WHOOSH.
A sudden vacuum of air swept through the room. Before the collision could level the floor, a hooded figure appeared between them. In the span of a heartbeat, Yuta grabbed both the President and Endeavor, vanishing into the void just as All Might smashed through the structure, the building groaning as its central pillar finally gave way
The impact was catastrophic. All Might's body tore through reinforced concrete like tissue paper, the entire executive suite disintegrating around him. Steel beams twisted. Glass exploded outward. The building's central support column cracked with a sound like thunder.
Then, as the top five floors began to collapse pancaked into the seventh, a mountain of gray dust and pulverized glass erupted outward, a localized storm of dust, smoke and a raging fire shooting into the air and engulfing several blocks.
Silence followed right after. Ten blocks away, in Takinogawa park, eastern Tokyo, the air rippled.
Dozens of people—a mother clutching her toddler, an elderly man still in his pajamas, a salaryman holding a scorched briefcase—stumbled onto the grass one after another, appearing out of thin air.
One second they were pinned under the weight of their own lives in the rubble, and the next, a cold, vacuum-like pressure had spat them out onto the safety of the lawn. The confusion of their situation was further exacerbated as a result.
"What's going on?" Murmurs began as the terror lessened.
"How... how did we get here?" someone whispered, clutching their chest.
"Mama! .... MAMA!" Everyone turned to see a little boy holding onto an unconscious body. The legs looked mangled and blood flowed from several places. "Dear god! Quick. Someone call an ambulance .."
BOOM!
The explosion erupted from the distance. Everyone turned back toward the skyline. The massive mushroom cloud of dust was rising where the Commission headquarters used to be.
'That fire ..'
"I can't ... I can't believe it."
"Yeah. To think .... Someone actually exists who can take away the quirks of others ..."
"That fire is Endeavor's quirk ... Isn't it?"
The air was suffocating. The sight of the horizon, a jagged mess of fire and smoke filled only deepened their fears even further. Just then ... "Look!" a child pointed, his voice trembling.
Turning to follow the child's hand, the sight of a man dressed in a costume, laying by the fountain caught everyone's attention. "Is that a he ... Hold on ... That's Endeavor." Near the park's fountain, Enji Todoroki sat slumped against a stone bench, looking nothing like his former self.
His uniform was shredded, his shoulder a mess of blood, and the fierce, constant orange glow that usually defined him was extinguished. Beside him, the President of the Commission leaned against the stone, having long passed out from shock. With pain, the Flame Hero lifted his head.
Endeavor didn't acknowledge the crowd. His eyes were fixed on the epicenter through the haze of the dust cloud. The sight of his quirk being used caused his face to darken. "Dammit!"
In the middle of the street, where the HPSC building's shadow used to fall, the dust began to swirl, caught in a rising updraft of extreme heat.
All for one stood in the devastation, the stolen fire swirling around his damaged suit. "I have to say, Toshinori. That was a lot weaker than I thought it would be." The man adjusted his wrists at the force he just pushed back.
For the past six years he spent recovering, he had studied All Might's movements, preparing for this inevitable encounter one day. "I was sure you would be weaker after that hole I carved in your stomach during our last encounter." He dropped his hand, looking into the distant destruction.
"But this is a fascinating low for you." All For One raised his palm, the Hellflame churning into a white-hot vortex. "To think you'd rely on such a crude opening gambit. Die, Toshinor—"
BOOM!
The mountain of rubble three blocks away blew apart as a streak of gold and blue tore through the heated air.
'Hmph.' The spiral of flames in All For One's hand condensed, preparing to incinerate the Symbol of Peace mid-flight. Air Cannon + Hellflame + Kinetic Booster— Nothing happened. The flames in his hand died, as did the emergence of springlike limbs. Much to his surprise. 'My Quirks...' His mask tilted barely an inch before All Might's fist connected.
The impact sent All For One skipping across the asphalt like a stone on a pond, tearing through two abandoned buses and a concrete divider before slamming into the foundation of a parking garage. 'How?' All For One's mind raced, his internal "library" hundreds of powers currently locked behind a door he couldn't open.
'Is my body acting up again?' ... No, that couldn't be it. The transfer had gone just fine. He had spent an hour adapting to the stolen quirks and added a few more enhancer types, specifically to avoid an issue of misfiring due to his current weakened state. Plus he didn't feel hurt.
He pushed himself up, but before he could even find his footing, the air behind him displaced.
"You're looking the wrong way," All Might appeared at the other end of the garage, his movements a blur of pure physical prowess as he drove his shoulder into All For One's chest and followed up with an uppercut that launched the villain through seven floors of reinforced concrete and out into the open sky.
Tumbling through the air, All For One stared down at the rooftops below 'It's definitely not it ... My physical quirks still remains intact.' Pain resistance, Kinetic Boosters, Strength enhancers ...
Every passive quirk he had was still within reach.
Without them, he would have fallen from the first punch. The confusion in his mind finally coalesced into a single realization. There was only one variable in all of Japan that could cause a total system failure of this magnitude.
'So Eraserhead is near.' Hidden somewhere nearby, Shota Aizawa, the underground Erasure hero was watching. 'And here I was planning to have Tomura attack U.A to keep him occupied, not knowing he was already here.' Those few minutes had really thrown everything off. If Aizawa was watching, his newly stolen Quirks were practically non-existent.
'Luckily I added a few more enhancer types tonight. If not, I would be in even bigger trouble.'
