Excalibur fell.
I unleashed another mana burst, this time in my arms.
It drove them forward.
I didn't want to do it. But I couldn't stay put here, while the others fought, it was too much of a risk. I couldn't risk them getting hurt.
The sacred metal met the big being's blackened skin, it met no resistance.
The blade tore through skin, muscle, bone and tendon. A sickening splat reached my ears as the villain's hand fell to the floor, it's blood was dark red, it was thick and it pooled around the severed appendage.
I didn't have much time to worry as the thinner one was already dashing at me, its exposed brain pulsing with visible veins as it moved with inhuman speed, my speed.
My heart beat like a war drum.
My calves bulged with enhanced muscle fiber.
Its clawed hand scratched the edge of my nose, leaving a thin line of blood that pooled for an instant before Avalon's healing took effect. The metallic taste filled my mouth.
However, as I gazed at the two of them, my mind reeled in disbelief.
The big one's hand. It had regenerated completely. Fresh flesh and bone had grown back as if nothing had happened. Their beaks unhinged even more, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and they pounced upon me with renewed fury.
How? What quirk would allow them to have all these abilities? Enhanced strength, change speeds with someone else, and now regeneration? It was almost like they had multiple quirks, which should have been impossible. The very thought sent a chill down my spine.
My heart beat again, the sound echoing in my enhanced ears.
Excalibur flashed in my hands.
Two hands and a leg fell to the floor with wet thuds. Neither creature missed a step, they continued to run at me, their missing limbs regenerating in mere seconds. Almost as fast as Avalon's healing factor, maybe faster.
The sight was grotesque, unnatural. Flesh and bone knitting together in real time, sinew stretching and connecting.
This time however the thin one didn't swing at me. Instead, it ran past me, heading directly to the center of the arena. Where Aizawa was fighting against most of the villain group, his capture weapon whipping through the air as he tried to neutralize multiple opponents at once.
My blood ran cold.
NO!
My heart beat like thunder, I turned as fast as I could manage with my compromised speed, but...
BAM
I felt a punch connect with my spine, the impact sending shockwaves through my titanium armor. The force launched me forward, my feet leaving the ground as I flew through the air. Avalon immediately began repairing the damage to my vertebrae and surrounding tissue, but the lost momentum was precious time I couldn't afford.
I regained my footing and burst forward with everything I had, my legs pumping with enhanced mana as I desperately tried to close the distance.
But as I did so, I could see the big one running at my side, keeping pace with me despite its bulk. Its palm stretched wide to grab me, each finger ending in wicked claws that gleamed in the facility's artificial lighting.
I slashed with Excalibur again, the sacred blade whipping through the air. The creature's arm fell with a sickening thud, dark arterial blood spraying across the concrete floor. It hadn't taken long. Microseconds at most.
But with my speed in the thin one's hands, that was more than enough time. I watched in horror as it reached Aizawa, who was locked in combat with three other villains. The underground hero's attention was divided, his quirk active as he tried to neutralize multiple opponents simultaneously.
The thin nomu's leg drew back.
I saw it happening in slow motion, my enhanced perception allowing me to witness every terrible detail. The creature's muscles coiled like springs.
Then it kicked.
The impact sent Aizawa flying like a ragdoll, his capture weapon trailing behind him as he sailed through the air. His body crashed into the water zone with a tremendous splash, disappearing beneath the surface of the artificial lake.
I gnashed my teeth so hard I thought they might crack.
Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
In the center of it all stood the man with fourteen severed hands attached to his body. His head turned slowly, his gaze boring into mine through the gaps between fingers.
"I can't believe it," he said, his voice carrying easily across the battlefield. "You shouldn't be that fast anymore. The upper nomu's quirk should have you moving like a snail."
I burst forward and appeared directly in front of him, close enough to see the dried blood under his fingernails from where he'd been scratching at his neck. This close, I could smell him. He smelled like death and decay.
He didn't seem to have regeneration capabilities, so I couldn't risk slashing at him with Excalibur's edge. Instead, I used mana burst once more in my arms, feeling the familiar surge of power course through my muscles. I changed my grip on Excalibur, reversing the blade so I could strike with the pommel, and aimed for his temple knocking him out.
At least, that's what should have happened.
Instead, the thin nomu materialized between us, taking the full force of my blow directly to its skull. With it's enhanced durability my blow did nothing to it.
The man behind it scratched at his neck again, the sound like sandpaper against wood.
"The nomus should have made quick work of you by now," he said conversationally, as if this were a game. "I'm starting to think Sensei overestimated their capabilities."
