarm would find their shape.

In doing so, they would find even more evidence of what happened to Rin, and how she would, in her brief moments of lucidity, would feel her body changing and mutating around the Queen Bee, and how she could feel herself being spread out across all the millions of parasitic bees being created by their mother morph. She would then begin to describe the way in which she would feel the Queen Bee's mind existing alongside her own, and how they would slowly begin to merge.

Meanwhile, the team would begin to learn more about the Scorn's presence in the Infested Pyramid and why they were working with the Queen Bee, revealing that the Scorn had aligned themselves with the Harmony and, with the help of the Mother's Dread and Taken forces, had swallowed what was left of the House of Dusk and Salvation, incorporating Stasis Chieftains into their ranks, on top of the Mother giving Fikrul access to Strand, giving the mad Fanatic and self-proclaimed Kell of Kells what he needed to convert all the dead Eliksni in the Sol System into Scorn.

The fourth encounter would have the fireteam accessing the ship's inner chambers known as the Sanctum to secure and destroy the Radial Mast, only for it to be defended by the Queen Bee's chief lieutenant, Virixas, Once-Kell, one of the many former Kells and Archons that Fikrul has raised to become the heralds of his Scorned empire. The fireteam would have to target the Quill major enemies that Virixas has bonded himself to through Resonant links, and then use the Strand gauntlets dropped by Stinger enemies to empower the Strand Totems dropped by elite Scorn Chiefteins known as Majordomos too disrupt the Radial Mast through its attached Pyramid devices. Then, with the Resonant links disabled and the Radial Mast disrupted, the fireteam would pour their Light into the machine to weaken the defences around the Once-Kell, giving them the chance to deal damage to the Black Fleet structures holding the Radial Mast up and eventually killing Virixas via dropping the Light-infused machine on him and crushing him to his second death.

When the Radial Mast crashes into Virixas, it ends up creating a hole in the ground and tearing through several layers of the Infested Pyramid, punching through both obsidian walls and Egregore structures, the Light from the object pouring out and melding with the environment around it, creating the fifth traversal section of the raid as the fireteam jump down through the many layers of the Infested Pyramid.

During this time, they would learn of how Rin's mind would merge with the Queen Bee's, and how the two of them would attempt to resist the process as what was left of their minds broke down and melded together to form a new consciousness. It would be a painful experience, and at some point, it would be impossible to tell where Rin ended, and the Queen Bee began.

The fifth encounter would be an escort mission, where the fireteam would have to escort the Radial Mast from the Pyramid ship's Sanctum to the reactor room, in which they must pass through several barriers made out of Egregore resembling bee hives and fight through various Swarm and Scorn enemies and defeat major and elite Quill enemies known as the Royal Retainers, culminating in a battle against a series of infected heroes known as the Royal Knights. Each time, the fireteam must use Strand Totems dropped by Strand Chieftains to force together certain parts of the fleshy walls and obsidian blocks of the Pyramid to block out enemies attempting to impede their progress, whilst also using Light from the Radial Mast to burn away the parts of the barrier that are impeding their progress.

The fifth encounter would then immediately lead into the sixth encounter, which would have the fireteam gaining entry into the Pyramid Ship's reactor room with the intent to use the Radial Mast to channel both Light and Resonance into the Pyramid Ship, overload its systems, and blow them both up. However, they must first fight their way through dozens of Scorn and Swarm enemies to do so, alongside a series of once-Scorn Totems now modified by Egregore and Black Fleet technology now known as the Eyes of Conservation, changed to now fire swarms of bee larvae with the ability to explode in proximity to a target (like a Taken Centurion's Axiom Dart), and must complete a series of decoding puzzles to shut down each Totem via shoving Strand energies from them via picking up the dropped artifacts from the Stinger Standard Bearer units and chain it's accompanying reactor to the Radial Mast. Then, the fireteam had to collect the artifacts known as the Harmonious Links from the Quill units known as the Kings of Arms, hook them to both the Radial Mast and the Pyramid Ship's reactors four times, and then crank it up to full and flood the reactors with excess Light and Darkness energies, destroying them and beginning the Pyramid ship's destruction.

In their final traversal section, as they use Light-infused shards of the destroyed Radial Mast to burn away the Egregore to the Pyramid Ship's throne room, the fireteam would learn of what happened to Rin, about how she was eventually subsumed completely into the will of the Queen Bee, and how their personalities merged together to form the new Queen Bee, now intent on spreading herself out into the world as an extension of her will, and bringing all living things into the Harmony, under the watchful eye of the Mother and the Ascendancy.

Then, as the ship begins to crumble all around them and fall to the ground, the fireteam move onto the seventh encounter, which is the final battle against the Queen Bee herself, who's primary human body has mutated into a massive abomination, a monstrous creature that has many bodies of those possessed by her larvae melded into her grotesque flesh, and is able to rip them off her body with her many insectoid arms and deploy them as specialised Quill enemies (think the Rat King from The Last of Us Two) known as Serrated Quills. In this battle, the fireteam must eliminate the Strand-infused Scorn Chieftains known as the Chaplains and use their dropped Strand artifacts to overload the Resonant generators powering the Queen Bee's shields. From there, they must kill the Serrated Quills and use the Shards of the Radial Mast that they were protecting to burn away the Egregore covering the Queen Bee's body and render her vulnerable, leaving her open for attack, and then repeat the process two more times to enact two more damage phases, all the while fighting through Swarm major infected units alongside Scorn fodder units.

And then, after all their efforts, the fireteam are able to kill the parasitic monster known as the Queen Bee, goring the creature and destroying its connection to its still living bee larvae parasites through a burst of lingering Light from the remains of the Radial Mast, leading them all to self-destruct and killing their hosts, ending her threat once and for all...

