All-Might
Sports Festival Stadium
Late Evening
In spite of Yagi’s honest efforts, by the time the sun had fallen and the sky turned dark, at least seventy-five percent of the U.A. High School student body was fully aware of both the gristly outcome of the USJ Incident, and the subsequent challenge issued by the young and damaged foreign vigilante, Jason. Yagi hadn’t made any of the Class 1-A students swear to secrecy, so it was almost certainly his fault for not being as cautious as he could have been, but he could hardly blame any one of them for it, either.
Trauma had a very particular way of loosening tongues.
However, as a result…
He breathed a tired, weary sigh, watching from the dark recesses of the Sports Festival Stadium as Midnight strutted confidently across the concrete arena with a cordless microphone held in one hand, speaking with an enthralling, velvety-voiced allure that Yagi couldn’t even hope to emulate. Spotlights shone down on her like beams of artificial white sunlight, bathing the entire stadium in a bright, all-encompassing glow. It illuminated the tired, yet excited faces of well over a hundred students, still dressed in wrinkled uniform blazers and baggy pajamas, as they hung onto the Rated-R Heroine’s every word.
The stadium was abuzz with the anticipation of spectacle, but beneath that anticipation flowed a current of anxiety - most of it his own.
“-the attack at the Unforeseen Joint Facility was unexpected and brutal, but with the assistance of a dashing independent hero from overseas, our very own Eraserhead, and his homeroom Class 1-A, managed to persevere and overcome!” Midnight declared, expertly smoothing over the more gristly truths of the narrative.
She about-faced on a smooth, effortless dime, hips swaying as she raised one perfectly-manicured hand up to the stands. “In the wake of their victory, this unknown young man had only one request. A request so manly and fearless that it makes my heart quiver just thinking about it! This young man has come all the way from America to test his mettle against our Symbol of Peace, and as a token of gratitude for his lending help, All-Might has humbly acquiesced!”
A staggered roar of excitement rumbled through the students, several jumping to their feet and pumping their fists at the very thought of watching All-Might, the greatest hero ever, spar against a powerful, mysterious hero before their very eyes. So great was their excitement that they conveniently ignored the fact that their so-called ‘greatest hero ever’ hadn’t made it in time to save the day himself.
Maybe that was half the point of Midnight’s speech. Damage control.
It didn’t sit well in Yagi’s rattling chest.
“So tonight, my cute little students,” she continued brightly, overpowering the screaming of the youth with an effortless ease, “You will all get to experience a blood-pumping, hair-raising battle like never before, brought to you by the greatest hero academy in the country, U. A. High~! We-…”
He tuned the rest of her words out. His heart simply wasn’t in it tonight.
It had been Principal Nezu’s ideas to turn what should’ve been a private, simple affair into an unofficial U.A-sanctioned exhibition match. How the little genius managed to stop the reality of what had happened from leaking out into Musutafu and by proxy the, God forbid, News Networks… Yagi had no idea. And maybe that was for the best. The machinations of the Principal’s mind had been just as enigmatic to him several years ago as they were now, and he knew without a doubt that, even on his deathbed, he still wouldn’t understand Nezu.
The plan had merit, of course.
They always did.
Principal Nezu was simply too clever for his own good - calculating, shrewd, with an intellect that could easily outmatch most computers. And so when he suggested that tonight’s spar be made public, not just as a means of witnessing the depths of their mysterious guest’s strength but also to reassert All-Might’s vitality, Yagi had hesitated only a moment before agreeing.
That hesitation still haunted him. Not because he thought Nezu’s motives were malicious - far from it. But because he feared he would prove the Principal wrong.
He feared being seen for what he was now.
A hollow shell.
All-Might had been too late to protect his students. Too late to keep Aizawa from nearly dying beneath the grip of a murderous, mutated beast from only God knows where. Too late to make good on his title as the world’s greatest hero. It was Jason - this foreigner with unknown motives, unknown power, and no paper trail - who had saved the day. It was Jason who had come from seemingly nowhere, and turned a massacre into a miracle.
