The Situation Room beneath U.A. High School was a masterpiece of cold, clinical efficiency. Monitors pulsed with real-time data from satellites, and the air carried the faint, sterile scent of ionized oxygen. At the center of the massive, circular tactical table stood Masanori Kuroda.
He was perfectly composed, his charcoal suit without a single crease, his rectangular glasses catching the blue light of the maps. He wore a constant, pleasant smile, the kind of smile that made the Pro Heroes in the room feel like they were being audited rather than briefed.
Edgeshot stood to his left, his thin form still vibrating with a residual tension. Around the table were the heavy hitters Kuroda had personally selected for the "Extraction Vanguard". Gang Orca, looking like a monolith of braced muscle, Ryukyu, her expression one of weary resolve, Crust, whose broad shoulders seemed to carry the weight of the room, and Airjet, whose turbine-like gear hummed quietly in the background.
Behind them stood a specialized SWAT unit, men in lead-lined tactical gear, their faces hidden behind matte-black visors.
"Thank you all for arriving on such short notice," Kuroda said, his voice a melodic, courteous baritone. He gestured toward the monitors. "I've arranged for a private residence for this team on the north-east quadrant of the campus. In these times, the proximity of our primary assets is a variable I cannot leave to chance."
Kuroda tapped a command into the table. A high-resolution replay of the Gifu incident flickered to life. "Thanks to the… diligent, if ultimately unsuccessful, efforts of Edgeshot, we have been able to map the trajectory of Midoriya Izuku's exit from the mainland."
Edgeshot lowered his head, his voice a sharp, bitter whisper. "I had him contained. I failed to account for the third-party interference and the boy's reckless disregard for his own safety. I lost him."
"Don't beat yourself up, ninja," Gang Orca grunted, crossing his massive arms. "The kid's a rabbit with a jet engine. Nobody expected him to jump into a warp gate with a monster like Muscular."
"Still," one of the SWAT officers interjected, his voice distorted through a comm-link. "The boy has a fifty-point bounty on his head. A Top Ten hero shouldn't be letting a high-value criminal slip through his fingers."
Crust bristled, his hand moving toward his shield. "He's a child, not a bounty. Watch your tongue."
Kuroda raised a hand, his smile never wavering. It was a gentle, almost fatherly gesture that immediately silenced the room. "Now, now. Frustration is merely the friction of a system in transition. Edgeshot was faced with a highly volatile scenario. Instead of engaging in a lethal capacity, which, given the boy's lack of a provisional license, he hasn't the legal right to do, he chose to prioritize safety. That he failed to anticipate Midoriya's 'suicide lunge' is a testament to the boy's instability, not the hero's incompetence."
Kuroda turned back to the map. Three red dots pulsed in different, far-flung corners of Japan, A forest in Hokkaido, a port in Chiba, and an industrial 'Husk City' in the Kamino ward.
"Midoriya likely believes he is on a rescue mission," Kuroda said, his fingers dancing over the glass. "He doesn't know that his classmate, Katsuki Bakugo, has been officially designated as the villain 'Cataclysm' on school grounds. Nor does he know the identity of the one who was taken."
Ryukyu frowned. "A principal can declare a student a villain?"
"Yes," Kuroda said, his smile brightening with a terrifyingly polite logic. "If the administration deems a student's actions to be a systemic threat, we can shift their legal status to ensure the safety of the majority. Adding on to Bakugo's new title, Midoriya's actions are, as we've seen, borderline villainous. He ignores the law, he facilitates the escape of criminals, and he attacks Pro Heroes."
Edgeshot looked up. "He didn't attack me first. I initiated. He only fought when Muscular showed up."
"Irrelevant," Kuroda said, his voice as smooth as silk. "He had the right to evade, yes. But you were there, Edgeshot. You are the law. He should have surrendered to your authority. Instead, he chose against it. That makes him an asset that needs to be recovered… or contained."
Kuroda tapped the map, crossing out the Hokkaido and Chiba markers with a casual flick. His focus landed on the industrial side of Kamino.
"This is where they are," Kuroda said.
"How can you be sure?" Airjet asked, leaning forward. "Kurogiri's portals can go anywhere."
"Coordinates are not random, Airjet-san," Kuroda explained, his tone like a professor speaking to a favoured student. "Portals are a resource. The League is currently managing a 'Harvest', they need publicity, they need theatre. They wouldn't hide a prize like Bakugo in a forest or a port. They would hide him in a place with a history. A place that they could use to symbolize the fall... and start of a new era. Kamino is one of the few cities along with Musutafu that grew rapidly under All Might's fast rise. The League have already made such a big mess of UA in Musutafu so I believe they are laying here in Kamino."
He zoomed in on a specific factory block. "Furthermore, Muscular was heavily injured. A warp gate under stress will always seek the nearest established 'Safe Point' in the League's network to minimize the energy draw. Kamino is the heart of a new narrative. Midoriya jumped into the League's ego."
Kuroda looked around the room, his charismatic gaze locking onto each hero.
