….
He looked at his thin, bony hands, and he felt the coldness in his gut.
And then... he looked up.
The eruption of steam cleared, leaving only the skeletal, emaciated frame of Toshinori Yagi exposed to the world.
For the first time in his life, Toshinori's knees trembled.
It wasn't fear or shame over his sunken chest, but the sudden weight of his entire existence crashing down on him.
THOOM–!
Fifty meters away, Dabi slammed Shigaraki back into the ice bed, smothering another wave of [Decay].
Even while holding absolute control over his own fight, Dabi's perception caught the pause in Toshinori's soul.
Dabi understood the tragic trap All Might had built for himself.
There are two kinds of heroes: those who treat heroism as a profession, and those who are heroes at their very core.
Obviously, All Might and Midoriya belonged to the latter.
They were heroes long before they received a license, gained power, or anything else, for that matter.
To Dabi, this old man had only ever valued his own life when he was suffering for someone else.
He had always believed Toshinori was a man who had become too good at being a Hero.
In his obsession with saving everyone, he had turned himself into a living bandage for a society riddled with knife wounds.
He solved immediate problems, shouldered every burden himself, and, in doing so, made the entire world dangerously dependent on a single man.
He had sacrificed everything for it, leaving himself with no family, no home to return to, and no personal life.
His friends were all heroes or hero-adjacent, and his entire sense of self-worth had become inseparable from the act of saving others.
Like a broken gladiator whose body had given out long before his heart ever would, he was being forced away from the only life he had ever known.
Even now, whenever Dabi saw him in his skeletal form, there was never any light in Toshinori's eyes.
Hiding that frail body had never been solely about preserving public morale.
It was because whenever Toshinori looked into a mirror, he saw nothing but a hollow shell of the man he used to be.
He hated looking at it.
But somewhere along his long and excruciating journey, he had forgotten his own roots.
Long before Nana Shimura chose him and entrusted him with One For All, he had simply been a powerless, Quirkless boy standing alone in the dark.
Now, seeing that true, fragile self laid bare before the entire world on live television struck him with an overwhelming wave of guilt.
Toshinori's breath hitched as blood dripped from his chin.
Without breaking his combat rhythm, Dabi threw a sharp call over his shoulder, which he made sure that wont be caught be the microphone above:
"Hey! Stop wallowing in your own tragedy, old man!"
The blunt call rang across the quieted basin.
"You were a Quirkless nobody before you ever wore that cape." He barked, his tone unbothered, and razor-sharp. "You built the world on your back because of who you are, not because of your muscles. Stop acting like you're useless without a god's frame, finish the job... and stick around to see the world you saved!"
Though Dabi decided to give All Might a nudge, the truth was undeniable.
Even without his words, it wouldn't have been enough to shake someone like All Might. He would have kept going and likely still won this fight.
What Dabi actually wanted to achieve was something else entirely: he wanted to make those eyes shine again, even in his skeletal form.
…and just as his words hit Toshinori….
The lingering doubt in his chest shattered.
Dabi wasn't asking him to be an immortal, untouchable deity anymore; he was simply tearing down the pedestal and reminding Toshinori of his roots.
He didn't need to be an all-powerful band-aid, nor did he need to die as a tragic martyr to prove his worth.
His Heroism had never come from his broad shoulders or his Silver Age glory, but from the unyielding spirit of a Quirkless boy who chose to stand when the world was at its darkest.
All For One's mocking laughter died in his throat as the atmosphere in the basin shifted once more.
Toshinori didn't try to force his body back into its muscular form, or hide behind the mask of a god anymore.
Standing in his thin, skeletal frame, with his oversized suit snapping in the gale, Toshinori planted his boots into the bedrock and raised his right fist high into the night sky.
Inside his sunken eye sockets, those deep blue eyes burned.
"Do not... lose heart!" Toshinori's voice rasped out, bloody yet carrying a soul-stirring resonance that echoed across every screen on Earth. "A hero's duty... is not measured by the strength of his body, but by the promise he keeps to the world!"
He looked down at the tyrant in the crater, a genuine, human smile crossing his gaunt face.
It wasn't the larger than life grin of an untouchable god, but the unbreakable pride of a man who remembered who he truly was.
Golden sparks of One For All erupted violently around his thin fist, swirling into a single, hyper-dense point of absolute energy.
"Even like this..."
Toshinori whispered, his knuckles whitening as he prepared to deliver the final strike–
"I am still All Might!"
….
[Hero Public Safety Commission HQ]
Lady Nagant put distance between herself and the arena of Kamino Ward.
She was still in her prison outfit, as she leaped across rooftops and shattered overpasses, moving like a ghost through the smoke-filled night.
Behind her, the horizon still flickered with the collision of golden sparks and absolute-zero frost.
But Kaina Tsutsumi didn't look back.
'Almost all of the heroes are currently on deployment...'
Dabi's words echoed in her ears.
It was an offer she hadn't seen coming.
Her revenge.
She promised herself to get her vengeance, but she didn't expect to be handed to her on a silver platter by an unknown person who seemed to read the whole board three moves ahead of everyone else.
'Is he the same one?'
She thought back, remembering catching a similar frame from her cell.
'What the hell is even happening? I don't know anymore…'
Her mind raced, processing the absurdity of the last hour.
Back in the dark depths of Tartarus, she remembered the brief moment their eyes had met through the reinforced glass of his containment cell.
It had lasted less than a second, yet the icy, terrifying calm in his glowing blue eyes conveyed a silent promise without a single word:
'Just wait. You will come and join the party soon.'
She had dismissed it back then as the arrogant delusion of a dangerous brat.
And yet, here she was…
Free.
Walking out of the absolute carnage of a mass prison break not because she had clawed her way out, but because the world had been violently flipped upside down around her.
She was prepared to pay any price for her freedom.
Ukbonest to her, if it wasn't for Dabi, that's exactly what would have happened; All For One would have cornered her, leveraged her hatred for the system, offered her extra Quirks like [Air Walk], and sent her out like a hound to capture Izuku Midoriya alive.
Convincing her that putting down the Symbol of Peace's successor was the only way to collapse the corrupt illusion of Hero society.
Her core goal hadn't changed.
The systemic rot that had turned her into an executioner, the endless blood she had spilled under the orders of suit-wearing hypocrites, and the dark secrets buried to preserve a polished illusion of 'safety' still burned in her chest like acid.
She wanted transparency, accountability, and the lie to end.
And right now, with All Might locked in a duel to the death and the nation's top heroes scattered across the country dealing with the fallout, the heart of the beast was completely exposed.
The Hero Public Safety Commission.
The very entity that had raised her, used her, framed her, and locked her away in the dark to preserve their sanitized status quo.
Nagant came to a sudden halt at the edge of a high-rise ledge overlooking the heart of the district.
In the distance, the imposing towers of the Hero Public Safety Commission headquarters rose against the dark sky.
She reached into her hair, plucked out her hair and molded them by hand into custom ammunition that hardened like epoxy; nnce done she loaded them into her arm chamber, which now took the shape of a rifle.
A low, cold smirk pulled at the corner of her lips.
"Time to balance the books."
She whispered as she aimed her rifle-arm toward the top floor of the HPSC building.
Her finger rested lightly on the trigger mechanism.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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