And what disturbed Yagi the most was that the young man hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“Young Jason…”
They’d all done their research in the frazzled aftermath of the USJ attack, but it was as if he was an honest to God ghost. They could find no birth certificate. No hospital records. No online presence before today. No paper trail, no parents, no documented Quirk. The only had a name - Jason - and only now, a list of villains he cut down with surgical efficiency and overwhelming power. A hundred and seven villains, the MPD said. Maybe more. Several of them were known killers, and more than a handful were known to have even given pro-heroes trouble in the public circuit.
And now they were gone. Slaughtered.
And Jason hadn’t flinched.
Yagi still remembered the way the security feed flickered during the carnage, how one moment Jason stood with his hand aimed up towards the ceiling as innumerable pools of golden energy formed overhead, and the next, his arm had sliced through the air and spears the size of some residential buildings fell onto the army of villains and torn them apart completely and utterly.
There was no blood or gore. There was hardly any time for screaming. They were simply… skewered. Turned into desiccated, lifeless corpses in a field of bodies suffused with golden light. And what disturbed Yagi most wasn’t the power itself… but it was the ease.
Jason killed like he was cleaning a kitchen. Smooth. Familiar.
Routine.
It all reminded him so much of one man in particular.
All For One.
His fists tightened at his sides.
Jason possessed several strong Quirks, with one being a Quirk developed entirely to increase the power of the other Quirks to such a height that one wave of the hand was enough to slaughter over a hundred men. That was too much power in one vessel. So much strength. But where All for One had used his power to subjugate and control, Jason… used it to protect. He saw it in the young man’s eyes - the desire to protect. To help. Even more than that was his desire to win, but didn’t everyone want to win?
It was an obsession that even he still struggled with overcoming.
‘... I should not compare him to that man. It isn’t fair.’
With a breath of cold air, Yagi closed his eyes and let his lanky, malnourished frame sag against the cool concrete of the tunnel. His body quivered in the cool draft of Musutafu’s nightly breeze, bony shoulders hunched beneath the weight of a legacy he could no longer carry with both arms. He hadn't wanted this to be public. A Symbol could not crack. Could not bleed. He was already fading, already breaking. This - whatever this spectacle was - would only hasten that decline if Jason couldn’t do what he promised and heal his mutilated body.
But…
“I am… All-Might,” he muttered beneath his breath, voice hoarse and gravelly in his withered form. “I must fight. I will fight.”
He owed at least that; to both himself, and the world that relied on his strength.
Because what if his gut was right, and Jason was actually capable of restoring his health?
That…
That would change everything.
And perhaps maybe - just maybe, that grim fate his former Sidekick and friend foresaw in his future… Would not come to be.
He could only have hope.
“My, my. Still brooding, Yagi-kun?”
The soft, unmistakable clink of claws against tile echoed through the hallway behind him, delicate and precise, followed by the ever-cheerful voice of U.A.'s most inscrutable mind. Yagi didn’t bother turning around, because he knew that the small mammal would approach him regardless of any overt acknowledgment. Instead, he simply stood there, leaning against the wall, his mind still running a mile a minute.
He hated feeling so indecisive.
“Nezu-san, my-“
“There is no need to explain yourself, Yagi-kun. I imagine you are rather cross with me tonight, yes? For throwing all of these lights and childish excitement in your face, right after such a grim and bloody incident,” Principal Nezu tittered, coming to a gentle halt a scant couple feet to the left of the Number One Hero’s frail, knobby knees. He sipped from his little porcelain tea-cup, and the sound was quiet, though it echoed loudly through the empty tunnel.
Yagi hesitated - something he’d noticed that he’d been doing all too often most recently. There was no particular need to confirm anything aloud, though courtesy bade him to, regardless. Nezu knew him too well.
The Symbol of Peace did not feel particularly peaceful tonight.
“…Don’t get me wrong, Nezu-san. It’s not that I don’t understand your reasons,” he finally spoke, the muttered words like gravel and grit with the way it scratched the insides of his throat. “I absolutely do. But you’re right, I… I don’t like it. I shouldn’t be here. Not right now, and not like… like this. My thoughts have not been very kind today, as you can see.”
