In the crater that was USJ, minutes before Stella had rescued class 1-A from certain death.
"Teacher, snap out of it, I don't want to hurt you!"
"RAAAGH!"
The earth beneath Shimura's fist crumples from the missed blow she had thrown at All Might, it forces enough to send shockwaves all throughout USJ and beyond, but Shimura's shadow was not done, the monster she had become would not be satiated by anything but the death of her opponent. So she howled into the air as her fingers dug into the earth and separated a huge chunk of it from the ground to hurl at All Might.
The symbol of peace casually batted the improvised projectile aside unknowingly leaving himself open to a tackle, the force of which sends fighters into the side of the crater that is now USJ and dazes All Might. However, Shimura, as a shadow, could not experience such a debilitating effect, allowing her to lay in an earth-shaking punch before All Might put his guard up.
"It's useless to talk All Might, she not in there, and if she is, then she's all mine." Revenants taunted from a distance that would not get him easily blown away in the fight between the two. He was no longer in his normal robotic form. He was just like Shimura, a shadow, but unlike her retained his mind. "Besides, I think you're going to need your breath soon."
As if to punctuate his word, Shimura stopped throwing punches at All Might's guard and slipped her hands under to wrap them around his neck, cutting off air to his lungs. All Might immediately grabbed her hands to remove them but Shadow Shimura was strong, stronger than All Might remembered his teacher ever being. He could hardly budge her with his current level of strength.
All Might's eyes leaked tears of sadness, looking at the rage-filled visage on his teacher's face. At first, he had been happy to see her, after all, Shadow or not, she was his beloved teacher. Even after she had devastated USJ, possibly condemning any of the students he hadn't found to death, he believed that he could reach out to her. To help her see reason and return to the hero side.
But now, all he saw was on her face unadulterated hate and malice where there had once been joy and happiness. He felt intent to kill where there had once been a desire to protect, and as the light in his eyes was going dark, All Might had a moment of clarity. He realized two things, that this...creature...was not the woman he called master and that it was time to stop holding. With a vicious punch to the shadow's ribs, All Might sent the thing posing as his teacher flying to the other side of USJ with a resounding boom.
Revenant's face didn't show it but he was shocked. 'What the hell, his power just increased.'
"REVENANT!" The rage-filled voice of All Might carried could be heard all throughout the crater. The mentioned machine barely had a split second to process the enraged snarl on the usually smiling hero's face before All Might closed the distance between the two and smashed his fist into the metal skull of his opponent, taking it off in a single swing while creating a shockwave that put the one Shadow Shimura used level USJ to shame.
*π½π€π€π€π’*
Once the dust settled from the attack, All Might finally let himself relax, his enemy was dead. The enemy he had sworn revenge on for years, had been killed by him in a single blow, and for some reason, this saddened him. Not because he felt bad killing Revenant, no, that thing was undeniably a monster that needed to be put down. He felt sad because after years of training, searching, and chasing, everything ended in one punch and that was just... disappointing. "This moment wasn't satisfying at all."
"RAAAAAAGH," the roar of Shadow Shimura, who All Might thought would die with Revenant, made him come out of his own head.
"You still alive huh?" All Might questioned rhetorically. The shadow merely growled in response and began circling All Might like it was some sort of apex predator and its animalistic posture lent credence to the notion. However, All Might, the Symbol of Peace, was not intimidated. "Don't worry, I'll put you to rest soon enough."
Understanding the other intention to battle, both took off at each other with a speed few in the world could follow and met fist-to-fist halfway. The shock wave didn't even have enough time to spread before they both clashed again and again and again, speeding up with each punch until their arms became blurs that shook the air.
*π½π€π€π’π½π€π€π’π½π€π€π’π½π€π€π’π½π€π€π’*
For a while, it seemed that their power was equal, that the Symbol of Peace had met his match but then All Might stepped forward.
π½π€π€π’
The sheer force of his step made the ground crumble like it was struck by artillery, forcing the Shadow to take a step back. It growled in anger and tried to regain ground but it was useless, All Might would not move.
π½π€π€π’
Another step forward for All Might, another step back for the shadow. While Shadow Shimura was not intelligent in the human sense of the word, it possed enough battle IQ to notice early on that it was beginning to lose. So it doubled the ferocity of its attacks.