But all this does is lead into the final encounter of the Obsidian Swarm raid, which is an escape from the Pyramid Ship as it begins to break up and explode all around them. This final encounter would require them to platform over fields of burning Egregore and damaging Resonance energy, all while avoiding Quill and Stinger units alongside Scorn Ether Totems and fodder units, all before having to fight a Scorn Walker known as the Royal Steed, supported by Strand Totems, Stinger enemies, and Scorn Chieftains designated as the Queen's Vengeance. The final encounter is timed, and the fireteam will have to use a combination of all previous encounters (killing the Queen's Vengeance Chieftains to get them to drop Strand buffs, stand on plates to expose Pyramid Ship internal systems to find the Strand Totems and empower them, and use the Totems to drop the Resonant shields on the Royal Steed Scorn Walker to deal damage and destroy it) to complete the final encounter and unlock a portal out of the Pyramid Ship...

And to safety on I-Island, where the fireteam watches the Infested Pyramid crash to the ground in a ball of unstable Resonant energy and fire, the Egregore within serving as excellent kindling for the flames as the Swarm and Scorn inside are all burnt alive in the conflagration, marking the death of the Queen Bee and the end of her threat, on top of the Swarm's failure to secure I-Island, the Radial Mast and Pyramid assets, as well as the loss of a chief commander within the Scorn.

This is a defeat for the forces of Darkness. A total defeat, and one that they cannot scratch any source of pyrrhic advantage from.

And now, with the mass culling of the bee parasites stopping the Swarm's ability to spread and infect others, as well as the deaths of the hundreds of bodies that had once been controlled by the Queen Bee, the Court of Light are finally able to bring in their allied Ketches and Cabal warships to bear and begin making short work of the Scorn's fortifications, forcing the remains of the Undead Eliksni on the retreat, bringing the remaining Stinger and Quill mutations with them.

I-Island would be cleared of all enemies, and the remains of the Infested Pyramid would implant itself into the centre of the artificial island, marking the end of the Swarm and Scorn's threat on this day.

The Court of Light and the forces of heroism have won this day, but it has come at a grave cost for them. Hundreds of innocent people have been killed by Queen Bee and her Swarm, and hundreds more who were infected all across Japan have been killed as well from the deaths of the bee parasites within them. What's more is that David Shield is amongst those losses, and Melissa Shield must contend with the fact that her father is dead, leaving her with no family outside of her honorary uncle All Might, whom is still processing the grievous loss of one of his few and closest friends. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is beginning to wake up to the alien forces that are now fighting across the world, and are now beginning to fear the godly forces that are shaping the Earth in their image.

And Izuku, upon returning to the physical realm and seeing the sheer level of destruction that the forces of Darkness have brought onto the innocent, realises that he can't run from the conflict that is fast approaching, and begins to seek out Reiko and her friends to learn how to balance the Light and Darkness within himself.

But elsewhere, in the Rings of Saturn and aboard the formerly-abandoned Dreadnaught, once a Hive flagship now infested with Taken, Dread, and Scorn, the Mother consults with her generals and agents.

There's Shigaraki, Garaki, and Kurogiri of the League of Villains, who stand alongside their Dread agents.

There is Stain and the other two leaders of the Cult of Nezarec.

There's Freeborn Otzot and her chief Psion lieutenants Yirix and Amtec, who leads the Cabal army known as the Undying Legion, melded together from the Shadow Legion, the remnants of the Red Legion, and the Psion Conclave into one unified force. They have colonised the moon of Europa for themselves and now stand to take advantage of the rotting Clovis Bray facilities to create a new army of Exo Cabal and Psions, after feeding what was left of the House of Salvation to the Scorn of course. The Undying Legion stands to create a utopia for all Psion people and have been using the cloning machines aboard the massive Typhon Imperator to create an army of Cabal ready to conquer Earth at a moment's notice.

There's is Fikrul, Kell of Kells, and his own undead lieutenants Skolas, Scorned Wolf, Draksis, Scorned Devil, Craask, Scorned King, and Solkis, Scorned Winter, deceased Kells of the Eliksni past who have been risen by Dark Ether and now serve as leaders of the Scorn, all whom wish to turn the rest of the Eliksni into Scorn and serve as their Kells-eternal, having already done so for what's left of the House of Dusk and Salvation, adding Stasis-wielding Scorn to their arsenal. Their ambitions would make them all Kell of Kells of a dead people for all eternity.

And then there are the leaders of the Meta Liberation Army, who seek to liberate all quirks across the world, and have all ingested Worm Larvae to do so. Now each member of the Meta Liberation Army, all in their thousands from their weakest soldier to their highest leader, hold a Worm Larvae in their bellies, feeding their power and tithes as tribute to their new Worm Gods and being granted power and immortality in turn.

All of them answer to the Mother, the Voice Invisible, the Lord of Every Nothing, the god of the Taken and the Dread, controller of the Dreadnaught and Oryx's vacant throne world, and architect of the Ascendancy. All of them, together, work to achieve a state of being that the Mother refers to as the Harmony, where all life exists without any divisions or anger or hatred, where they all exist as one singular people and live in an eternal peace for all of time and space.

But to accomplish that, they need the Traveller, and access to its Pale Heart. It is the one thing, the only thing that the Ascendancy needs to make their plans a reality. They've already ripped apart the Veil, deconstructed it and pulled it to pieces after flattening Neomuna on Neptune and draining it of all its power. All they need now is the wellspring of Light that is the Traveller, and all their plans will be accomplished.

However, in the meeting, the Mother is informed of the death of the Queen Bee and the destruction of the Radial Mast, putting their plans on hold until they can recover the blueprints of the Radial Mast and begin the construction of a new one. This is the first real defeat that the Ascendancy has suffered, as their previous battles have either been feints or inconsequential. However, this proves to be the first time that the Ascendancy has come out the complete losers on the battlefield, and it leaves them all realising that their enemies in the Court of Light are far more dangerous than they had anticipated. Plus, there were the children in U.A. who have proved to be a spanner in their plans, and that's not including the Lightbearers and Izuku's throne world in the mix.