Yagi didn’t even have to bring the Principal’s attention towards his haggard appearance; not when the hyper-intelligent creature saw him in all of his pitiful glory every single business day. He didn’t have to point out the way that his bright, expensive Golden Age All-Moght costume was loose and dull on his skinny frame despite being made of spandex, or the way that his eyes looked bruised and hollow and dead beneath his bangs in the sterile, fluorescent light of the entrance tunnel.
Body dysmorphia, trusted medical professionals had called it. Told him that things weren’t perceived nearly as bad as how he perceived them in the mirror. But Yagi knew how he looked. How he felt.
Like a man who’d burned too brightly for too long, and was suffering as a result.
Yagi winced. “This isn’t a celebration, Nezu. It shouldn’t be treated like one. I was late, and I am only getting weaker. Young Midoriya isn’t nearly ready, and I feel… tired. So tired. Every single day. Today is only another tally on my list of shame; a list that feels like it only increases with each passing day. I've been thinking about this for…”
Years.
“-A very long time.”
Nezu regarded him with a tilt of the head, then slowly - deliberately - sat down on the smooth concrete beside his left boot, curling his tail around one paw.
“That’s not what tonight is,” the small animal said gently. “You aren’t some show donkey. This is meant to be a display of strength. A moment of hope. A warning to the villains and evildoers looking to extinguish your flame prematurely. I do not deny the validity and impact of the darkness that’s fallen over you in the past years, Yagi-kun. But humans nowadays - particularly children, training to go beyond - need more than just the blunt honesty of a stale safety briefing. They need a symbol. They need to feel the strength of their most beloved hero. And more importantly, they need proof that you’re still here. That you’re still strong. That you’re All-Might.”
“I’m barely keeping it together,” Yagi rasped weakly. “I’m barely even the Symbol of Peace anymore.”
“You are more than just a Symbol, Yagi-kun,” Nezu said, his high-pitched voice uncharacteristically strong and agitated. “You are more than just All-Might. You’re hope, personified. And everyone will see it, because you’re still choosing to stand, even now. Even with the demons in your head telling you to quit, and your body failing you when you need it most. You are indomitable. Do not ever forget it.”
Yagi said nothing for a long moment, but his hands clenched slowly into fists. He hadn’t intended to use what little time he had before the battle venting his misery and woes out to the Principal, but when was the last time he was able to genuinely just… complain? To put down the facade of old strength and gritty courage, and simply say that the world was unfair, and that things sucked? It has been a very, very long time indeed.
The silence stretched on for another second. Two. Three.
“I’m scared, Nezu.”
There.
Said aloud, the words tasted shameful. Bitter. Like defeat. But the principal did not even blink, nor did he mock him for admitting it.
“I’m not scared of his power,” Yagi continued slowly, mulling over the soot-flavored words as they escaped his mouth. “… I’m scared that he’s dangerous. That I was right when I felt something off about him, and wrong when I ignored it because of, what, a spontaneous feeling in the pit of my stomach and the hope that he could actually do what the finest healing Quirks in the world could not?”
“You’re speaking of Jason,” Nezu prompted softly.
Yagi nodded grimly. “He’s strong. You’ve seen the footage. A hundred and seven villains, some of them with confirmed hero kills. Gone in under three minutes. The energy he summoned- I felt it, Nezu. Even from the other side of campus, I could feel it through the walls. A pressure. Danger, like the air before lightning strikes. It did not feel natural. It… It did not feel like anything from this world.”
Nezu’s black eyes glimmered with their usual, unreadable cunning.
“No,” he admitted. “It didn’t.”
Yagi looked down at his own trembling hands, gnarled and lined with age well beyond their years.
“He reminds me of him,” the Symbol of Prace admitted at last, the gritty whisper like the rustling of aged parchment. “Of All For One. That same certainty. That same confidence. That ease. The way he kills like he’s just taking a breath.”
Nezu inclined his head. “But you don’t truly believe he’s like All For One, do you Yagi-kun? Otherwise we would not be standing here right now, casually discussing his prowess.”
