What remained of the heroes stood scattered across broken ground, injured and exhausted. Yet none of them moved. None of them spoke. Their eyes were locked on the two figures at the center of it all, the white demon and the black monster facing each other.
It felt less like a fight and more like a disaster was about to hit Japan.
The black monster took a step forward.
Junsei's tail moved.
It lashed out without warning, striking the creature directly in the head. The impact detonated into a shockwave that tore through the area, forcing the monster back the step as its head snapped to the side. The wind that followed was violent enough to push the remaining heroes backward, forcing them to shield themselves just to remain standing.
The monster slowly turned its head back.
Unharmed.
"We are stronger than you now," the overlapping voices growled. "Stronger than anything in this world."
Its right arm bulged, muscles swelling as blue and purple energy pulsed beneath its skin. Then it punched forward.
Flames erupted.
A massive torrent of blue and purple fire surged toward Junsei, swallowing everything in its path. It was beyond anything seen before, greater than Dabi's flames, greater than Endeavor's greatest attacks. A wave meant to erase everything it touched.
Junsei did not move.
The top pair of his wings shifted forward, the ends extending like living serpents. Their mouths opened wide.
And devoured the flames.
The fire vanished into them, consumed entirely, drawn inward until nothing remained. Within moments, the inferno that threatened to engulf everything ceased to exist, leaving only scorched air in its wake.
The monster stared.
Then lowered its arm and began walking forward again.
It raised its hand slightly, and black whips erupted from it, shooting forward at extreme speed. They wrapped around Junsei instantly, binding his body from all sides, tightening with force meant to crush.
For a brief moment, he was restrained.
Then his third pair of wings ignited.
A bright, concentrated blue light burst outward, and the black whips were shredded instantly, torn apart as if they had never existed.
The monster growled, but did not stop.
It continued forward, step by step, closing the distance until only three meters separated them.
Junsei's tail moved again.
The stinger at its tip began to glow, brighter and brighter, before striking forward in a lethal thrust aimed directly at the monster's head.
This time, the monster reacted.
Its arm snapped upward, catching the tail mid-strike.
The next moment, cracks began spreading across Junsei's tail, faint lines of damage forming along its surface. The monster's twisted face stretched into a grotesque smile.
"You're weaker than we expected."
Junsei said nothing.
The cracks along his tail began to glow.
Blue light leaked from within, pulsing through the fractures as the tail moved upward this time. The monster's body was lifted with it, dragged upward.
Then the tail broke free.
And struck.
The impact launched the monster into the sky, its body hurled upward at extreme speed, disappearing rapidly into the distance.
One of Junsei's upper wings shifted, its mouth opening as blue light gathered within it. For a brief moment, the space seemed to distort around the energy building inside.
Then it fired.
A beam of pure blue energy tore through the sky, chasing the monster's ascending body. It struck.
And the sky exploded.
A massive detonation bloomed high above, visible across the entirety of Japan. The shockwave reached the ground moments later, shattering every window in Tokyo, sending a deafening roar through the city. People collapsed, covering their ears as the sound overwhelmed everything.
Junsei's wings spread fully, faint blue veins pulsing through them as energy coursed across his form.
Then he vanished.
No one saw him move.
One moment he was there. The next, he was gone.
——————
Far above the earth, thousands of meters in the sky, the black monster was still ascending, its body carried upward by the force of the explosion. Parts of it were burned, damaged, but already regenerating.
Then something pierced the fading light.
Junsei.
He cut through the aftermath of the explosion and reached the monster in an instant. Before it could react, before it could even register his presence, Junsei's fist drove forward.
The punch connected.
The force sent the monster flying even higher with a renewed speed. The shockwave from the strike rippled outward, clearing the sky of clouds for kilometers in every direction.
The sky opened.
And the two figures continued rising.
Higher.
Faster.
Within seconds, they had left the clouds behind entirely, their battle carrying them beyond the atmosphere most humans would ever see. The curvature of the planet became visible beneath them, the vast Earth stretching endlessly below.
More than fifty kilometers above the surface and still rising.
The black monster roared in rage as it looked at Junsei. The next moment, its arm bulged grotesquely, black lightning crawling across its surface as veins bulged in blue and purple colors. The energy gathered, compressed, then released as it punched downward toward Junsei with everything it had.