I couldn't reply. My enhanced senses were screaming warnings from behind me.
The big nomu had flanked me during my exchange with its companion. I spun around, bringing the edge of Excalibur up to meet the creature's incoming fist. The sacred steel passed through its arm like it was made of paper, splitting it down the middle and carving a deep groove in its shoulder as the attack continued forward.
Blood splattered everywhere.
On my hair.
On my carefully crafted armor.
On my hands and face.
So much blood.
The metallic scent filled my nostrils, overwhelming my enhanced senses. For a moment, the present faded away, and I was transported back to that night.
The night everything changed.
The night when blood had stained everything I held dear.
My head began to hurt, a sharp stabbing pain behind my eyes.
I couldn't concentrate.
BAM
The thin nomu's fist connected with my leg while I was distracted by the flashback. The impact used my own enhanced speed against me, the force I normally generated now working in reverse. My knee buckled under the pressure, ligaments straining as I fell to one knee on the cracked concrete.
Pain shot through my leg, but Avalon healed it in the next moment.
The big nomu seized the opportunity, its massive hand wrapping around the arm that wasn't holding Excalibur. Its grip was like a vice, crushing down on my titanium armor, it bent it inward, the metal scraped against my skin.
It lifted me high overhead, my feet leaving the ground as I was suspended in the air like a trophy. Then it brought me down with tremendous force, slamming me into the concrete hard enough to create a spider web of cracks that spread outward from the point of impact.
The crater was deep enough that I momentarily disappeared from view.
I used mana burst again, feeling the familiar surge of power course through my body. Excalibur flashed once more in my grip, the sacred blade cutting through the hand that held me. Fingers and palm separated cleanly, falling away as I rolled desperately to the side.
Just in time.
The thin nomu's foot smashed into the spot where I had been lying, pulverizing concrete and sending chunks of debris flying in all directions. If I had been even a fraction of a second slower, it would have caved in my skull. Or tried to.
Avalon healed any damage I had sustained.
"Hmm," the man behind the nomus said as he scratched at his neck again, the sound now grating on my nerves like the school clock. "You're more resilient than anticipated. But resilience has its limits."
His smile widened, becoming something truly terrifying.
"Nomu 2," he called out to the thin creature. "Kill the students."
The thin nomu's grin stretched impossibly wide, its beak unhinging to reveal those rows of razor-sharp teeth. Then it dashed away, heading directly toward where my scattered classmates were fighting for their lives in the various disaster zones.
Panic flooded through me.
I needed to protect them. I burst once more, my legs coiling with enhanced mana as I prepared to give chase. But I couldn't move. My leg was caught in an iron grip.
The big nomu held me fast, its regenerated hand clamping down on my ankle with crushing force. It grinned up at me with those same terrible teeth-
I couldn't let it end here. I turned Excalibur around once more, gripping it by the blade and striking the nomu in the face with the heavy pommel. The impact caused its head to snap ninety degrees to the side with a sickening crack, and its grip on my leg finally released.
But I felt it the moment my makeshift mace connected with its skull.
Shock absorption.
The force of my own attack had been dampened, absorbed by some quirk that rendered blunt trauma nearly useless.
From somewhere in the facility, I heard it.
"AGGGHHH!!"
A scream of pure anguish, high-pitched and filled with terror. One of my classmates was in mortal danger.
The sound made my body rattle.. Every instinct in my body, everything I had experienced in my years as a vigilante, screamed at me to abandon this fight and help whoever was screaming.
I couldn't stay here playing games with these artificial monsters. I had to protect them.
I burst once more, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Narration POV
Shigaraki smiled with genuine pleasure, the expression visible even behind the severed hand that covered most of his face.
"Nomu 1," he called out to the big creature that was just recovering from Arthur's pommel strike. "Go in the other direction as Nomu 2. Kill whoever you find."
The artificial human grinned with those terrible teeth, then began running toward a different zone, one filled with burning buildings where orange flames licked at the artificial sky.
Kurogiri materialized at Shigaraki's.
"Tomura Shigaraki," he said in that polite tone that seemed so at odds with their current situation.
"Kurogiri, did you kill 13?" Shigaraki asked, still watching Arthur's desperate attempts to be in multiple places at once.
"I put 13 out of action, but there were students I was unable to disperse during the initial attack, and one of them was able to run away."
Shigaraki's expression changed instantly.
"Huh?"
He began scratching at his neck with renewed vigor, the sound becoming more frantic as pieces of dead skin flaked away under his fingernails. Then he began to chuckle, the sound low and eerie.
