All Might had been fighting with so much on the line that he could only now notice something. The frequency of him landing a hit on All For One's body was many times that of Endeavor and that World Government agent. The two other allies were mostly blocked with the spear and yet All Might, the most dangerous opponent, was only met with quirks and feint openings.
'What is he planning?'
All Might looked back at how All For One could have gone all out but kept talking and transforming ... since he acquired that spear made from the girl. Not keeping up with the situation as his mind ran possible hypothesis, All Might was cut multiple time with cold oxygen slashes. The burning sensation from the oxidization of the injuries could not stop his sprinting thoughts.
'He is only here if he is confident in facing me. Or he needs me to complete his plan. I need to know which.'
All Might jumped and kicked the spear about to puncture Endeavor's lungs. The fiery hero utilized that moment of free time to fire a plasma beam to the villain's head. All For One wiped off the beam with a bored action and spawn cylinders from his back, missiles that blanket the sky as they duplicated more and more.
'All For One could have bring this out from the very beginning ... unless!'
All Might kicked off and made a dimension punch, crossing thousands of kilometers away from the villain. Endeavor spat him a glance and the woman was shocked seeing the number one hero running away but All For One's action was the most shocking.
Not caring for nearer opponents, he aimed his spear with the newly grown arms before launching it at the speed approaching light. The air layer in front of the spear was compressed to the point of glowing like the sun.
It pierced All Might's hand, the one trying to grab it, before pulling him back.
'So All For One needs my presence for his plan. It's not confident because if he was, he would have let me get away. The addition of the spear initially caused his body to deform drastically but he reigned it back in after a salvo of my punches. If it was quirk outbreak from inside, he could simply choose to destroy them or discharging them into another being created on the spot before using it as a bomb.'
'My attacks'
All Might identified the condition for All For One's plan. The villain needed to be touching All Might to do something. As All Might delivered an air punch blowing apart the air bomb above the agent's head, he aimed for a liver shot.
"Is this all you have, All Might?"
But the hero stopped before making contact. He then strained his muscles to changed the punch direction, letting the following sonic boom doing the blow.
From the angle beneath, All Might could see there was a hint of surprise at the lack of physical contact. All For One grasped what was happening inside the hero's head so late since he could not infiltrate the hero's mental space and could only base on the micro expression on All Might's face.
All Might gave a heartfelt smile seeing the realization had already settled in. All For One did the same, greedily wanting to witness how the heroes could overcome his machinations.
'Let's see how you can defeat me, All Might?'
All Might had now identified his role on this battlefield: opening up chances for the other two to attack. As he punched the glacier being thrown at Endeavor, a mist explosion took over everyone's view but it was quickly blown away when the agent and All For One clashed right in the middle, her plasma sword colliding with his spear. Afterimages or clones of them appeared and clashed all over the place until All Might dimension-punched his way to the agent's side and ready to punch All For One off.
"So this is how you do it, All Might?!"
The villain was struck in the back by Endeavor's roaring flames, the very heat burning space and speeding his motions. Space in Endeavor's hands was now just mere paper, burnable and reducible. All For One countered with a spray of neuro-toxin and air-mortars from the many fingers he had just grown on his shoulder bones.
The combat still had no signs of stopping since both sides lacked a decisive move. The three heroes lacked the method to completely eradicated All For One's quirk and the villain lacked the means to complete his apotheism without All Might. As the fight continued on, something appeared trying to pierce through the villain's defense but he caught it and destroyed it. Yet the attempt from this outsider had provided a gap for Endeavor's Hell Spiders and the agent's sun manifestation.
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What do you mean it failed?!"
"All For One caught the bullet. but he has interacted with the object so his quirks are weaker now."
As the table returns to the thoughtful silence of brains, other news keep on coming.
"Sir! The barrages have hit. The thing is slowing down but at this rate, our calculation is still alarming. It will still hit the place entirely with its remaining speed if we don't fire our missiles to intercept it."
Firing a missile would show the scrying eyes of other countries the arsenal of Japan Self-defense force but now was not the time for that. With a universal agreement from every generals inside the room, missiles were launched. The arming process had been done in preparation and thus the missiles were only a step away from hitting the target.
After a minute of take off, they took less than half a minute to to hit their target, the crawling thing making its way like a spider hunting for prey. More and more missiles landed and destroyed the grown tar legs. The shift in balance tumbled the thing but the fall was turned into a roll as the bark transformed into a more cylindrical shape. The change thing now turned any cityscape hindering its pace into 2D geometry. The colliding mass create 4.0 Richter earthquake but it was nothing for the buildings in the surrounding aeras. After being intercepted midway to its target, the thing shrieked its final wave of monsters to do its bidding before dying.
The muscles sprouted like plants from the underground and a wave rushed forward. The second barrages of missiles, the third, the fourth, up to ten barrages all landed on their designated target. Fire won over muscles.
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ho ho ho! Time to fly!"
