Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Izumi Pov.
I breathed heavily as I watched AFO's body completely defeated beneath All Might's feet. Grandpa and I landed next to All Might.
The three of us breathed heavily, catching our breath. All Might was the first to catch his breath, taking a deep breath before straightening up and raising his fist in victory with a huge smile.
I removed Wado Ichimonji from my mouth and dropped my swords into my shadows tiredly before letting myself fall backward onto the rubble, before starting to laugh out loud.
"What are you laughing at, idiot?" My grandfather came over and pushed me with his foot. I smiled broadly at him.
"Enjoying a nice day. We're not dead yet. It's a good reason to laugh." I said, amusedly. Grandpa's eyes twinkled slightly before he burst out laughing.
"Ha! You're right, Izumi!" laughed Grandpa, joining in. All Might looked at both of us strangely.
"You're weird." All Might said, looking at us, we looked at him in unison and smiled widely.
""Thank you!"" we said cheerfully at the same time. All Might shook his head while still smiling.
"Unfortunately, we still have work to do," Grandpa said, sighing wearily. He gave Shusui a final shake, and AFO's body was shredded into tiny pieces entirely.
"Ryuma!?" All Might asked incredulously. Ryuma snorted.
"Don't give me any lectures, All Might. Last time we left her body intact, and now we're here." Ryuma said bitterly. All Might opened his mouth before closing it regretfully as he nodded.
"I can't sense her aura anymore," All Might said, sighing in relief. Neither could I. AFO's aura had completely disappeared, even before Grandpa cut her body into pieces. But still... I knew. I knew this wasn't over.
If this remained canon… then AFO could still return.
"I'm sorry to be the bearer of terrible news…" I began slowly, getting both of their attention. "…but I think AFO is still alive." I said simply, and I could see both National Ranks freeze in place.
"This isn't the time to joke around, Izumi," Grandpa said with a strained smile. In fact, he almost seemed to be pleading for me to be joking. I sighed tiredly.
"I'm not." I said regretfully, still lying on the ground. I brought my hand to my ear and pressed the communicator. "Nezu?" I asked aloud.
"Miyamura! Communications are back up, is everything okay!? !" Nezu asked quickly.
"How are the other Gates?" I asked immediately, Grandpa and All Might straightened as they listened.
"Perfect. Thanks to your advanced warning and your ability to pinpoint their exact position, all the gates opened where and when you said they would. We were able to send raids through six gates, preventing them from being breached. As it turns out, all the gates created by the Haywire device are red gates."
"They're still fighting inside the dungeons, but they remain closed. The other three were unfortunately breached, but again, we were lucky; they were C-Rank dungeons, so they were cleared almost immediately with minimal damage."
"It really is a blessing," Nezu said, sounding relieved and almost happy. The three of us sighed in relief.
"Are these communications secure, Nezu?" I asked, changing the subject. The gates were the most direct emergency, but now it was time to solve the AFO problem.
"Yes, they are." Nezu said immediately. I took a deep breath.
"AFO is alive." I repeated once more. Nezu remained deathly silent.
"They're being broadcast live, Miyamura. I'm looking at her corpse being cut into pieces. I expect you to have an explanation. Speak up." Nezu immediately ordered. Were we still on broadcast? I mean, I could see the helicopter that was miraculously still circling in the sky.
But weren't the communications interfered with? Or was it just radio communications? Or something very specific? Quirks were weird, and I didn't know precisely how the quirk worked, or even how the headset transmissions or the camera that was recording everything worked, so I mentally shrugged. It wasn't the main issue at the moment.
I sat on the floor and looked at them, deadly serious.
"AFO is working with someone named Garaki Kyudai. He's the one who created the Nomu, and he's able to copy quirks and give them to others." I said without hesitation.
"Wait, so that means he can replicate All For One's quirk?" All Might asked in surprise. "But... the original AFO is still dead, even if he replicates it to someone else." All Might pointed out in confusion, and I grimaced.