“No,” Yagi breathed. “No, I don’t. And that is what confuses me the most.”
He turned away from the lip of the tunnel, where Midnight’s voice still echoed and spotlights still danced against stone. “Because my instincts say he’s good. That there’s something fractured and broken in him, but not rotten. That he wants to help. I could see it in the way he carried himself, the way he moved to defeat those villains and heal Aizawa with a brisk sense of urgency. Even the way he asked me to fight him sounded like a fan who wanted to better himself against his hero, rather than a villain wanting to flex his considerable power. Jason is dangerous, yes. But he does not want to be feared.”
“Do you believe he’ll keep his word?” Nezu asked. “About healing you?”
Yagi’s jaw tensed.
“…I don’t know.”
Nezu didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.
“I’m not going to let him do it. Not yet,” Yagi added, a quiet resolve entering his tone. “If I let him restore me first, and his confidence in his physical strength is unfounded… then I’ll have broken or, worst case scenario, killed a young hero trying to help me. I won’t carry that weight, when my own weight is already so heavy. More importantly, I won’t be responsible for snuffing out a light like his.”
“So instead,” Nezu mused softly, “you’ll fight him at your weakest.”
“I’ll fight him with everything that I have.” Yagi’s gaze turned steely. “He wants to test himself against the Symbol of Peace. Well, as you’ve already said, my friend… The Symbol still stands. And if that is not enough to bring him down, then I will accept my defeat with honor. No matter how weak my body may become, honor and integrity is eternal.”
“…How noble,” Nezu murmured, taking one last, quiet sip from his tea cup. “And foolish. I cannot say that I dislike that quality of yours, All-Might.”
Yagi could only grin wryly.
“Be that as it may, Nezu-san… Thank you. For listening to the whining of an old, tired relic years past his prime, and also for believing in m-“
FWUMP.
Wind blasted the entrance of the tunnel like a gale, sending dust and dirt flying down its corridor.
Principal Nezu blinked and tilted his head, staring out past Yagi’s body. “Well. It seems as though your gratitude will have to wait, Yagi-kun. Our honored guest has finally made his entrance.”
Yagi turned on his heel immediately, and saw him.
Or, at least, it looked like him.
Jason fell from the sky like some sort of human-shaped meteor, only ‘human-shaped’ was an arguable descriptor for the young hero. He was taller now. Broader. But it was the massive black wings, as dark and sleek as obsidian, and threaded through with an electric-blue energy that glowed brightly in the night sky, that was immediately jarring. It was almost definitely a new Quirk - some sort of hybrid dragonification Quirk that also enhanced his physical abilities without a shadow of a doubt… But Yagi couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something deeper than that.
Much deeper.
He tasted metal in the back of his throat, like biting into copper wiring.
“Oh, my,” Nezu whispered. “… I find myself hard-pressed to ignore this primal urge to run away and hide, as if I’m staring at some apex predator hell-bent on consuming me whole. Curious.”
Yagi didn’t bother responding. Instead, he watched. He watched as Jason landed several feet away from the staring Midnight, gently setting down his riders; the young lady with the lightning, and someone new - a much younger girl with long, silvery white hair, wide scarlet eyes, and a little horn that peeked from her bangs as if afraid to reveal itself to the world. She seemed… terrified, her lips pursed, clinging to his hand and wrist with her eyes shut tight, but when his partner softly pulled her away, she immediately leapt into the young lady’s arms.
They traded more words. Soft, unheard. The entire stadium seemed to hold its breath, unwilling to interrupt whatever moment was happening before them. Jason bent dow, ran his had through the girl’s hair, flicked her lightly on the forehead, and she abruptly lunged from the lady’s arms and wrapped herself around his neck. He laughed, straightening up and spinning her around before casually tossing her up into the air. When she came back down, he plucked her by the back of her red overalls and promptly tossed her giggling self back into his partner’s arms.
