The warehouse of Sector S-10 was a gargantuan concrete vault with depths gorged with goods frozen in anticipation of their fate. Here, beneath the soaring canopies of the roof, cargo huddled in chaotic clusters where some goods were preparing to vanish into the bowels of shipping containers while others had only recently emerged from them. It was a monumental sanctuary of logistics with titan-like shelving units retreating into a dusty semi-darkness for hundreds of meters. Previously, the silence here was broken only by the hum of machinery, but now, abandoned forklifts had been transformed into an improvised barricade to seal off the main entrance. Quillshear had narrowly managed to slip through a gap beneath the bucket of one of them just before the metal wall closed for good.
Air inside was stale and stagnant, such that one's lungs refused to believe a space like this could ever be ventilated. There was a thick, almost tactile smell of "newness" composed of the acrid chemistry of fresh plastic, polyethylene film of cardboard boxes, and the scent of industrial-building materials. The cold light of the lamps washed over the seamless sheet of the concrete floor, picking out endless rows of goods from the darkness, stretching from crates of electronics to massive steel shafts.
The forklifts were arranged in three rows. In theory, even for a creature as monstrous as Tiger, it would take considerable time to chew through this mechanical barrier. In theory, these precious minutes should have been enough for the people to scatter within the labyrinth of shelves. But theory shattered against reality.
The crowd of workers was a far cry from the image of "rescued citizens" they were so used to seeing on the news. None of them ever thought this nightmare would happen to them! The hero's arrival had brought no relief — it had become the final nail in the coffin of their collective peace. Before them stood an embittered mass, paralyzed by terror, for whom the sight of a beaten, trembling "protector" was a final sentence. Their gazes, in which hope had been replaced by a venomous disappointment, pierced through Quillshear like jagged glass.
A hero, their "shield," sat on the floor, pitifully slumped against a crate. His suit had turned into rags, the skin where his needles emerged oozed blood, and his gaze was glassy, vacant. He no longer resembled a symbol of justice — he looked like just another victim who had simply been lucky enough to reach the door first. In this world, people were accustomed to paying taxes, buying the right to "security" as a service. And now, when the paid service had turned into bloody, unpredictable chaos, they felt not just frightened, but like defrauded investors in a bankrupt bank.
Monica Kaniyashiki stood a short distance away. The screams and wails of the workers reached her as if from underwater; her mind was occupied with a much more dangerous puzzle. She checked her smartphone screen again and again.
"Aquamarine. In every photo Tsukauchi sent, Nomura's hair was a bright, almost fluorescent color. For the pigment to fade to charcoal black in just a few hours — it's a biological absurdity. A transformation? Or did he inject himself with Trigger too? Who is he — a victim of circumstance or a hidden threat?.." — Monica bit her lip hard, drawing the faint taste of iron.
"No, stop it. I'm just looking for a scapegoat right now. The boy lost his father, he was hunted through the city by a monster, and here I am trying to construct a conspiracy out of thin air."
— Is he seriously out cold right here? — the voice of one of the workers, trembling with a mix of malice and disbelief, snapped her out of her trance. The man pointed toward the upper tiers.
While the police tried to contain the mounting hysteria of the crowd, Monica looked up. There, on the third level of the racking, in a torn box of mattresses, lay Nomura. He was curled in a fetal position, as if trying to disappear, to dissolve into the soft foam and escape the world entirely.
— At least he made sure none of these twitchy losers could reach him, — remarked an elderly worker. Despite the general panic, a strange, almost out-of-place positivity shone in the eyes of a veteran who had seen too many crises to count.
— Why the hell did the kid fall asleep up there? Are we going to have to haul him down later? The villain could breach the hull at any second! — Sergeant Sato approached them. He was completely on edge. He was frightened both by the monster outside and by the primal greed with which the people were looking at the wounded hero. He understood: if Tiger broke through, the crowd would feed Quillshear to the monster first, just to win themselves a single extra second to flee.
The elderly worker, who had been quietly watching Nomura, suddenly turned to the sergeant. He didn't look scared but rather focused, like a man used to solving problems as they came.
— Sergeant, drop the panic. It's about as useful as a leaky container, — the old man nodded toward the idle forklifts. — Listen to what I'm telling you. Those machines at the door? They're just tin skeletons. If that beast outside hits them with a head of steam, he'll scatter them like bowling pins.
