Chapter 63: Farewell, One For All
The air in Kamino had become heavy, charged with the static of two colliding eras.
All For One hovered above the devastation, his patience at an end. The game was over. He looked down at the skeletal figure of the Symbol of Peace and the battered student lying nearby.
"You have struggled enough," the Villain declared.
The flesh on his right arm began to swell grotesquely. It twisted and writhed, a biological nightmare of stolen power. Spring-like Limbs. Kinetic Booster. Strength Enhancer. Hypertrophy. Rivet. Air Walk. The arm expanded until it was the size of a truck, pulsing with veins of raw, unstable energy and bone-crushing mass.
"I will blow you away," All For One said, his voice void of mercy, "along with the regret of your weakness."
Opposite him, All Might stood on trembling legs. His body was a map of scars and bones, his uniform hanging loosely off his emaciated frame. But his right arm... his right arm was different. It glowed with a golden, blazing light. It was the last vessel. The final embers of One For All were screaming, gathered into that single limb, swelling it to its muscular maximum while the rest of him withered.
Aokiji lay on the broken concrete a few meters away. His vision was blurring, the world looking like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. He tried to push himself up, but his arms collapsed under his own weight.
He's going to die...
The thought pierced Aokiji's frozen mind like a heated needle. He watched the monstrous limb pulsing above them.
All Might is going to trade his life for this. He's going to block that monster's attack with his body.
"No..." Aokiji wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "Not... alone."
"Midoriya... young Bakugo... young Kuzan..." All Might whispered the names of the future, ignoring the monster in front of him. "I leave the rest... to you!"
He kicked off the ground.
All For One lunged forward.
The two titans rushed toward each other for the final collision. All Might feinted, pulling back his glowing right fist, preparing to transfer the power to his left at the last second to bypass the villain's guard. It was a desperate gambit, a trick to land a hit on a superior opponent.
But Aokiji didn't know that. From his perspective on the ground, he only saw All Might charging recklessly into a death trap. He saw the villain's massive arm glowing with enough power to vaporize a city block.
I have to stop him. I have to stop the movement. Even if it breaks me.
Aokiji slammed his palms onto the gravel. His eyes rolled back, turning pure white.
"Absolute Zero: Flash Freeze!"
It wasn't a wall. It wasn't a projectile. It was an uncontrolled, omni-directional explosion of entropy.
A wave of blue-white energy erupted from Aokiji, moving faster than sound. It overtook both combatants in the blink of an eye.
All For One, mid-lunge, was instantly encased. The massive, grotesque arm, the mask, the suit—everything turned into a towering, solid statue of diamond-hard ice. He was frozen mid-motion, a monument to terror suspended in a prison of cold.
But the wave didn't stop there. It washed over All Might too.
"Ghk!" All Might gasped.
The ice crawled up his left leg, encasing his waist, his ribs, and sealing the entire left side of his face in a thick, jagged crust of frost. His movement was hindered. His momentum was checked.
For a split second, the battlefield was a frozen tableau. The Villain, a statue. The Hero, half-frozen. The Student, unconscious with his hands on the ground.
All For One's consciousness flickered within the ice. He froze me? But... he froze All Might too. The fool. Now neither of us can—
The thought was cut short.
The golden light in All Might's right arm didn't dim. It flared brighter. The ice covering All Might's face cracked as his jaw set in a grimace of pure willpower. The frost on his leg shattered as he forced his muscles to contract one last time.
He didn't need his left side. He didn't need his legs. He didn't need comfort. He only needed that one, final arm.
"You..." All Might roared, his voice breaking through the ice covering his lips.
He pulled his fist back. The sheer heat of One For All sublimated the ice on his knuckles into steam.
"...ARE FINISHED!!"
He drove the fist forward. It collided with the frozen mass of All For One.
"UNITED STATES OF..... SMAAAAAAAASH!!!!"
It wasn't a thud. It was the sound of a thousand chandeliers breaking at once.
