Chapter Text
A strangled whimper tore past Midoriya's throat as he glanced ahead, fingers flexing and curling against his palms unfamiliarly. Mud stuck to what little remained of his hero costume on his legs. The rain rinsed away gingerly at the blood covering his torso or perhaps it just flared way to the oozing gashes wrapping his figure.
It's okay, he echoed like a mantra meant to keep him sane. You're whole again.
Emerald eyes cast towards Shigaraki's— No. Not Shigaraki anymore, All For One had taken possession of the body. The man before him was nothing more than a barren tattered husk, with different metallic parts in place of arms that strayed across his ruptured physique.
A gnawing guilt settled in his core. He bit at his bottom lip hard, the taste of bitter copper filled his tongue.
The ground constantly shook and dust particles drifted above as Midoriya's classmates used their all to bring down the evil incarnate that is All For One without delay.
Move. They need you.
You failed to save the boy.
Midoriya snapped his eyes closed at the traitorous thought, the pinpricks of tears gathered on verdant lashes. A colloused hand rests on his ravaged, nude shoulder. The contrast of warmth between his temporarily freezing body sends a shiver crawling his spine. Midoriya found his teacher's eyes. Aizawa bore back a single ebony eye at him, an expression stretched full of unsettling distress. Midoriya endeavored himself upwards, a hiss fled past his lips as he tumbled forward. "I have to go too—"
A sigh escaped past Aizawa's lips, squeezing his shoulder gently, before the warmth of his hand trailed forth to his back. "You only rewound for a few minutes. Just to the point before you lost your arms. The damage from your battle with Shigaraki still remains." A brief pause. "You've fought such a long and intense battle..."
Midoriya heaved a choking breath. A sour sharpness seized his taste buds. "I—" It hurts to breathe. "Gave away One For All."
An astonished reflection swathed upon Aizawa's face. Midoriya heard his teacher gasp, bewildered. Something akin to fright crept into the man's vocals as he voiced out. "You don't have it anymore?"
The sound of shoes crushing against the dirt surrounded them, more heroes joined the fight.
Move.
Midoriya propelled himself on trembling legs, harsh grunts exited his parched lips. His teacher kept a hand near — close enough to help him out in case his legs failed him. Again. It throbbed in his throat to speak, regardless, he whispered faintly. "I gave away the Quirks of the previous users." His breathing wrenched into frantic, rushed breaths. He took feeble steps to his front. Concentrate. The rustle of Aizawa's clothes reached his heightened senses, his teacher, had too, stood up. "But even though I only held that power for a short time, it has been ingrained in my Quirkless body." The words stung. All Might's signature pose flashed for frail seconds on his train of thought. "Just like it was with All Might... The embers are still burning within me."
A trail of sweat dawdled on his cheeks. His brows furrowed, a newfound ire stabbing his chest as he glared at the hollow imitation of Shigaraki.
Shigaraki...
I can still help you.
Another step front."As long as the ember remains, All For One..." Another step, and another. "He will..." Midoriya rasped out.
He distinctly noted the sound of crinkling. Boots slap against wet soil. "Midoriya," His teacher called out to him uptight. "Here's some ointment and bandages... And wear this to keep your body warm." Midoriya's green eyes tracked the supplies, eyes widening slightly at them, lips parted in awe. "Those are—"
Aizawa nodded. "These were provided by people at the evacuation center."
Vague shouts swallowed the area. Both Class 1-A and Class 1-B and the remaining heroes worked in tandem to bring demise to the Demon Lord himself. All For One's attacks had grown significantly agitated.
Close. You just need to smash at his core.
Aizawa tightly secured the bandages around his worn arms, which alleviated the masked numbness of his tired muscles. A quick blindness hovered over his face. Aizawa slowly maneuvered with the shirt, daintily helping him dress himself. Midoriya gawked at the shirt, perplexed, clutching close to its collar. For a split second, a sense of glee washed through him. "It's the Men's Non-No 5th Edition t-shirt!" In the time he lowered his hand back to his side, warmth clasped his own. Midoriya glimpsed at the familiar hand before his eyes scanned over Aoyama.
"Aoyama—"
"Let's run," Aoyama uttered, casting glimmering violet orbs at him. For a strange reason, he looked happier now. Amidst this battle... "We need your power." He smiled mellowly. "Just as much as you need our power."
