Chapter 8: The Indestructible vs. The Intangible
The battle that ensued was unlike anything Class 1-A had ever seen. It wasn't a fight; it was a natural disaster clashing with a biological weapon.
The Nomu swung a massive backhand.
CRASH.
Aokiji's head was taken clean off. It shattered into powder, flying across the plaza.
Midoriya flinched, his stomach turning. Even knowing Aokiji's quirk, seeing his classmate decapitated was horrifying.
But the headless body of Aokiji didn't fall. Instead, from the jagged stump of his neck, a torrent of pressurized blizzard wind erupted.
"Ice Time."
The headless Aokiji raised a hand, and a massive wind of ice encased the Nomu instantly, freezing it mid-motion.
Behind the Nomu, the shards of Aokiji's head swirled together. A mouth formed first.
"Gotcha," the floating mouth said.
The rest of the face formed, and then the head reattached itself to the body. Aokiji didn't pause. He spun on his heel, delivering a high kick to the frozen Nomu.
The Nomu's frozen torso snapped. The creature broke in half at the waist, the top half crashing to the floor.
"He did it!" Mineta cheered. "He broke him!"
"I hope so," Aokiji said, his voice grave. He backed away.
The two halves of the Nomu began to wiggle. The ice cracked from the inside. Muscle fibers, red and raw, shot out from the severed waist, knitting together with terrifying speed. In seconds, the Nomu was whole again. The ice fell away from its skin.
"Regeneration.. Am I having a nightmare?" Aokiji noted, tilting his head. "Shock absorption and super regeneration. Arara... where in the world did you find a monster like this? It's built like a tank."
The Nomu didn't tire. It screeched and launched itself at Aokiji again.
They moved across the plaza in a blur. The Nomu punched, and Aokiji shattered into snow, reforming behind it to fire a lance of ice. The Nomu tanked the ice, the spears breaking against its skin, and grabbed Aokiji's leg.
Aokiji's leg turned to ice, detaching from his body so he could escape the grip. He skated backward on a path of frost, regrowing his leg in mid-air.
"I have to help him!" Midoriya yelled, stepping forward. "Kuzan-kun can't win! He's on the defensive! We don't know how many times kuzan-kun can keep turning into ice..."
A hand grabbed Midoriya's shoulder. It was Tsuyu Asui. Her face was pale, her wide eyes fixed on the battle.
"No, Midoriya-chan," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "Look closely."
Midoriya looked.
The Nomu delivered a flurry of punches—hundreds in a second. Aokiji was being reduced to snow over and over again. Every time he reformed, he was smashed. Every time he attacked, the Nomu healed.
"Kuzan-chan is getting hit with lethal force every single second," Asui whispered. "If you go in there... one graze from those punches will kill you. We can't endure what he is enduring. His quirk is the only reason he is alive."
Midoriya gritted his teeth, frustration burning in his chest. She was right. This was a battle of monsters. Aokiji was surviving because he was intangible, but he couldn't put the Nomu down. It was a stalemate. And Aokiji was human; eventually, he would get tired. The Nomu showed no signs of fatigue.
"Damn it," Aokiji huffed, sliding backward. He was reforming his left arm. "This is exhausting. I'm actually sweating. That's not supposed to happen."
Shigaraki watched with glee. "You can't win, Ice Boy. Nomu was made to kill the symbol of peace. You're just stalling the inevitable."
"Maybe," Aokiji admitted. He stood straight, the air around him dropping to absolute zero. "But stalling is part of the job description."
Suddenly, the massive doors of the USJ burst open. A cloud of dust billowed out.
A silence fell over the battlefield. Even the Nomu paused, sensing a shift in the atmosphere.
There, standing in the doorway, was All Might. But he wasn't smiling. His face was a mask of unadulterated rage. He had ripped off his tie. His shirt was straining against his muscles.
"Have no fear, students.. I AM HERE."
The voice wasn't boisterous. It was low. Dangerous.
All Might vanished.
In the blink of an eye, he was in the plaza. He chopped the villains near the entrance unconscious. He scooped up the bloodied Aizawa. He grabbed Midoriya, Asui, and Mineta, moving them to safety near the entrance.
Then, WHOOOSH!
He stood next to Aokiji.
"Young Kuzan," All Might said, his eyes fixed on the Nomu. "You held the line. I am sorry I was late."
Aokiji let out a long, dramatic exhale. He sat down on a piece of rubble. "You took your time, All Might. That thing... it absorbs force. And it heals. It's a punching bag that hits back."
"Shock absorption and regeneration?" All Might frowned. He cracked his knuckles. "Troublesome. But every limit can be surpassed."
All Might launched himself at the Nomu. The clash was titanic. Fist met fist. The wind pressure blew the other students back.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
They traded blows, creating a hurricane in the dome.
"What a speed he has..." Aokiji noted, watching from the sidelines.
All Might was punching faster than the Nomu could absorb. But the regeneration was still a problem. All Might needed a finisher, but the creature was too resilient.
Aokiji stood up. He adjusted his sleeping mask around his neck.
"Hey, All Might!" Aokiji shouted over the noise of the impacts. "I'll give you a window! Make it count!"
All Might didn't look back, but he grinned. "Show me, go ahead.."
Aokiji raised both hands. He didn't aim at the Nomu's surface. He aimed at the moisture in the air surrounding it, and the water inside its cells.
"Ice Time."
He lunged forward, slipping under the Nomu's guard as it focused on All Might. Aokiji placed both hands on the Nomu's torso.
The freeze was instant and absolute. It wasn't just a layer of ice; the Nomu turned gray, then white. Its movements slowed. Its muscles, usually rubbery and shock-absorbing, became rigid. Hard. Brittle.
The Nomu was a statue.
"NOW!" Aokiji yelled, leaping backward.
All Might pulled his fist back. He channeled every ounce of One For All into his arm.
"PLUS... ULTRAAAAA!"
The punch connected with the frozen Nomu.
If the Nomu had been soft, it would have absorbed the blow. But Aokiji had taken away its flexibility. Physics took over.
SHATTER.
The Nomu didn't fly away. It disintegrated. The force of the smash combined with the structural weakness of the deep-freeze turned the creature into dust.
The icy Nomu statue shattered into thousands of fragments, glittering shards scattering through the air. Some of them drifted down softly, like falling snow.
There was nothing left to regenerate.
Silence returned to the dome.
All Might stood there, steam rising from his body. He gave a thumbs up to Aokiji.
"Nice assist, Young Kuzan."
Aokiji sat back down on the rubble, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Don't mention it. Just... don't ask me to do that again. I need a nap."
Shigaraki stood paralyzed, staring at the empty space where his ultimate weapon used to be. "Cheaters..." he scratched his neck so hard it bled. "You cheated..."
Aokiji looked at the trembling villain. "It's not cheating," he said dryly. "It's just efficient."