So, the Mother tasks Shigaraki with doing what the Queen Bee couldn't and capture Izuku, so they could use the method that Shinso had accidently used to gain entry into One for All's throne world and locate the Traveller. She then tells Shigaraki to take command of what's left of the Queen Bee's Swarm and to start assembling his Darkbearers. She then instructs Stain and the Cult of Nezarec to contact their spy in U.A.'s ranks and have them begin feeding the Ascendancy more information on the Guardians and Izuku himself.

Then, she orders Garaki to have his House of Ruin project ready as soon as possible.

By her power and Garaki's twisted science, All for One would have a thousand bodies, each one capable of taking a quirk from another.

You have unlocked:

Chapel Master suit (Hunter)
Chapel Master suit (Titan)
Chapel Master suit (Warlock)

Queen's Sting glaive

Royal Executioner grenade launcher

Swarm Minds rocket launcher

Kellless machine gun

Scorned Legacy shotgun

Quill sword

Flying Mind jump ship

Soaring Mind sparrow

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, as they are being returned to the mainland from the ruins of I-Island, with Melissa and the other survivors in tow, All Might questions Reiko and her Lightbearer fireteam for their actions against the Swarm and Scorn, as well as their involvement with the Court of Light and how much they actually know about their enemies. Reiko is aware that All Might is probing them for information, but are surprised when he starts asking them about the League of Villains, as she and the Court of Light had pegged them for a simple group of mercenaries and villains brought in by the forces of Darkness – who they now know to be called the Ascendancy thanks to recovered data crystals from the ruins of the Infested Pyramid, meaning that their initial assessment of the Harmony being an organisation is incorrect, though they're not sure as to what the Harmony even is anymore – and given the Dread to act as additional muscle for their operations.

All Might is solemn at the fact that they don't know anything about All for One and his powers, as he had been hoping that they would know more about his apparent survival than less. However, when he makes it clear that they need to tell the authorities about their non-quirk powers and what they know about what they are up against, Reiko tells him not to. The Pyramid Ship inspection and construction of the Radial Mast were sponsored by the HPSC. Reiko doubts that the HPSC is aligned with the Ascendancy, but they must've been building them for some reason, and that they must've acquired knowledge about it from somewhere, meaning that they've been possibly compromised. Plus, there's no way of knowing if there's anyone else in positions of power that haven't been turned to the Ascendancy's side.

For now, the Court of Light are on their own.

So, Reiko and her fireteam go to meet with fellow Court agents the Crawler and Pop-Step, who have had previous run-ins with the dark force that they now know to be the Ascendancy, as they had worked with the Knuckleduster to destroy the Villain Factory, who had been creating entire factories for Hive Worm symbiotes from pieces of the remaining Worm Gods, that being Eir, Ur, and Yul, due to the death of Xita and their inability to create more Worms thanks to her loss. The Naruhata Vigilantes had been able to destroy the Worm production lines and defeat the Villain Factory, including the previous iteration of Queen Bee and the hero-pretender Number Six, who had bonded himself with a Worm and become a monstrously powerful being that they had only been able to destroy thanks to the sacrifice of Knuckleduster.

In their meeting, Reiko and the vigilantes conclude that the Queen Bee must've subjected her bee larvae and herself to the same process that the deceased Rhulk had used on Xita, the Nurturing Worm, to create her Worm children, or infused them with Resonance to give them their parasitic nature. What's worse is that this means that there is another factory out there that had been creating the Queen Bee's larvae, and that they could be producing more larvae, or even more Worms from the Worm Gods to give to the Darkness' followers.

The Crawler and Pop-Step agree to investigate where this supposed factory might be located but warn that there may be those in power who have bonded with the Worms as well, and to be careful. Reiko agrees and goes to consult with the new Vanguard.

Meanwhile, Mina is desperately trying to talk with Kirishima and Jiro, who are still unable to remember her or anyone else from Class 1-A, or even their own families. Tokoyami, having been raised as a Guardian early into his life, is able to serve as a bridge between the two, but there is clearly a lot of tension between the Lightbearers and the rest of Class 1-A. This tension is only further exacerbated when Kirishima and Jiro's familes are brought into the mix, the parents happy to see their children alive but horrified to learn that they hold no memories of the people that they once were.

In the minds of those in Class 1-A, the whispering voices begin to grow louder.

Elsewhere, Izuku asks Reiko and her fireteam about the nature of Light and Darkness, especially because he must balance Light and Darkness itself to be able to generate power and control One for All and the throne world. Reiko explains to Izuku that the Light is a power linked to the physical world, with powers like Arc, Solar, and Void being linked to physical concepts, and discards memory and previous lives to begin new lives in the physical. Darkness, by contrast, is more focused on metaphysical concepts, such as consciousness and memory, with Stasis, Strand, Resonance, and Deepsight linked to the unconscious world of memory and consciousness.

However, its link to corrupting forces has made it come to be viewed as a negative well of power by Reiko and the Court of Light, and Izuku finds himself lost as he struggles to balance the two primordial forces within himself.

Meanwhile, the teachers of U.A. are completely unsure of how to proceed now. They know that something happened at I-Island involving Reiko and her closest friends, they know that Kirishima has suddenly popped up out of nowhere, and that both Jiro and he have lost their memories and are sporting abilities similar to that of Reiko and her lot. They are also able to figure out that Reiko and her lot were able to destroy the Queen Bee, which allowed those spaceships to come down and destroy the invading Swarm and Scorn forces that had invaded the island. However, they don't have all the clues that they need to piece together the mystery, and it is beginning to grate on them.

