- Ur-Uraraka?

Inasa lowered his hands when he heard Kyoka speak.

He glanced through the crack and indeed, Ochaco Uraraka was standing at the bottom of the cement tower, outside the school, a blond boy slung over her shoulder.

- Is that... Bakugo?

- Move

Monoma - who had been assigned by Aizawa to watch over the area - emerged from a dark corner and peered through the crack in the cement.

His eyes turned red and his hair stood on end.

- It's them.

Cementos immediately sent out his cement like a wave, enveloping the teenagers in a protective bubble.

The next second, a jet of blue flame exploded on the surface of the wall, scorching the grass and turning the trees into matchsticks.

Monoma bent down, red-eyed, trying to find Dabi.

He caught sight of the villain and canceled his Quirk.
Immediately, the villain retreated into the darkness, and Monoma lost sight of him.

Ochaco and Bakugo were brought back to the control tower, which had been transformed into a battle turret for the occasion.

Located above the computer room and as small as an attic, the room had previously been filled with nothing but cement.

Cementos had dug it out from the inside, opening loopholes and using the extra cement to keep the vilains out.

- South!

A blast of blue flame exploded on one of the school's walls.

Cementos ran to the hole on that side and raised his hands.

A puddle of gray cement lay around the building, a death trap for anyone foolish enough to get too close.

A tsunami of cement erupted from the puddle, completely submerging the flames and smothering the fire. Black smoke billowed from the gray wave and swirled in the night air.

A bead of sweat rolled down Cementos' temple as he slowly exhaled.

- Sensei

Monoma put his hand on his shoulder.

The next second, he raised his right hand and the cement tsunami came back to life.

He swirled the gray wave like a ring around the school, preventing anyone from getting too close. Then, suddenly, he clenched his fist and the wave stabilized in a dome of spikes several meters long.

The sky and horizon were still visible, and with them the titanic battle raging over the desert.

The clash of the two lights, like lightning striking the earth, shook the sky and pierced the clouds.

- Is he...?

Monoma looked over his shoulder to where Inaza and Tokoyami had lifted Bakugo from Uraraka's shoulders and laid him on the ground.

The girl, dripping with sweat, ran a hand over her forehead.

- No, he's not But he fainted earlier...

- Where have you been?

Ochaco's brown eyes met Monoma's icy ones.

- In the desert, over there. We were looking for Todoroki when that guy in the suit showed up.

Cementos, still scanning the surrounding darkness through the holes in the wall, turned at the mention of the villain.

- A man in a suit ?

- Tall, with some kind of oxygen mask over his face and pink, burned skin.
Inaza was unusually serious.

- Do you know him, Sensei ?

Cementos turned his attention back to the killers.  The villains were already trying to tear down the walls.

- No, I don't

Monoma gave him a sidelong glance, then opened the trapdoor to the lower floor, which had been transformed into a makeshift infirmary.

He raised his hands, and a thin stream of cement separated from the walls before enveloping Bakugo.

The boy was slid down the ladder by a tongue of cement.

Monoma gently set him down in the middle of the room, next to Kaminari, whom Yaoyorozu had been working on for some time.

The young girl gasped and nearly fell backwards. She put a hand to her heart, exhaled in relief and turned to the newly wounded.

- Bakugo ?

Monoma, crouching in the attic and holding the trapdoor in one hand, replied :

- Uraraka has just returned.

Wrinkles of concern crossed Momo's forehead.

- Is she all right?

The blonde turned to the girl and asked:

- That's right. You're not hurt?

An uneasy smile formed on the teenager's lips.

- I was very lucky, but I didn't get hurt.

- And you managed to get past the villains downstairs with a weight on your shoulders...

Ochaco took offense.

- Bakugo is not a weight! And I used my Quirk, of course !

Inaza grabbed her shoulders and turned her sharply towards him.

- You were looking for Todoroki, weren't you? Where is he now? Did you find him?

- Yes, in the desert, but that villain appeared out of nowhere and prevented us from leaving.

- Did he do that to Bakugo?

- Yes, he did.

Tokoyami, who had been silent until then, said, arms crossed :

- So you abandoned him to run away?

The girl's face flushed.

- No, of course I didn't.

- All Might came, didn't he ? And Shoto is supporting him or something?

This time, Ochaco was just confused.

- What ? Why do you think All Might is here ? He's coming?

Downstairs, Momo was already busy administering first aid to Bakugo.

She listened with half listened to the chatter above, thankful for the sound of voices partially covering the labored breathing of all the other wounded gathered around her.

Monoma, crouched at the edge of the ladder, one arm resting on the open trapdoor, hadn't looked away from Uraraka for a second.

- We heard it. The boom in the sky. The yellow light.

Ochaco licked her dry lips, wondering how to formulate it.

- Do you know anything?

She looked up at Monoma, who scrutinized her rapt attention.

- I know you're going to find this hard to believe, but... it's not All Might fighting the villain in the sky. It's Shoto.