π½π€π€π’
When that didn't work, it tripled them. It didn't stop or back away, or try a different approach because in what constituted a mind for the shadow, it kept telling itself, "I just need to go a little faster, hit a bit harder, last a bit longer, and then I can overpower him again."
π½π€π€π’
But no matter what, All Might matched it blow for blow and kept moving forward until, before the shadow even realized it, its back was pressed ain't the wall of the crater.
It no longer had the freedom of movement to swing its arms wildly like before, slowing its ferocity down quite a bit. But All Might had all the arm room he needed and began doubling down on the shadow until he finally landed a clean blow on its face. The force of which buried it into the wall but a whole foot.
For any other villain on any other day, the fight would stop here and All Might would give them a chance to surrender. But the shadow was not any other Villain and this was not any other day. Shadow Shimura's action had brought USJ down on his student's head, perverted the form of his teacher into a mindless monster, and most of all All Might was pissed.
So he didn't stop pummeling it into the wall, he kept going, throwing harder and faster punches, pummeling the mockery of his teacher further and further into the wall until all he felt was stone instead of the shadow's body. Only then did he stop punching, only then did he look at the destruction he had caused.
He had made a tunnel at least ten meters into the wall of the crater and there was nothing left of Shadow Shimura. But even with Revenant dead and Shadow Shimura defeated All Might did not feel victorious. He saved nothing, had no one to smile to, and his teacher was still dead. Revenge truly was a hollow feeling.
As All Might stepped out of his self-made tunnel, he came face to face with the impossible.
"Oh, you're done in there already?" The mocking voice of Revenant questioned. "Good, I thought I would have to go in and get you myself."
"Impossible," All Might shouted. "I killed you!"
"What can I say," Revenant said with mirth lacing his voice. "I got better, and look so did your teacher." From the sky, the form of Shadow Shimura fell to the ground right next to Revenant, shocking All Might further. "And what do you know, so did they! You skin suits really are tough when you want to be huh."
The metal hand of the simulacrum waved to the northeast side of USJ where a veritable number of shadows were sliding down into the crater. All Might vaguely recognize the forms of some of the shadows as villains he knocked out in USJ, who by all logic, should be dead after Shadow Shimura leveled the place.
'So he can make copies of the dead," All Might surmised. 'And since teacher's shadow is still here, it seems he can keep remaking them. Dam, this fight isn't going to be easy.'
There was also something All Might noticed that put his heart at ease, none of the shadows looked like his students or fellow teachers. Giving him hope that they had escaped before Shimura's shadow leveled USJ.
By the time All Might was done scanning the Shadows for familiar faces and counting their numbers, sixty-something shadow villains had gathered around Revenant like attack dogs. Hunched over, growling, and snapping their jaws at the air.
Revenant took a similar position to his shadows with his sharpened digits elongated and spread like claws. "So All Might, ready for round two?"
There was only one answer allowed to the symbol of peace. "Bring it!"
Ayirodim Headquarters, Hisashi Midoriya P.O.V |
"It seems like everything is going as planned,"
In a dark office, with the only light to illuminate the room coming from a single desktop screen, Hisashi Midoriya watched his most useful tool battle the symbol of peace. The data he was getting would definitely be an early Christmas gift for the Quirk Research Division but that was not important to him right now.
Through the eyes of Revenant, he could see the machine's new shadows charge the symbol of peace with reckless abandon, hoping to get their pound of flesh. Most were easily dispatched of course, a single punch from All Might would turn any shadow that didn't have innately high durability into ashes to be reformed. It did, however, give an opening for Nana Shimura's shadow to easily land hits in.
Hisashi could see Revenant's strategy for winning this fight easily. The simulacrum wanted to slowly wear out All Might's stamina while chipping at his defenses. A sound strategy for taking out a stronger opponent. Revenant took advantage of his shadow's numbers, natural inability to tire, and disregard for their unlife to keep the battle going at as fast a pace as possible.
"However..." Hisashi switched his window on the screen to another, this one a drone feed showing a large number of heroes converging on USJ, and from the large heat source its' scanner was picking up, Endeavor was definitely among their number. "...It seems our Revenant needs just a bit more time," Hisashi spoke to what seemed to be himself. "Do you mind helping him out?"