"Oh, no, no, no, you're misunderstanding." I grimaced. "The All For One we just fought, despite being the real All For One, Zen Shigaraki, is the one who had the copy of the quirk." I pointed out, which made both of them pale. "The original quirk, Garaki has it somewhere, from what I could see, the idea was to transfer it to Shigaraki."
"Once All For One was inside Shigaraki, the vestige within the quirk, the AFO vestige, would have so much willpower that it would be able to take over Shigaraki's body and completely control it. Her plan… was for there to be two of her." I said solemnly as I stood up once more.
"AFO vestige… is that how you knew about the vestiges? How did you know waking them up could slow her down? That they will fight against her? Why did you see AFO fight Shigaraki's consciousness and take control of her body? " Grandpa asked quickly.
That… is an excellent excuse I thought I'd use. I nodded immediately.
"Yeah, even as a holdover, AFO is incredibly strong. She was going to use all of Shigaraki's insecurities, about her being the one who orchestrated everything bad in her life, to break her resolve, break her mind so it would be easier to take control of the new body." I grimaced.
"How long have you known this?" Nezu asked immediately. I grimaced.
"Yesterday, when I saw AFO directly. The other day, when I saw Shigaraki at the mall? I didn't think it would end up like this when I confronted Shigaraki."
"When I saw AFO yesterday, everything became perfectly clear. The problem… she no longer has access to Shigaraki… so I have no idea who they'll choose as the new corps." I said tiredly.
We all fell silent. After a few seconds, we could see several of the heroes approaching. All Might forced a smile as he gave them a thumbs-up.
"Do you know something else?" All Might asked tensely while smiling.
"Something, I… I can't guarantee where Garaki is, but I saw a location. There's Garaki's lab underneath Jaku General Hospital, in Jaku City, Kyoto. The only way in is through the morgue, down a long hallway."
"The lab should have several High-end Nomus." I said quickly so Nezu could hear.
"I've got it, I'll take care of it. You guys stay there, so the cameras can see you, so that Garaki doesn't notice we're coming. I'll have a team here in a few minutes," Nezu said immediately. Grandpa snorted.
"Stay here, it's not like we can move and keep fighting." Grandpa complained. "Guess that's all your fathoms, huh? " Grandpa asked tiredly in All Might's direction as he waved to the heroes.
"They were... I... I no longer have One For All." All Might said regretfully, I shuddered slightly. "I'm able to maintain my form because young Miyamura kept healing my body, but... I'll have to announce my retirement after this." All Might sighed.
"Fuck," Grandpa growled. "And I'm not up to this anymore. All my bones and muscles are screaming in pain, even with the healing. I won't be able to move for days after this."
"I guess... there's no other option but to leave it in your hands." All Might said as he looked at me. "The next generation." All Might seemed much calmer than I had expected, given the news.
"Don't look at me, I'm completely wrecked too." I groaned, feeling my entire body ache. Grandpa snorted.
"Next time, don't be so stupid as to anger someone with the strength of a national rank," Grandpa said dryly. I rolled my eyes while smiling cheekily.
"It worked," I said cheekily before sighing tiredly.
I really hoped he wasn't placing all his hopes on my shoulders. I sighed tiredly.
Great, I was really hoping Nezu could capture Garaki and locate AFO's quirk.
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Garaki Kyudai – Doctor Pov.
"You were right, they attacked Jaku General Hospital." I heard Arthur chuckle behind me. I looked away from the screen and swiveled my chair around. I could see the half-dozen screens in front of Arthur, all of which showed heroes and hunters charging into the hospital at full speed.
They all headed toward the morgue and walked down the long, abandoned hallway, heading toward my old lab. Only to find it almost empty, which made me chuckle slightly.
"I guess the Master wasn't mistaken, as expected," I said jubilantly.
"No, I guess not. Still, if we believe Master and it was really Izumi Miyamura who was able to see you with his Haki, that ability could prove to be a problem. He never saw you directly, but he was somehow able to see the location of your lab on Jaku."
"There are at least four prefectures between Kamino in Yokohama and Jaku City in Kyoto, that's over 400km apart, and yet they were able to see your lab, and not only that, they knew exactly how to get in from the morgue entrance." Arthur said as he switched the camera screens.
