Chapter 188: The Only Way (1)
—
Neji sent five clones around Japan. Controlling their individual movements himself.
It was relatively easy to do so because of the quirk «Multitasking - Level 4» that became Level-9 when mixed with some of Nawab's quirks.
Three of these clones had specific targets, while the other two were just used to massacre people to farm Exp.
–Farm exp from villains and heroes alike.
Gods could come any second now, so this wasn't the time to care about the lives of "good people". Besides, the heroes of this world weren't exactly "good" anyway. But he wasn't going to use that excuse now. What he was doing was evil, and inhumane even- he accepted that fact and moved on.
He also attacked some civilians, though he didn't kill them since their Tier was too low to help him anyway unless he decided to massacre them all. So he just took their quirks, and even then- only the eye-catching ones.
While two of Neji's [Bees] followed this strategy in two different parts of Japan, three of them were searching for three certain people.
Nighteye, for his «Future Sight» quirk.
AFO, for his «All-for-One» quirk and the Quirks stored within it, along with Shigaraki as well.
Lastly- Rokuro Nomura, aka Number Six.
Also known as Scarred Man- was the main antagonist of "My Hero Academia Vigilantes". Neji never read that manga, but he had read about this person back in his past life. Those memories were blurry at this point, but after talking to Lady Nagant and getting information about the strong villains of Japan, he knew more in-depth about Number Six.
He also knew the places where he could be found.
The three Nejis individually searched these three targets, and obviously… he found one of them very soon.
Sir Nighteye.
—★—
"A-All Might, where do we take this batch of people?"
Hearing these words, All Might turned to the person who spoke with his everlasting grin and observed the bunch of people beside him.
"Mhm, they don't look so injured. Take them to the shelter-3."
"Alright, thanks for being helpful like always, All Might!" The person bowed respectfully and then guided the people.
More and more people have been coming to UA since more and more villains were raging in the city, even as the heroes- including All Might, kept taking care of them.
But All Might wasn't exactly in a position to give his top performance. Both because he was weaker now and… also because he was lost.
All Might- no, Toshinori was gloomy, unsure of what to do. He was just putting up a strong front, wearing his All Might mask to fool his own mind into being strong.
It had been a day since Mirio was murdered.
Nighteye was broken, lost, unwilling to use his power more than ever, and even Nezu seemed to be quieter than usual.
Nighteye was in a room, alone, sitting inside in silence since yesterday. He refused to use his quirk, saying that everything he sees will come true regardless, in one way or another, and unfortunately, All Might couldn't deny his claims.
They tried to deviate from the predicted future themselves, after all. Even one of the smartest beings in the world was beside them, yet they failed- that said something.
All Might sighed, shaking his head. Then he heard footsteps coming from behind him, assuming it was another person coming for help he turned around-
"Hello,"
-and froze.
It was the white-haired demon, the doppelganger Neji.
All Might took a second to register the situation before he attacked.
Or he tried to attack but was ultimately unable to move because gleaming black chains had erupted from the ground, wrapping around him to keep him tied.
'Isn't this…!'
This quirk, it was very similar to Black Whip, but it wasn't a whip and it didn't come out of the doppelganger's body, it rather came out of the ground.
'Don't tell me… He merged Black Whip with other quirks!?'
That meant he must have done the same for other OFA quirks as well. If that's the case… he is currently more dangerous than what All Might assumed him to be.
"K-kyaaaa! It's a villain attack!"
People around them freaked out as All Might grunted, struggling hard, but unable to break free.
"Don't resist, please. You'd only end up hurting yourself." The doppelganger spoke, looking around. "Hm, where is Mirio? I would assume he would help the people even with his quirks lost. Did he break down?"
"You bastard!" All Might couldn't bear those words. "He was killed! Because you took his quirks and he wasn't strong enough to protect himself! He died because of you!"
"Oh…" the doppelganger blinked. "How- wait never mind, Ujir came here."
All Might's eyes widened. How did he know that...? Perhaps, could it be that this doppelganger was the one who called Ujir here?
"You punk-" All Might's voice was trained as a few thick chains wrapped around his mouth, stopping him from speaking.
"Anyway, I found the person I came looking for here." The doppelganger turned his gaze at the building where Nighteye was, his eye shining with a red octagram hovering over them.
'...X-ray vision??'
All Might struggled, even as the doppelganger moved, vanishing from his spot with a flash of multi-coloured lights, reappearing a minute later.
"All Might, I apologise, but Nighteye became brain dead after I stole his quirk. He was stressed anyway, guess it was inevitable." The doppelganger said, making All Might's blood run cold, as he kept looking around.
A second later.
His eyes then locked on Nezu's office.
All Might'# froze in his spot.
'No… NO! If he steals that quirk too-!!!'
The doppelganger disappeared from his spot again, this time, he didn't reappear, but All Might knew he left when the black chains ceased to exist.
Freed, All Might could only fall to his knees.
What was happening to Japan out of the blue?
—★—
Another Neji had finally found Rokuro Nomura, aka Number Six.
Neji was on a rooftop, looking down and observing his target fight with a dozen or so police officers, basically toying with them for minutes before he started to massacre them all.