A memoir arose in his mind. A hand offered. He had offered his hand to Aoyama before too.
"Everyone is fighting together with us." Aoyama declared, his hand kept guiding Midoriya forward. A disgruntled sob loosened from the back of his throat, vision blurring and renewed with loitering tears.
Aoyama gave him a last push as Midoriya took the cue and compelled the embers of OFA to function to life. His body became surrounded by green translucent electric light — the reddish-purple markings streamed like a canvas on his frame. Muscles restoring to duty. He gritted his teeth, eyes death-set on the disturbing composition that was AFO.
The reverberation of crumbling plagued his ears, he snapped his head backwards, his view obstructed by the metallic weapons that AFO had crafted. "Aoyama!" He cried out, wanting to reach out, alas his friend shouted before he could— "Run, Midoriya!"
Blue lasers erupted from Aoyama, multiple at a time, cracking and destroying part of the weapon. "Run!" His friend shouted one last time. Midoriya nodded, a firm press to his chapped lips.
Continue. Things are under control.
Move.
Move.
Move.
Midoriya takes each step with suffocating breaths. Sweat clogged his forehead, gluing his forest hair along the droplets of rain. He can't stop. Not now. Not when they are this close to defeating AFO. His pupils dilated upon the incoming large ray of purple that would clash with his body, he gasped gaudily, arms covering his eyes as he braced for contact.
Seconds tick by before he realizes the attack never blew him off. He dropped his arms from his face. Flabbergasted. Instead, another figure beared his place, he regarded Hagakure with an aghast expression. "Hagakure!"
"You can count on me to deal with the lights." She griped out, struggling with the opposing aggression of the beam. A scream ripped from her throat, and the beam dispersed into nothing. Midoriya rushed ahead from the cloud of dust stockpiling.
The forms of Denki and Momo surfaced from the dust. Momo crouched down to the floor beside what appeared like a modified cannon. "Electromagnetic Rail Gun." She announced. Denki handled some cables, his Quirk brightening his body. "Fire!" Momo bellowed. The cannon shot toward AFO's physique. The man countered the attack with an electric field of his own. The metals around his body stretched, forming into missiles he launched at the heroes.
The gum of his teeth hurt from how hard he gritted them. Midoriya panted roughly, chest hyperventilating at the overuse of his debilitated figure. Blood slipped from his wounds, edging at the corner of his lips. He tasted iron — thick, cloying, nauseating, nearly gagging at the bitterness coating his tongue.
His vision trembled at the peripheries, dark spots blooming like ink stains across a fraying page. His legs wobbled beneath him, threatening to fold, yet he forced them into place with the last shreds of stubborn will threaded through his shaking muscles.
His hand formed into a fist, aiming it at AFO, green light glimmering with the remaining OFA power as he leaped. "Stop hurting everyone...!" Before the looming attack could graze him, both members of Class 1-A and Class 1-B popped in. Carnaging the approaching missiles.
Ojiro threw a glance at him. "You're beaten to a pulp. He yelped. "Save your strength!"
Satou fought the recoil, voice stiff as he roared. "You're the only one who has the strength to cause him damage. So we'll block his attacks!"
Afore his feet touched the ground, it crumbled once again with a metallic flash. A set of arms and a tongue coiled around his torso, rigid and unyielding. Before he could draw a breath, he was wrenched forward once more — hurled through the air by a force that felt steady. The world streaked past in blurs of light and shadow, every heartbeat echoing like a war drum in his ears. And nevertheless, the grip around him tightened, as if determined to decide his fate long before he could find his footing.
He eyed the forms of Shouji and Tsuyu, lips wobbling. "We're not agile enough to get past these fierce attacks," Shouji let out, his breath threading through the storm-bent air, concentrated wholly on moving forward. The sound of Tsuyu's padded feet pursued chase, steady and determined, her silhouette flickering with each flash of lightning. "But we can at least help you get farther."
There was no hesitation — only the unspoken trust of comrades sharing the same desperate heartbeat. Shouji’s arms tightened, then with a surge of strength, he and Tsuyu flung Midoriya across the shattered clearing. "Go!" The world tilted; Midoriya’s stomach twisted, his heart leaping hard against his throat as the ground blurred into streaks of dark and silver.
Cold rain washed his features, stinging like a hundred sharp needles. Wind tore at his cheeks, dragging strands of soaked hair across his eyes. For a suspended instant he felt weightless — caught between terror, hope, and the heavy responsibility pounding in his chest.
