A little shorter.... but needed it this way for the perfect end to this arc. Hope you enjoy.
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The HPSC agents stood at the edge of the jungle clearing... totally frozen.
Lieutenant Sato's hand was on her quirk-dampening cuffs. Her fingers hadn't moved in the last thirty seconds. Behind her, five operatives were in the same state as her.
None of them moved.
Because nothing had prepared them for this.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Muscular's scream tore through the jungle.... making every single agent's blood go cold.
Lieutenant Sato stared at the scene in the clearing.
This was not how it was supposed to go.... She thought.
The orders had been made clear by Madam President.
Two scenarios we planned.... two outcomes were predicted.... and both were acceptable.
If Akira wins... he will be exhausted and will be easy to capture. A boy too tired to fight back, too hurt to resist. Quirk-dampening cuffs would be enough to deal with him. The Commission gains control of the most dangerous quirk user in the country while the public watches the hero who saved them get "treated" for his injuries.
And if he doesn't win...
Then they would let him die.
That was the unspoken half of the order. The part that Madam President hadn't said aloud, but every operative in the room knew. If Muscular kills the boy, the problem solves itself. A ticking nuclear bomb, gone forever. The Symbol of Fear becomes a martyr instead of a threat.
For the greater good, it was a small price to pay.
And for a while, it had gone exactly as planned.
They had stopped Akira's family. Isolated him. Blocked the tunnel, held back his mother, neutralised the girlfriend's escape attempt. And when Muscular had snapped the boy's neck, the operation had achieved its optimal outcome.
The perfect end.
But then... something even better happened.
Honoka and Momo had broken through.
Madam President had allowed it. Of course, she had. Lieutenant Sato knew exactly why.
Because if Honoka died in that clearing... any possible retaliation from the Shuzenji family died with her. No lawsuits. No political pressure. No financial warfare. Recovery girl can be managed.
And if Momo died... the relationship between the Yaoyorozu family and the Shuzenji family would fracture.
Two women running into a jungle to die. The perfect outcome for the HPSC.
Alas.... they never considered a certain Phenix.
And then.... the impossible happened.
Akira came back.
Not as the boy he was..... but as something no one knew what it was. As something that made every threat assessment the Commission had ever produced look like a child's drawing next to reality. As something that was currently floating in the sky above a jungle, holding the severed arm of a Nomu-hybrid in his hand.
Lieutenant Sato looked at the figure in the clearing as the agents asked a question.
"Ma'am, orders?"
She said nothing.
What orders could she give? Approach the divine being with quirk-dampening handcuffs? Fire sedation darts at a..... god? Walk into that clearing and tell the thing that had just ripped an arm off an engineered Nomu-hybrid that it was under arrest?
She stared at the scene... because that was all she could do.
***
In the clearing, Akira stood over Muscular.
The monster was on his knees as the purple flame burned through him.
And his Nomu modifications could not do anything about it.
Muscular's white eyes were leaking tears. His remaining hand clawed at the burning wound, trying to rip the purple flame..... alas, it was not that easy.
Akira looked down at him.
His now purple eyes were blank. Not angry. Not vengeful. Not satisfied. Just.... blank.
Muscular looked up at him. His grotesque mouth opened... trying to form words, trying to find something that would stop what was happening.
"S... stop," he rasped. "Please... stop..."
Akira said nothing.
"Y-you're a hero, right?" Muscular's voice cracked. The deranged confidence, the psychotic joy, the casual cruelty that had defined every word he had spoken since arriving at the stadium? Gone.. all of it... stripped away by a pain he couldn't process, replaced by desperation.
"Y-You... you can't kill me, right? You can't! Heroes don't kill! That's... that's the law! THE LAW!!"
His voice rose as he began to laugh hysterically.
"HAHAHAHAH!!! YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE RULES!! YOU CAN'T-"
Akira's expression still.... didn't change. His blank face remained blank. His purple eyes remained empty. He looked at Muscular the way a human looks at an insect that has crawled on the ground.
Then he moved.
Muscular didn't see it again. One moment, Akira was standing in front of him. The next moment, he felt lighter.