"Yes… I never expected someone with such strong Observation Haki to be among the students, and until preparations are complete, we can't approach Japan for the time being. We can't risk Miyamura discovering something ahead of time." I said solemnly.
"I guess it's a good thing we prepared this lab in advance." Arthur laughed.
"Yeah, it's excellent. Luckily, I was able to quickly gather everything I needed to continue my work," I said, sounding happy. Arthur was about to speak when the lab Gate opened and a group of people walked in.
"Tch, did the boss have to send us so far?" Mercury complained as he walked in.
"Don't complain, Mercury," Cinder said dryly.
"Ah, they're finally here," I said happily. Cinder nodded and stepped forward.
"And the boss? Did the fight turn out as expected? " Cinder asked directly as she approached the screens. Arthur quickly began to manipulate them, still showing the full image of All Might, Ryuma, and Midoriya on the screen.
"Yes, All Might and Ryuma ended up killing the Master. Sadly, since Miyamura predicted the location of the gates with enough time, the casualties were abysmally low. Even on Kamino, with the Master occupying two National Ranks and Miyamura, the casualties are few, just a lot of collateral damage." Arthur said nonchalantly.
I quickly put on a replay of the Master's fight against her three opponents, and we all fell silent as they watched the fight.
"Tch, that Miyamura is powerful," Mercury complained.
"It's so cute!" Toga added happily.
"I still want to burn him to ashes," Dabi said coldly.
"I'm sorry, but you all have tasks to complete." I interrupted the group. They all turned to me. "As you know, there's a plan to bring the Master back, but it's still months away from being fully ready. We must prepare everything for her return."
"Cinder, your group has to search for Red Lotus, especially their leader, Zaheer. I will send you the last positions they were in." I said while looking at Cinder, she nodded.
"Understood. I'll leave with Mercury and Esmerald tomorrow, after I rest. Dealing with that bastard Miyamura tires me out terribly." Cinder grunted, and I shrugged.
"Trickster, you and the Travelers will return to the United States. You have to find the Dragonslayers, Saint, and her group may be the only ones able to hack the systems of the heroine Dragon, the guardian of Birdcage."
"We need the plans for the most secure prison in the United States. We already have information about Tartarus and other prisons worldwide. We just need the data on Birdcage, which Dragon jealously guards, just like her namesake." I said seriously.
"Tch, it won't be easy; those bastards have been running away from Dragon and the heroes for too long, tracking them down will be extremely difficult." Trickster said, I nodded.
"We still have to make contact with them. I'll also give you some secondary objectives." I said simply, Trickster grimaced, but nodded.
"Okay, Dabi, your group has to meet with the White Fang, specifically the extremist faction, I'll send you the latest location of Adam Taurus." I said quickly while looking at Dabi.
"Are you sending us for Spinner?" Dabi asked dryly.
"Yes," I replied just as dryly. She just shrugged.
"Sounds good to me," she said simply. I nodded.
"Once you complete your current objectives, we still have much to do. Master, I've left a list of objectives and interests we can capture."
"Moord Nag's Quirk is something that Master has long been interested in, but she doesn't claim it for herself because of the need for the Quirk to grow. We also need to find a way to contain Ash Beast, a prime example of the Quirk Singularity. Her Quirk was too much for Ash Beast and completely broke her mind," I chirped.
"Africa, huh? I can't say I'm excited about fighting warlords," Mercury said dryly. I laughed.
"We also need to find a way to infiltrate the Yangban." I added happily, everyone shuddered slightly, and I smiled.
"You want a damn mindwasher?" Cinder asked dryly. I snorted.
"No, nothing that common, Master has more than enough quirks of that type. No, our target is the member known as Null and Two. The first is capable of sharing the quirks of the other Yangban members with each other, and Two 's is capable of amplifying nearby quirks."
"Null's power is truly incredible; they can share many quirks between them without losing their minds like the Nomu, and without the need for the master to lose their quirks every time they transfer them to others." I said happily.
