"EAAAH," the cry of anguish from Kurogiri rang out through USJ.
Tomura and Revenant were passing the time watching Eraser Head take out their fodder, ahem, associates when they heard his scream. It was soon followed by a black distortion of space right next to the two villains where Kurogiri fell out of and onto the ground barely alive much less conscious. The warp Nomu was in bad shape, the brace that held his foggy body was barely intact. Bits and pieces of the metals were glowing a hot red or wholly melted off and fragments of what could only be inch-long fragments of light littered the Numu's physical body inside the smoke. If it weren't for the regenerative enhancements Kurogiri was given he would be dead.
"Looks like you failed," the simulacrum produced a tsk of disdain from his voice box at the pitiable sight of Kurogiri. "It's barely been five minutes since Shigaraki's sent you here to scatter the students, and already back here defeated. Pathetic," the mechanical nightmare sneered even though he knew Kurogiri was not conscious enough to hear him.
Shigaraki looked at the down warp Nomu in anger and disdain from between the fingers of the disembodied hand on his face. "If you weren't our ticket out of here I would destroy you," Shigaraki said with barely contained anger. "Because of you, the students can escape and bring a raid party to us along with the main boss! Even if we have Revenant we'll suffer a party wipe!"
Shigaraki's temper kept rising until his right hand started reaching up and scratching his dry neck furiously. However, just as fast as the anger came it went and the leader of the band of villains was once again calm.
"Well, at least I'll get to kill Eraser Head. Revenant, kill him," Shigaraki ordered the simulacrum while pointing at Eraser Head who was still systematically taking down the extra bodies he brought with him to USJ.
Seconds passed by in almost complete silence with only the sound of the villain fodder getting destroyed. When it became clear that Revenant wasn't going to attack, Shigaraki lowered his hand and turned towards the immortal killer, and leveled a glare that could kill if his quirk worked by sight.
"Are you listening simulacrum or is your program glitching from old age," the student of All For One said with near nonchalance but his body language displayed hostility.
Revenant scoffed at his man-child client before answering just as casually, "Oh I heard just fine. I'm simply choosing to ignore you." His answer caused Shigaraki to become visibly angry.
Truth be told, Revenant didn't have a problem with killing on Shigaraki's orders. After all, he liked killing as much as the next murder bot regardless of who orders came from. Not only that, he hated his current bodyguard duty and wanted to get out there and start killing heroes and students alike. However, because of the tenuous state of the alliance between Ayirodim and The League of Villains, -as the strongest member of his organization- Revenant can't show any unnecessary difference to Shigaraki or it could make his organization look weak enough for All For One to consider restarting a war with in order to incorporate Ayirodim into his vast underworld empire. The only reason the Symbol of Evil hadn't pushed the war far enough to overwhelm Ayirodim was because of how difficult it would be to keep the war between the two secret organizations a secret when city blocks started going up in flames or ice or sensory deprivation fog.
"My contract states explicitly that I'm only your bodyguard, not your attack dog." This was true and Shigaraki knew it too but Revenant saw the more he spoke the more Shigaraki became even more upset. However, the machine uncaringly pushed on. "I only bothered agreeing to fight All Might for you because I have personal business to settle with him. Don't start thinking I take orders from you or I'll have to remind you where I stand," Revenant unsubtly threatened while turning to stare the shorter man down.
Shigaraki's anger grew to apocalyptic proportions as he made locked eyes with Revenant. "What did you just say, you bucket of bolts?" Shigaraki turned to glare right into the eyes of the machine that just threatened him as his fingers moved sporadically as if itching to touch something or someone. With how dangerous his quirk is, it wouldn't end well for anyone he touched.
The atmosphere between the two grew tense and while both knew the other wouldn't attack because of their respective master's wishes neither stopped trying to intimidate the other. Shigaraki by inching his hands towards his bodyguard and Revenant by extending his fingers into claws and looking ready to stab should his client get too close.
This standoff lasted only a few seconds before Shigaraki scoffed and gave up trying to intimidate and stare down a machine but the smug huff from Revenant nearly made him reconsider trying to. However, instead of letting Revenant get in his head again, the young villain leader moved his sights to Eraser Head and noticed that the pro hero had slowed down quite a bit from his earlier pace of taking downing villains and was breathing considerably harder. Not only that but more villains were able to let loose their quirks on him more often than during the start of the fight.
