On the rooftop, an uneasy stillness enveloped them, a void that absorbed the cries from the chaos below. Time seemed to freeze for a heartbeat as the grim truth dawned on Izuku and his friends: Quirks were no longer just malfunctioning; they were spiraling into self-destructive chaos. Bakugo's fury radiated around him, while Shoto's usual calm shattered, revealing his profound fear.
Then, Deku sprang into action. They couldn't afford to wallow in despair.
"Shoto, help slow it down! Ka-chan, disrupt them! Attack anything that amplifies the chaos! I'll handle the other casualties and victims. We'll save as many as we can. Go!" His voice lost its warmth, transformed into a fierce, desperate command. He didn't wait for their responses.
He leapt from the building, a green arrow aiming straight for the heart of turmoil. The wind whipped around him, carrying a wave of destruction—the screech of ripping metal, the crash of collapsing structures, and the haunting wails of human suffering that tugged at his soul. Below, the city was a nightmare unfolding.
He hit the ground in a plaza where a woman's "Dupli-Limb" Quirk had spiraled out of control. Arms—dozens of them—erupted from her body like a horrifying fountain of blood and flesh, flailing and dragging terrified civilians into a horrific vortex.
Without hesitation, Deku transformed into a tempest, a flicker of Blackwhip pulled a child from danger just before a flailing limb reached for her. He swept her to safety, her small frame colliding with his chest softly. "Stay here!" he instructed, his tone both gentle and resolute.
Turning back to the chaos, he executed a precise 5% punch that shattered several of the woman's arms at the elbow, resulting in a sickening *CRACK* followed by blood splattering across his costume. Unfazed, he unleashed a gust from Float to clear a path for fleeing survivors, sending debris and dust into the advancing limbs.
In his vision, he spotted Tenya Iida, his Engine Boosts at maximum capacity. He darted through falling debris and panicked crowds with astonishing agility. Yet even his swift pace proved insufficient. Deku watched as Iida noticed a mother and her two children trapped under a collapsed canopy. Without slowing, he slammed into it, ripping it free with a force that launched the family into the air before he set them down safely a block away, only to rejoin the fray in an instant.
But for every rescue, another life was lost. Deku saw Iida freeze, his posture slumping in despair as a man's "Voice Projection" quirk amplified a scream into a devastating shockwave. The air trembled, creating a vicious distortion that slammed into civilians fleeing below. The outcomes were gruesome—burst eardrums, popped eyes, and pulverized organs. People collapsed silently, their bodies yielding to the horror. Iida's engines wailed in frustration, echoing Deku's own sense of powerlessness.
Deku's gaze shot up to the Towa Tower. From her vantage point, Ochaco Uraraka was coordinating the evacuation, a beacon of hope amid the ashen sky. "Zero-G field at the Towa Tower observation deck! Evacuate those people!" Her strained voice crackled through the comms. Below, a massive section of the tower, torn free by the Singularity's force, began its descent. Uraraka activated her quirk, halting tons of steel and concrete mid-air. Deku felt a flicker of hope. But as she tried to redirect it away from the throng, an opposing gravitational pulse from the Singularity struck.
What followed was instantaneous and horrifying. The structure *shattered*—a silent explosion of destruction, sending a storm of dust and debris raining down on the crowd, leaving them screaming, their skin raw from the barrage. Deku heard Uraraka's sharp gasp through the comms, sensing her shock at the unintended devastation. Her ability, once a gift, had turned into a harbinger of catastrophe.
The frontline was a slaughterhouse. Deku raced toward a new crisis, his heart heavy. Eijiro Kirishima, in his "Unbreakable" form, stood like a crimson barrier, shielding trembling office workers from a downpour of acid precipitated by a frantic weather-manipulator. His skin, tough as diamond, began to sizzle, but he held firm. "Get behind me! I can take it!" he bellowed, his voice a fortress of resolve amidst the chaos.
Then, a man with a "Phase-Through" quirk, consumed by panic, stumbled forward. He meant no harm; he was merely fleeing. His flickering, unstable form passed through Kirishima's defenses. For an agonizing instant, their atoms merged. Kirishima's unbreakable shield didn't break; it *melted*. His hardened exterior turned to a thick, quivering sludge, laying bare his raw muscle and bone. A horrific scream erupted from him as this ultimate defense became his downfall. He crumpled to the ground, his body a gruesome mass of red, weeping flesh.
"Kirishima!" Denki Kaminari cried out nearby, his eyes a battleground of rage and fear. In a fit of desperation, he released a full-powered lightning bolt at a crowd of glitching individuals merging into an amorphous blob. However, the Singularity distorted the air, transforming his precise attack into a chaotic web of energy. The lightning veered wildly, striking a fallen power line, which erupted and engulfed a bus packed with evacuees. The vehicle became a coffin, silencing the screams within as the explosion roared. "No! No, no, no!" Kaminari shrieked, his mind crumbling under the weight of his own failure, his "Whey" persona surfacing in distress, leaving him vacant and lost.
High above, Bakugo and Shoto approached the source of the apocalypse. "Get out of my way, Half-and-Half!" Bakugo screamed, his hands sparking with energy. He fired a massive "Howitzer Impact" at the swirling void. It struck the Singularity… and disappeared altogether, consumed without a trace, leaving the void unchanged.
"It's absorbing energy," Shoto observed, horror dawning as he unleashed a massive ice glacier in an attempt to contain the entity's expansion. The elegant structure aged rapidly as it neared the event horizon. It bloomed with frost, then shattered into fine dust, blown away in the wind. "It's not just absorbing energy," Shoto reevaluated, their breaths mingling with the sudden chill. "It's erasing the very essence of energy and matter."
Their powerful abilities, the culmination of years of effort, were not only useless; they were offerings to a god of decay.
Then, Deku appeared between them, devoid of his usual green lightning, replaced by a chilling calm. He had witnessed enough.
"Izuku, don't!" Shoto cautioned, recognizing the determination in his friend's eyes—a willingness to sacrifice everything. "You don't know the risk!"
Deku ignored the warning, closing his eyes and tapping into the wellspring of One For All. He drew upon the strength of Yoichi, the fury of Hikage, the bravery of Nana, and the resolve of All Might. He pushed beyond, into a realm of unrestrained power that no previous wielder had dared explore. The remnants of those who came before him screamed in both terror and reverence. This was an incomprehensible force.
"ONE FOR ALL: SINGULARITY COUNTER."
The green lightning surrounding him transformed into something solid, and blindingly bright. It pulsed with an energy that felt ancient. The air contorted under his burgeoning presence, cracking the rooftop beneath him. He pulled his right arm back as muscles and sinews twisted, the skin glowing white-hot as the energy amassed to a staggering density. It felt as if his arm was disassembling itself, atom by atom.
His fist connected with the void.
There was no sound, no impact—only a blinding flash of white light and a shockwave of sheer force that obliterated buildings for miles. Bakugo and Shoto were flung back like ragdolls. In the heart of the plaza, the silent, swirling Singularity *stabilized*. It halted its expansion. The horrific pull ceased. While still present—a gaping wound in reality—it no longer bled.
Deku dropped to one knee, clutching his right arm, which lay in ruin. The flesh was charred and cracked, glowing faintly with residual green energy. Bones reduced to powder. He had sacrificed his arm to grant the world a few extra hours.
Looking up at the now-stable sphere of nothingness, he realized he hadn't achieved victory. He had only delayed the inevitable. The Harmonic Collapse had merely begun.