"It's my turn, then?!" Toga asked happily as she raised her hand. "I'm good at infiltration!"
"You will be, but not yet. We need a countermeasure for one. The brainwashing, though useless to us, is still a problem. Once we have that, everything else is easy." I said simply.
"Easy? Infiltrate the Yangban? " Dabi snorted. I nodded at her disbelief before smiling.
"Yeah... easy. It turns out that a few years ago, the Fire Nation, an island that had declared its independence from China, lost its 100-year war and surrendered. The current Fire Lord has to pay war reparations to China."
"One of the conditions? Free entry for Chinese citizens to the Fire Nation. What the Fire Lord doesn't know, ignores, or doesn't care about is that several of them are undercover members of the Yangban seeking members among their citizens and kidnapping them."
"It will be awfully easy to intercept one of those members and have Toga infiltrate them with her blood, while bringing several of you as new 'members' for the Yangban."
"Then we have to act quickly and without attracting attention; we need to kidnap Null and Two without a fight breaking out. We're in no condition to fight Liu Zhigang." I explained easily. Dabi just whistled, impressed.
"You really have everything planned." Dabi said, impressed, and I smiled widely.
"It's the Master's plans, I'm just following orders," I said humbly. I was about to continue speaking when another person finally came in.
"I'm back !" the woman entering chirped as she dusted herself off. I made a face of disgust as I looked at Tyrionna Callows, a woman with a scorpion-like heteromorphic quirk.
"Ah, Tyrionna, you're early! Were you successful in your mission? " I asked cheerfully.
"Of course! I see there's a party! Hazel isn't here yet?" she asked, smiling widely and her body curving slightly.
"No, she's still in Orario, Greece, trying to contact the remnants of Evilus." I said simply, Tyrionna laughed happily.
"Good! It's a shame most of them died a few years ago." Tyrionna laughed. I just shook my head.
"So? Your job? " I asked again, Tyrionna's expression brightening.
"The Master was right! It's here! " Tyrionna said happily as she reached out and looked through one of the windows. I looked in that direction too and saw outside.
Everything was a barren wasteland, with rocky terrain, and the sky looked dark red as clouds covered most of the sky. The sun did not reach this part of the map; whatever the Dungeon of Ozma had done, it had affected the entire continent so that the sun's rays would never illuminate this part of the map.
Evernight, the Land of Darkness. And now it was our hiding place.
We had to thank Merlot and his machines, which kept the Grimms from approaching within a radius of several kilometers. The only way to get there without the Master was through Johnny, my little Nomu with the warping quirk.
"I see... so you found the One-Eyed Black Dragon." I said with a calculating glint as I returned to the conversation, Tyrionna nodded happily. I could see the others' wide eyes widening.
"I'll move away as soon as I confirm its location! But it seems to be sleeping, resting, healing from what Ryuma did to it years ago, even still! " Tyrionna said happily, I nodded.
"That's perfect... once Master wakes up... everything will fall into place." I said happily.
"Speaking of the Master, how long until she wakes up?!" Tyrionna asked happily as she looked at one of the giant tubes I was working on. I finally stood up.
"Months!" Merlot growled as he appeared from the side of the tube. "Ah, my Opus Magnum! The most incredible creation of my life! Finishing this is a slow process! There could be no mistake! The ability to infuse a Grimm with a Quirk is still somewhat experimental! We have to be careful! " Merlot said seriously, though he sounded almost jubilant.
"Yes… We have to be. It was a good thing we brought Blasto! With your help, you've saved us months, maybe years, of effort, haven't you, dear guest? " I asked Blasto with a huge smile. Blasto shuddered considerably.
"Yes, Doctor… It's a pleasure to help you." Blasto said robotically, his voice slightly cracking as he trembled somewhat, yet his fingers continued to work on the screen in front of them. I laughed lightly.
Well, I didn't have to send him back to the rehabilitation chamber with Tyrionna... although I'm sure the latter would enjoy it very much.
Blasto's specialty and quirk in creating biological life forms were really valuable at the moment.