'Revenant won't step in, so I'll just kill him myself. I just need to time my attack with Eraser Head cool down,' Shigaraki thought as he watched Eraser Head battle his minions. The cooldown wasn't very hard to figure out. After all the villains attacking Eraserhead seemed to get their quirks back when his hair fell down and lost them again when the hero's hair unnaturally rose up. After seeing the signs enough times Shigaraki figured even a monkey could come to the same conclusion.
When Eraser Head's hair came up again after getting a brief respite from the many villains attacking him Shigaraki waited a few seconds before charging toward Eraser Head at full speed. The pro hero, ever aware of his surroundings immediately notices Shoagarki and throws out his scarf-like capture weapon at Shigaraki to ensnare him. This fails when Shigaraki snatches the capture tool out of the air with his hands and keeps it clutched tightly in his grip to prevent his opponent from recasting the weapons. Unperturbed by the villain grabbing his scarf, the hero charges forward toward him intent on dealing a knockout blow with the first blow. When the distance between the two closes to a mere few feet, Eraser Head grasped his scarf and tugged hard, pulling Shigaraki off balance and into the elbow he was shoving toward his opponent's center mass.
While Eraser Heads' move caught Shigaraki off guard, the villain leader was not only able to reorient himself but move his hands to catch the elbow of the hero before it could make contact with his stomach. Just as the exchange between the two had come to an end, the pro hero's hair fell back onto his shoulders -the sign that the hero's quirk was on cooldown- and Shigaraki smiled as he started to apply his quirk to the same elbow the pro hero used to attack him.
'Shit,' Aizawa thought as a bad feeling came over him when his quirk deactivated. 'Im getting slower and this guy feels like bad news.' Aizawa's feeling was proven correct when a creepy and malicious ear-to-ear grin spread across Shigaraki's face
"It's hard to see because you keep moving around, but there's an instant when your hair falls," the villain points out making Aizawa's eyes widen underneath the goggles at his weakness being called out. "That's when you've finished an action."
The bad feeling Aizawa got from the villain intensified until he started feeling a prickly pain similar to numbness wearing off on his elbow. Then suddenly the feeling peaked when the sleeve of his costume(?) started to turn grey and fall away. The decay didn't stop there and the pro hero soon found that his skin and muscle were falling away as well.
"And the space in between has gotten shorter and shorter. Don't push yourself, Eraser Head," Shigaraki chided mockingly.
'My elbow's crumbling!' Aizawa thought as he made to put distance between himself and the villain with a fast and hard punch to Shigaraki's center mass that sent the young villain sprawling before trying to make a retreat but was cut off by more villains attacking him.
Aizawa bobbed and weaved him through their attacks with expert levels of finesse that his body and mind gained from years of training and hero work but even those were becoming more and more unreliable as the fight went on. Between his new injury and the overuse of his quirk, the pro hero knew he wasn't going to last long without support.
This belief was reinforced when a familiar man-like machine suddenly appeared right in front of Eraser Head in a smokey puff of ash. If it wasn't for the years of experience and training Aizawa was sure he would have been tripped up by the intimidating robotic villain.
On reflex, Aizawa activated his quirk and attacked before his opponent could make the first move hoping to put his opponent at a disadvantage despite the belief that he could have a mutation quirk he couldn't affect. As his quirk was activated, Eraser Head instantly lashed out with an axe kick to the head of the machine. Revenant was prepared for an attack and ducked under it with flawless efficiency causing the pro heroes' kick to fly over the simulacrum's head and leave himself wide open for retaliation. With his clawed fingers extended, Revenent thrust his hand forward into Eraser Head like a spear.
"Gah" Aizawa howled as his face scrunched up in pain. His hand unconsciously clutched the hand impaling him as he looked down at the bleeding wound. Aizawa could see and feel his feel is precious life blood flow out of his would in amounts that were not healthy for someone who wanted to keep on living. 'Dam, he got me. I just hope the kids got out ok.' Aizawa thought while his vision started to become blurry. 'Sorry Mic...but I think...I'll be meeting...Oboro first.'
Without intervention, Aizawa would have passed out from exhaustion and blood loss. However, the mechanical nightmare wasn't done just yet with the hero. Revenant wanted his opponent to experience true pain and fear before he ended his life, and just stabbing said opponent wasn't going to accomplish that. Pro heroes were built tougher than that.
"No, no, no, you don't get to sleep just yet." The voice of the simulacrum chided Aizawa. With casual and practiced ease, the simulacrum stood to its full height while dragging the clawed hand that was still in Aizawa's stomach upwards in a slow methodical manner meant for the victim to feel every bit of pain he was inflicting.