Number 6 was a young man with a fairly athletic physique, long black hair gathered in a ponytail, and a perpetual smirk on his face. He had a distinctive feature- a diagonal scar that jutted across his face and over his nose.
Neji didn't know much about him, but he did know he was dead by the time the MHA-canon timeline started. However, according to Nagant, he wasn't dead and was instead taken as a prisoner in Tartarus. That might be a change caused by Nawab, or simply a butterfly effect made by his existence, either way, he didn't care.
For starters, he didn't even know much about the villain, except for the fact that he was moulded into a villain from a young age by All-for-One and the quirks he had were also given to him by AFO. Now that AFO freed him from Tartarus, the teenager was working for him again.
Whatever his backstory, Neji wasn't interested more than that. He was simply interested in his quirks, especially his main Quirk-
Overclock.
Given to him by All For One, Number 6's primary Quirk gave him the power to accelerate his perception of time to extreme speeds to the point that, to him, it looks like everything is standing still, allowing him to see, hear, and think of hyper-speed. It also increases his physical speed as a result.
That might not sound so great, now that he had lightning speed, but this wasn't about combat prowess, this was about something greater.
Time in the outside world flowed 10x slower when Neji is inside the Tower. That'd mean, if he wanted to leave a clone on the outside to farm exp while he is in the tower, his sense of time would be odd and he might not be able to use the clones at all. This quirk- it will help him cover up that problem.
Neji decided it was time to move when he watched the villain start laughing after slaughtering the police officers.
So, he moved.
-Flash
Teleporting in front of the villain, because he could Teleport everywhere where he has been through or his eyes could see, and that counted the sight of his clones as well- so racially, all his Clones could teleport.
"Who-"
The villain was surprised, frowning as he tried to activate his quirk, but before he could do so- Neji slipped a hand inside the villain's chest, grabbing his heart and crushing it.
"-Keuk!!!"
It certainly was easy when you are the strongest.
—★—
Two of the three targets were done, but the third one- All for One, still wasn't found.
But Neji had a solution to that problem now.
«Future Sight»
[Future Sight - Level 10 (Max): This Quirk allows the user to see a person's future (including himself) from a third person's point of view.
-To activate this power, the user has to first touch the intended target and then make eye contact with them. But in case of using it on himself, he just has to touch himself.
-This Quirk stayed active for one hour, and once activated, it required 24 hours before it could be activated again.
-While his Quirk is active, the user can see as far as years into a person's future. The seen future will be shown in great detail (second by second) and it always will be 100% accurate, even when trying to change the foreseen events.
-However, Quirks—or some outer-versal factor—that can alter the flow of time in some way can affect the accuracy of this Quirk, rendering the predicted outcomes moot and/or void.]
An absolute future, this quirk's supposed to show him that. However, the last point is important.
'—Quirks—or some outer-versal factor—that can alter the flow of time in some way can affect the accuracy of this Quirk—'
Here, an example for such a "Quirk" would be Eri's quirk in the canon timeline, a Rewind-affected Midoriya defied the initial prediction of him dying at the hands of Overhaul during their battle.
As for "some outer-versal factor" that would be Neji's and his luck stat. How?
-Clap
Neji clasped his hands together and activated the quirk.
-Tick-Tok
The world spun, his irises changing into blue mechanical clocks, as he entered his own future from a third person's point of view.
He slowly skipped before speeding up, skipping directly 13-hours into the future- right at the moment where he found All-for-One.
That's it, now he knew where AFO was and could go there right away, even teleporting if he wished- since in a sense he had once been to that place before. Therefore proving that the futures shown by this quirk weren't 100% accurate as long as it considered him.
But he didn't do so right away. First, he needed to check something else.
He is supposed to be able to see years into the future if he wished, and he did want to know about the Gods. This quirk was overpowered, it could even see the future where Gods attacked- even though that's clearly an "outer-versal factor". But this quirk could predict even that future solely based on Neji, another outer-versal factor. So, Neji was going to give it a try now, to see when the Gods are supposed to come.
And so he did.
He moved days into the future and found the invasion of the Gods to happen in exactly 16 days from now on. However….
"…No."
Neji's voice cracked.
This future was the same one Nezu had described to him a few months ago. The future where he had a fiery sword in his chest and his girls were lying around him, dead. The only change was, everyone was younger.
"No… No…"
What's this? What's happening!? His futures weren't supposed to be absolute. Then what?!
He needed to confirm something.
Neji quickly teleported to where he found All-for-One in his future. But… there was no one.
No one, at all.
"…."
He needed an answer… and answer he got as he activated the mouse, Nezu's Quirk «High Spec - Level 10 (max)».
"Ah…"
All-for-One has escaped Japan to run from the Nukes, and only 13 hours later would he appear here.
"…For fuck's sake."
Absolute Future, it did seem like that. This bullshit.
Without wasting a second, Neji put all his 1730 spare stat points (he gets 10-spare-points for each level up) he had into "Luck", his only path to change the absolute future.
[Lady Luck holds her breath, looking at you nervously.]
This being, she was his only way out.
His only way.
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