'Out of line, out of line, outoflineoutoflineoutof-' I ducked under another attack and got away before they exploded again.
I internally wince when I heard the explosion behind me. I wondered if no one would blame me for property damage if all I'm doing is not getting hit, or if they would and say it was because I didn't lead them away.
It really is just my luck to be attacked during own of my medical tours in a different city.
Now, you might be wondering why I'm not just flying away to safety or blasting them away. The answer is relatively simple; One, I'm in public and didn't want to show of my spiritual and magical prowess and two, they also have flier/bombers nad they too, are bombarding me from the air.
That's right. I am currently being besieged by a lot of Nomu. Good news is that none of them seemed to be high-ends i.e. Intelligent and the ones behind them don't seem to be around. Bad news is that there are too many, like, being swarmed in a zombie apocalypse kind of numbers.
Normally wouldn't be a problem, even with their self-detonation capabilities. I could have just thrown caution out of the window and fired a high-intensity head laser through multiple targets. The problem lies in the fact that some heroes and civilians are also somewhere in the crowd, fighting their own battles so I couldn't just blast through them either.
My heads are busy just gunning down the enemy fliers. Once we have air superiority, it would be my turn for a precision bombardment. Although, there are also some hero fliers around helping, but the air is just as chaotic as the ground. The only saving grace is that the heroes are easier to distinguish from the Nomu so my heads can avoid them. The other heroes tried their best to help my swarm but it honestly would've been faster if they just left me so I can blast them without restraint.
Can't say that out loud though,it would only pull the morale down even further than it already is.
~~~~~
In the end, the battle was taking too long. Just when my patience was about to run out, All Might swooped in, picked out the heroes --Myself included-- and putting them in a safer location before doing some uppercut that took out the crowd of Nomu by spawning a small tornado. I am still a bit miffed about him dragging my extra heads into a nausea-inducing whirlwind but I let it slide because the situation was an emergency. The city isn't really a picture of good infrastructure right now, there's too much damage everywhere with rubble lying about.
All Might hurriedly left in a giant leap into the air as soon as he was sure that he took out a major chunk of the enemy. He's probably confident enough to think we can handle the rest of the stragglers if there were any that appeared. Apparently, it wasn't just this city being attacked, there were also a lot of others that were struck by the same cloned army of low-end Nomus. I managed to overhear that tidbit of info from one of my other heads that was flying around.
I tried to go back to my scheduled healing by doing so in an emergency tent. Emphasis on tried, I couldn't help let out a groan when some mud-like substance appeared out of thin air in the middle of the ruined street and came out more low-ends.
The fighting resumed. This time, however, I had the advantage. With all the heroes in a single place, I let loose my own swarm and finally bombarded them with lasers. Some of the heroes behind me were slackjawed, I figured those were the ones that are new in the industry. The ones that kept up their guard to prepare and fight any Nomu that might pop up near them are the ones with more experience under their belt.
I am also pretty sure that some of the people here were worshiping me subconsciously. Japan does have an Idol culture along with Shinto spiritualism, so that might explain it. It's kinda like how people would say 'Oh God' when they get surprised or 'Jesus Christ' when they get jumped.
Well, worship isn't bad so don't mind if I do. Free power-up is free power-up.
The fighting lasted for another hour or so before the number of Nomu's started to dwindle down. Although it took that long of nonstop action, I wasn't tired yet. For the most part, I was stationary, hardly even moving from my spot unless absolutely necessary. I played the role of an artillery tower with my head's and lasers to bullrush through the problems coming my way without breaking much of a sweat, but even then, I had to pretend as if I eas pretty winded or else people would assume something was amiss.
When we were just about done again, All Might came back and spoke to the other heroes around before abruptly carrying me with a "Sorry! No time to explain!" And leaping away. This time in the direction of U.A.
Due to the distance constraints, I felt the heads that were left behind all get dispelled all at once. The sudden influx of hundreds of memories gave me a sharp headache so bad that I couldn't help but glare at the man that was the cause of it.
When we landed, he didn't put me down immediately but rather he ran straight for the principals office. In there, Granny, the principal and another person in a trench coat are already inside.
My pessimism reared in its ugly head again when I felt a pit in my stomach because this all looked like an interrogation. The headache wasn't helping but I had to stay calm and remind myself that I trust these people, or at least, Trust Granny.
When All Might put me down, I couldn't help but stumble a bit.
"Are you hurt?" Worriedly asked Granny as she began to fuss over me and see if I had any injuries.