And then there's the fact that spaceships had come out of the sky to destroy the Pyramid ship, which is another can of worms in of itself, because it means that aliens exist and that Reiko is somehow linked to it, which is another existential crisis in of itself for them.

However, they're unable to investigate into the matter any further. Nezu has forbidden them from doing so, Failsafe has blocked off all access to any related documentation for them, Niik and Itzelas aren't answering any questions, and Class 1-B has closed ranks around themselves, on top of Melissa being too lost in mourning for her father and home to be of any help, and Class 1-A being just as confused as to why their friends have lost their memories as the teachers are.

All the teachers can do at this point is ask questions and get no answers.

Meanwhile, the voices in their ears continue to grow, using their frustration and confusion as fuel for the fire.

Soon enough, Izuku and his peers in Class 1-A and B, including the Lightbearers, are taken away to the Wild Wild Pussycat's forest and compound for their summer camp training, the teachers trying to give the students the chance to actually be children and at peace and to finally start learning instead of fighting.

During this time, Izuku meets Kota, who hates him for his ability to return from the dead and asks why he gets to survive forever while his parents have to die.

Izuku can't find a satisfactory answer to his question.

Elsewhere, Shigaraki is getting ready for his operation. Having assembled the Dread and Swarm to his command, along with the few Nomu at his side and even a few Darkbearers - Muscular, Ending, Moonfish, and Dabi - at his side, ready to claim their prize in the name of the Mother...

All the while, Ochako, who is experiencing feelings of trauma and remorse after the events of I-Island and wishing that she could've done more to prevent it, would continue to commune with the shard of bone in her possession, telling it secrets as much as it told her secrets. At the same time, she continues to talk to Tsuyu and learn all she can from her, all the while showing her parents and even the members of their construction company her notebooks with the viral language in them and humming her eight-note song to them.

Then, she smiles as the bone whispers spells and runes for her to learn, the feelings of regret beginning to fade as she begins to learn how to make sure that what happened on I-Island never happen again.

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Questioning auto rifle

Truth Seeker sparrow

Chapter Text

In their time in the Wild Pussycats' forest, Class 1-A and B would continue to feel the tension grow between them. The amnesiac Kirishima - now Red - and Jiro sticking with Reiko and her lot, and Tokoyami even beginning to hang around with 1-B more now as well. On top of that, Izuku has started to hang around Class 1-B more to get a focus on his powers, and the latter has closed in around itself. 1-A don't know that Class 1-B have accepted roles into the Court of Light and have no become agents, and their increasing corruption at the hands of the voices in their heads isn't helping matters.

And to add onto it, Class 1-A has become fraught with nightmares and dreams, egged on by the ever expanding presence of the Darkness around the world. The events at I-Island haven't helped in this, as it has forced everything that they believe in to be thrown into question.

The teachers are of little help to them as well, as they don't understand what is going on and Nezu is keeping them in the dark. They had been hoping for the trip to the forest to encourage the classes to get along and work well with each other. But all it seemed to be doing was worsening the tensions between them.

However, things in the forest begin to go to hell for the students once again as the League of Villains attack, unleashing their Nomu, Dread, and Swarm forces and unleashing carnage onto the heroes and students, as Shigaraki attacks with the intent to kill the Lightbearers and capture Izuku to get into One for All's throne world.

Even worse is when Shigaraki brings several of his fellow Darkbearers into play, consisting of Muscular, Ending, Moonfish, and the craven Dabi, who seems especially eager to start burning people, especially members of the Todoroki family. However, upon learning that his brother has dropped out of U.A. and the rest of the Todoroki family has split up, Dabi decides to simply hunt them down one by one and kill them as painfully as possible, all before finding Endeavour and killing him in one last blaze of glory, as vengeance for everything that has been done to him...

Completely unaware as to how Fuyumi Todoroki and her mother Rei are currently being approached not by one of the Mother's minions, but by the Mother herself...

Who uses the Light to heal Rei's grievous injuries, enthralling her and her daughter into her services and turning them into her acolytes as she infuses them with the Light and Darkness.

Back in the forest, things are going to hell in a handbasket for the students and Lightbearers, and Reiko's fireteam are forced to call in reinforcements from the Court of Light to help fend off the Dread and Darkbearers. However, no communications are able to get through due to a jamming field created by the Dread using Resonant generators, and the fireteam, along with Niik and Itzelas and their army of Shanks and Servitors, are forced to contend with the Darkbearers Ending and Moonfish and their Swarm guards to destroy the generators.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Ochako is running from her life from a Nomu creature known as the Aspect of Sloth, a grotesque creature that resembled a slug on legs, covered in the art and tapestry of the Black Fleet and firing Resonant projectiles at her, attempting to swallow her whole and harvest her quirk in its massive maw that goes from its chest to its stomach, filled with razor-bladed teeth.

However, she begin to use the runes and spells that her own whispers have taught her to carve a path through the Nomu, Dread, and Swarm to Izuku and her friends, even summoning forth a pair of gauntlets and a weapon from a wall of black smoke and green fire.

They are the Weapons of Sorrow. The gauntlets, Necrotic Grip, and the gun, Osteo Striga, which she uses to burn the Aspect of Sloth alive in unholy fire.

The whispers encourage her to hide them away when she stumbles upon others and she does so.

In the middle of the chaos, Izuku is forced to contend with a Resonance-infused Muscular, who continues to return from death thanks to his Wraith, becoming more and more driven by his bloodlust with each revival as the mad villain hunts down a terrified Kota, intent on killing the child of the Water Hose duo and finishing off what he started years ago. Each time, Izuku would use whatever power of the Light and Dark he is able to manifest to try and slow down the villain, but it isn't enough. Izuku is still way too inexperienced to be able to achieve balance within himself.

However, at this point, the previous One for All users are finally gaining the strength that they need to return to the real world...

And Nana Shimura summons herself forward, defeating Muscular with little effort and crushing his Wraith, ending the villain's rampage once and for all.