“Shoji! Tsuyu!” Midoriya exclaimed, landing square with a brilliant flash of green crackling around his boots. His soles hit the shattered ground hard, sending dust spiraling outward in a frantic halo. Regaining his breath, Midoriya paused for a second, the flicker of One for All dancing like restless lightning across his limbs. His chest rose and fell sharply as he scanned the shadows ahead, eyes wide, alert, and glinting with that familiar mix of fear and perseverance. A stunned gasp left his lips, emerald drawn to the blocked invasion of metal. Kirishima, Mina, and FatGum undertake the attack. "Show some guts!"
Midoriya quickly regained his footing, nodding. The sound of his friends’ voices rumbled in his ears, distant yet powerful—like echoes traveling through the very marrow of his bones.
"Do your best!"
"Let's do our best!"
Their encouragement rang out, threading itself through the haze of pain clouding his senses.
A flash of electric green circled Midoriya’s battered body, crackling with renewed force. He propelled himself forward anew, boots striking the ground with a tremor that spoke of stubborn resolve. “Yes!” he cried at the top of his lungs, forehead creased in fierce concentration, teeth clenched so tightly his jaw ached.
Move.
Move.
Move.
Every command hammered through his muscles, dragging strength from places he didn’t know still existed. The world around him blurred, shattered ground, curling smoke, the sting of dust against his eyes yet the path ahead burned vividly. There was only forward, only the next breath, the next desperate push.
Don’t stop.
He’s still there.
Keep moving.
Even as pain lanced through his limbs, even as his lungs scraped for air that refused to come, he surged onward — stopping meant losing, and losing was not an option. Not when so much hung in the balance. Not when the lives of everyone here were at stake.
A wave of sound crumpled AFO’s attack once more, the shock tearing through the battlefield like a thunderclap. Midoriya snapped his gaze toward Jirou and Present Mic, both trembling, both refusing to fall, their voices braided together in a desperate, defiant roar.
“Do your best, Midoriya!”
Their call cut through the smoke, through the fear, through everything that threatened to drown him.
Midoriya surged forward.
Debris scraped past his legs as he pushed through the distorted air. AFO’s hatred lashed out in violent waves, twisting into claws, tendrils, blades, each one meant to tear him apart. But each time they neared, someone broke their shape.
Attack after attack kept getting blocked.
He could feel the vibrations of their support rattling up through his ribs, feel the raw strain in his own limbs as danger piled upon danger. His breath burned, his vision shook — but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. Because every step he took forward was carried on the voices of those who believed in him… even as the world seemed to collapse beneath their feet.
They trust you.
You have to end it.
Midoriya dodged every incoming attack, rolling, moving, jumping, each motion a blur of practiced instinct and sheer determination. His boots scraped against the fractured soil as he twisted out of the way of another strike, the air splitting open beside him with a force that could have crushed bone. Every dragged breath was a promise to keep going, every heartbeat a reminder of why he couldn’t afford to fall now.
Midoriya braced himself to counter the incoming strike, muscles tightened and breath held, only for the ground beneath him to betray every expectation. The space at his feet stretched and recoiled like an elastic band, snapping him upward with sudden, disorienting force. His body arched instinctively, twisting mid-air as he fought to regain control.
Wind rushed past his ears, and for a heartbeat the world spun, until his eyes widened, locking onto the unmistakable figure below. Gentle, the once-infamous villain, stood poised with a strange composure. "Do your best." He mouthed, a grin adorning his face.
Midoriya's body fell to the ground, arms instinctively rising to shield his face. He stumbled forward, each movement desperate yet unsteady, like a marionette tugged by invisible strings. Flares of green flickered and rippled over his form, bright and unrelenting, casting long, wavering shadows across the floor. The light seemed alive, pulsating with a rhythm that matched the erratic beating of his heart, illuminating the tension that gripped every muscle, every thought. His vision blurred; the world around him fragmented into streaks of color and motion, leaving only the relentless surge of energy that both protected and betrayed him.
Midoriya felt his feet betray him, giving out beneath the weight of his own panic, and for a moment, the world seemed to tilt and blur. Just then, the roar of an engine cut through the chaos like a lifeline. Tenya was at his side in an instant, the metal of his engines thrumming against his ears as he gripped Midoriya’s arm and hand, lifting him with precise, obstinate force. Sparks hissed from Tenya’s exhausted engines as they gave one last desperate burst before sputtering into silence, smoke curling in the air like ghostly fingers.