Sato froze, listening. The old man pointed toward the racks of industrial parts and construction materials.
— We've got a mountain of pallets here with enough junk to weigh tons! Fire up every remaining forklift. Haul the bulkiest, heaviest crap you can find and dump it right on top of those machines at the entrance. Don't just make a barricade — make a wall. A solid, goddamn mountain of steel and concrete. Let that villain break his teeth on our wall.
Sato was taken aback for a moment. The simplicity and logic of the idea hit him like a breath of cold air. He looked at the workers who were still surrounding Quillshear, venting their rage on him. The sergeant realized: he had to give them a job. Right now. Otherwise, they would tear each other apart before the Nomu ever did.
Sato jumped onto one of the crates, his heavy boots thudding loudly against the wood.
— EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP! — he roared so loudly that even Monica flinched.
The crowd went silent, staring at the officer in surprise.
— Look at yourselves! You want to blame this kid? — he pointed at the bloodied Quillshear. Right now, with his Quirk utterly useless, the hero was little more than dead weight. — You want to find someone to blame for the world going to hell? Fine! But when that thing smashes through the door, your complaints to the tax office aren't going to stop it!
Sato swept his fierce gaze across the crowd, catching the eyes of men and women alike.
— Every one of you has someone at home. Wives, children, parents. They're waiting for you at the breakfast table. And if you want to live to see this morning, if you want to walk out of here on your own two feet instead of in bags — forget your grudges! We have tons of steel and goddamn forklifts! We aren't going to sit around and wait for death. We're going to build a wall that not even a tank could punch through!
He pointed to the nearest shelves of heavy cargo.
— Operators to the machines! The rest of you — grab everything heavy you can lift! Drag every heaviest pallet we have to the main entrance!
For a heartbeat, silence hung in the hangar. And then, as if a dam had burst, the people surged forward. Rage was replaced by the desperate, primal energy of survival. The first forklifts roared to life, and foremen led crowds toward the heaviest pallets of brick and mortar. Warehouse S-10 transformed into a humming, desperate anthill.
Monica Kaniyashiki smiled faintly as she watched the people begin to haul sand, bags of concrete, bricks, and other heavy construction materials toward the entrance. Sato had managed to steady the mob.
She looked back at Nomura. The youth on the third tier showed no signs of life. He was far away from here, in a place where no pallets could protect him from what awaited in the dark.
***
With a sharp awakening, TN came to a sudden realization: he was once again in that dark, endless space he had previously chosen to call The Void. In all likelihood, this place personified his soul, seeing as it was appearing to him for the second time. Nothing like this had been observed before, but it was probably connected to his current deplorable state of fatigue, exhaustion, and lack of sleep. Ultimately, something was forcing him to play through the exact same "dream." Perhaps it wasn't a soul at all, but simply a lucid dream that could be controlled. He recalled that a similar effect could occur in people testing various drugs or those who hadn't slept for a couple of days.
— And here I thought Kyudai had already turned me into a Nomu.
Even though TN had only been awake for twenty-four hours, from a scientific standpoint, that wouldn't be enough to trigger such an effect. Sure, dreams during sleep deprivation can be weird at times, and you might sleep longer than usual, but that is about it. This felt like something from a completely different category, and that scientific explanation wasn't the only reason for his appearance here. There was some kind of gestalt locking him in this place time and time again whenever his consciousness wavered...
— Haven't you figured it out yet? — a distinct male voice echoed from the darkness. Rough, and painfully familiar. — TN... How pathetic your new name sounds, made up just as suddenly as when your little brother snatched YOUR girl from you. Or did you yield her to him? :) What a pathetic cuckold you are! Lmao, you make me laugh! HA-HA!
The space tore apart with laughter. A terrifying laughter that pierced his very soul, the deepest depth of the essence of TN's current vessel. The chaotic energy lines of quirks vibrated strangely in response to this voice, seemingly losing their minds or rather aligning themselves into some strange, incomprehensible order of their own.
— Show yourself! Who are you?! — TN spun around, instinctively dropping into a fighting stance, but due to his unruly vessel of chaotic quirk energy, it turned out incredibly clumsy and sloppy. The stranger did not show himself.