Now they were all smiling, and that little girl - her eyes were open now. Wide. Still fearful, but she was no longer hiding away from the crowd. The young lady leaned up to kiss him on the cheek before walking away, heading towards the stands that Class 1-A and 2-B was occupying, and Jason casually smacked her on the… butt as she went.
Choked gasps rumbled through the stadium, before the crowd went wild with speculation. Jason only spared them a passing glance before he made his way over to the staring, Rated R hero.
“Oooh~. Spicy,” Midnight’s intrigued voice echoed across the stadium, loud enough to be heard over the sudden din of frantic, overly excited youth. “Fashionably late, but I suddenly can't seem to find it in me to care~! I must ask, mister tall, dark, and handsome… Are you ready to face off against our beloved Symbol of Peace?”
She held the mic up towards him, the very picture of feminine grace and persuasion, yet Jason did not seem to care. He raised an eyebrow, shrugged his shoulders, and spoke - without bending down to speak into the microphone, “I’m ready. Guess I just need to see if he is.”
Midnight blinked. The crowd ‘ooh’d’. But before she could question him, Jason’s eyes flashed, and he looked directly at Yagi. Across the arena, into the darkness of one out of at least eight different tunnels, they locked eyes.
Jason stepped forward, and suddenly, he was no longer beneath the blazing glow of the stadium’s spotlights. There was no wind. No distortion. No flash of energy. Jason simply ceased to be where he was, and became somewhere else. One footfall, and suddenly, he stood a mere six feet away from Yagi and Nezu, the soft scuff of his boot echoing like a gunshot in the quiet tunnel.
The Principal’s fur bristled at his approach, his teacup jittering within his grasp; a reaction that seemed to surprise even him.
“You alright?” Jason blinked.
Nezu could only offer a quivering smile - one that, for the first time since Yagi met him, did not meet his beady little eyes. “I will be, my boy. Unfortunately, whatever you’ve done to yourself to make you into a… dragon does not seem to play well with my baser instincts. Curious, considering the fact that Ryukyu doesn’t incite the same primal reaction.”
“Oh.” The teenager tilted his head, running a hand through his messy, wind-swept hair. “Ryukyu’s not actually a dragon, but I know what you mean. My bad, dude.”
Nezu’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “... Quite. Well, I will retreat to the spectator’s box in the meanwhile. I imagine you and I will have much to talk about once this battle is finished, Jason-kun. Please do come visit me before you leave.”
“I will,” Jason nodded his head, leaning against the tunnel’s wall and giving the little creature a respectful nod. “I’ve actually gotta talk to you about the little girl I brought with me. Eri. I’m hopin’ you can help her, but if not, I can take her with me.”
“Mm.”
Nezu paused, his gaze flickering from Jason, to the crowd, and back to Jason. Yagi had no idea what it felt like to be a super genius, but he could only imagine the amount of calculations going on through the Principal’s brain on a daily basis, or the speed in which he was able to draw the conclusions he was making right at this very moment. The pondering didn’t last for too long - maybe three or four seconds - before he gave a terse nod, patted Yagi on the leg, and made his way out of the tunnel.
And for a few more seconds still, neither of them spoke.
Until-
“I do not wish to be healed before we fight.”
A beat of silence.
Jason arched a disbelieving eyebrow, a disappointed frown pulling at his lips. “What the fuck, All-Might?”
“Language.” The dry, wry reprimand escaped his lips before he could stop it.
The superpowered young man rolled his eyes, pushing himself off the wall. “Look, man. I thought we had an agreement - I heal you, you fight me. Boom, bam, no misunderstanding involved. What’s up with the cold feet all of a sudden? I kno-... I thought you were in agreement before, back at the USJ.”
“I was,” Yagi admitted grimly, crossing his arms over his chest, “Until I arrived home, sat down to watch highlight reels of several of my old fights, and came to the realization that fighting you at my prime means holding back. A lot. And I have a feeling, young man, that you do not want such a shallow victory, just as I do not want to give such a shallow lesson. We both have too much pride for that.”
Jason stared in disbelief. “... You actually think you can kill me if you went all-out,” he muttered.
The cockiness of youth and power.
