Got you now... You can't escape me...
Finally, All for One was down. It took more effort than it should have. There were dozens of Nomu of various different levels and forms with several other villains being forcibly teleported in by him to combat be. They all seemed ready for my arrival. I guess he had predicted an outcome where I found his base and blindsided him.
It had been nearly a week since my clash with my old classmates. I'd gone on numerous hunts to find their base, tracking down as many villains as I could to see if they knew anything and turn them in. It took forever and the toll it was taking on my body was excruciating. I could hardly feel anything but numbness, and Blackwhip had to be used to aid me in movement. I couldn't even stand properly without having it serve as an extra pair of artificial limbs.
My fighting abilities had diminished severely. If not for the activation of my final Quirk, I'm sure they would have overwhelmed me in no time. Despite All for One's capability to predict and plan for dozens of different scenarios, he wasn't able to foresee me activating a former Quirk he had deemed too useless to bother stealing and turning the tables on all of them in an instant.
With Gearshift, I bested them all. Every single Nomu. Every single villain. And finally, with One for All burning my muscles and bones at higher percentages I could manage, I defeated All For One with a massive Overdrive Smash attack powered up by combining Fa Jin's storage ability.
I think... I killed him. I did my best to hold back in such a frenzied state against the other villains, but I spared no mercy to the monstrous Nomu or him. He was detestable and evil, having done such horrific things to everyone.
That's how I justified it. This was something I needed to do. With him gone, everyone else could be happy again. There was just one more issue left.
...Him.
Shigaraki was laughing at me. I couldn't quite hear him with the blood gushing from my ears, or the ubiquitous ringing bouncing around my head. It had taken him a moment to get going, probably due to an issue of recovery he was going under from our last fight. He was definitely stronger than last time. He kept laughing at me with every person I downed and every wound I suffered. I felt rage - both at him and myself.
This wasn't funny. How could he think such a thing?
This was awful. This was painful. Why was he enjoying this? Did he really enjoy seeing me and others suffer so much?
Did he enjoy suffering himself?
I couldn't understand him, but I wanted to. I wanted to reach out and help him. If I could save him, then this would all be over. All I had to do was save him and this would all be over.
...But I couldn't. That's what disgusted me most.
I lacked the ability to save him. I couldn't in this state. I couldn't after what I had done. He just kept laughing at me, firing off so many wild attacks that Danger Sense never once deactivated. Honestly, I couldn't even tell if it was Danger Sense or my hemorrhaging brain splitting my skull.
It hurt too much to think. Even as Shigaraki sent me flying and blood gushed endlessly from my wounds, my brain refused to assess any damage. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. That's all I could manage.
I realized it was still raining. I'm not sure if it ever stopped since then. I was staring directly into the cloudy night sky as water flooded up and drifted my lifeless body downstream. Water droplets hit my open eyes directly, yet my eyelids refused to budge. It pooled to the corners and trickled down my face. Maybe it was blood falling down. Or maybe they were tears?
It didn't matter what it was. All that mattered was that I had failed. I was so close, but I couldn't get there. I wasn't good enough.
Everyone... was right...
I'm a failure.
I'm sorry... Mom.
I'm sorry... All Might.
I'm sorry... Everyone.
...
...
...
No. Not yet.
I'm not done yet.
It was alive more than ever inside me. Not just passion. Not just willpower. Not just emotions.
One for All.
The users were still there. They had been screaming at me the entire battle, and I could still feel them screaming now. There were so many different emotions coursing through them into me that I couldn't differentiate them.
But I knew what I had to do. Whether it was them, or me, or the very core of One for All, I felt everything come alive.
My limp body began floating into the air out of the streaming waters below. Smokescreen began releasing from every pore of my body outwards. Blackwhip stormed around me greater than the one high up above. Each darkened whip twisting and spiraling built up a near endless amount of kinetic red energy into maxing out charging Fa Jin. Gearshift lit my body ablaze, translucent blue energy vibrating off my body faster than it had in Top Gear. And Danger Sense stabbed through my clouded mind more clear than ever before, pinpointing me exactly where he was without a single inaccuracy.
One for All, 100% Full Cowling!
No, more than that! Squeeze everything out!
1,000,000% FULL COWLING!
Green lightning shifted into a radioactive neon so blue it lit the darkened sky brighter than the sun. The energy released was like deafening plasma bursting like an exploding star. My body twitched alive, each color within One for All pulsing off like a titanic wave encompassing the world around as I hit Shigaraki.
The words echoed by my mentor and idol found my lips.
"GO BEYOND! PLUS ULTRAAAAAAAAA!"
...
...
...
It was over.
I realized at some point that I was lying on my back again. I couldn't feel the cold rush of rainwater anymore. I couldn't even see. Maybe I had blown all the surroundings away, or maybe I no longer had the conscious faculties to sense anything.
But I knew it was over. Shigaraki was finished. All of the villains were defeated.
I did it after all. It cost me everything, but... I did it.
I'm... glad...
...
...
...
A sensation. On my arm?
No... my leg.
...That wasn't it either. It had spread throughout my whole body.
It stung. Oddly, it wasn't very painful. No more than what I had experienced in battle. It was yellow in color. Or maybe it had turned blue?
An outside source. It wasn't coming from me. I could feel multiple different presences surrounding me now, but all I could focus on was this specific one touching me. It filled my drained body with some foreign energy.
It was interacting with me. No... it was interacting directly with One for All.
I still had it, didn't I? It would disappear with me just as the previous holders predicted.
I wish I could've passed it on to someone worthy. Someone who would've been able to truly master it. I never got the chance to before... it was all over.
...
I wish I could've mastered it. I wish I could've understood my new Quirks more. I wish I could've developed more techniques.
I wish I got another shot... with everyone.
It was... so fun...
The feeling surged and something began to happen to One for All.
One for All and... Gearshift?
They were moving so quickly inside me. It felt so different than normal. What was normally a force pushing forward and out was now a force pushing inward and back. I don't think One for All or any of my other Quirks had surged so greatly before. Not even in my last stand had they felt this immense.
On its own, I could feel One for All aiding this foreign power along with Gearshift - the Quirk most closely tied to it. They were doing something to me that I couldn't fathom.
...Wait a second. That sting... I'd felt it somewhere before.
But where?
I gasped and suddenly, I was gone.
Gone far back before that time.