However, the battle has left Izuku tired, wounded, and fatigued, and that leaves him vulnerable to the Dread forces, though he is quickly intercepted by Momo, Shoji, and Ojiro, who promise to take him to safety.

And that is when Momo summons forth a blade of Resonance and slashes at Shoji and Ojiro, summoning forth her Wraith, whom she refers to as Dao, to call the Dread to her and to bind Izuku as her captive.

Yaoyorozu Momo is the Ascendancy's spy. She is an Acolyte of Nezarec like her parents, who are the other leaders of the Acolytes alongside Stain, who is a Darkbearer as well. Momo was made into a Darkbearer when her parents sacrificed her as a baby and was raised again by the Mother to now serve her will and that of Nezarec's.

Momo rendezvouses with Shigaraki and delivers Izuku to him, then uses her Resonance powers to manipulate Ojiro. Shoji, and even Kota's memories – since Izuku had fled and taken Kota with him what Nana's prompting whilst she took on Muscular – to erase her kidnapping of Izuku in them, allowing her to meld back into U.A.'s fold as another student without her cover being blown. With Izuku now in tow, Shigaraki thanks Momo and then recalls his Dread forces and remaining Darkbearers, including a reluctant Dabi, who was just about to crush Yui's Ghost after burning the Guardian alive four times in a row.

The students and Guardians succeed in fending off the League's forces, and with the Resonant generators around, Reiko and the Eliksni are able to break through the jamming and call in reinforcements. But several of the students are once more affected by the psychic influence of the Black Fleet technology that the villains are utilising, with Kirishima and Todoroki becoming much more aggressive than before thanks to being in their proximity, and Aizawa beginning to grow more drawn into his mindset as the Pyramid Spikes that the League leave scattered across the forest grounds.

The League of Villains and their Dread, Swarm, and Nomu escape, leaving the heroes battered and the students injured. All Might arrives sometime after, along with a small army of heroes, and when he finds his mentor, Nana Shimura, standing over the corpse of Muscular, he is in utter shock.

Elsewhere, Izuku is strapped down to a table and picked apart by Garaki, his skin peeled open and his mind flayed using a captive Shinso's quirk. Garaki would've simply plucked Shinso's quirk out of his body like he's done to so many of his other patients before, but somehow the Light and Darkness of One for All has mixed with Shinso's quirk, making it difficult to neigh-impossible to remove it. Instead, Garaki will simply use Shinso's quirk by proxy and amplifying it using Deepsight generators to brute force his way into One for All and the throne world.

However, Garaki is quickly called away by Shigaraki to finish up his House of Ruin project, and as he does so, the Mother takes over, speaking to Izuku for the first time.

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Sun in Flight fusion rifle

Merry Way sparrow

Stolen Flight jump ship

Chapter Text

All Might speaks with Nana in the aftermath of the forest battle and Izuku's kidnapping, with Gran Torino and Sir Nighteye joining them. The three men present are still shocked at Nana's survival, with Gran Torino close to tears over the return of his closest friend, and Nana is quick to thank him for raising Yagi Toshinori into the hero that she knew he could be.

But unfortunately, there's no time to have a happy reunion, as Izuku is missing, and Nana can sense the walls of the throne world being picked open for the Darkness' minions to step through. Nana suspects that it is All for One's minions and is frustrated to hear that he might still be alive from All Might, but there is a sliver of doubt within her. There's something else driving All for One's actions, if this is even him at all, she knows it.

What is the most frustrating to her is that she can't pinpoint where he is. She can sense that he's alive through the throne world's bond but can't figure out his location. And he is too inexperienced with the concepts of the throne world to figure out how to get back into it without dying, only how to leave it. Hell, this is her first time stepping out of the throne world as well.

But that is when they get word from an injured Momo, who reveals that she was able to slip a tracker onto one of the Nomu, allowing them to track the League of Villains to wherever they might be.

Nana and the heroes take it, unaware of the trap that the traitorous Momo is leading them into.

Soon, All Might meets with Reiko and her fireteam, who are helping Niik and Itzelas, along with a group of Servitors and Eliksni Bio-Splicers to heal the wounded students before finding themselves being hounded by agents of both the HPSC and the Diet. The Guardians are reluctant to answer their questions, especially since the HPSC were the ones who commissioned the construction of the Radial Mast at I-Island and the investigation of the Infested Pyramid, meaning that they know a lot more than they're letting on. All Might has to shoo them away to get time to speak to Reiko, and he asks for the Court of Light's assistance in defeating the League of Villains and recovering Izuku.

Reiko comments that she isn't in command of the Court; she is merely one of its agents, and allows All Might to contact one of its leaders on the Archon Council:

Eido, Kell of the House of Light, who quickly warns All Might of the possibility of this being a trap but offers her support anyway.

Soon, the heroes gather to plan their attack, having just received intel on the possible whereabouts of the League of Villains' hideout. However, many of the heroes express confusion when Reiko and her three fellow Guardians, alongside Tokoyami, Jiro, and Red, are brought into the meeting, disliking the idea of allowing children to fight with them. It is only when All Might informs the rest of the heroes that these Guardians are the fireteam that killed the Queen Bee, brought down the Infested Pyramid, and maybe even saved the world itself that the heroes begin to back off, and even then they express distrust at the complete unknown that is the Court of Light and the forces that they have in their possession, fearing a potential invasion of Earth and war.

However, at this point, they don't have much of a choice. They've seen the powers of the League of Villains and the forces that they have brought to bear, and they've seen what their ally in the Queen Bee was able to do to I-Island and the hundreds that she was able to cull. There isn't enough time for them to bring up a suitable force of heroes and others to bear, and they don't have the experience and ability to successfully battle against them. They need the Court of Light's assistance, whether they want it or not.