"Our goal is not a war," Kuroda said, his voice swelling with a faux-compassion that felt like a warm embrace. "If I wanted to level the district, I would have added Endeavor and Mirko. But I don't want a massacre. I want an extraction. Midoriya Izuku and Katsuki Bakugo are the twin engines of their year. They are the only ones who can motivate their peers to become better than they are. They are victims of a twisted game, and we are going to bring them home."
He straightened his tie, the blue light of the map reflecting in his glasses until his eyes were invisible.
"We move tonight. We recover the students. We secure the assets. And we show the world that U.A. is finally under a leadership that knows how to protect its own."
___
The darkness in the cell wasn't just the absence of light, it was a physical weight, a thick, suffocating velvet that pressed against Katsuki Bakugo's eyes until he could no longer tell if they were open or shut. He lay on the damp concrete floor, his body a map of agony written in jagged lines of red and purple.
Hunger was no longer a sharp pain, it had become a hollow, echoing cavern in his gut, a slow-burning fire that consumed his resolve from the inside out. His ribs felt like rusted iron bars, straining against skin that was littered with the evidence of his descent.
There were blisters from the cuffs that burned with a chemical heat, and across his back, the air felt cold against the raw, shallow channels Toga had carved into his muscle "just to see the colour."
I was wrong, the thought drifted through his mind, not with a roar, but with the quiet finality of a falling leaf.
He had spent his entire life believing he was the protagonist of a grand, explosive epic. He was the one who won. He was the one who stood at the top. But as he tasted the copper of his own blood and the salt of tears he was too weak to stop, he realized he was just a footnote in a tragedy.
He wouldn't even get to die a hero. He wouldn't have the capes, the statues, or the roaring crowds. He would die here, in the bowels of Kamino, wearing a label his teacher gave him to understand the world had finally agreed he was a Villain.
He thought of his mother. He could still see the cold, aristocratic disgust in her eyes during their last meeting. She was better off now. The "Bakugo" brand could heal once the rot was exorcised. She could go back to her runways she put on and her designs, living a life where she didn't have to apologize for a son who was a "biological defect."
And his father. Masaru. The man was a ghost in his own home, a timid, permissive shadow who had always looked at Katsuki with a mixture of fear and confusion. He realized now that he barely knew the man. Masaru hadn't been a pursuer of life, he was a spectator who had been strongarmed into a family he didn't know how to lead. Katsuki felt a surge of pity that was sharper than the pain in his ribs. They were better off without the noise he made.
He closed his eyes and saw the flickering images of U.A. the only time he had ever felt the warmth of a different life.
He thought of Kirishima's earnest, toothy grin. He thought of Ashido's laughter. They were "idiots," but they were the only ones who had ever tried to stand next to the fire without being burned. He had squandered it. He had taken their camaraderie and met it with violence, hiding his own insecurity behind a curtain of explosions until the curtain finally caught fire.
Then there was the black hole. Midoriya.
Even now, broken and starving, the thought of the "nerd" made his teeth ache. But the fire was gone. There was only a cold, heavy resentment, a realization that while he was rotting in a cell, Midoriya was out there, becoming the very thing Katsuki had failed to be. He was the "Golden Child" who had been stained, while Katsuki was just the stain.
I want to go back, he whispered into the dark, his voice a dry, papery rasp.
He wanted to go back to the first day of UA and hold his tongue. He wanted to go back to that summer in Musutafu and just... leave. He wanted to go back to that river when they were kids, and instead of hitting the hand Midoriya offered, he wanted to take it. Or maybe he should have just run away.
Found another home. Another name. A way to live where he wasn't always fighting the air for room to breathe.
The heavy iron door groaned on its hinges.
The flickering light from the hallway spilled in, blinding and cruel. Shigaraki Tomura stepped into the cell, his boots clicking softly on the concrete. He looked down at the heap of bruised meat that used to be a hero, a long, weary sigh escaping his chapped lips. He had a single coin in his hand, flipping it idly with his thumb.
"Still holding out, Hero?" Shigaraki asked, his voice a dry, scratching crawl. He crouched down, his red eyes peering through the gaps in his hair. Bakugo could feel the man's gaze on the back of his neck, cold and calculating. "I've halted the transition plans. I thought of something else to do with you since you're so determined to be a 'good guy.'"
He flipped the coin, clink, catch, clink.
"I thought maybe I should just kill you here," Shigaraki murmured. "Kamino is a great place for a finale. I could get a camera crew in here. Let the world watch the 'Saviour' die in the dark. It would be a perfect ending for the U.A. narrative. A total system failure in hero society actually."
Bakugo gritted his teeth, the copper taste in his mouth intensifying.
"But," Shigaraki continued, his grin widening, "then I thought about the game. I thought about the long-term play. So, let's flip for it. If it lands on heads, you get your execution. You die as Katsuki Bakugo, the failure."
He flipped the coin higher this time.