— Are you trapped here too?! I want to get out of here as well! Let's help each other!
Despite the hurtful words the stranger had just uttered, right now TN wanted nothing more than to leave this place and never return. Cooperation seemed like the only rational way out.
As if reading his thoughts, a pair of purple eyes began to glow out of the darkness. His eyes. TN reached for the place where his eye sockets should be, and just like last time, found no eyes there. There were only empty sockets.
— Hey, those are my eyes! — TN leaped toward the silhouette, trying to close the distance with the unknown entity, but the eyes vanished along with the figure, and he landed clumsily.
— Are you sure?) — the figure sneered maliciously, looming high right behind TN's back.
The imaginary gears in his head began to turn. Who else had been here last time? The large hand that had pulled him from the very bottom of this bizarre dream belonged to that police girl from Osaka. But the eyes...
— You've already guessed it yourself, son.) — A familiar figure barely materialized from the darkness. That suit jacket, the trousers, and that arrogant demeanor. He could be recognized out of a million, even in near-absolute darkness.
TN swore loudly. He flung imaginary commands into the void. He amplified his desire to leave this place, telling himself that this was just a dream, that he had to wake up this instant. Somebody, anybody, had to hear him. But they were all intercepted by Him...
...AFO.
— You won't leave this place, you little bastard, until I want you to. — AFO's authoritative tone completely snapped TN's patience. He was ready to tear him apart right then and there.
TN's body lunged forward, and in a blind rage, he threw a couple of punches, but they proved useless. A small, barely noticeable flash of quirk energy resonance flickered between them. The blows landed as if hitting a heavy boxing punch bag tightly packed with sand.
— Then why the hell did you lock me in here?!
A knee strike straight to TN's jaw caught him completely off guard. TN didn't even see where the blow came from. Without eyes, he could "see" almost nothing in this immaterial world. Only a small radius around him appeared slightly less dark. The strike carried such devastating power that black-and-red lightning flashed, scattering and exploding in all directions, while TN himself was blasted hundreds of meters away. One of the quirks inside his body took the brunt of the impact, shattering to pieces.
His thoughts instantly evaporated. There was no physical pain, but the sensation felt as though one of his limbs had been torn right off. Ah, that venomous smirk of AFO's. He could see it even through this darkness. Those eyes burned into him from 360 degrees around. They saw right through him. He stood as if laid bare before this beast. The beast rejoiced that TN had lost one of the quirks protecting him. The beast hungered and bided its time, waiting to strike at the weakest spot to inflict as much pain as possible.
His thoughts slowly began to piece themselves back together after the deafening blow.
— Four left. Four quirks... — TN suspected that if he lost all his quirks, he would die, dissolving forever, and then AFO, or whoever this was, would likely take possession of his body. This wasn't just logical; it was an intuitive certainty.
— I have no idea how you ended up inside my body. Maybe my cursed demon blood rebelled against me because I'm your son, or whatever... But I know one thing. — An identical venomous smirk appeared on TN's face, looking strikingly like his father's.
— Only a demon can defeat a demon one-on-one! — The chaotic energy of the remaining four quirks danced slightly and finally settled into a loose semblance of order, as if a tangled ball of threads had formed a sturdy rope. No one was going to help him now; he had to try and handle this on his own.
Seeing this process unfold with his own eyes, the hostile shard of AFO's Ego faltered for a mere fraction of a second, his smirk twitching. — I'll wipe that smug grin off your face. We have an eternity ahead of us! Time moves completely as I desire here! — AFO's strike came from the flank again, packing even greater power. TN raised a side block, taking the impact on his shoulder. Black-and-red lightning flared outward once more, and TN was thrown just as far back, but the quirk rope held. His immaterial body of four strands remained intact.
— Let's see how many hits your pathetic quirk rope can take. I highly doubt it will survive two more blows like that.
—"From what I gather, this black lightning is the result of resonance from a potential energy difference. Just like the behavior of electrons. Without vision, I won't be able to block his strikes for long. Last time, I got lucky shifting a bit of energy to my right flank to compensate for the force of the blow, but sooner or later, I'll slip up and miss a hit, and that could weaken me even further. I need to time it perfectly and counterattack, then seize at least one eye."