This time, however, there is no rescue squad coming for Izuku from the students. Reiko has shot down that possibility immediately, and Class 1-B have made sure that no one else from 1-A can interfere with this. The students, save for the Guardians, are all sent to the hospital, and then escorted back to their homes by heroes. There will be no unauthorised action against the League of Villains this time. They're simply too big of a threat to let it happen.

However, this only exacerbates the tension between 1-A and B, and the resentment against the Guardians in the school walls.

Elsewhere, the Mother speaks with Izuku as she pulls away at the metaphysical palisades of One for All's throne world, breaking open the barriers piece by piece as she talks, her tone being almost motherly and affectionate as she calls Izuku her son and talks gently to him, as if he is just an unruly child who has lost his way.

Izuku is left feeling disgusted by her words, making clear to this eldritch being that he is not her child. He is not her anything. The Mother, on the other hand, counters this, saying to Izuku that she considers all living things to be her children, all things in the physical and metaphysical, from the smallest microbes to the largest leviathans. She speaks of her true goal: peace. For all life across the universe to be left in eternal peace and happiness for the rest of eternity and beyond. To be left in a state of existence that she calls the Harmony, a universe where all living things exist in perfect unison, forever and ever.

Izuku asks if the concept of free will and self-existence, if the ability to choose one's existence, will continue on in this brave new world of hers. The Mother makes clear that such a thing will only lead to continued conflict and suffering, and so it will not.

There will be much fear and suffering in the future, at her hand, and she is regretful for it. But for their future to come to pass, then it must be done.

For a better world.

And then, the Mother finally creates a crack in the walls of One for All's throne world, and she is suddenly within arm's reach of her prize.

But then, the combined forces of the heroes and the Court of Light begin to lay siege to the League of Villains, first at their bar hideout and then at their Dread, Swarm, and Nomu factory. For the first time, it is the League of Villains that are caught on the backfoot, and their armies find themselves being slaughtered by heroes, Awoken, Cabal, and Eliksni from being caught off-guard, whilst the Darkbearers and their commanders, Shigaraki and Dabi, find themselves being put on the backfoot, and in the opening moments of the conflagration several of Shigaraki's assorted Darkbearers are killed and their Wraiths crushed by the Guardians.

And at the forefront of the charge is All Might, Nana Shimura, and Endeavour, backed by the six Guardians as they tear through Dread, Swarm, and Nomu alike and bring the fight to the Darkbearers.

The Battle for Kamino has begun...

But elsewhere, Ochako is almost subsumed by the whispers from the bone, is approached by one of the heroes that had escorted her from the hospital to her home and asked what she is doing. When she refuses to answer, the hero presses for them-

Then Ochako sings the hero a song and he unravels.

And as the hero dies, destroyed by the Deathsong, a portal opens next to Ochako, and she steps through, but not before popping into Tsuyu's home and dragging her through as well.

You have unlocked:

In Due Time hand cannon

Prepare for Obliteration shotgun

Chapter Text

In Kamino, the forces of the League of Villains are being rolled over by the combined army of the Court of Light and pro heroes. Every barricade and blockade that the Dread put down, every charge that the Swarm enact, every push that the Nomu attempt, all are cut down by the heroes and their new Cabal, Eliksni, and Awoken allies.

And at the forefront of the battle are the six Lightbearers, the first in the newest generation of Guardians, tearing through the ranks of the Darkbearers alongside their new allies, Nana, All Might, and Endeavour, taking the fight directly to Shigaraki and Dabi as they search for Izuku and Shinso amongst the fighting.

Soon enough, after battering their way through the League's defences, the fireteam and their hero allies are able to breach their stronghold, only to find Shinso in a near death state, his quirk seemingly having been pulled out and his body pulled apart. The fireteam and heroes are able to stabilise Shinso and put him back together...

But then they get a message from the Mother herself, who tells them that they can have Shinso back now. He has served his purpose. All Might and Nana demand to know where All for One is, thinking that he is the one behind this plot. The Mother simply asks which one they mean, before figuring that they can meet some of them right now...

And that is when the Mother and the League spring their trap, and suddenly the heroes and Court of Light find themselves surrounded by hundreds of Fallen bearing the flags and black and blue colours of the newly born House of Ruin.

A massive army of Eliksni, either harvested from the Houses of Dusk and Salvation or cloned into existence by the Moon's newest inhabitants using the destroyed Leviathan's cloning technology and rendered braindead by the Mother for Garaki's purposes.

And what is Garaki's purpose? To splinter and fracture All for One's vestige (because remember, there are two All for Ones in canon, and the Mother figured that she only needed the one) so that it may be implanted into each Eliksni body - from every Dreg to every Vandal, from Wretch to Marauder, from Corsair to Captain and the mechanical bodies of the Servitors, Shanks, and even Walkers and Brigs - creating a hivemind amongst them and turning them all into vessels for All for One, giving him a million bodies for his one mind to inhabit, each one capable of stealing a quirk and sharing it amongst the collective.

They would be the House of Ruin, and they would be the key to All for One's ascension into godhood.

And each possessed body, each empty shell, is capable of taking quirks.

The House of Ruin begin their rampaging, taking the quirks from heroes and slaughtering the Court of Light in a violent conflagration, all through the horrible laughter and violent chattering of the vestige of All for One through his hundreds, maybe even thousands of Fallen bodies. Amongst the House of Ruin's numbers would be Berserkers known as the Quirk Splicers, who are aspects of All for One who would specialise in mixing and creating new attacks and abilities on the battlefield, and enlarged Captains the size of Archons known as the Vessels of Greed, which would be the mouthpieces for the greater conscious of All for One.

Kamino would be turned into a patrol zone much like Hosu, split between the House of Ruin's mindless Eliksni forces and the likes of the Dread, Nomu, and Swarm combined, and in the middle of the chaos, All Might and his team, including the six Lightbearers, would search through the League's stronghold and fight their way through Dread, Nomu, and braindead Fallen to find Izuku in the madness...