Gold and blue blurred against the darkening sky as The Symbol Of Peace rocketed upward, a human missile aimed straight for the villain's heart. All For One, suspended in the open air, didn't panic. Without his emitter quirks, even his sight was gone as his eyes had long since been destroyed by All Might, compensated for by am Infrared Quirk.
He couldn't see, but he could feel the air displacement.
Now, he could only fall back to the same primal physics his rival has mastered using the sheer mechanical power of his base physical quirks.
He cocked his leg and kicked the empty air with such localized, violent force that the atmosphere itself acted as a springboard.
The sonic boom from the kick repelled him sideways just as All Might's fist whistled past his ear.
"Shit!" All Might roared, his momentum carrying him past his target.
"You're not the only one who can maneuver in the air, All Might!" All For One's voice crackled through his mask.
The symbol of peace twisted his massive frame mid-air, his boots kicking off as he reoriented himself toward the plummeting villain. All For One was a falling star.
The villain plummeted from the sky, as he hit the roof of a twenty-story residential tower, the concrete spider webbed under the impact. He didn't stop to admire the view, as he used the landing as a springboard, leaping off the edge just as All Might crashed into the roof he had occupied a millisecond prior.
The roof exploded. All Might didn't stay either.
He just used the surface as a gravitational slingshot, his speed doubling as he chased All For One into the narrow "canyon" between two buildings.
This time, the distance closed too fast.
"DETROIT... SMASH!" All Might's fist met All For One's defensive guard in a localized shockwave.
Because All Might had the forward momentum of a railgun while All For One was still retreating, the physics favored the hero.
The shockwave shattered every window within a three-block radius. Together, they became a ball of kinetic destruction, crashing through the side of a commercial office building. They tore through cubicles, elevator shafts, and steel supports like a drill through balsa wood.
Blocks away, Shota Aizawa skidded to a halt on a narrow ledge, his hair dropping as the building across the street swallowed the combatants. "Dammit!" He hissed, teeth gritted in frustration. "I've lost visual!"
Inside the office building, the darkness was short-lived.
BOOM! The glass shattered. Then the structure began collapsing. Finally, the skyscraper erupted in flames as a pillar of Hellflame, reinforced by a massive Air Cannon, punched through the side of the building. All Might was caught point blank, shooting out alongside it.
The stolen flames of the Number Two Hero scorched his skin as the concussive force launched him outward. He spat a thick spray of blood, his vision swimming as he was catapulted across the sky—directly into the path of an incoming JSDF fighter jet.
"Evasive maneuvers! Break left! Break—!" All Might's massive frame slammed into the jet's wing. The metal sheared off like paper.
"GAMMA-TWO IS HIT! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!"
Gravity claimed the multi-million dollar machine, dragging it downwards in a violent spiral toward the dense residential blocks below.
"EJECT! EJECT—!" The pilot roared.
Unfortunately, things never go as planned. As Gamma-Two spun out of control, the screech of shearing titanium drowned out the city's sirens.
"I've got you!" Just then, a flash of crimson cut through the smog. Hawks, his golden eyes narrowed in a mask of grim determination, dove beneath the spiraling jet. His wings were thinned, a massive portion of his feathers already deployed to stabilize the falling debris of the office building, but he pushed what remained to the limit.
The feathers swarmed like a living current, latching onto the jet's fuselage and dragging it away from the residential towers. With a violent grunt of effort, Hawks banked, guiding the crippled craft into a controlled slide toward the open grass of Takinogawa Park.
"Stay with me, Gamma-Two!" Hawks yelled into his comms, his voice straining. "Don't you dare drop on those people!" The weight was monumental for his feathers.
Just then, a gust of wind blew past. The fighter jet impending imminent crash suddenly stagnated midair. 'Huh?'
Hawks stopped his actions. The jet slowed down before falling in the middle of the street instead of into a residential building. The feathers returned to the falling hero, forming his wings yet again as he looked at the fighter jet with confusion.
"... What just happened?"
On the ground, the scene was pure bedlam. Local, lower-ranked heroes were working the front lines, hoisting slabs of concrete.
However ... In a split second, a gust of wind shot past them, the rubble gone with it. "What the?"
The same thing happened elsewhere seconds later. Pros in charge of rescue were barely seconds in when their targets were already rescued. Men, women, children and elderly.
"Keep moving! Don't look back!" Elsewhere, others gestured toward the subway entrances. "It's ok, All Might is here battling the villain as we speak. Everything is going to be ok, just stay calm and evacuate." Eastern Tokyo was in chaos.
Meanwhile, inside the skeletal remains of the office building, All For One laid amongst the flaming rubble, coughing a mouthful of blood to the floor. "To think even with all this, I would struggle this badly all because of a pair of eyes."
The man stood to his feet. 'Eraserhead.' He tilted his head and adjusted his now torn off mask. Fingers drumming against a destroyed table. 'A truly irritating variable. Even with my passive enhancers, being unable to cycle through my emitters makes this a tedious slog of attrition.' This was not how he wanted to beat Toshinori. With the new quirks in his arsenal, this should have been a one sided slaughter.
'Luckily, I brought a few helping hands nearby for a similar scenario of interference.'
He raised his hand. A black, oily substance began to bubble, emerging out of thin air. 'Warp.' The next moment, five warped, muscular forms stepped out of the void.
'How unfortunate Garaki isn't finished with the High ends. These will have to suffice.'