A gloved hand pressed against Midoriya’s back, firm and unremitting, hurtling him forward with a force that sent adrenaline coiling through his veins. "This reminds me of the first day of school." Tenya spoke nostalgically.
Midoriya kept moving forward.
He could hear everyone's voices.
Do your best!
You can do it… don’t give up…
Each word, each cheer, seemed to wrap around him like a fragile thread of light, guiding him through the fog of doubt that threatened to slow him down. Sweat dripped from his brow, and his legs ached with every step, yet he refused to falter.
He kept moving forward.
The wind tore past him, sharp and cold, but it could not snuff out the fire in his chest. Shadows of fear whispered at the edges of his mind, telling him to stop, to collapse, to surrender — but he would not listen.
Do your best…
It was a promise. A promise to himself, to those who believed in him, to the ideals he could not ultimately fully grasp but still swore to uphold.
Midoriya clenched his fists. His heart pounded in a rhythm that matched his steps, fierce and unrelenting. With every forward motion, every labored breath, he carved his path through the chaos, refusing to be dragged under by doubt or exhaustion.
He hurled himself upwards, a streak of motion slicing through the air, muscles coiled with lethal intent. His hand balled into a fist, knuckles gleaming like polished ivory, ready to strike at AFO’s body with a force that seemed to defy gravity itself. Every fiber of his being palpitated with haste, a tempest of fury and stubbornness, as if the very air around him bent in anticipation of the collision. Time seemed to overstate, each heartbeat a drum echoing the inevitability of impact. Streaks of green enveloped his form, the remaining power of OFA bursting into vigor even more prominently.
He neared AFO. The man before him was a ruined, decayed amalgam of metal and rotting flesh, a grotesque monument to power and madness. Every step he took seemed to make the very air quiver. He dodged and destroyed every incoming attack with effortless precision, his movements a terrifying dance of chaos. Sparks hissed and shattered around him, fragments of broken machinery flying like deadly shards.
He screamed in fury, a sound that scraped at the edges of the soul, reverberating through the empty expanse around them. "SMASH!" The word tore from him, jagged and violent. A burst of electric multi-colored sparks crashed into AFO’s ravaged chest, crackling and fizzling like a storm refusing to be contained. The impact threw ripples of raw energy outward, bending the light around them into sickly, chaotic hues. For a moment, the world seemed to pause, suspended in the brilliant violence of that clash. A static noise rumbled inside Midoriya's ears. He gritted his teeth. "In the last two years, my power has slightly exceeded the Eighth." He croaked out, swallowing the dull pain in his throat. "This is the combined power of all nine users!"
Midoriya tore through Shigaraki's decaying body, particles of cracked skin and twisted machinery drifting like ash across the plane, suspended in a grim, unnatural ballet. His fists shook with a mixture of rage and desperation, each strike carrying the weight of years of fear, anger, and unspoken sorrow.
Shigaraki... He grimly thought. I'm sorry.
Below him, Shigaraki's quirk crumbled away slowly.
It's done. He's gone—
A scream tore from Midoriya's throat as an eruption of violet energy burst from All For One, lashing the battlefield with chaotic force. The air shimmered with the heat of clashing power, and Midoriya’s muscles quaked under the strain of keeping his focus. All For One convulsed violently, struggling to clutch together the remaining fragments of his shattered body, his form grotesque and quivering.
"Not yet!" The villain growled, his voice a low rumble that seemed to shake the very ground beneath them. His white, unblinking eyes bore into Midoriya from above, gleaming with a madness that sent shivers crawling up his spine. "I have not achieved anything yet. I won't let anyone rob me of my dream. Only my dream will come true!"
Around him, the metals — the broken shards of machinery and steel — twisted and writhed as though alive, curling into spirals that groaned and cracked under the strain.
Midoriya crashed into the wrecked ground with a grunt. Blood gushed from his wounds, staining the cracked earth like a crimson tide. The air around him shimmered with the residue of clashing forces, each breath a ragged struggle against the pain that clawed through his body. His vision blurred, fragmented by stars of agony, yet the fire in his heart refused to dim. Dust and debris swirled around him, whipped into frantic motion by the echoes of destruction. Every fiber of his being screamed to rise, to fight, to defy the weight of despair pressing mercilessly upon him, but the ground beneath him seemed intent on claiming him, cold and unyielding, as if the world itself were conspiring to pin him down.