"Kurogiri, you..." he began, his voice dropping. "If you weren't our warp gate, I would have crushed you to pieces already. We can't win against dozens of pro heroes."
Shigaraki's gaze returned to where bursts of gold and black light were racing across the entire facility as Arthur desperately tried to protect everyone simultaneously. "Especially since eight of the fifteen minutes of Trick Room have already passed, and that vigilante still isn't dead. It's game over, man. It's game over this time."
He paused, considering their options.
"However, before we go, let's smash some of their pride!"
With that declaration, Shigaraki dashed toward the flood zone, his hand stretching toward Tsuyu's face. He activated his quirk which would reduce her to nothing but dust.
Midoriya quivered with terror, his broken finger still throbbing from his earlier use to defeat the villains in the flood zone. Tsuyu was frozen in shock, her large eyes wide with the recognition of impending death.
However Shigaraki's hand stopped millimeters away from her face.
"Dammit, you bastard, you're still alive, Aizawa," Shigaraki suddenly said.
From where he had been embedded in the concrete by the thin nomu's devastating kick, Aizawa looked up at Shigaraki with blood streaming down his face. His capture weapon was torn and dirty, and his quirk-canceling eyes were struggling to focus, but he was still breathing.
Midoriya smashed forward with his right arm expecting it to break but to at least push Shigaraki away.
But neither of those things happened
The big nomu had appeared at Shigaraki's side taking the blow for him and then it threw a punch of it's own.
Arthur POV
I couldn't keep this up.
I wasn't getting tired, Avalon prevented that. I wasn't using more mana than I possessed, my enhanced heart provided a seemingly endless supply. I wasn't even significantly damaged, every injury was healing faster than it could accumulate.
But I just wasn't fast enough.
Even with continuous mana bursts, even with perfect timing and flawless execution, I couldn't be in multiple places at once.
Not with this artificially limited speed.
The sole reason I had been able to protect anyone at all was because I was bursting at exactly the right moments, in perfect succession, reading the battlefield with supernatural precision.
But it didn't matter how fresh I was, how much power I had left, or how perfectly I could predict my opponents' moves. One mistake, one moment of imperfect timing, and someone could die.
And that mistake was about to happen.
I had just finished with impaling the thin nomu into a wall of the facility, it couldn't move at least for now.
I turned and my enhanced vision caught it in horrifying detail. At the water zone.
The other nomu.
It drew back its enormous fist, muscles coiling. The punch was aimed directly at Tsuyu. At this distance, with this trajectory, the impact would pulverize her.
It would kill her.
And I was too far away.
Even with mana burst, even with everything I had, I couldn't cover the distance in time. My compromised speed made it impossible. I would arrive seconds too late to witness the death of one of my classmates.
The big nomu's fist began to move forward with devastating force.
Tsuyu didn't move. Or more likely couldn't.
Time seemed to slow as my enhanced perception caught every terrible detail.
I couldn't reach her.
But maybe I didn't have to reach her myself.
Maybe I could send something faster.
The thought formed in my mind.
Throughout my entire career as a vigilante, I had maintained one absolute rule, I would not kill.
No matter how evil the villain, no matter how desperate the situation, I would find another way. It was the line that separated heroes from murderers, the principle that let me sleep at night the few nights I did, a promise I had made.
But as I watched that fist hurtle toward Tsuyu's defenseless form, I threw those all away.
I could sacrifice food.
I could sacrifice sleep.
And I could sacrifice this.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, raising Excalibur high above my head with both hands.
The sacred blade began to glow brighter and brighter. Even the shadows dissipated in the holy light.
This was the holy sword's ultimate technique. A strike that could cross any distance, pierce any defense, and end any threat.
A strike that would travel faster than even my enhanced speed ever could.
A strike that would kill.
The light grew brighter, making the entire facility glow gold. The nomu's fist was mere inches from Tsuyu's face. I had no choice left.
I brought the blade down with every ounce of power I possessed.
The mana burst through Excalibur a streak of pure golden light that would reach its target instantly.
I yelled at the top of my lungs, the sound echoing through the facility as I chose Tsuyu's life over my own morality.
"EXCALIBUR!!!"
A/N: I did use EXCALIBUR even had to tell a comment that that would be too extreme for a Nomu lol even though I knew I was going to use it. Also yeah this chapter was incredibly fun to write, honestly I love putting protagonists in compromising situations, something I can't do much since Arthur is so op.
Oh and as you guys could guess if he had no trouble with killing he would have literally killed every single villain the millisecond they stepped into USJ and they would have been able to do nothing, but this is the price of morality.
Thx for reading! See you lads and ladies tomorrow! Author out!