Junsei answered with a powerful punch of his own, its arm glowing brightly.
Their fists met.
The collision birthed a shockwave far greater than anything before it, a violent expansion of force that rippled outward across the upper atmosphere. The air itself distorted under the impact, layers of clouds far below scattering as if pushed aside by an invisible hand. Had such a clash happened in Tokyo, tens of thousands would have died instantly.
Here, there was only the sky to bear witness.
For a moment, neither moved and the monster seemed as if it could match him.
"We are the very peak of power," the monster growled, its three voices merging into one furious declaration. "And we will kill you."
Junsei did not respond.
His wings moved.
All of them.
The top two pairs surged forward, their serpentine mouths snapping open and biting into the monster's arms and shoulders, locking it in place. At the same time, the third pair thrust forward, piercing into the monster's thighs and anchoring it completely.
The creature struggled as Junsei closed the distance in an instant.
His fists drove forward, piercing brutally through the monster's chest, destroying the embedded faces of Dabi and Spinner in a single motion. At the same time, his tail lashed forward, the stinger driving straight through the monster's head.
Blue light erupted.
It spread through the creature's body, coursing along every vein.
——————
Within the Vestige World.
Shigaraki, Dabi, and Spinner found themselves standing together on unfamiliar ground. Beneath their feet stretched a pitch-black surface, rough and cracked, extending outward for dozens of meters before abruptly ending.
Beyond it, an endless field of blue flowers.
They shimmered softly, stretching into infinity, glowing with a light that stood in stark contrast to the darkness beneath the trio.
Above them, the sky was wrong. It was dark yet clear. And at the center, Earth hung low overhead, impossibly close, suspended as if they stood somewhere outside reality itself and shining faint blue light at them.
The three looked around, confusion turning quickly into alarm.
"What is going on?" Spinner asked, his voice tense.
Shigaraki narrowed his eyes. "I'm not sure."
Then a voice answered them.
From everywhere.
From nowhere.
"You three together are the peak of what humans could become."
Junsei.
"How high humanity can reach. But humans, at their core, are greedy thieves… who stole from Life to grow into something they were never meant to be. They rely on Life for both power and survival"
The ground beneath them began to crack.
Thin lines of blue light seeped through the black surface, spreading outward like fractures in reality itself.
"I am the peak of Life. The accumulation of the whole."
The light intensified.
The darkness broke.
"I am taking back what you stole."
The trio's expressions shifted. They showed fear.
The world around them began to move.
The black ground fractured apart, rising and tilting, while the endless field of blue flowers surged upward, bending toward them from all directions. The space itself began to collapse inward, converging, closing, consuming.
Trying to swallow them whole.
——————
In the real world, far above the planet, the black monster's body began to crumple.
Slowly at first.
Then completely.
Its massive form crumpled, structure breaking down as the blue light consumed it from within. Flesh turned white then to dust until nothing was left of it.
Junsei remained suspended in the sky, motionless, surrounded by the fading remnants of the monster. For a brief moment, he simply floated there, his wings spread, the faint glow of blue veins pulsing across them.
Then his head turned.
Slightly.
Toward the ground below.
Toward a specific point.
The lowest pair of his wings, the ones marked with glowing eyes, brightened.
——————
Far below, in Tokyo, Dr. Garaki stood on the rooftop where he had been watching everything unfold.
He had not moved.
His gaze remained fixed on the sky, anticipation flickering behind his glasses as he waited for the outcome. This was his ultimate creation. His answer. His attempt to reach the level of that existence that surpassed humanity.
For a few moments, there was only silence.
Then he saw it.
A small blue light high above in the sky.
He frowned slightly.
Then the light grew by every passing moment.
His eyes widened.
"So I failed in the end," he muttered.
The next instant.
A column of blue light descended from above, striking his location with absolute accuracy. It consumed him and the entire building in a single instant, erasing everything it touched. No explosion. No debris.
Only absence, as if it had never existed.
——————
Junsei did not return to Tokyo.
He simply turned away and returned to the forest he came from.
He left as silent as he had arrived. And those who remained, heroes and civilians alike, understood that if he did not appear, all of them would have been gone.