It hurts. It hurts.
Midoriya cursed lowly, each word a rasping breath of defiance, before summoning the last reserves of his fraying strength. With a surge that set his muscles ablaze, he hauled himself into the air, fists clenched until his knuckles screamed. Eyes burning with unyielding determination, he roared, voice echoing like a clash of thunder: "That's enough, All For One!" The wind whipped around him, tugging at his tattered clothes.
A portal materialized at his side just as he was about to connect his fist with Shigaraki’s body, warping the air with a static hum. The raspy, glitching voice of Kurogiri spilled from the mist like a broken lullaby.
“Please… give back Shigaraki Tomura. His friends are waiting for him.”
That voice… That’s Shigaraki’s...
Midoriya’s breath hiccupped. He squeezed his eyes shut for a heartbeat far too long for a battlefield. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…
The regret hanging in his chest was torn apart by a thunderous blast. Midoriya didn’t need to turn — he knew that explosion as intimately as his own heartbeat. The ground trembled. Sparks danced. And then—
Bakugo’s fist crashed into the swirling black mist that was Kurogiri, scattering it with sheer force of will. The onslaught rocked his body backwards. Blood dripped from his chin, shrouding his already wrecked face in fierce resolution.
“I got some help from Todoroki’s ice ramp,” Bakugo growled, every word wet with iron and rage. “You can’t let me surpass you, Izuku!”
Idiot, Midoriya wanted to shout, but it slipped through him as nothing more than a cracked thought. Tears pricked dangerously at the corners of his eyes. Don’t overdo yourself… You always push too far…
The static green of OFA shone through his fist, crackling like a storm barely held together. Midoriya glared daggers at AFO, pupils trembling with exhaustion and fury. His breath came out ragged, burning in his throat like fire.
“All For One, I will never forgive you,” Midoriya shouted, voice raw and shaking, not with fear, but conviction. “But I also don’t think you’re a monster beyond understanding. I know that because our Quirk Factors have synced.”
He could feel it — threads of consciousness brushing against his own, fragments of malice, desperation, and something else he hadn’t expected mingling with a hollow ache, ancient and suffocating. Midoriya’s fingers curled tighter, OFA’s glow brightening as if answering his heart.
All For One stared ahead with bottomless wrath, a darkness so suffocating it seemed to press the air into silence. “Stop it.” he snarled, voice cracking like something old and rotten under pressure. Midoriya held his stance, refusing to flinch, even as he took in the grotesque ruin of the man’s once-calculating face.
“Don’t look at me.” The words came out strangled, furious, almost desperate.
Midoriya didn’t obey. He watched him fully — watched the decay, the trembling fury, the unraveling of a legend built on terror. Because for the first time, All For One looked small.
This is it. One last hit. One last step forward. One last line to cross.
Midoriya’s breath steadied, burning cold and clean through his lungs. He raised his battered fists, green lightning crackling violently at his sides like a heartbeat threatening to explode.
“You’re no Demon Lord,” Midoriya barked, voice low but ringing with a clarity that cut through the bloodbath.
AFO unfurled his hand, attempting to block the rushing attack. Midoriya pressed his fist forward, hard enough that his fingernails bit crescents into his skin, grounding him in the moment. When his knuckles met AFO’s palm, a rush of blue sparkles spurt between them wild, erratic, like stars dying and being born all at once. The impact sent a shiver up Midoriya’s arm, the remnants of countless wills roaring in his blood.
AFO’s expression contorted for only a fraction of a second, something old and brittle cracking beneath that immortal pretense.
“You’re just a lonely human being,” Midoriya whispered, voice trembling with something far more dangerous than rage — empathy. The remaining tears amassed on the corner of his eyes lurched as the power of OFA gradually dissolved Shigaraki's arm.
The gnawing guilt was back stronger, burrowing into him like a stubborn thorn he couldn’t wrench free. Midoriya bit at his lip, tasting the faint copper of worry as his thoughts churned in relentless spirals. Every breath felt too shallow, as if the weight pressing against his ribs refused to give him the space to inhale properly.
Forgive me, Shigaraki.
