Yami and Stain stared each other down as the wind screamed past the narrow alley, carrying the distant booms of explosions, sirens, and the heavy thud of collapsing buildings. The city had become a battlefield, and yet, in that alley, it felt like time froze.
"May I tend to my classmates?" Yami asked, nodding toward Todoroki, still pinned under Stain's foot, "I'd rather not let them bleed out in a trash-filled alley. Even for them, that'd be a pretty pathetic way to go."
Stain didn't blink; his eyes stayed locked on Yami's, "so they can crawl back to their filth? I'll give you the half-and-half and the puke-hair one if you want. But motor-legs here? No. He dies. Then I'll finish the job with his brother."
He pressed down harder on Todoroki's throat, making the injured boy wheeze and writhe under his boot.
"Or maybe," Stain added, his tone cold and steady like the edge of a blade, "I kill all three of them. Then you. Don't you know? I'm Stain. The human monster. The Hero Killer."
Yami winced. "Dude, Human monster? That's the dumbest thing I've heard from a grown man."
Then, in a flash, Yami's eyes pulsed red and purple. Garou reacted instantly, stepping back just as two streams of pressurized blood shot from Yami's eyes, barely missing his shoulder. They slammed into the brick wall behind him, carving deep, smoking grooves.
Yami didn't stop. He petrified his eyes, restoring them instantly, then dashed forward in a burst. He snatched up Todoroki, Midoriya, and Iida with one arm and tossed them toward the edge of the alley, using his strength and Stamina Sharing to keep them breathing.
But that opening gave Garou exactly what he needed.
The Hero Hunter lunged like a bullet, closing the gap before Yami could even catch his breath. Yami quickly hardened his arms in obsidian, bracing himself for the impact.
Garou didn't hesitate to throw a lightning-fast roundhouse. Yami blocked, but the sheer force rattled through his arms like a sledgehammer, and his feet skidded across the ground.
Yami retaliated by using Open Bones—sharp, blackened spikes shooting out of Yami's chest like lances toward Garou's head. Garou leaned back just enough, then slammed his heel down with an axe kick, snapping two of the rib lances clean in half.
Yami flipped backwards, resetting the distance and sealing the ribs shut with petrification. His broken hero costume slid off his body in shreds. "I'd tell you how much that suit cost," he said, "but you don't care. And I don't either."
His chest, covered in cuts from the rips ripping out of his inside, healed rapidly as the obsidian melted back into smooth skin.
Garou's eyes narrowed. "Not a healing quirk… Body manipulation, probably... You're not too far off from a man I once knew. Real shame he killed himself in a blast that didn't even take out a single hero."
Garou rushed again. His movement blurred as he threw a spinning back fist toward Yami's jaw. Yami ducked, but barely, as the fist went over his head. Garou twisted midair and brought a knee into Yami's ribs—he felt the crack even before the pain.
Yami flew back, slammed into the alley wall, and then used Vaporizing Freezing on his arms, turning them ice cold and swinging wide with a frozen punch.
Garou caught the hit mid-swing, his hands smoking from the sudden cold, but he didn't stop. He drove an elbow into Yami's shoulder, almost dislocating it.
"Keep running," Garou growled as the ice moved from Yami's hands into Garou's arms, spreading rapidly like a frostbite.
Yami jumped back again, panting, blood dripping from his nose as he watched Garou shaking the cold off his arms. Yami tried using Space Ripper again—two red jets screamed toward Garou, but the Hero Killer weaved between them effortlessly.
Garou leapt back at Yami like a feral beast, "You're fun!" he said, almost screaming. "Let's see how long you last!"
Yami coughed and stood up straight, his body steaming and his wounds closing again. He knew one thing—he had no hope of beating Garou in speed or technique.
As Garou launched himself at Yami at neck-breaking speed, Yami finally admitted to himself that he couldn't win in a straight-up fight. It stung his pride a little, sure, but he wasn't stupid. He knew better than to waste energy fighting a losing battle.
Yami's golden eyes darted to where Midoriya and Prince Zuko lay helpless on the ground. They needed time to recover, and Yami needed space to plan. Fast.
"I'll last more than enough, dumbass! Or do you always finish too quick?!" Yami barked at Garou, taunting him as he activated Open Ribs again.
Long, blackened ribs burst from his back, shooting like grappling hooks into the edge of a nearby rooftop. Yami pulled himself up in a flash, flipping onto the roof and sprinting away just as Garou crashed into the wall where he had been standing a second ago.
The sound of Garou landing behind him was like a bomb going off. Yami didn't even look back. He kept running, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, with Garou on his heels like a pissed-off dog.
The two of them raced through the chaos of the city, weaving between burning buildings and ruined streets and the city falling apart beneath them. Yami zig-zagged through the rooftops, leading Garou farther away from the main fight where the Nomus tore the city apart.
Garou finally noticed as his red eyes flickered with annoyance as he leapt over a burning rooftop, keeping pace. Watching the Nomus rampage made Garou's face twist in pure disgust, but he knew he couldn't break off now. If Garou stopped chasing, Yami would slip away, and that cocky grin Yami wore made Garou's blood boil.
"You! Mouse! Where the hell are you dragging me?!" Garou screamed, his voice almost shaking the buildings around them.
Yami laughed, dodging a chunk of a broken pot Garou ripped off an emergency stairwell and hurled at him. He blocked it with an Open Rib, shattering it in midair.
"Somewhere you're not wanted!" Yami shouted back.
With a final leap, Yami launched himself off the rooftops and dropped down toward a huge construction site, where steel beams, half-finished concrete floors, and cranes towered into the sky.
Garou landed hard behind him, snarling as he realized where they were.
"What the hell is this, you little shit?!" Garou snapped, his muscles tensing, ready to attack.