AFO's strike landed from the left side, straight into TN's abdomen. At the moment of impact, one could vaguely trace the proportions of his body, his figure, his height... Crossing two quirks he had stolen a couple of hours ago in front of him to absorb the blow, now transformed into a tight rope, they reinforced each other. They managed to withstand far greater damage, and TN wasn't blasted nearly as far, while the flash from the resonance was large enough to briefly blind AFO's vision right in front of him. At that exact moment, AFO was left wide open, if only he attacked immediately.
After all, TN's Battle IQ in any body would remain top-tier; he had survived countless battles back when he was in Grimm's shoes, the scars from which were still present on Taiko's body.
—"The previous strike didn't have the desired effect. — Now, TN simulated the behavior of a taut, snapping whip. With a single dash, he closed the distance, and AFO's silhouette finally became much sharper. He saw exactly where he needed to hit. He had to take at least one eye; it would be the best investment even if he lost one of his quirks in the process. Then he could reduce the massive advantage AFO possessed, namely, the presence of sight.
—"What if I strike not the way I'm used to, but with a quirk?"
TN's whipping strike flew with all his might, slashing like a scourge right across AFO's face, splitting his head diagonally into two parts. AFO clutched his face and screamed in agony as a chunk of his head, along with one of his eyes, flew off to the side.
Not wasting a precious second, instead of continuing to attack AFO in his moment of weakness, TN lunged for the eye. Tearing the purple eye from the dislodged skull fragment, with a drawn-out howl, it was sucked into the empty space on TN's face. The world around turned gray, and the darkness receded by a kilometer, finally revealing AFO in all his glory, along with whatever was churning inside him. It was a clump of some incomprehensible substance. Like a pile of energies from different quirks, gathering piece by piece around a certain core. He didn't have access to the full energy of TN's body; he was merely feeding on the remnants like a parasite.
— What a hornets' nest you've got inside you...
— You should look at yourself first! Ha! That was pretty cool, TN. Now I'm your fan... No, a true fan!... — AFO applauded gracefully and theatrically, but his final clap proved to be overly powerful, so powerful that the world around them convulsed, and the solid ground beneath their feet shook. In place of the lost part of his skull, shimmering tentacles writhing like a tumor emerged. — ...But I am still the master of your domain.
The solid rock beneath TN's feet split open. Vines erupted from the fissures, attempting to ensnare him, but he executed a side flip, leaping a dozen meters away.
— Did you know that purple has been harvested from seashells since ancient times, and back then, the color was exceedingly expensive? The true color of emperors, it became associated with the legacy of Byzantium. But what an irony, now these Byzantine eyes are worth nothing to me. Even if you take the second one, I will still find you!
Despite it being an obvious provocation, it seemed TN thought it was a solid plan to strip AFO of his sight, thereby seizing the initiative and the upper hand. TN desperately tried to think the way he would in the material world: blind the opponent, gain the advantage. But this was a different parallel of reality; everything worked differently here. Discerning a barely perceptible approaching shadow on the floor, a massive boulder suddenly fell, attempting to crush him. Where it had come from was still a mystery. Glancing upward, he saw a dozen more. Massive ten-meter boulders were hurtling straight at him, but TN accelerated toward AFO, barely managing to slip away at the last possible second before he could be pinned down.
— Running like a rabbit cornered in a field! — AFO soared high up on a platform he had manifested to keep TN out of reach. Seeing his path to AFO, TN hastily leaped with all his might toward a flying boulder, intending to use the stone as a platform for his swift and flexible body. Barely reaching it, he continued his jump, accelerating even harder toward the next rock.
— It seems you've already grown accustomed to your new body, — AFO chuckled, drifting hundreds of meters up in the air.
—"I'm not going to make it!" — As soon as TN began to lose altitude, driven by reflex and a slight phobia of heights as he sensed hundreds of meters of empty space beneath him, he desperately willed himself to grab onto the boulder's ledge. To his surprise, this desire manifested, and his rope-arm elongated and simultaneously thinned out, embedding itself into the rocky surface. He still couldn't get fully used to this body, to this new reality where everything functioned differently, by entirely different laws: not material ones, but metaphysical.
Finally drawing close to a caught-off-guard AFO, who had assumed TN wouldn't bridge the gap, TN ripped out his second eye and instantly paid the price for it. AFO managed to seize him by what resembled his neck, his hand beginning to spark from the opposition and variance of their energies.