Midoriya’s vision blanks for a moment, white static swallowing the world before color bleeds back in slow fragments. His pulse stutters. The familiar throb of One for All ignites in his veins, not as a gentle warmth but as a frantic, burning rummage, as if the quirk itself were tearing through every nerve in a desperate search for footing.
And then he sees him.
Standing among the vestiges, half-shadow and half-light, is Shigaraki. Not the monstrous figure Midoriya had fought in the waking world, but the raw, stripped-down core of him white hair drifting like smoke, eyes sharp with something that is not hatred but resolve. Behind him, the remaining OFA users brace themselves, spectral forms hardened with shared fury. They move as one.
Together, they aim a fist at All For One, pure killing intent crystallized into motion. The air around them shivers, the void itself recoiling from the force of their united will.
White. Blinding.
Midoriya’s fist remained tightly clenched. He blinked away the heat pooling at the corners of his eyes, the persistent lump tightening around his throat as the vestige of Shigaraki Tomura stared back at him from the fathomless white of the inner world. The air shimmered faintly around them quiet, heavy, trembling with remnants of battles neither of them had chosen.
Shigaraki’s own fist drifted forward, knuckles pale and almost translucent, bumping against Midoriya’s calloused one with a gentleness that felt impossibly out of place. Midoriya tried to speak, lips parted, closed, opened again, each attempt collapsing under the weight of everything unsaid. I’m sorry, he wanted to force out. For you, for him, for all of it. But nothing came. His voice had been buried somewhere deep beneath grief, anger, and the stubborn ache of compassion.
Shigaraki watched him with an expression Midoriya had never imagined seeing on his face a small, crooked smile that held no mockery, no malice, only a tired sort of acceptance.
“I thought I was done for,” he murmured, his voice softer than the real Shigaraki’s had ever been. “After Master swallowed me up."
Midoriya released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Shigaraki seemed to gleam faintly, a soft halo of candidus radiating from the place where their fists still met—two broken histories brushing like frayed wires desperate for connection.
“But you held on to me so I wouldn’t disappear, huh… Grandma…” His voice trembled at the edge of a memory he clearly wished he could unremember. A shadowed bitterness crossed his expression, brief but devastating. “Kurogiri… I managed to pull my body out of Master’s grasp, but I wasn’t able to destroy a single thing.”
The image of a tiny, trembling boy flickered across Midoriya’s thoughts. Five-year-old Tenko, clutching his dog with those trembling little hands, eyes too wide, too terrified. The weight of that memory settled in Midoriya’s chest like a stone.
“In the end…” Shigaraki’s crimson gaze drifted downward into the endless, pulsing void beneath them, his white hair wafted in the stillness. “I guess you were right. I was just a crying kid.”
Midoriya’s fist shook. Breathe. Don’t falter now.
When Shigaraki looked back up, his eyes were no longer burning he wasn't the villain that used to convey terror, but human, raw. And his hair… it wasn’t pristine anymore. It was blue again, the same blue Midoriya had come across that destined day at the mall.
“I couldn’t destroy your hands,” Shigaraki confessed, voice low and trembling, as though the admission itself scraped him from the inside out.
Midoriya swallowed, lungs tight. “I couldn’t let you get away with everything you’ve done. That’s why I fought…” His voice cracked. He bowed his head for a moment before raising it again, forcing himself to meet those burning eyes. The truth pulsed between them ugly, hopeful, impossible.
“I wanted to stop you,” he whispered hoarsely. “And I wanted you to stop yourself. So that this sadness wouldn't spread any further."
A cracking sound filled the void, a brittle, desperate echo that seemed to gnaw at the edges of reality itself. Shigaraki's remaining body deliberately crumbled away, each fragment falling with the weight of finality. Midoriya's lips parted, dry, trembling. "Shigaraki, I—"
"Midoriya..." Shigaraki's voice emerged, ragged, yet deliberate, each word a shard of defiance. "Tell Spinner… if he’s still alive… that Shigaraki Tomura fought… until the end to destroy." A cruel, crooked smile cracked across his fatigued, splintering form, as though even in collapse he demanded to leave his mark.
"No… not yet…" Midoriya shook his head, desperation twisting his chest. His hand, trembling yet resolute, reached for Shigaraki’s, intertwining fingers as though mere touch could tether him to life. "I can save you. I just…"
Shigaraki laughed, a rasping, hollow sound that scraped at the edges of hope. "Nothing to save, hero. Not anymore."
