….
"Is... is everyone seeing this?!"
The reporter choked out, his raw, trembling voice echoing across tens of millions of television sets–
"He!!! All Might is stepping back! He is handing the front line over to Dabi, the Blue Sun!"
In the giant pedestrian scramble of Shibuya, the deafening cheers suddenly died down into a reverent hush.
Millions of eyes stared up at the giant LED billboards, mesmerized by the image of the gaunt, smiling All Might retreating behind a solitary, dark-haired figure.
In public shelters, city squares, and studio newsrooms across the nation, people held their breath, leaning toward the monitors.
"Is he... taking over?" a woman in Musutafu whispered, clutching her child tightly against her chest.
The world was witnessing the absolute end of one era, and the silent, imposing birth of another.
A new Symbol was standing on the field.
Dabi turned his full focus back toward 'Shigaraki', as blue fire and frost ignited simultaneously across his arms, glowing with a blinding, cosmic radiance that cut through the dark sky.
"So this is what finally dragged you out of your hole?"
Dabi's voice carried clearly through the chopper microphones, his eyes fixed on the figure wearing Shigaraki's body–
"You're still that same scared dog from the Commercial District who needed a purple hole to feel safe. Only this time, you needed a young body to hide behind."
The moment the words left Dabi's lips, a silent, holographic interface flickered in the periphery of his vision, glowing with icy-blue light:
========
[GENETIC MILESTONE SYSTEM]
[PHASE - 1] - 100%
….
[PHASE - 2]
> [FROSTFIRE DRAGON SLAYER] - 45 –>50%/100%
….
| LIFE SPAN LEFT: Calculating…
========
The instant the counter clicked to 50%, a violent, primal wave of instinct flooded Dabi's body.
Knowledge that didn't belong in mortal biology burned directly into his brainstem, carrying an ancient understanding of what it truly meant to be a…
Dragon Slayer.
[Dragon Force]
The absolute zenith of a Slayer's power.
A state where the line between human and dragon dissolved, forcing the vessel to draw upon raw elemental power to transform the physical body into an apex predator.
His muscles would compress into dragon-like iron, his skin hardened into elemental scales, and his speed, reactions, durability, and destructive power would skyrocket to rival those of a mythical dragon.
Normally, for a First-Generation Slayer, forcing open the gates to [Dragon Force] required a massive, near-fatal external surge of magic, an overwhelming feast of high-density energy consumed all at once.
In this world, magic didn't exist in name.
But to Dabi, energy was energy.
To him, that "magic" was the lingering, superheated atmospheric pressure hovering over Kamino Ward, the leftover plasma heat of All Might's final punch, the energy friction tearing through the air, and the volatile thermal shockwaves radiating off the basin.
Dabi opened his mouth and took one deep, violent inhalation.
INHALEEEEE–!
The surrounding air reversed direction.
A massive, visible vortex of superheated steam, thermal radiation, and golden embers swirled into Dabi's lungs.
He devoured the entire war zone, converting every joule of heat and thermal energy into fuel for his dragon core.
BOOM!
A terrifying, cosmic shockwave detonated outward from Dabi's frame.
Up in the news helicopters, the flight instruments glitched erratically as the air pressure around Dabi spiked to astronomical levels.
"Are those scales on his skin??!" a reporter yelled into the chopper mic, his voice trembling in pure disbelief–
"What... what is happening to him?!"
The physical transformation was awe-inspiring.
Across Dabi's face, neck, and forearms, organic, shimmering scales materialized directly over his skin.
Half composed of absolute-zero, crystalline ice that refracted light like diamonds, and half burning with a deep, cosmic blue fire that cast no heat outward, completely contained within his body.
His white hair whipped violently as his eyes shifted from sharp blue into glowing, slit-pupiled gold, his physical density compressed, and his stance anchored into the earth with the terrifying weight of an elder dragon.
An aura of blue fire and white frost intertwined into a towering, serpentine silhouette behind him, roaring into the night sky without making a sound.
Across the crater, All For One, in Tomura Shigaraki's body, felt the hair on his stolen arms stand on end.
Every survival instinct accumulated over a century screamed a single word:
DANGER.
"What absurd, mutated trick is this?!" All For One snarled through Shigaraki's lips. "A transformation Quirk?! You think some scales will save you from absolute decay?!"
Driven by a sudden, primal spike of panic, All For One didn't hold back.