— I told you, these eyes mean nothing to me. I can see you anyway. So be it, take the eyes, and I will strip you of another quirk. — AFO managed to rip away one of TN's arms before TN, in retaliation, struck him with a whip straight to the stomach. Both blasted apart in opposite directions. Black-and-red lightning ruptured the space, marking the loss of yet another quirk.
Three left. Three taut, intertwined ropes were all that remained of TN at the moment. His body resembled a tripodal structure, with its head being an intertwined knot of all these ropes, and two Byzantine purple eyes that finally saw this gray world at 100%. This space had no physically defined boundaries in any direction; only the floor was static and clear. It was reminiscent of a Euclidean space.
— I have gained even more power over this place. To proceed further, I need you to lose control of another quirk, but it won't be like before. Three quirks make for a surprisingly sturdy structure. Sturdier than four, as geometry unexpectedly plays its part here. A chair with four legs is less stable than a three-legged one. — The enlarged AFO announced, and TN realized where he had miscalculated. He made the same mistake time and time again, thinking this place was a conventional battlefield. It turned out the number of his quirks was the most critical indicator, just like the health hearts in a game. Of all his quirks, only the dominant Mite on one of his legs and the other two minor quirks remained.
AFO snapped his fingers and the world around suddenly changed. TN crouched, preparing for battle. It was an endless green meadow under a blue sky. Such a peaceful setting was deceptive.
"Fuck, he can already change the reality of this place. After all, even this tumor-AFO remains a master of psychological manipulation. What to do... what to do... what to do..."
— I hate to dampen your triumph, but there is a pattern. The more complex a system, the easier it is to break it in the right places, and it will collapse under the weight of its own mass. — He decided to stick to his old strategy and continue defending. Now with sight, he could see the attack coming, making defense much easier. The body with three points of support became far more agile and stable.
— I will drive your soul into a corner, into the deepest depths of the abyss from which you will never escape. I will seize your body, your little brother will be killed, and Kuinn will belong to me. — AFO created an illusion of Kuinn. Distraught, terrified, in a single instant she was surrounded by the tentacles of this cursed tumor.
At that very moment, TN felt a chilling, primal terror. Every fiber of his nonexistent body screamed to break free, to give in to this all-consuming impulse and crush the AFO. A bastard in the most brutal way possible. To swallow this cheap bait whole. He squeezed his new, alien eyelids shut, painfully, just to avoid watching this sickening spectacle. To avoid seeing Kuinn being mercilessly stripped bare, subjected to the most vile and perverted abuse.
—Taiko, save me! I don't understand what's happening!— Her shrill, despairing scream tore at his eardrums.
"Even if I'm stuck here for eternity, I won't give up," —his mind raced. —"Not for this fake doll. Not for saving the world, and not for redemption. Did I really survive that meat grinder, digest all that hell, just to die ingloriously in my own head?! I only want one thing: to gut you. And I will do it. I will uproot this arrogant tumor that metastasized in me back in Jaku, with my bare hands!"
He desperately tried to erect a mental wall, to isolate himself, but the wet, squelching sounds continued to drill into his brain, and the mocking silhouette of the AFO was burned into his retina even through the closed lids of his Byzantine eyes. Right now, those eyes were a curse, not a gift.
—This is a delusion. This isn't her. This can't be...— he repeated to himself like a mantra. But the pressure reached a critical mass, and he opened his eyes in despair. What he saw in that very second crushed Kuinn's bright image into bloody mud. That innocent flower. That ray of sunshine. Right now, she was writhing in ecstasy, drowning in a vicious, filthy pleasure, while he was paralyzed by his own shock. He couldn't give in. Not even a millimeter. It felt like his head would burst from the internal pressure. The threads of his quirks trembled treacherously, as if doubting whether the core that held his system together still existed.
—I always knew you preferred watching others do 'it'! HA-HA-HA...!— AFO burst into mocking laughter.
—HAHAHAHAHAHAH!— TN suddenly joined in AFO's laughter. His laughter was broken, and his eyes showed a dawning madness. AFO fell silent, peering intently, partly curious about the effect he had caused; it seemed the scenario hadn't gone according to plan.
