The plaza filled with villains like a plague of locusts, more pouring through the dark portal with every passing second. Arthur's mind went cold and clear, centuries of combat experience overriding his teenage body's initial adrenaline spike.
Assess, his tactical instincts demanded. Count. Categorize. Prioritize.
Approximately sixty hostiles visible, more potentially in reserve. Mixed quirk types, no apparent uniformity or coordination beyond the initial entry. Most are spreading out toward the various disaster zones, while some hold their position near the portal. Two clear commanders, the hand-covered man and the living portal itself.
Amateur army. Professional leadership.
"Stay together!" Aizawa commanded, his capture weapon already unfurling from his shoulders like living serpents. "Thirteen, protect the students!"
"This is insane," Kirishima breathed. "How did villains get into U.A.'s facility?"
"Thirteen, use your quirk!" Iida shouted. "Suck them all in!"
"I can't!" The space hero's voice was strained. "There are too many, and if I'm not careful, I'll kill them. We don't execute villains!"
Arthur barely heard them. His attention was locked on the hand-covered man, analyzing his body language, scratching his neck. Agitated. Excited. This isn't a strategy for him; it's personal.
"Where is he?" the man, called out "We came all this way. We even brought a friend to play with All Might. Where's the Symbol of Peace?"
Arthur's eyes tracked to the massive figure emerging from the portal last. It was humanoid, barely, with exposed brain tissue and a bird-like face. But the aura radiating from it made his Instinct scream warnings.
That's not normal, he realized with cold certainty. That thing was made. Engineered. And it's strong.
"He's not here," the man sounded genuinely disappointed. "Did he leave because he's scared? Or maybe," his voice took on a manic edge, "maybe they lied to us. Maybe he's not the Symbol of Peace anymore. Maybe he's just a symbol."
"Students!" Aizawa's voice cut through the rising panic. "Evacuate! Do not engage!"
"But Mr. Aizawa," Midoriya started.
"That's an order!" Their teacher's eyes flashed red, hair rising as his quirk activated. "Thirteen, get them out! Now!"
Then Aizawa jumped.
He leaped from the entrance platform down into the plaza, capture weapon spinning, engaging thirty-plus villains without hesitation, erasing quirks with sight, and using mobility and tactical positioning to prevent being surrounded.
He's good, Arthur acknowledged. Very good. But he's one man against dozens, and his quirk has limits. He can't maintain eye contact with everyone simultaneously.
"We need to run!" Uraraka grabbed Midoriya's arm. "Mr. Aizawa said to evacuate!"
"She's right!" Iida's engines were already revving. "We must retreat and call for backup!"
But the living portal, the mist villain, suddenly expanded, swirling around them like smoke made solid.
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that," a smooth voice emanated from the darkness. "You are students of U.A., the school that produces the finest heroes. We cannot let you summon reinforcements. How careless would that be?"
Bakugo and Kirishima tried to attack the mist, but their attack simply phased through it.
The mist began to condense, to close in.
"Scatter!" Thirteen shouted, but the mist was faster.
Arthur felt the teleportation beginning, the disorienting sensation of space warping around him. His body was being pulled, separated from the group. his quirk resetiance tried to put up a fight but it was useless. He caught glimpses of his classmates, shouting, reaching, all being torn apart and sent to different zone
Reality reassembled, and Arthur found himself in the Landslide Zone.
Debris everywhere. Collapsed buildings, loose rubble, unstable ground. And surrounding him, five villains, each with predatory grins.
"Look what we got!" one of them, a man with stone-like skin, laughed. "A kid in a fancy costume!"
"Kurogiri said take them out quietly," another said, this one with extended claws and a feral appearance. "Can't have them calling for help."
Arthur stood perfectly still, letting his Royal Core hum through his body, energy coiling beneath his skin. He observed each of them in turn, noting builds, stances, and the way they held themselves.
Stone skin, close-range brawler. Claws, speed-based fighter. One in back with what looks like a projectile quirk, keeping distance. Two others, unknown capabilities but following the leaders' positioning.
All of them criminals. All of them here to kill children.
All of them about to learn a lesson.
"You kids today, always playing hero," Stone Skin said, cracking his knuckles. "My quirk makes me hard as diamond. You think your little light show's gonna hurt me?"
Arthur's hand moved to his side, energy condensing, forming.
"I don't think," he said quietly, "I know."
Excalibur Proto materialized in his hand, or rather, its current manifestation. Not the true holy sword, not yet, but a blade of golden energy, humming with power that made the air itself distort.
The villains hesitated, just for a moment. Something in Arthur's stance, in his eyes, in the way he held the blade made them recognize, on an instinctive level, that they'd made a terrible mistake.