The impact didn't just push the villain back. The force of the punch, combined with the brittleness of the flash-frozen structure, caused total structural failure.
The ice statue of All For One exploded.
The villain's grotesque arm shattered into millions of glittering, sparkling shards that rained down like diamond dust. The dark suit, the mask, the menace—it all disintegrated into a shower of ice and sparks under the weight of the greatest smash in history.
A massive tornado of wind and ice crystals spiraled into the sky, tearing the clouds apart and revealing the moon. The threat was gone. Not just defeated... but broken into pieces.
The wind died down. The dust settled.
In the center of the crater, All Might stood.
The golden light faded from his arm. The muscle form evaporated like mist, leaving only the skeleton.
He was panting heavily. The right side of his body was bruised and blackened. The left side was still covered in patches of Aokiji's white frost, clinging to his hair and cheek like a crown of snow.
He didn't fall. He planted his feet.
Slowly, painfully, he raised his right fist into the air.
Silence reigned over Kamino. Silence reigned over Japan.
Then, a low rumble began. It started from the streets, from the homes, from the train stations. It grew into a roar. People cried. People cheered. People hugged strangers. The Symbol of Peace had won.
All Might took a deep, rattling breath. He looked at the news helicopter hovering above. He knew the world was watching. He knew he was watching.
He pointed a trembling, skeletal finger directly at the camera. His eyes, sunken shadows, burned with a final, intense blue light.
"Next..."
His voice was weak, but the microphones picked it up.
"...It's your turn."
Across the city, Izuku Midoriya fell to his knees, tears flooding his face. He understood. Katsuki Bakugo stared at the screen, silent, his fists clenched. He understood.
Hundreds of miles away, in a quiet, traditional Japanese living room, the television screen illuminated the faces of a family sitting in the dark.
The Kuzan household.
The father, a man known for his stoic, freezing demeanor, sat rigid in his chair. He watched the screen. He saw the villain—the monster who had held a knife to his family's throat for years—shatter into a million harmless pieces of ice. He saw the result of his son's desperate battle.
The "ice" that had encased his heart for so long... finally cracked.
His stoic mask crumpled. His shoulders shook. He covered his face with his large hands, and for the first time in a decade, he sobbed openly. It was a guttural, painful sound of relief and regret, the sound of a father who had been terrified of losing everything.
Beside him, Aokiji's mother wept silently, her hands pressed together in prayer, bowing her head in gratitude.
And in the center of the room, on the lap of the elderly grandmother, sat little Sayuri. She didn't fully understand the politics or the quirks. But she saw the bad man disappear into sparkles. She saw her big brother's ice on the screen.
Tears streamed down her small, innocent face. She reached out a tiny hand toward the TV screen, touching the image of the falling snow.
"Nii-chan..." she whispered.
In the corner, the Grandfather, the stern patriarch of the clan, watched with eyes that trembled. He lowered his head slowly, closing his eyes, acknowledging the end of their nightmare. The curse was broken. Not by negotiation, but by a punch and a freeze.
Back in the crater, sirens wailed in the distance. The flashing lights of police cars and ambulances drew closer.
All Might slowly lowered his arm. He turned his head slightly.
Behind him, lying in the debris, was Aokiji. The student was unconscious. His skin was pale blue. His eyes had rolled back, showing only the whites. His body was convulsing in violent, rhythmic shivers as the aftershocks of the Absolute Zero took their toll on his system.
All Might smiled—a tired, gentle smile.
He limped over, not to the cameras, not to the approaching press, but to his student. He sat down heavily beside Aokiji, placing a hand on the boy's freezing shoulder to share whatever warmth he had left.
"You did well..." All Might whispered to the unconscious boy. "You did well, Kuzan."
The camera pulled back, capturing the final image of the night. The skeletal Legend, sitting amidst the ruins, frost in his hair, guarding the sleeping Soldier of Ice.
The fire of One For All had gone out. But in the ashes and the ice, something new had already begun to grow.
.
.