He thrust both of Shigaraki's un-decayed hands forward, utilizing his control over the [Decay] Quirk to fire a hyper-pressurized, razor-thin beam of pure disintegration straight at Dabi's head.
The attack did more than rot the ground, tearing through the atmosphere and leaving a vacuum of grey dust in its wake.
In the [Dragon Force] state, Dabi's reaction speed breached human limitations.
He simply blurred forward, stepping straight through the sonic barrier with a crack that shattered the rock beneath his feet.
CRACK!
Before All For One's mind could even register the motion, Dabi was standing directly in front of him, his scale-covered, frost-and-fire hand closing tightly around 'Shigaraki's' throat.
The [Decay] beam slammed harmlessly against the dragon scales on Dabi's forearm, the disintegration frequency completely neutralizing against the frost before it could touch his skin.
All For One's stolen red eyes widened to the size of saucers, his breath catching in his throat as he felt himself lifted off the ground by a single grip that felt like an iron vise.
Dabi looked up, his slit-pupiled, golden eyes locking onto the parasite trapped inside the boy.
The sheer scale of destruction that erupted across Kamino Ward immediately bypassed the limits of human comprehension.
All For One, now a parasitic creature commanding Shigaraki's stolen vessel, was thoroughly unnerved.
His century of meticulous grandstanding, his carefully cultivated legacy, his contingency plans, and his absolute arrogance had all been shattered into dust.
He stopped calculating escape routes or caring about preserving Shigaraki's body for the future.
He remained what he had always been:
A clinical, aristocratic sociopath who treated human life like disposable tools, now forced to burn through his vessel's vital force just to keep up.
"How endlessly tedious..."
All For One murmured through Shigaraki's voice, layered with venom–
"A single, uncalculated variable... daring to obstruct my grand design."
Rather than screaming, All For One focused his century of combat mastery into the vessel. He once again forced the [Decay] Quirk into a hyper-pressurized, overdriven frequency.
Streams of black, fractal disintegration detonated from his palms as razor-thin, high-velocity arc-blade shockwaves; the shockwaves alone tore fifty-meter trenches into the bedrock, pulverizing the surrounding ice spires into fine, microscopic dust.
Red and black bio-electricity arced wildly off Shigaraki's skin, tearing apart the boy's own muscular tissue just to force more output into every strike.
It was a cold and self-destructive barrage meant to erase Dabi from existence.
All For One smirk stretched across Shigaraki's bloody lips as he unleashed another lethal wave of concentrated decay–
"...You are nothing more than a temporary pest standing on my stage."
Yet, despite the apocalyptically refined assault, Dabi was not pushed back a single inch; engaged in the apex [Dragon Force] state, he moved like an elemental deity.
The shimmering, diamond-hard ice scales coating his arms and face completely neutralized the disintegration shockwaves on impact, while his dual-element mastery tore the battlefield apart.
BOOM!
With a sweep of his left hand, Dabi summoned a colossal glacier of absolute zero ice, flash freezing All For One's [Decay] beam in mid-air.
Before the parasite could adjust his trajectory, Dabi's right fist ignited into a roaring, blinding pillar of cosmic blue fire, detonating a shockwave that vaporized the frozen bedrock and sent All For One crashing through three solid rock faces.
The sky above Kamino Ward split in two, one half frozen under a pale, diamond blizzard, the other half roaring with a blinding, white-hot blue sun.
Inside the heavily fortified command center at U.A. High, the atmosphere was dead quiet.
Principal Nezu sat at the master console, as his dark eyes reflected the blinding blue glow of the broadcast screen.
Beside him, Recovery Girl leaned heavily on her cane.
In the back, Himiko Toga stood quietly near Eri, who was holding onto Toga's sleeve with small, trembling hands.
On the screen, Dabi was dominating a god-like threat, manipulating fire and ice at a scale that altered the regional weather patterns.
The Recovery Girl let out a long, heavy breath, her shoulders sagging. "Dear lord... What has that child become?"
Toga leaned forward, her amber eyes wide as she stared at Dabi's scale-covered, fiery silhouette on the monitor. "He's... he looks different."
Nezu said softly, his paw lowering the teacup to the desk.
"He isn't different, Himiko-chan." Nezu replied, his voice dropping into a grave, chilling register. "He's simply stop holding back."
The Recovery Girl turned her head sharply toward the principal–
"What do you mean?"
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well. For additional content please do support me and gain access to +12 more chapters.
-->[email protected]/WrightBrothers