GUYS..... This is going to be epic... take it slow with this chapter....
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High in the sky, the thing floated.
And the world stopped.
Every screen, every broadcast, every phone held in a trembling hand showed the same image. A pillar of purple light faded as clouds parted. And in the centre of it all, suspended in mid-air as if gravity had forgotten it was supposed to apply to him, was a figure.
A figure that could only be described with a single word.
A god.
The figure was human-shaped. It had the outline of a young man. But nothing else about it matched that description, because what floated in the sky above the jungle was no longer what any of them had been watching for the past twenty minutes.
Wings made of violet fire that burned calmly. The wings stretched across the sky.
Above the head, a halo. which looked like a crystalline crown.
His hair was no longer red. It had turned deep purple. His eyes too.... had gone purple.
In his arms, he held Momo with all the care in the world. His arms... both of them... cradled her against his chest.
***
Away from Akira, the news anchor in the helicopter fell to her knees.
Her microphone clattered against the floor. Her hand went to her mouth.
The cameraman kept filming.
The anchor picked up her microphone with shaking hands.
"V... viewers..." she fumbled. "What I... and all of you... are looking at..."
She swallowed.
"I don't know anymore."
The cameraman zoomed in on the figure in the sky.
"That..." the anchor continued, "is a divine being."
***
In Akira's arms, Momo finally moved.
Consciousness returned to her slowly. She had been hit by the purple light when the pillar erupted. She should have been burned.
But she was completely fine.
Her eyes opened slowly.
The first thing she saw was the sky.... and then a face above her. Looking at her blankly.
Purple eyes stared down at her, framed by purple hair. The eyes were different. The hair was different. The halo rotating above his head was different. Everything about him was different.
But she recognised him instantly.
She would have recognised him anywhere. With any face. With any colour. With any amount of divine alterations.
"Akira?"
Her voice was soft.... as if she was uncertain.
Uncertain, was this really her Akira?
Luckily for her... that was the case.
The blank expression on his face broke.
Slowly, like ice cracking on a pond, the corners of his mouth curved upward and he smiled.
"Hey there, Momo."
His voice was the same. Exactly the same. The same slightly lazy tone, the same hint of amusement, the same Akira.... her Akira.
"Did I scare you?"
And Momo broke.
She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, and the tears of relief came out.
Akira simply held her. One arm around her back, the other supporting her legs, purple wings unfurling behind him to catch the wind. They floated above the clouds, a god and a girl, tangled in eachs arms.
"I thought you were dead," she whispered into his collar.
"I was," he said quietly.
She pulled back just far enough to look at him.
"How?"
"Long story. I'll tell you later."
***
Momo was not the only one who broke into tears... Across the country, the dam broke.
In the evacuation shelter beneath the stadium, everyone saw the footage.
Class 1-A erupted.
"BOSS IS ALIVE!!!!!"
It was Kirishima who screamed it first. Then Kaminari. Then Mina. Then Sero. Then all of them, the entire class, leaping up from the floor and the benches, yelling, cheering, crying.
Izuku was on his knees, his hands over his face, sobbing. But his shoulders were shaking with laughter now, not grief. Ochaco had her arms around him, her face pressed into his back, her own tears soaking into his shirt.
Iida stood with his hand over his mouth, his body trembling, tears running down his face.
Bakugo hadn't moved. He was still standing at the back of the shelter, arms crossed, staring at the screen. But he relaxed.... and smirked.
"Tch," he muttered. "Of course he's alive."
Todoroki looked up and said one word.
"...Good."
Vlad King was still blocking the door as tears were streaming down his face freely now.
He turned to Class 1-A.
He didn't say anything. He just nodded.
The students understood. They rushed the door, pushing past him, sprinting down the corridor toward the stadium exits, running to see what the screens couldn't fully show them.
In a house far from U.A., Kota Izumi was standing.
He had pushed himself out of Mandalay's arms. He was on his feet in front of the television, his small hands clenched into fists at his sides, his tear-streaked face looking up at the screen with an expression that went beyond joy, beyond relief, beyond any emotion a seven-year-old should have had access to.
On the screen, the purple-winged figure held Momo in his arms.
"He kept it," Kota whispered.
Mandalay was behind him, her own hands trembling.
"He kept his promise," Kota turned to her, and for the first time since the day his parents died, there was something like hope in his face. "He said he wouldn't. And he didn't."
Mandalay knelt down and pulled him into a hug. She couldn't speak. She couldn't find the words. All she could do was hold him and nod against his hair.
In the stadium tunnel, Jian Li let out a long, slow breath.
He hadn't moved from the broken window of the VIP box. Mei stood beside him. Yu was behind them, her hand clasped over her mouth, her eyes wide. Reika was sobbing into Kiyomasa's shoulder. Nia — back in her housecat form, exhausted from the transformation — sat on Wei's shoulder, her tail wrapped around her paws, her golden eyes fixed on the screen.