—Don't pretend, I see right through you! — AFO tried to draw him out, but with every second of his laughter growing, his grin grew smaller and smaller. It didn't feel like acting, pretense, or a strategic move. It was all real. TN was breaking down right now. And it wasn't funny anymore.
—Holy Fuck!!!! OOOOOOoooo!! I gonna be dead now! — TN screamed throughout the entire domain, across kilometers of space, clutching his head.
This internal breakdown was happening excruciatingly slowly, building like a crushing migraine before a stroke. Acrid as the smell of sulfur, shifting like a quagmire, it was dragging him to the very bottom, corroding his insides with acid. The only lifeline for his crumbling psyche was the complete and utter destruction of her image. He had to burn all bridges, erase the very significance of her innocence. Devalue her to nothing. From now on, she was nothing. Just dust in the wind. A void. She no longer existed. He had already killed her in his head a thousand times. He had to. TN burst into hysterical laughter, plunging headlong into the abyss of approaching madness.
—WOULD YOU USE SUCH CHEAP TRICKS AGAINST ME?! WHAT A COMPLETE IDIOT YOU ARE! HA-HA-HA!— Even through the surreal chaos of intertwined energies that now comprised him, the predatory, distorted features of his grin emerged with terrifying clarity. TN hadn't made the first move, hadn't broken the distance, as AFO, rubbing his hands, had so hoped.
AFO was still able to sense these vibrations, seeing microscopic cracks of doubt in the very structure of his opponent's quirks. With each new stage of enhancement, he could read his thoughts like an open book... But now? Now before him was only an empty, hostile shell, possessed by a single, manic desire: to reclaim his body and continue its uncontrollable growth, to continue its eternal, insatiable expansion. TN had become just as much of a beast as he was. This all-consuming desire was so colossal that it could easily eclipse the domains of the true AFO and "One for All" in power. It was absolute, uncontrollable greed, thickly laced with primal rage. This is what it's like to be a quirk enslaving other quirks. Unfortunately for the AFO, it had spent its entire life feeding on mere scraps, the fragments of other people's powers, while the "Self" had always been the integral core of the TN. Or, even more terrifying, the opposite.
Realizing that its cheap farce had failed miserably, the AFO snapped its fingers and ended the performance. In the blink of an eye, the illusory Kuinn was torn to bloody pieces with the brutality of a butcher.
—What a magnificent performance! Bravo! I'm bored to death!— TN raised his voice.
I must tell you the good news: you are no longer human. Or rather, you have ceased to be so since 'that very night.' You have always been nothing but a quirk, and everything you see around you is your true home. Your primordial domain.
The AFO particle already sensed in its gut that its defeat was predetermined. Could it, at the last moment, allow this monster it had created to escape into the real world, where it would inevitably collide with the true, original AFO?
Absolutely unacceptable.
—I will chip away at your pathetic creation of shit and sticks, piece by piece, until nothing remains of you but dust! This is exactly how The New Order arrives!
P.S. Finally! Lets fucking cooking🥂
The End Of III Arc "Then One Day We`ll Die" (so long lol)
~70,000 words
Verrix: I'd like to note that there have been noticeable improvements in the volume and quality of work. I'm pleased to see that the number of readers is growing. I'll continue working at the same pace, maybe a little longer sometimes. I repeat, I'm focusing on implementing my ideas, while the AI are handling the editing work more. If there are any grammary errors in the text, please comment on the specific paragraph, and I'll change it. This way, you'll contribute to the work and development of the fandom! Also, please suggest your ideas before they affect my canon! If you like the idea, I might implement it later.
Regarding future arcs: I won't give any spoilers, but there are at least 2-3 dense arcs planned, totaling 200,000 words or more. There will be three key character storylines: The Villain Line – AFO, Shigaraki, Kyudai.
The Hero Line – All Might, Taiko, Izuku, Class 1A & 1B.
The Government Line – ????
The "Isekai" (Outsider) Line – ????????
And running parallel to all this is our "TNO" (The New Order). Bending reality to his will. Step by step. No one knows about him yet, and they likely never will. All I'll say is that he will be driven by both animalistic dominance and brute force, as well as a cunning, flexible mind.
There will be a lot of blood on his path, but it will always be justified—to the extent that such things can ever be judged. He won't be a mindless beast exterminating everything in his way.
All in all, some interesting chaos is in the works.