Yami smirked as he backed into the middle of the open site. "Your grave, if you're dumb enough to stay."
Garou didn't hesitate. He sprinted at Yami, his speed even faster than before now that his patience was gone. He swung a brutal punch straight at Yami's head.
But Yami wasn't there.
He dropped low, sliding under Garou's fist, and slammed an Open Rib into the ceiling. A flash of red steaming blood crackled along the rib, and with a loud BOOM, the rib exploded as boiling hot blood showered both Yami and Garou.
Yami petrified himself whole as he jumped back to avoid the scolding hot blood burning at 800° Celcius. It probably wouldn't kill Garou, but it would do enough damage to stop him for a while.
Steel and dust filled the air instantly, and a scream filled the site. Garou staggered, coughing from the pain and curling himself up on a ball as blood drops burned through his skin.
"You trying to kill us both, idiot?!" Garou screamed as he thoughen up through the pain; for any normal person, that was a killer move, but Garou was no regular person.
"Nope," Yami said from somewhere above him.
Garou looked up just in time to see Yami perched on the crane's crossbeam, about thirty feet overhead.
"I'm trying to piss you off enough to make mistakes," Yami said, grinning like a lunatic holding a construction rod in his left hand and holding many others between his armpits on the other one.
"Eighteen joints. Momo really wanted to show this move off herself, but oh well, first come, first served," Yami said as his arm twisted and broke unnaturally, rejoining at weird angles. His arm now looked like some freaky whip made of flesh and bone.
"Kinetic Bombardment: Rods from God."
Yami hurled a rod at Garou with a snap of his twisted arm. The rod broke the sound barrier as it shot forward, making a loud sonic boom. It slammed straight into Garou's left thigh, punching through muscle and bone like a hot knife through butter.
Garou staggered back, blood spraying from the wound. His red eyes narrowed, and without hesitating, he ripped the rod out of his leg. He hurled it back at Yami with a sharp grunt.
Yami barely flinched. He just whipped another rod with his arm. His rod smashed right through Garou's one in midair, splitting it in two with a loud crack.
Garou had to dive for cover behind a pile of steel beams. Even then, the steel rods Yami kept launching tore through the construction site like they were made of paper. Beams collapsed, support frames snapped, and dust filled the air as more rods were shot at supersonic speeds.
Garou knew he couldn't keep this up. He was losing blood fast, and Yami wasn't giving him a second to breathe. He crouched low behind cover, with his brain spinning fast for a way out.
Meanwhile, Yami stood high up on the crane, laughing as he threw rod after rod, wrecking everything around Garou. His confidence shot through the roof. He was having too much fun.
After a few minutes, Yami used up all his rods. He flexed his arm after petrifying it, which popped and snapped back into its normal shape. Then, he jumped off the crane, landing heavily on the concrete floor.
He walked toward where he thought Garou was hiding, grinning like a shark that smelled blood. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he called, his golden eyes flashing in the dim light.
But Garou wasn't just sitting around bleeding. While Yami had been showing off, Garou had cooked up a plan.
As Yami stepped into the clearing between the fallen beams, he noticed a hole in the ground, "Hmm? We are on the first floor; why would he even..." Then, Garou struck.
He shot out from the side like a missile, slamming his full weight into Yami's side with a brutal shoulder tackle. The air exploded from Yami's lungs as he flew back, smashing through a stack of cinder blocks like they were nothing.
Before Yami could even get up, Garou was already on him. He grabbed Yami by the ankle and swung him like a wrecking ball, slamming him into a steel pillar. The whole building frame shook from the impact.
Yami coughed hard, blood spraying from his mouth. But Garou wasn't done. He spun again, dragging Yami's body across the ground and flinging him headfirst into a half-finished concrete wall. The wall cracked and crumbled under the force, chunks of concrete raining down on Yami as he petrified himself as fast as he could and braced for impact.
Garou moved like a machine, relentless and pissed off, with strength that only a man who got a hole blown out of his thigh could muster. He grabbed Yami by the hair, lifted him up like he weighed nothing, and smashed his knee into Yami's stomach hard enough to lift him off the ground. Yami's body crumpled around the hit, all the air knocked out of him.
Then Garou slammed him face-first into the ground, hard enough to make a spiderweb of cracks under Yami's petrified head.
Yami tried to move after depetrifying, but Garou kicked him across the side, sending him rolling like a ragdoll. Every bone in Yami's body screamed in pain even after being healed, and his vision blurred, with black dots creeping in at the edges.
"Not so tough when you're on the floor, huh?" Garou said, breathing hard but still standing tall. His shirt was soaked in blood from the thigh wound, but his eyes burned even brighter now, locked on Yami like a predator that smelled weakness.
Yami spat blood and dragged himself up to one knee, shaking. His body screamed at him to stay down, but his mind wouldn't listen.
He wiped the blood from his lips, grinned up at Garou through broken teeth, and said, "You hit like a bitch."
Garou snarled and simply licked his knuckles; immediately, Yami couldn't move.
Yami teetered on the edge of consciousness, his vision swimming and his body refusing to move. Every breath felt like he was inhaling fire, and his head throbbed like it was about to split open.
The world tilted around him, and the only thing he could make out was Garou; the Hero Killer who was limping away, dragging his bloody leg behind him, his body swaying with every step.
He was hurt bad, but he was still standing, still breathing, while Yami lay broken on the ground.
Yami tried to lift his arm, but it felt like it weighed a ton; his fingers twitched uselessly against the cracked concrete as his golden eyes flickered, struggling to stay open, but the world around him grew darker with every second.
He watched Garou disappear into the smoke-filled streets, his silhouette fading until it was swallowed by the night.
And then, Yami's body finally gave out. His head dropped to the cold ground, and everything went black.