From the corner of the room, Umbra, very literally, stepped out of the shadows. It's white eye's focused on him, then the screen, before coming back to him, "Help me?" It asked.
Hisashi flashed the white of his teeth, "Of course I will kiddo, you know you can trust me right?"
Umbra stared at Hisashi without so much as a twitch, as if he was trying to read the man's mind, and Hisashi knew it was or at least doing something similar if he read the reports right. After a few seconds of this, Umbra nodded at him, making Hisashi smile wider.
"Thanks kiddo," Hishashi reached over to Umbra and ran his hand over Umbra's surprisingly smooth and frictionless head. "I just need you to distract the heroes from making their way to Revenant for a bit, can you do that?" Umbra nodded. "Good, good, oh, and make sure to spread your puppets out and attack everything even our allies, the League of Villains. I know they're hanging around nearby and we wouldn't want the league to know you working with me yet or they'll make it harder for me to help you. Got that?"
Umbra once again nodded, not saying anything, only waiting for more instructions. When Hisashi gave none, Umbra disappeared into the shadows once more. Likely headed to USJ in order to complete his task.
Hisashi breathed a sigh of relief at having not been seen through by the Umbra. He knew his fate would not be pretty if he was ever caught lying, what he saw in the Shadow Realm cemented that as fact.
"Well done, Doll #332 and 323," Hisashi spoke to the darkness of the front of the room as he turned his office lights on, erasing all shadows so from his room, in case Umbra stuck around to listen in.
At the front of the room, two perfectly identical-looking young girls no older than ten, with long green hair and green eyes, that had a sprinkle of freckles on their cheeks stepped forward to the front of his desk wearing nothing but hospital gowns.
"Thank you, sir," both girls responded in unison. Though if the monotone voice and blank look on their face were anything to go by, his thanks meant nothing to them.
Not that it mattered to Hisashi, these girls were nothing but dolls. Meant to be used until broken and then thrown away. However, to keep the more hypocritical researchers and other Dolls from acting up, he had to treat the girls like something they were not. People.
And that meant rewarding them for their services. "332 your fine control over emotions has been invaluable yet again, and 323, I see your ability to hide the biological signature of others and yourself no longer require physical contact. I'm impressed with both of you and as a reward for your help, you now have permission to access the cafeteria. However, you are still required to eat at least one serving of Doll Nutrition Paste. Dismissed."
"Thank you sir," the Dolls said in unison once again. Though this time, a hint of emotion bled through the monotone. Though what that emotion was, Hisashi didn't care enough to try and identify it. Then they both turned on their heel and made their way out the automatic door of his office.
When both were gone, Hisashi sighed again, this time a bout of fire came out of his mouth. "I really need to figure out how to control Umbra more...permanently before he figures out Musculars' been dead for years."
Hisashi turns to look at a family portrait on his desk of Inko and his children at the beach causing a genuine smile to appear on his face, unlike the one he did when under the influence of 332's quirk. But his eyes did not focus on anything but Izuki. 'My little girl really was a cut above the rest, nothing like these dolls. Who else but her, could kill an A-Rank villain and revive the dead at six years old?' "
"Ahhh Izuki, I can't wait to get you back but research is soo slow." Hisashi let out another sigh before a random thought came to him. 'Maybe I should check in on Izuku, I heard his quirk has mutated recently and it has been a few years since I've seen him. Even if it turns out his quirk didn't become anything special, I could always replenish my stock of Izuki's genetic data.'
"Well, that's all for later," Hisashi took his eyes off the portrait and once again began following the fights being displayed on his screen. Umbra had begun engaging the heroes and forced Kurogir and Shigarki to fully retreat if his sensors were to be believed and All Might finally began to show hints of exhaustion. "Right now, I'll just enjoy the show."
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A/N: Dam, am I on a roll or what? Lol, anyways, you guys can't tell me you didn't see the clones coming after I made Izuku's dad a remorseless evil scientist. Also, I was going to release this on Monday but then I just decided that I would release chapters as soon as I think they're done. The schedule thing clearly isn't working out for me so fuck it right?
Anyways, thanks, genskot, 1y_the_first, Lyos, and real777 for the power stones and the extra motivation.
The next chapter is almost done so I'm off to finish it! Author out.