"AHHH," Aizawa's eyes shot wide open from their half-drooped state, bloodshot to hell, and with the scream of the dammed coming out of his mouth to match. The agonizing pain Aizwa felt as he was slowly being gutted couldn't be put into words but it could be tangentially felt by nearly everyone who heard it. Both villains and aspiring heroes alike.
Revenant's clawed hand continued carving upward until he felt hard bone and only then did he finally remove his hand from Aizawa causing the pro hero and his guts to fall to the floor, and mercifully unconscious. It was a disgusting sight to some of the mook villains, who while evil and killers weren't unnecessarily cruel to their victims. Those of weaker minds and stomachs either pissed themself at the display of cruelty or violently expelled their lunches at their feet. Even those that could hold in their fear of Revenant raised their personal danger rating of him several notches and vowed that after the job was done they would put as much distance between themself and him as possible.
Revenant himself was absolutely ecstatic. His programming simulated a nearly overwhelming sense of ecstasy and happiness whenever he was killing. It was almost like a drug and It might as well have been with how much he enjoyed killing.
"Ahh, that felt good," the simulacrum voice sounded something along the lines of refreshed happy, and ecstatic as they looked down at the form of the beaten and bloodied Eraser Head who despite being gutted was still alive. "It a shame I can't do it again or maybe I can. The chest cavity is still intact after all." Revenant gingerly reached out with clawed fingers to make his words true and get another rush of the ones and zeroes that made killing so enjoyable.
Shigaraki despite his earlier desire to have Revenant kill Eraser Head was furious. "You kill stealing bastard"
Revenant stopped reaching to finish off Eraser Head with a growl of annoyance to turn to address his enraged client. "Didn't have a choice," he explained in a voice that sounded like he was talking through grit teeth. "I'm your bodyguard and he attacked you. My programming dictated I eliminate the threat."
"You think I..." Before Shigraki could further voice his displeasure with the simulacrum, a beam of golden energy half as big as he was tall, blasted Revenant away to the other end of USJ with a loud and bright boom. "What the..." Shigaraki's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden attack.
He instantly turned to look in the general direction where the attack came from only to see a tall orange blur taking out his troops faster than his eyes could follow. The blur would have taken him out too if he wasn't swallowed up by black mist and moved back to where he had left Kurogiri.
"Tomura, are you alright?" Kurogiri asked his leader with a hint of pain and concern in his voice despite his much more serious condition. The warp villain still had many injuries on his body as a result of Izuku's attack but thanks to being a Nomu he had an accelerated recovery rate that let him return to the battlefield faster than a normal person.
"Who was that," Shigaraki questioned his underling instead of responding to his question. Completely ignoring both Kurogiri's concern and pain.
Kurogiri took no offense to his young master's disregard of his question and answered him. After all, Tomura was always like this. "It actually two people," Kurogiri pointed to a golden and flying disk in the sky that Shigaraki had missed earlier since he was distracted by the orange blur. On the flying disk, a glowing green-haired boy with mainly black colored gear and a long trench coat descended down to the gutted Aizawa. The boy's face was the picture of impassiveness but blood trickling from his clenched fist gave away his true feeling about the state of his teacher. "That is the student who bested me..." Next, he moved his wispy hand toward the general direction of the orange blur seconds away from completely cleaning up their hired muscle. "...and that is our target, All Might, the symbol of peace."
As if on queue with Kurogiri's words, All Mght had finished knocking out the last of the fodder villains. His once blurry form stilled and gained detail allowing everyone to see him clearly. Standing tall at an impressive seven feet two with more than enough muscle to match his imposing height, All Might looked every bit of the pillar of strength he was made out to be. Even in an orange suit with black stripes and a tie. However, what truly gave him a menacing aura to the two remaining conscious villains was that his signature smile which reassured the masses that everything was safe was not there. It was gone and in its place was a vicious scowl. All Might was pissed.
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A/N: Sorry I've been gone so long...again. I've decided to stop posting 10k-word chapters and post smaller ones so that I have time to write more frequently. I'm getting busy again, so USJ is going to be a few more chapters. Once again, sorry for dipping so long but yall already knew I was going to be back so it isn't so bad right?
Anyways thanks for reading and expect the big fight(s) soon. Hopefully, they will be as good as I imagine them to be. Until next time, Author out.