“It isn’t a thought,” Yagi sighed, running a tired hand down his face. “It is a fact. The difference between my power during my peak compared to my power now… It is like night and day. And even now, with my body half destroyed, I could have defeated that army of villains and torn the roof off of the USJ, all with one punch.”
There was no arrogance behind his words. No boasting. Yagi stated it as pure, undisputed fact, because, more than anyone else in this world… He knew his strength. He knew his power. And after watching the footage of Jason’s battle in the USJ, he knew without a shadow of doubt that, if that was the young man struggling to keep a lid on his new power-
All-Might in his prime would turn him into a smear with one fully-clenched Smash.
“I-...” Jason went to speak, but as he stared down into Yagi’s face, something in his annoyed expression shifted. Eased, as if he came to some sort of revelation. And instead of arguing more, he simply smiled wryly, and shrugged. “Fine. Fuck it. I can show you better than I can tell you, All-Might, so hold off on the healing. Just don’t try to cancel me when I beat the brakes off your crippled ass.”
To anyone else, his words would have come off as violent and aggressive.
To Yagi, he only sounded vaguely amused.
It got a low, wheezing chuckle out of him. “If you ‘beat the brakes’ off of me, young Jason, I will owe you the greatest of apologies for underestimating your might.”
“You’re damn right, old man.”
Understanding achieved, the two acquaintances - now opponents - made their way into the spotlight.
…
…
…
Not even two minutes later, they stood across the stadium from one another, a feeling like that of raw lightning surging across the stiff, late evening breeze. All-Might felt it in his bones; a sense of coiled anticipation, like a spring trap mere seconds away from being triggered. The crowd, for once, was almost completely silent - all bated breath and contained excitement as Midnight slowly counted down the start of the match. He raised his large hands up beneath his chin, clenching them into fists with a loud, resounding crack.
His core tightened, his muscles as tense as steel plates, and All-Might let out a low, centering exhale.
He was ready.
“Both fighters, please prepare yourselves! The battle will begin in three…”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, Jason seemed utterly relaxed. He lightly hopped in place, up and down, both arms swinging freely at his sides. The young man didn’t bother moving into a formal fighting stance, nor did he seem in a hurry to raise and bolster his defenses. Instead, he seemed to treat the countdown as a time to warm up and stretch out his limbs.
All-Might frowned in disappointment.
He would have to show young Jason just how crippling arrogance could be.
“Two…”
With a clench of the ass muscles, sheer, overwhelming power suffused his whole being.
One for All was heady. It was potent. It was like swallowing liquid fire from a bottle, and working it through every single cell inside of your body until your entire soul was alight with the crackling of flames. Over the past several years, the flame of All-Might’s inherited power - previously a roaring bonfire - had become something of a flickering ember. It was still bright, still strong enough to give off heat and warmth, but the kindling had long since grown sparse. Given enough time and too much stress, there was a very real chance that it would flicker out and die.
“One!”
CRACK.
He moved.
Concrete broke underfoot, splintering off into spiderwebbed cracks that spread out for dozens of feet. The rushing of wind roared in his ears, nearly too overwhelming for his brain to even think. And in less time than it would’ve taken a man to let out a held breath, All-Might had already crossed the halfway boundary that separated him from Jason’s side of the arena. He dug his heels deep into the fracturing concrete, each harsh exhalation from his nostrils acting as another subconscious count that grounded him, kept him focused.
Speed. Strength. Willpower.
The three core tenets of One for All.
A second breath. A second step. His vision tunneled. The crowd vanished. The lights, the noise, the pressure - it all collapsed inward to a single, crystalline point.
Jason.
The young man was still hopping lazily in place, though his body now appeared to be moving almost in slow motion - a side-effect of the speed in which All-Might was now moving. His eyes were half-lidded, the tiniest of smirks curling the corner of his lips into a lopsided, devil-may-care grin. For all intents and purposes, it didn’t even seem as if he was even fully aware of the eight foot tall mountain of muscle and Quirk-empowered wrath tearing a war path straight for his face. His gaze was locked forward, sure, but aimed at the position All-Might had already left.