No.......
He looked down.
And his legs were gone.
Wha-?
Then came the pain.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Muscular collapsed and clutched his legs. Blood poured from the seals where the purple flame hadn't fully cauterised, pooling beneath him in the ash.
Akira stood over him.
"You are way too predictable."
He had seen it. The moment Muscular's eye had flicked toward the helicopter, Akira had known.
It was a classic move villains pull when they are cornered like an animal. Looking for a hostage.
So he had taken the legs before the thought could become action.
Muscular's mind was breaking.
This was not how it was supposed to go. This was HIS revenge. His moment. Two years of waiting, two years of crazy experiments, two years of being modified..... all for him lying in the ash with one arm and no legs?
The irony was not lost on him. And it was driving him insane.
Muscular's eyes found the helicopter..... and the remaining survival instinct fired one last time. The oldest trick. The one that every villain in history had played when the hero had them cornered.
He looked at the camera.
And yelled.
"HE CAN'T DO THIS!!!!!" Muscular screamed at the lens. "HE CAN'T KILL ME!!!! HE CAN'T!!!!"
"HE HAS TO FOLLOW THE LAW!! HAHAHAHA!! YEAH!! THE LAW!! I HAVE RIGHTS!! I'M A CITIZEN!! HE'S A STUDENT!! HE CAN'T USE HIS QUIRK TO KILL SOMEONE!! THAT'S MURDER!! THA-"
Across the country, people watching their screens paused.
Not because Muscular was right. Not because they agreed with him. But because the question itself had weight. The blood oath..... the promise made by 'The Symbol of Fear'. The boy who had declared war on villains.
Was he going to cross the line? Was he going to kill on live television? Was this how the Symbol of Fear will execute justice?
The nation held its breath.
In the evacuation shelter, Class 1-A watched.... not a single person moved.
In the VIP box, Mei Lin watched with her arms crossed. Her expression hadn't changed. She was waiting.
On the helicopter, Momo watched with cold eyes.
"Whatever decision you make. I am with you."
In the clearing, Akira slowly walked toward Muscular.
Muscular saw him coming. The desperate performance for the cameras faded as the reality of the approaching figure overwhelmed whatever calculation had been driving it. His remaining hand pushed at the ground, trying to drag himself backward, but without legs, the movement was pathetic.
Akira stopped in front of him.
He looked down at Muscular. At the creature that had killed Sasha and Shino. That had orphaned Kota.
And Muscular looked up and saw Akira's hand reaching down and for a moment, he thought it had worked. The plea for mercy. The performance for the cameras. He thought the boy was going to heal him!!!
Right?
It worked... it worked... he's going t-
Akira grabbed him by the neck and lifted him.
The purple flames on Akira's hand spread across Muscular's throat, but didn't burn him..... Not yet.
Akira flew upward. Higher. Higher. Carrying Muscular by the throat, rising above the treeline, until the helicopter was below them and the cameras had to crane upward to follow.
Muscular dangled in his grip.
Akira looked at him. His purple eyes finally showed something. Not anger. Not hatred. Not satisfaction... it was judgment.
"I won't let you die," Akira said.
Muscular's remaining eye widened with hope.
"I won't let you die.... that easily."
The hope died.
Akira looked up.... as if he was looking at heaven.
"In the name of all those who have suffered by your hands..."
Purple flame erupted from his body and spread onto Muscular through the grip on his throat.
"...shall they witness this offering of mine to them."
FWOOOOOOOSH.
Muscular was engulfed.
Purple flame consumed him slowly. Layer by layer. The membrane burned first..... peeling away like paper in a furnace. Beneath it, the muscle fibres ignited. Then the tissue. Then the bone.
And then....the soul, which burned the longest.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! STOPPPPP!!!! PLEASE STOPPPPPP!!!! AGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
The screams were broadcast to every screen in the country.
Muscular burned in the sky like a second sun. Purple and violet, a silhouette of agony suspended above the clouds, held aloft by a boy with wings of fire and the eyes of something that had stopped being human the moment his neck was snapped.
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SOOOOOO?? HOW WAS IT?? The perfect end right??
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