"I'm fine, mostly." I tried to placate her. "The worst I have right now is a bad headache because a certain numbskull-" I sent a glare to the sheepish All Might. "-Seperated me from my other heads too far, too fast." Granny frowned at that and I can see the musclehead starting to sweat.
"Apologies for the rough transport, Shuzenji-Kun, But the situation at hand called for extreme measure at the moment." He brought my attention over to a screen. It's displaying a map with dots and red arrows. "As you can see here, the creatures hereby designated as 'Bombers' are currently all going towards the same destination."
"U.A." I furrowed my brows.
"Yes. We have reasons to believe that they are looking for you. Thankfully, the bombers seemed to have their numbers exhausted and this wouldn't be able to warp any more as freely as they have been so far. As for the ones that did make it in the nearby premises, the school's current defenses are more than enough to deal with them at the moment so we can afford some amount of respite."
I gulped and said a conjecture to lead them on. "It's him, isn't it? It has to be. No one else has the capability or resources to do something like this, let alone on a scale this big." I glanced on at All Might. "So he survived. Again."
He nodded. The man in the trench coat finally spoke up. "The possibility isn't lost on us. Moreso now that the bombers are too similar to the ones responsible for the attack on the Tokyo Sky Egg."
"Right." All Might cough to get the attention. "The continued survival of All For One, I feared that this might be the case. With your history, I believe that he is targeting you for whatever it is that happened in your past. Not to mention mine."
Granny gave my hand a supportive squeeze as I raised a brow in inquiry. "What do you mean?"
"The Feral Terror has always been a thorn on the side of me and my Legacy." Feral Terror? Not the Demon Lord? "He was a lot worse during my master's time, back before she dismantled his empire. According to her, our adversary has only gotten worse over the years. It has gotten so bad that her master has told her to kill him at the first chance she gets. She tried-" All Might clenched his fist, his eyes gleaming in determination. "-She failed. I took it upon myself as my duty when that monster ripped her apart in front of me."
"Wait." I raised my hand. This isn't right. It's another divergence. "What do you mean 'Gotten worse'? He was tamer before?"
"Well, I would say 'Tame' per say." He shook his head. "It was more 'Stretched thin' back then."
"But now he has consolidated his forces and has decided to attack in an almost rabid faver." Said the other man.
"He has practically abandoned whatever plan or reason and decided to go all-out. It's almost as if he's gone mad." Said Nedzu.
'...Mad?'
~~~
This is also partly thanks to the power of Clownpiece, the ability to drive anyone to insanity.
I can tell that she subtly lowered the strength of her ability since she also lives here, because normally, her target would have started an indiscriminate rampage by now.
~~~
The mental corruption is working on him albeit slowly. Clownpiece always uses her ability at the start of a battle so seeing him retaining his sanity until now is a great feat.
~~~
He instantly arrives Infront of Clownpiece and pierced his arm through her chest. In his hand lies her still beating heart behind her.
~~~
At some point, Mystia arrived by flying over. It would normally be a good thing that an ally came and it's even better than she has a similar ability to Clownpiece.
She can grant insanity to others around her by singing. But unlike Clownpiece, she cannot control who gets affected. Anyone who hears her song will go berserk, and she always liked to sing.
~~~
'Oh...' I winced internally, but I kept up my stone mask expression on the outside. 'Fairies can be quite vindictive. Clownpiece even more so. She definitely cursed him when he tore into her. And Mystia... She means well. I know she does. But the insanity enhancement must have stacked with whatever Clownpiece did...'
"Now what?" I sighed while rubbing the bridge of my nose. The headache wasn't going away yet, not with the new revelations.
"Now we plan." Said Nedzu. "The HPSC has taken the liberty to come into contact with me to organize a counter-attack. I have also requested assistance from my fellows at the [Think Tank] to aid in locating out adversary. Mind you, something like this normally shouldn't be done as the resources are allocated for global threats, but with the situation the way it is, I managed to convince anyway without relying on the favors I accumulated over the years." He sipped his tea- wait where did that come from?!
"All For One as been a scourge even since the dawn of quirks." The man in a trench coat said. "He started out in Hong Kong, then tried his hand in America and Africa before settling in Japan. There are a few old accounts from those countries. We didn't want any of them coming over to solve this problem because there's no guarantee that they won't take advantage of it. The power to give and take quirks would make anyone mouth water."
"The Think Tank is the most can accept. The rest would have to fall on us." Said All Might, I can practically feel the determination radiate from the man. "This is the last stand. All For One shall not live past this week, even if it's the last thing I do."
I glanced at them one by one and sighed. 'That is gonna be one plot down the hole...'