The Symbol of Peace inwardly frowned, disappointed in spite of himself.
‘Arrogant.’
Maybe a smash would wake him up.
A third breath. Another fraction of a second burned into ashes amongst the passage of time.
And all of a sudden…
All-Might was there. Right in front of him.
A final, shattering stomp split the concrete beneath his foot like a tectonic fault line. Wind and dust billowed up in massive clouds, stinging his eyes and filling his mouth with the taste of grit, but All-Might had long since learned how to ignore the more annoying effects of his monumental strength. He pivoted on the balls of his feet, curling his toes, clenching his cheeks, and tensing what was left of his abdomen with all of the power in his body.
He gritted his teeth.
“Texas…”
The punch that All-Might launched towards Jason’s unguarded face was one that could shatter stone, destroy buildings, and send the scariest of villains careening through entire city blocks-
“SMASH!”
His roar split the stadium.
All-Might’s right fist tore through the air like a freight train made of compressed hurricanes, the sheer velocity of the strike displacing the very oxygen around it. A sonic boom cracked outward like a whip’s lash as his extended knuckles ripped forward on a crash course for Jason’s skull. The friction alone caused the latex-tight material of his sleeve to flare backward in torn fibers, and the gust following the punch - gale-force and blisteringly hot - rushed the crowd with unrelenting force, sending dozens of students bracing back against their chairs, hair flying askew and free. The spotlights above the stadium flickered concernedly.
All-Might’s mind, however, was singular. His thoughts tunneled, his heart steeled.There was no hesitation in his strike. No fear. At the very least, he trusted Jason not to break. Not from a single punch.
Make contact. Drop him. Show him, show the world- show yourself that the Symbol still stands tall.
…
But that contact never came.
Jason’s eyes flicked toward him.
Not his head.
Not his body.
Just his eyes.
It was such a small motion; a single, half-lidded glance, so quick and so subtle that if All-Might hadn’t been hyper-focused in the heat of battle, he might’ve missed it entirely. But that flicker of glowing silver light - those gleaming, slitted irises tracking his every motion with a chilling clarity - was the only warning he received.
And then Jason was on the move.
He twisted. Slid. His body blurred, like smudged ink across a pale white page page, leaving behind the faintest flicker of an afterimage that hovered there in the corner of All-Might’s straining vision. The effect of the young man’s sudden speed wasn’t important - it was what he did with it that mattered. Jason had already slipped around the blow in one fluid, serpentine motion. One moment the fist was en route for an instant KO; the next, Jason’s torso had curled around it like smoke from a lit match, his left arm rising to hook under and around All-Might’s outstretched elbow in a vice grip of frightening strength. The clinch was swift. Surgical. Elegant, even, perfectly angled to twist the muscular limb off its ideal trajectory
In the same moment, Jason leaped up and reared back his right fist, his massive wings flexing behind his shoulders to keep his body aloft. All-Might gritted his teeth, preparing to break the clinch and tear himself free, but there was no time to do so. Barely even any time to blink. Not even a fraction of a second later, Jason dropped back down, that clenched fist blasting towards his face with the sudden, cataclysmic momentum of a comet hitting Earth.
CRACK-
BOOM!
That counterpunch damn near broke the atmosphere.
All-Might’s entire head jerked to the side with such force that he felt the tendons in his neck scream in agony. It felt like being struck by a pile driver - his entire world tilted, his vision flashing red as Jason full-sent the brutal haymaker all the way through, hammering him downwards with so much speed and strength that the stadium floor exploded around his body.
Shockwaves rippled outward.
A plume of dust and pulverized stone erupted from the crater, sending chunks of shattered concrete spraying in every direction. The entire crowd recoiled as one, screams and voices rising from every section of the stadium, students and staff alike leaping from their seats at the sight of the Symbol of Peace getting flattened into the ground by a single punch. He could barely hear them through the high-pitched whistle screeching through the shell of his ears.
The bitter taste of disappointment was somehow worse than a punch that broke the sound barrier with its viciousness.