No. This can’t be the end. I made a promise.
The air seemed to thicken, pressing against Midoriya’s lungs, testing his resolve. It was a gamble, reckless and unproven, yet he gripped Shigaraki’s form like a lifeline cast across a storm-tossed sea. White light burst in his vision, blinding, enveloping. The edges of Shigaraki’s body wavered, flickering like a dying flame, before crumbling entirely into nothingness.
Static hissed in Midoriya’s ears, sharp and intrusive, vibrating through his bones.
A massive beam of color blazed through Shigaraki's chest, searing brilliance that forced Midoriya to squint as the world twisted in unbearable light. His senses strained, clawing back to reality, and then the energy surged, tearing upward in a luminous scream that split the heavens.
The final blow.
Time stretched and warped, dragging Midoriya’s consciousness into a suspended void where seconds felt like eternities, where the pounding of his heart was deafening in the quiet of his mind. The world slowed to a crawl, and all he could feel was the tight, aching knot in his chest.
Shigaraki…
The name fell from his lips, a whisper tangled in grief and fury, fragile as the remnants of a shattered dream.
Forgive me.
Midoriya's body gives out on its own. The last thing his eyes find are the decaying pieces of Shigaraki's already demolished body. Black wrapped his vision.
Midoriya’s consciousness shivered, a fragile thing suddenly pierced by a presence both impossible and unmistakable. From the depths of his mind, a figure emerged, haloed in a soft, melancholy blue that seemed to absorb the light around it rather than reflect it. The air of his inner world thickened, as if reality itself were holding its breath. And there — there was Shigaraki. Not the corpse-like shadow he had seen consumed by decay, not the villain who had been vanquished by circumstance and chance. No, this was something other. Something… alive. His hair glinted an unorthodox blue, strands like inked waves under a dim sun, and his eyes that had once brimmed with chaos — now glimmered with sharp contempt.
“Did you want to save me that badly, huh… hero?” The words crawled over Midoriya’s nerves like frostbite, curling cold fingers around his ribcage. The voice was unmistakably Shigaraki’s, yet threaded with a timbre that felt both distant and intimate, like a memory half-remembered in a dream.
Midoriya’s chest tightened. He wanted to recoil, to dismiss this apparition as a trick of fatigue or a hallucination conjured from the relentless scars of battle. He had fought, endured, lost, and seen death claim Shigaraki. There was no reason, none whatsoever that the man could stand before him now, even here in the fragile recesses of thought.
It must be my mind, breaking, piecing together fragments of grief and horror into something tangible.
But the figure didn’t waver, didn’t dissolve. It laughed, a low sound that was at once mocking and intimate, curling around the edges of Midoriya’s awareness. The sound was a tether, pulling him between disbelief and a strange, unbidden hope. “You should wake up,” Shigaraki said, stepping closer as though the boundaries of reality mattered little here. “Do not forget your words to Spinner, Midoriya." A pregnant pause. "Find out if the rest of the league are alive..too."
Midoriya sucked a mouthful of breath, a vice of disbelief tightening around him. His throat, dry and raw, refused to form words; the sentences he wanted to speak lodged themselves somewhere between his heart and his lips, tangled in panic and incredulity. How? I saw you die. His mind screamed the words, but they dissolved into silence, useless against the impossible presence before him.
He wanted to look away, to blink and wake into the familiar reality of his classroom, his friends, the world he knew. But his eyes, heavy and unsteady, remained fixed on the figure, on the impossible blue glow that pulsed like a heartbeat in the darkness of his own mind. The laughter, soft yet sharp, reverberated through his chest, threading its way into his muscles, his bones, as if the sound itself could anchor him here, to this surreal confrontation.
Denial pressed against him like a tidal wave. Shigaraki— Shigaraki — was dead. He had seen it, counted the seconds after the fall, felt the hollow emptiness of victory and grief intertwined. And yet, here he was. His mind scrambled for rationality, but every theory faltered, every explanation dissolved under the weight of truth — or what seemed to be truth.
"You only have yourself to blame, hero." Shigaraki spat, no real bite to it. A phantom parched hand found its way to Midoriya's eyes, strange yet familiar. "It's time for you to wake up."
A smothered gasp broke out from Midoriya's vocal cords.
Green eyes fluttered open to searing white.