"But if it lands on tails... I turn you into a Nomu. I've still got some of those 'assets' from your old school, Aldera Junior High. The kids who used to follow you around? They're already in the vats. I think it would be poetic to stitch you together with them. And then... I'll send you back to UA. I'll let your friends see what's left of the King of the Hill."
Shigaraki laughed, a jagged, manic sound that echoed in the small cell. He tossed the coin one last time, his hand reaching out to catch it in mid-air.
"Heads or tails, Katsuki?"
Before his hand could close over the metal, the earth groaned. A massive, low-frequency rumble vibrated through the foundation of the chemical plant, throwing Shigaraki off balance. The coin slipped through his fingers, dancing across the floor before vanishing into a crack in the concrete.
Shigaraki's eyes widened, his hand snapping to his neck as he began to scratch frantically. "What the hell is going on? Kurogiri!"
___
The transition through the warp gate felt like being flayed and restitched in the span of a heartbeat. When the stygian purple mist finally spat him out, Izuku didn't hit concrete. He landed with a bone-jarring thud atop a mountain of heaving, tattered meat.
Muscular lay beneath him, unconscious but still twitching, the thousands of muscle fibres that composed his body unspooling like wet yarn. Izuku gasped, his lungs burning from the sudden shift in air pressure, the green sparks of One For All flickering weakly around his tattered costume.
He looked up, and the world went cold.
He was in the center of a wide, shadowed warehouse floor, surrounded by a gallery of nightmares. The light from the high, cracked windows was failing, leaving the room in an amber-and-charcoal twilight.
"Well, now," a voice echoed from the rafters, sharp, clinical, and devoid of warmth. Emerald Eye sat perched on a steel beam, his specialized goggles glowing a faint, neon green. He adjusted the bolt of his long-range rifle with a rhythmic clack-click. "This is a substantial surprise. A hitchhiker in the gate. Unforeseen. And a bad decision."
The circle closed in.
"Look at him," Dabi murmured, stepping forward. Blue flames danced idly between his scarred fingers, the heat distorting the air around his stitched face. "The Golden Boy of UA, hand-delivered to our doorstep. Shigaraki's going to think it's Christmas."
"Izuku-kun!" Toga squealed, her voice a jagged melody in the silence. She was twirling her butterfly knife, her eyes shimmering with a manic, blood-hungry light. "You look so much more delicious when you're covered in dirt! Can I see? Can I see how much you've bled today?"
Spinner growled, gripping the hilt of his massive, makeshift blade. "He's the one who fought Stain. Why are we talking? Let's finish the job."
Twice shifted his weight, his voice a frantic, doubled rasp. "Kill him now! No, let's keep him as a pet! He's dangerous! He's just a brat!"
Meteor stood at the back of the group, his gaunt face set in a mask of gravitational stone. He didn't speak, he simply raised a hand, and the atmospheric pressure in the room spiked, forcing Izuku deeper into the mass of Muscular's fibres.
Izuku's heart hammered a frantic, terrified rhythm. He was a child in a den of wolves, his obsidian vines twitching beneath his skin as if they were trying to burrow away from the danger. He was surrounded by the very people who had turned the world into a graveyard, and for a fleeting second, the sheer weight of their collective malice felt like it would crush his lungs.
"Does it matter if the big guy dies too?" Magne asked, hefting her massive magnet.
"Muscular failed," Mr. Compress said, adjusting his mask with a theatrical flourish. "Plus that musclehead is too much to handle sometimes."
Beneath Izuku, the mountain of fibres began to rumble. A low, guttural groan vibrated through Muscular's chest. The villain was waking up.
Izuku felt the air change. The click of Dabi's fire. The hiss of Emerald Eye's breath as he sighted his rifle. The world slowed down, focusing into a singular point of survival.
I can't die here, Izuku thought, his teeth grinding together until they bled. Not like this. Not as a point on their board.
He looked down at Muscular's face. The glass eye was beginning to spin. The muscle fibres were tightening, readying for a retaliatory strike that would tear Izuku apart.
Izuku didn't wait. He drew every spark of One For All into his right arm, the green lightning turning into a blinding, white-hot roar. He reached into the dark well of his own resentment, the hate for Yoshi, the grief for his mother... the betrayal of the world, and channelled it into a singular, downward strike.
"NOT TODAY!" Izuku roared.
He slammed his fist into Muscular's midsection with everything he had left.
The impact was a detonation. The force of the blow didn't just break Muscular's remaining ribs, it transferred through the villain's body and into the very foundation of the building. The ground groaned, the concrete floor shattering into a thousand jagged pieces as a seismic shockwave tore through the warehouse.
The structural pillars buckled. The ceiling, already weakened by years of rot, began to scream as the steel beams twisted and snapped.
Izuku didn't stay to watch the villains react. As the floor gave way and the warehouse began to crumble into a cloud of dust and fire, he used the recoil of the explosion to launch himself upward.
He burst through a hole in the collapsing roof, the green sparks of his quirk a defiant streak of light against the darkening sky of Kamino. Behind him, the building fell with a thunderous roar, a tomb of brick and shadow, as the "Champion" of the falling era leapt into action.