The cat-child exhaled.
"Daddy," Nia said softly.
Mei on the other hand.... just laughed.
"What did I tell you? That brat doesn't go down that easily."
Jian smiled. His glasses had slid down his nose again, and he didn't bother pushing them back up.
"You did say that," he admitted.
"So now you owe me dinner."
"Fine."
In the jungle clearing, Honoka's muscles gave out.
She lay on her side, her face pressed against the scorched earth, her hands clutching at her chest as if her heart was trying to escape through her ribs.
"Thank god," she whispered.
The purple flame hovering above her — that had been radiating from where Akira's body had been — had faded. The dehydration had reversed. The moisture had returned to the air. But the impact of what she had just seen, the whiplash of watching her son die and come back, had overwhelmed a nervous system that had already been pushed past its limits.
"Thank god. Thank god. Thank god. Thank god...."
She repeated it like a prayer. Like a mantra. Like if she stopped saying it, the miracle would somehow take itself back.
Then the space in front of her shimmered.
And he was there.
Akira knelt in the ash in front of his mother. His purple wings folded behind his back. His halo dimmed to a soft violet glow.
He placed his hand on her face. Gently. His thumb brushed the tears away.
"Are you okay, Mother?"
Honoka looked up at him. Her son. Her baby. The child who had just died and come back wearing the shape of a god and was now cupping her cheek with the same tenderness he had shown since he was a toddler reaching up to touch her face.
She cried harder.
"Yes, honey," she managed between hiccups. "I'm... I'm fine. I'm fine."
He smiled at her.
"Good."
He kissed the top of her head.
Then he vanished.
***
While everyone else was happy with what they were seeing.... there was a certain creature who was going crazy.
Muscular's head snapped sideways.
WHAT?
He was still in the same position.... his face twisted in confusion, his white eyes darting in every direction trying to track the thing that had just appeared in front of him and then wasn't there.
WHERE DID HE GO?!
He scanned the clearing. The sky. The trees. He was gone...
WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT KIND OF QUIRK IS THIS?!
He turned his head sharply and saw the movement near Honoka. Akira kneeling in front of his mother.
Then gone again.
Muscular spun, looking everywhere, his head whipping back and forth like a panicking animal. His engineered instincts — the ones that had been amplified by Nomu modifications, the ones that were supposed to be able to track anything — were failing. He couldn't find him. Couldn't see him. Couldn't predict where he would appear next.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
He looked up.
THERE!
Akira floated in front of the helicopter, hovering in mid-air, his back to Muscular. He was speaking to someone — the camera operator? The news anchor? Muscular couldn't hear from this distance. He could see Akira gesture at the anchor, see the anchor nod frantically, see Honoka and Momo appear at the edge of the helicopter's open door — how did they get there? — and sit down, their legs dangling over the side.
Akira turned back to his mother and girlfriend. Said something. Pointed downward.
Watch me.
Then he vanished again.
Muscular didn't have time to react.
Akira appeared directly in front of him..... Floating at eye level.
Muscular jumped backward. His massive body moved faster than it should have been able to, adrenaline and Nomu-enhanced reflexes firing all at once, his feet carving trenches in the earth as he tried to put distance between himself and the thing that had just materialised in his face.
He landed twenty metres away. His hands came up in a defensive stance.
"DO YOU THINK THIS CHANGES ANYTHING?!" Muscular yelled. His voice was desperate. Forcing the bravado out through a layer of fear that hadn't been there before. "I AM STILL IMMUNE TO FLAMES!! YOUR LITTLE GLOW-UP DOESN'T MEA-----"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Because Akira was gone.
Muscular froze. His white eyes went wide. He felt... lighter?
Significantly lighter.
He looked down.
His right arm...
Was.
Gone.
He turned slowly.
Behind him, Akira stood. His face cold as ice and in his arm?
Was Muscular's arm.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
The scream ripped out of Muscular's throat.
It wasn't the pain of the severing.
It was something different... something that he had never felt before.
The purple flame on the stump.
It wasn't burning his skin. It wasn't scorching his flesh. It was burning something deeper. Something the Nomu modifications hadn't been designed to protect. Something he hadn't known existed until this moment, because the concept of it had never been relevant to anything he had ever felt.
It was..... his soul.
Akira walked toward him.
He didn't vanish this time. He walked slowly... and every single step had Muscular feel dread.
Muscular tried to back away. His remaining hand scraped at the dirt, pushing him backward, his body too overwhelmed by the soul-burn to stand.
Akira stopped in front of him.
Three metres of engineered nightmare, on one knee, clutching a stump that was burning something he didn't have a name for, looking up at a boy who wasn't really a boy anymore.
"In the embrace of these flames," Akira said, his voice carrying the harmonics that Aurelia's had carried in the mindspace, "You shall suffer for your sins."
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Sorry... dont have an image for this....
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