"It's a shame we couldn't catch Panacea, but she'd be too visible, too much heat from America's Heroes, and the last thing we want is for the Triumvirate, or Star and Stripe, to fall on us prematurely."
"We also had no luck with Bonesaw, that Jack Slash and his Slaughterhouse 9 are too elusive, they avoided all attempts to dialogue or kidnap them, somehow all of our members are either easily dodged, or directly killed. A shame, they would have been a good addition." I said sadly.
"The Master can take care of it once she wakes up." Arthur said simply, and I nodded as I looked at the giant tube where the Master's new body was located.
The previous idea was to use Shigaraki Tomura. I'd spent years preparing her body to accept the Master's Quirk, so that her vestige would be able to take over the body easily. But since she questioned it, since she defected and ran away, that's no longer an option.
Luckily, Master is always several steps ahead and prepared for just such an eventuality. She went and captured the best body she could have found. A body that would give her what she lacked in the recent matches against All Might and Ryuma: immortality, the inability to die by any means. She gazed fondly at Master's new body.
The body of Ozma, the king of the Grimms, was perfect.
I stared at the dungeon boss, which stared back at me. Despite its unlimited immortality, it was easy for the master to ambush it, kidnap it from all the Grimms surrounding it, and capture it.
It wasn't the strongest dungeon boss despite its countless Grimms, just impossible to kill and take out its Grimms head-on. But kidnapping it with a warp-like quirk, and being strong enough to survive and kill its guards to capture it?
That was easy for the Master. And containing it was even easier. Grimms from all over Evernight were trying to reach the dungeon boss, but Merlot's devices were still holding them back.
They wouldn't hold out forever, but they didn't have to; they only had to hold out for a few months. Now… Ozma was a vessel for the Master. Once the Master controlled her new body, she should be able to control the Grimms.
We had to adapt it. Merlot's research was excellent; fused with my Nomus, it was possible, very possible, that we would actually be able to adjust a monster, a dungeon boss, to accept a quirk, to accept One For All.
Her body had changed; the Master didn't want a male body, so several modifications had to be made, but everything was within the calculations.
The Master's body was already reaching its limit in terms of the number of quirks it could store without suffering the same fate as the Nomus, but Ozma's body was on another level compared to that of a human being; it was superior in every way.
It was only a matter of time before it was the perfect vessel.
And then… the Master's plan would come to an end.
I smiled widely as I headed to my chair. There was a lot of work to do.
Author's Notes: I just did that. Giving her that body had been an idea I'd been thinking about for a few arcs, like, ever since Merlot showed up, but I didn't know whether to use it or not. In the end, it turned out to be a yes; it occurred after Shigaraki's exile and escape.
That being said, since I literally just made AFO stronger and practically immortal, along with a bunch of villains stronger and more numerous than canon, and I have no idea how to kill her, Mahoraga is back!
Although not for a while, it'll be the last Shikigami I unlock. But yeah, completely ignore all the previous times I said I wasn't going to unlock Mahoraga, Maho is back now and ready to stay.
Speaking of other things, this series was never planned to take place entirely in Japan, and there are several arcs that I had planned to take place in different countries, but again, that will be later; there are still a couple of Boku no Hero arcs left before I decide to take them out of Japan for some reason.
About the villains, if Zaheer is here! And we'll see what I do with it! Even though Aang's characters are here, I like Korra's villains better! I wasn't sure whether to use Amon or Kuvira, but I'll see if I can think of something to add to them.
Then, as I mentioned several times in the novel, there's the Soul Eater Shibusen and its characters. I'm not entirely decided on using Kishin Asura as a villain yet, but I'm also considering it. He'll definitely be much weaker than the manga version. Like the anime version, say? Or an early Kishin Asura, without the black blood.
Soul Eater's power escalations after a certain point are much stronger than any of the other series involved in this novel, so to not break everything, they will be leveled down.
At least as far as the later arcs of the manga, the early arcs, and the middle arcs are concerned, they're still within the power level, so they'll stay roughly around that.
I have a lot to consider!
But for now, the following chapters will be calmer, people's reactions, lots of boring chatter, and maybe a long smut.