The flying fortress of UA, after being cleaned of the attached roots, took off slowly. The underside thrusters fired at maximum output to shake off any remaining junctions before heading to the hole at the edge of space. As the fortress reached higher and higher altitude, the hampering force of air gave way to freedom of empty face. As the hole inched farther and farther away, the fortress went into an orbit around Earth. Nezu quickly sent a message along his network connections, guaranteeing a safe reentry without having to use the nuclear missiles he had armed.
Giving the students an hour of experience space, the fortress fell slowly with air brake. Nezu had always longed for his students to experience the wonder of I-Island's engineering prospect but the usual paperwork and visa preparation made the trip a hassle to deal with. In his mind, the bear-rat had already finished the background work to set up 2 classes to go there but this, this was such a fortuitus opportunity that I-Island was just outside of Japan's water.
Boom!
"Students, we are having a short vacation period on I-Island, please enjoy your stay here."
An announcement was made and met with skeptical from students and teachers since most of they were resting in their rooms. Most because some students made their way to the school's roof to spend a together night after everything. Most because Midnight was doing a night watch shift together with two of her friends, Present Mic and Erasure.
They had watched the 2-hour-long ascension process and the barren space beyond the school dome in awe. They had never been so close to the stars as this very moment and they walked on their shift, chatting about what had been going on and observing how the cloud got to their heights then above those. They felt the impact of the fortress after its descent, and saw the ever-shining I-Island floating beside.
"Did he really..."
"It was awesome!"
"Yes, Midnight. Please shut up for me, Mic. The rat has done it, yes."
Erasure rubbed his nose bridge at this sudden vacation that had been announced. Midnight and Present Mic' eyes were twinkling at the prospect of visiting the floating city and the facilities there.
'I need a drink.'
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the school rooftop were Izuku who did not need much sleep to maintain his health, Shiragaki whose day started at night; and some students who found solace in star seeing.
In Izuku's hand was a can of coke as he watched the cityscape bridged the distance, the rumbling of turbines audible to his sensitive ears. He was leaning his upper body against the railing, entrusting his weight against the night-cold metal. Shigaraki made his way toward him and just stood behind him.
"What do you want, someone who is not a student yet Nezu brought here?"
"Just making connections. That description is also for you so we are equal in terms of status."
"..."
Both sides' paranoia had them information checking the opponent after the afternoon chance meeting.
"I'm kinda lost in life. I mean my arm is almost useless with the gadgets from the heroes here so I am not seeing what I'm going to do in the future."
Shigaraki brough his mangled arms, the muscles had torn themselves and crushed the bones from the influence of Trigger. Around the arms were a simple exoskeleton providing structural support for the failing body part.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Just an inkling. You seems to be someone who can guide people. Have you ever thought about being an assasin? You are so good at hiding your presence because what is going with your hair?"
Izuku just laughed at the question. He had been using his void power to make everyone forget his presence. Now he hated talking to someone else yet this guy managed to notice him. The only one who had kept up with him was out there in a weird state and he was here unable to form anything meaningful. Furthermore, his mother, the last person he would wish hurt upon, had fallen into ... disrepair. So he was not in a mood to expand his social circle at the present.
"Just my quirk."
"So you can hide using your quirk and your hair turns from green to this glowing white color? Curious indeed."
"..."
"So can you tell me what to do next?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"You seems to be the type to slowly and carefully dissect a problem to help others understand better. A teacher vibe, or rather someone who can guide others."
"Just like that? This is yours to choose. I cannot offer much help. At least don't look to an ultimate goal, just go from what you have, little by little you will reach somewhere you are fine with."
"... Thanks."
'He is right and I hate it.'
Izuku thought while throwing the departing Shigaraki to the back of his mind. The boy now had to do something about his personal goal right now. His brain raced to allocate the grey matter into different aspects.
'I need to return to UA in the near future to complete Nezu's requirement. In that time, I cannot search for a way to Ina and find a way to reverse what changes have been done to her. The only concrete goal I have is this holy city from the letters that may hold the clue to save my mom. But the location is not clear because I only know the internal map of the place, not where it is.
China is not somewhere I can just enter easily because the security keeping there is terrifying even to someone as strong as me. But I can get stronger while trying to kill villains. Maybe somewhere in Europe, no, the world. I'm going to hunt down the chain of villains and snap them myself!'
A circle of light rotated lazily around his fingertip, the technique he had learnt from his trip to Hokkaido.
'And this technique... I'm going to train it up. It will be my ace.'
Izuku had witnessed the power behind the multiplication of power from the series of rings like these. He had set his eyes on a self-training/criminals-hunting trip across the world. But at least he needed to meet with Nezu. He had been in an awful mood when they met when he had arrived on UA's ground so his answers had been filled with rejection. He needed his help to create a fake ID to move around without linking his official name to what he had been aiming to do in the year.
'Yeah, one and a half year. You can do it, Izuku.'