*

All for One laughed.

He raised his hands on either side of his body and let the raindrops fall on his face as if they were the tears of angels.

- I'd heard that you could control the weather, but if I expected this !

I wiped the drop of blood from my nostril with the back of my hand.

I had unleashed the wind around us, creating a tempest that found its source in the storm and amplified it.

Nature itself had answered my call, lightning had fallen from the sky and burst across the desert without me having to summon it again.

With my back to the sea, floating in the sky thanks to my Hell Flame, I could feel the waves rolling furiously and the ocean churning, ready to respond the second I summoned it.

All for One raised his hand to me and gestured with his palm.

- Look at us. Look at what you've done through sheer force of will.

The wind whistled, dry and icy, and the storm rumbled angrily in the low, black clouds above.

All for One spread out his arms - the able-bodied and the stumpy - in a theatrical gesture, as if to encompass the whole world.

- You and I are gods. Beings apart, superior to mere mortals, created to rule over others.

Super regeneration, Herculean strength, passive resistance to electricity, levitation abilities-

- We were chosen. Our Quirks are better and more powerful than any other.

-doesn't know about my waterbending, my clones, my ninja skills, the fuin seals I carved on myself-

- ‘Our’ ?

All for One crossed his hands behind his back.

- I saw the video. The one in the hangar.

My blood ran cold.

I knew it, I should have taken care of it, I fucking knew it, I should have-

- You were very young. Ten, I think ? Precocious for a Quirk's awakening.

I remained unmoved, but the lightning crackled on my skin like a warning.

- I liked the way you got rid of the first one. With a screwdriver, very ingenious. It takes great physical strength to stab a man the way you did with a blunt object.

Who's did it ? Maki ? Teka ? Someone who worked for my father ?

- And then, phew !

All for One whistled in false admiration.

- I've never seen such a mastery of lightning. You moved so fast, it almost looked like you were teleporting, were it not for the streaks of light you left in your wake. It's a far cry from what your quirks are supposed to be like. Makes you wonder what's they really are...

All for One remained silent for a few seconds, his eyelids lifting slightly over his pale, speckled eyes.

- Aren't you going to ask any questions? I'm disappointed.

Should I kill him ?

My hand hesitated to reach for my kunai.

Can I kill him ?

All for One cocked his head to one side and watched me in silence for a few seconds.

- What's that on your tight ? The air fluctuates. As if... reality is bending around it

He senses when I use genjutsu.

I remained silent, motionless, my hand shaking next to my thigh.

He sighed theatrically.

- You're really boring, you know that ?

Mizuki had taught me to keep quiet, never to take my eyes off my opponent, never to waste energy on useless chatter.

But I need to know, to understand how and why that damned episode in the hangar comes back to haunt me after five fucking years.

- How ?

All for One raised his eyebrows.

- How did I find out ? Well, let's just say you haven't been very discreet.

The sky beyond the sea turned black, the spreading storm half obscuring the moon.

- You see, my student noticed something interesting. During his little trip to the USJ, I had lent him a high-end nomu. Imagine my surprise when he told me that a student without a Quirk capable of increasing physical strength was able to react to the nomu and even resist it!

- I've been training since I was five years old. My abilities have long surpassed those of an average human.

All for One clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

- Don't play games with me, boy. I've been around too long to believe your nonsense.

- A trained human can get up after walking through a wall. A trained human can survive a three-story fall and emerge without a scratch.

- The abilities you've demonstrated are beyond what a 'trained human' should have. My nomu aren't "trained humans," they're creatures with quirks that no one without physical enhancements should be able to keep up with. But that's what you did.

If I use clones to create a barrier around us, he'll be able to follow my clones with the genjutsu that conceals them.

And if he somehow manages to see beneath the genjutsu...

No. I don't know what he wants, and revealing an asset like my ability to 'clone' myself would be a grave mistake on my part.

- You see, my friend and I are very interested in everything to do with genetics and the evolution of human beings through the influence of the quirks. We've been looking into your case, your... family tree...

He grinned weirdly.

- And we looked at your past to see what we could learn from it. I must say, it was very difficult to find anything. Endeavor is a very conscientious person when it comes to protecting his privacy. To tell you the truth, finding this recording was more of a fluke than anything else.

My jaw tightened.

- Who was it ?

All for One smiled.

- Beat me and maybe I'll tell you.

I snorted scornfully.

- And then what ? You want me to join you or something like that ?

All for One laughed, as if the idea was absurd.

He wiped the blood from his face and rolled his left shoulder, where I'd torn his arm from. The flesh was already rebuilding itself up to the elbow.

- Oh no. Of course not

He pulled off his halk broken mask and tossed it aside.

- You see, I am a very, very old man. I've seen my share of fighting, and unfortunately my body isn't what it used to be

His lips, cracked and almost bloody, the exact color of his skin, stretched into a languid smile.

- If I'm here today, it's to steal your body

*

Author's note :

What ? All for One is pulling up an Orochimaru ?

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