"You came here to kill students," Arthur said, and there was no anger in his voice, no rage, just cold statement of fact. "You came to attack children learning to be heroes. To murder All Might."
Stone Skin tried to recover his bravado. "Big talk for a, "
Arthur stepped forward, and the blade moved in a perfect arc, a technique refined over countless battles, practiced until it transcended mere skill and became truth.
The energy blade passed through Stone Skin's defense like it wasn't there, the molecular structure of his quirk-enhanced body meaningless against focused energy operating on that level. Arthur held back, deliberately, reducing the power to non-lethal levels.
The villain collapsed, unconscious, his stone form cracked but not shattered.
"One," Arthur said.
Claws lunged at him, speed quirk activated, moving faster than a normal person could track.
Arthur's Instinct read the attack three seconds before it happened. He sidestepped, let the villain's momentum carry him past, and struck with the pommel of his energy blade, a precise blow to the base of the skull.
"Two."
The projectile user in the back started firing, some kind of hardened bone shards launching at high velocity.
Arthur's blade moved, faster than thought, deflecting each projectile with minimal movement. Then he raised his free hand, and lightning crackled between his fingers.
Not the full power he was capable of. Just enough to cross the distance, to deliver a shock that overloaded the nervous system without causing permanent damage.
The villain seized and dropped.
"Three."
The last two tried to run.
Arthur threw the energy blade like a spear, the construct rotating as it flew, passing between them and detonating in a burst of non-lethal force that sent them tumbling into debris.
He was walking toward them before they finished falling, already manifesting new constructs, smaller ones, blade tips pressed to throats before they could recover.
"Four. Five."
Total time elapsed since the fight started: eight seconds.
Arthur stood among the unconscious villains, his heart rate barely elevated, his breathing controlled. Royal Core pulsed through him, ready for more, but there was no more threat here.
They weren't strong, he analyzed clinically. Third-rate criminals at best. Probably recruited from the streets with promises of chaos and glory. Cannon fodder.
He looked back toward the central plaza, where he could still see Aizawa fighting, the man a whirlwind of tactical precision against overwhelming numbers.
But even cannon fodder can overwhelm through numbers. And there's still that thing, that Nomu, waiting.
A scream echoed across the USJ, high-pitched and terrified.
Ashido.
Arthur's head snapped toward the Conflagration Zone, where buildings burned and smoke rose thick. More screams, more sounds of combat.
His classmates were scattered, isolated, fighting for their lives.
Just like war, a bitter part of him thought. I'm back in war.
No. This wasn't war. War had rules, objectives, strategies. This was slaughter. These villains had come here to kill children, to murder the Symbol of Peace, to make a statement written in blood.
Arthur began moving toward the central plaza, toward Aizawa, calculating the fastest route through the debris. His teacher was holding his own, but barely. The man's quirk required line of sight, and with that many opponents, someone would eventually get behind him.
Tactical priority: support the professional until reinforcements arrive. Protect classmates. Minimize casualties.
Just like old times. Just like being king.
Except this time, he wasn't commanding armies. He was one student among many, and the weight of responsibility felt both foreign and achingly familiar.
Lightning crackled along his arms as he ran, Royal Core flooding his body with power. The blade in his hand pulsed with golden light, responding to his intent.
I've died once already, Arthur thought grimly. I'm not dying again. And I'm certainly not letting my classmates die.
Behind him, the five villains remained unconscious. Ahead, the sounds of battle intensified. And somewhere in the back of Arthur's mind, in the place where Royal Core connected to his very soul, something ancient stirred. Not Excalibur, not yet. But Invisible Air, the bounded field of wind that had once concealed the holy sword.
Meanwhile, at the entrance plaza, Iida had made his decision.
"I'm going for help!" he shouted to Thirteen, engines roaring to life. "We need backup!"
The mist villain tried to block him, but Sato and Shoji created an opening, and Iida shot through like a bullet, his speed quirk carrying him toward the entrance at maximum velocity.
"No!" Kurogiri's voice echoed with frustration. "He'll bring the pros! Shigaraki, the speedster escaped!"
At the central plaza, Shigaraki Tomoki scratched his neck harder, irritation radiating from every jerky movement.
"It's fine," he said, though his voice suggested it was very much not fine. "We have time. Father said we have time. All Might will come. He has to come."
He looked at the massive Nomu standing beside him, the creature's exposed brain pulsing with unnatural light.
"When he does, we'll kill him. And even if reinforcements come," Shigaraki's smile was visible even through the hand covering his face, "they won't be fast enough to save everyone."
In the Landslide Zone, Arthur Pendragon, the Once and Future King, the boy with Royal Core burning in his chest, moved through debris like a ghost of legend.
The USJ attack had begun.
And for the first time since his reincarnation, Arthur was truly at war.
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