And find him on the floor, convulsing violently as a tear in reality opens up, corrupted by Taken energy.

All Might, Nana, and the six Lightbearers jump through the portal as Endeavour secures the comatose Izuku, and finds One for All's throne world in chaos and descending into corruption, the six other previous holders of One for All battling against a seemingly endless army of Taken and House of Ruin Fallen, all led by the Mother as she begins to tear the throne world apart.

And in the middle of the battle is the Taken version of All for One, now labelled as Zen Shigaraki, Aspect of Gluttony, ripping the world apart as he beats down on All for One's previous holders.

The Lightbearers and One for All users battle against the Taken and House of Ruin, but find themselves unable to stand up to the endless horde as the Mother continues to tear One for All's throne world to pieces, leaving only corruption and misery in her wake.

Just like Kamino and Hosu, the throne world of One for All has been turned into a patrol zone akin to the Dreaming City, split between the Taken and the House of Ruin.

The Lightbearers and One for All users are forced to retreat, manifesting into the real world once more and help Endeavour retreat Izuku's body away from the rampaging and mad Dabi, who is intent on making Endeavour suffer for his past deeds.

However, one of the One for All users is caught by the Mother.

All Might, who has never died and therefore never established a true connection to the throne world.

All Might, who never used the powers of Light and Darkness due to his own strength being enough.

All Might, who's connection to One for All is fading due to having passed it on without dying immediately.

All Might, who's bond with One for All is now the weakest out of all its users.

All Might, who's greatest strength is now his greatest weakness.

All Might, who the Mother successfully Takes, turning him into another one of her Taken minions, now known as All Might, Aspect of Vainglory.

The heroes despair at the loss of All Might, and all remaining resistance is currently in the process of being wiped out. The Ascendancy begin the first act of their true war against the forces of the Light, with the Mother Taking Cabal and Eliksni alike, the copy of All for One taking quirk after quirk through his endless bodies in the House of Ruin and his gargantuan Vessels of Greed, the League of Villains and Darkbearers slaughtering the survivors through their Dread and Nomu.

However, with the Mother now in possession of One for All's throne world, she sees no further point in continuing the battle. Not while the Traveller's location is finally within reach, and One for All will be that which leads them to it.

The Mother departs leaving the heroes and Court of Light forces utterly devastated.

The Mother's victory is absolute, and the forces of light are left bloody and broken. This round is hers, and now she and her minions now have One for All's throne world for their own, on top of a growing foothold around the planet as, just like Hosu, the heroes and Court of Light are forced to leave Kamino to the Ascendancy, along with increasing reports of House of Ruin raiding parties carrying out attacks not just across Earth, but also the entire Sol System.

But this isn't the end. The Court of Light and the forces of good may have lost this battle, but there is still a war to be fought, and as friends and foes alike begin to awaken and converge on Earth and the Sol System once more, either through real space or the Ascendant Plane, our heroes resolve to continue the fight against the Mother and her armies, to rescue the Traveller and the Ghosts from the Ascendant Realm, and to bring about the age of Light and peace once more...

But that isn't the only threat.

All the while the struggle for Kamino has been waged, away from the prying eyes of both Light and Dark, Ochako wanders through a strange new world, guided by the bone in her hand and the whispers in her head, and dragging Tsuyu around with her, weaving through murky swamps and between great pillars of crystalised Light.

Soon, they reach the centre of this new world, a strange city of Light and growth, populated by those wielding the Light, who guide them to the centre of the city, a massive temple where the Queen of Lies and Secrets sits, surrounded by thousands of Lightbearers who kneel to her in prayer...

They are the Hive. More specifically, the Lucent Brood, who spent the last thousand years swallowing entire Hive broods and growing their numbers to millions across the Throne World.

And their goddess is Savathûn, the Witch Queen, Hive god of cunning and lies.

And Ochako joins the kneeling Hive Lightbearers in worship of she whom she now considers to be her Goddess, whilst Tsuyu looks on in fear and confusion.

Then, the kneeling girl looks up to see her goddess, her new queen, Savathûn, standing above her, smiling a crooked smile as she welcomes her to her home, and thanks her for all the wonderful conversations.

Ochako smiles, thanking her, and telling her that everything is being prepared for her renewal and, thanks Savathûn for planting that shard of bone in the USJ and granting her the power to make their dreams of a new world come true.

And thusly, Ochako Uraraka is given a new name: Ochako, the Witch Princess of the Lucent Brood, and Tsuyu as her executioner, ready to enact the will of the Lucent Hive, against not just Xivu Arath's army of Wrathborn and loyalist Hive broods, but also the forces of both the Ascendancy and the Court of Light...

As above Savathûn's Court, the broken Traveller hangs high above, the Pale Heart within turned into an extension of the Lucent Hive's domain.

You have unlocked:

Thief-Taker General suit (Hunter)
Thief-Taker General suit (Titan)
Thief-Taker General suit (Warlock)

Stolen Power sidearm

Stolen Valour scout rifle

Stolen Will fusion rifle

Stolen Life liner fusion rifle

Stolen Desire pulse rifle

Stolen Virtue grenade launcher

Quirk Overload sparrow

Compulsion jump ship

Chapter Text

With Kamino lost, just like Hosu and the throne world of One for All, Reiko and the Guardians must contend with an unpredictable future.

All Might has been Taken, turned into another one of the Mother's minions. The House of Ruin are rampaging across the planet All for One taking as many quirks as he can through his thousands of bodies, and the Dread are continuing to rebuild their numbers with their new factories in Hosu and Kamino, along with them rampaging across One for All's throne world alongside the House of Ruin and the Taken. Meanwhile, the forces of the Order of Nezarec are no doubt using the fear generated by recent events to fuel their Nightmares.

The whole of hero society is fractured and mourning the loss of All Might, along with all those who have died during the recent battles. Their mourning is constantly interrupted by the mindless bodies of the House of Ruin, chittering with All for One's voice and attacking All Might monuments and visages of all kinds and laughing and mocking all the time through it.

The man has become the closest thing to a god that he can achieve, with his thousands of bodies, ability to steal quirks in each one, and his access to paracausal abilities like Stasis, Strand, and Resonance fueling his growing god complex. Dozens have already died at his hands across the planet, and the mad villain shows no signs of stopping as his attacks spread out across the Sol System.

The veil has been lifted from him, and he's finally revealed himself as the petulant manchild that he is, chasing the dreams of becoming a demon lord and committing evil acts simply for the sake of it.

Reiko and the Guardians step up to the plate to stop them, and the previous wielders of One for All, now freed from the throne world, wish to join the battle as well. However, that is shot down as All for One is clearly after them above all else, and since there's no way for him to be expunged from the Fallen hivemind that the Ascendancy has forged for him (at least, not that they know of), there is no central figure for them to target to destroy and remove their threat.

Then, the Court of Light moves to engage the army of braindead Eliksni. At first, the heroes are extremely hesitant to trust the Court, viewing them as possible invaders and untrustworthy. However, it is quickly pointed out that no hero can get anywhere close to one of the House of Ruin's minions without their quirk being stolen and then killed, so the heroes are forced to bite their tongue and accept it.

So, the Court of Light goes to war with the House of Ruin, fighting them both on Earth and across the Sol System, on planets such as Mars, Titan, Neptune, and the Reef. Quickly, Reiko and the Guardians figure out that All for One is more on the backfoot against the forces of Light than they had initially assumed. For one, even though the forces of the House of Ruin are capable of stealing quirks, they are not using them.

It appears that the House of Ruin operates on a tithing system similar to the Hive. The individual Eliksni cannot use the quirks that they take; they can only pass them up the chain. Where all these quirks are going, the Court of Light doesn't know. They assume it to be a replacement physical body for All for One, but there are so many quirks that they're not even sure if it's that. They can only assume that he's feeding his new collection of quirks to something else, something to empower himself even more.

But beyond that, it's observed that the technology and standard Eliksni armament within the House of Ruin, such as their Shanks, Servitors, Walkers, and Brigs, look decrepit and are falling apart. All for One clearly doesn't understand how Eliksni technology works and doesn't have any sentient minds within to enact those repairs or rather does not care to try. What's more, the Eliksni themselves look starved, threadbare, and haggard. Their bodies are sickly and scarred, and they look like they're perpetually hungry. All for One is purely focused on the acquisition of more quirks for his collection and so isn't feeding his thousands of bodies the food and Ether they need to survive beyond the bare minimum for each of their ranks. He has been having his bodies eat other people as an act of intimidation and fearmongering, but that isn't enough: his bodies need Ether, and since he's only giving them the bare minimum that they need and nothing more to keep them all functioning, this leaves the Fallen bodies of the House of Ruin always starved and surrounded by barely-functioning technology, the overriding voice in their mindless bodies never having an interest in doing so.

For now, the Court of Light and their Guardians must fight through the forces of the House of Ruin, killing many of All for One's minions and empty bodies. During their time, fighting through the seemingly endless hordes of All for One's mindless forms, they end up coming across four unique enemies amongst the perverted Fallen House, alongside the Quirk Splicers and the Vessels of Greed.

The first two are the Stolen Priests and Stolen Clergy, both of which are Fallen covered with Black Fleet technology mixed with Eliksni splicing work. The Stolen Priests are enlarged Captains that have melded with Strand and can send clusters of Threadlings out onto their enemies, along with powers such as the Resonant Harrier drones that Subjugators can summon, whilst Stolen Clergy are enlarged Marauders subservient to the Priests that are capable of summoning Duskfields around themselves. Both these enemies use Resonant weapons, and both can be found in hastily constructed churches and shrines to All for One, made by the man with the god complex to end them all, all so that everyone could gather and worship him in both fear and adulation.

The third are the Poachers, Fallen that have been turned into Nomu and stuffed with so many quirks that they might as well be ether, mutating them into hybrid monstrosities wielding a dozen powers at a time and melded with Eliksni and Black Fleet technology. Now, these enlarged Fallen/Nomu hybrids have become the direct agents of All for One, serving as his hand in leading the forces of his House through his endless supply of bodies.

And then, finally, there are the Collectors, ghostly wraiths made up of quirks themselves, acting as moving storage houses for the braindead Eliksni, capable of giving out and taking away quirks at will and providing support for the Fallen on the ground. Not only that, but they are capable of using those quirks themselves, becoming powerful opponents on the battlefield for any hero or Guardian to face.

In fighting against the House of Ruin, raiding their Ketches and burning down their churches, the Court of Light learn that All for One is searching up and down the Sol System for his brother, Yoichi. Since he is alive again and in the possession of the Court of Light, All for One has now started to prioritise Court bases and places of operation all over the system, and is increasing his attacks on Earth to look for him. This puts a lot of pressure on the Court, as they are now forced to split their forces across all their bases of operation and assign guards to the previous users of One for All, stretching their available forces to the limit.

And then the House of Ruin raids the safehouse that the past users are hold up in, and take Yoichi.

All for One now has his brother back, and he's taken him away to parts unknown...

But the fireteam has a way to track him, assisted by One for All's past users, and they locate him in a decrepit fortress in the middle of Japan, one that the House of Ruin has occupied and turned into a massive cathedral, made in worship of All for One.

There is no time to waste, they're going to need to breach the cathedral and rescue Yoichi.

It's time for a Raid.

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Thief-Maker sidearm

Power Pickpocket rocket launcher

Quirk Mugger linear trace rifle

Quirk Burglar trace rifle