It wasn’t the hardest All-Might had ever been hit. Not by a long shot. But it was more than enough to hurt- hell, it was more than enough to stun him, leaving his brain shaking and rebooting inside the now concussed shell of his skull. He could recover. He was recovering already, brute forcing his way through the shock and pain with sheer force of will, but-
Jason still had his arm clinched.
All-Might felt his eyes widen.
He had to move. Now-
“URK!”
Vertigo.
All-Might barely even registered the ruthless kick against his ribs. He was too busy attempting to keep what remained of his torn apart organs from escaping his body via violent regurgitation. He could tell, however purely by the sound of wind rushing past him, that he was airborne, but the world was moving past him in a blur - too fast for him to properly grasp what direction, exactly, he was falling.
Up?
Down?
Backwards?
The iron-like taste of blood was thick, nearly gelatinous on his tongue. He felt it dribbling out the corner of his mouth, falling in thin, sticky strings against his chest, but it was already taking everything he had to pull himself back together. To regain his bearings.
And then, fractions upon fractions of seconds after his initial take-off… he landed.
Or rather, his back slammed against the far stadium wall with a bang that sounded like a railgun going off. It was only due to Cementoss’ tireless work in reinforcing the stadium with layer after layer of concrete that saved him from breaking straight through and tearing a trench through the outside courtyard.
As it stood, he only made an All-Might shaped imprint in the supernaturally dense stone. His body twisted with the impact, bounced once, and rolled to a jagged, aching stop in a ruin of cracked stone and broken tiles, arms splayed out like a crucifix, ribs caved in, throat heaving.
…
“Grrrk!” He gagged, his head lolling to the side. A veritable waterfall of crimson spilled onto the arena floor.
Horrified gasps ripped through the air. Even Midnight was frozen with one hand halfway raised.
But it was Jason’s voice, unnaturally loud and clear, that caught his, and the crowd’s, full attention.
“You underestimated me. That ain’t good for your health, All-Might.”
Damn it.
Slowly, All-Might sat up, gripping his scarred, withered gut with one large, calloused hand. He glared forward through blurry eyes, red-tinged eyes, keeping his opponent directly in his line of sight, mentally and physically bracing himself for another assault…
But Jason wasn’t attacking.
The young man was casually walking across the already ruined floor of the stadium, his every step slow and deliberate, like the stalking of an apex predator studying its prey; a comparison made even more accurate by the iridescent wings folded around his body like a cloak. The way he moved - calm and certain, with the eerie grace of someone accustomed to this kind of dominance in a fight - struck something deep in All-Might’s core. It was only the start of the battle, but right now, in this moment, the man who had become a Symbol of Hope for the entirety of the nation was now, unmistakably, the prey.
And the stinging of his pride was, without a doubt, several times more painful than the burning agony coursing through his gut.
“You’re slower than I thought,” he continued. His voice echoed throughout the stadium, deep and dark, with the slightest twang of an Osaka accent. “You telegraphed everything. That dash, that punch - I ain’t one of those two-bit villains you blitz on a daily basis, man. Give me more face than that.”
All-Might coughed.
Once. Twice.
A ragged, ugly sound. Pain laced every breath.
He forced his hands away from his sides, large fingers clawing into the debris like a hot knife through butter. His teeth gritted against each other, blood wetting his gums. His organs, and lack thereof, were still screaming, but he shoved through the agony the same way he always had. Because that was the way of things. Pain was the price of peace. Of hope. Of standing tall in front of the people you loved, and giving them something to believe in.
Even when your lungs were drowning in filth, and your heart wanted to stop.
“Hrgh… not done yet…” All-Might growled, spitting out one final wad of blood. He shoved himself to his knees, head lowered, breathing through his nose so that he didn’t cough up his one remaining lung. “I’ve... taken harder hits…”
He forced himself up higher.
His students were watching. Hell, U.A. was watching. And if things went the way he suspected them to go, the world would eventually be watching.
He couldn’t fall here. Not like this. Not if he truly wanted to remain the Symbol of Peace for years to come.
So All-Might did what he did best.
He flexed his quivering muscles, threw on the biggest red-stained, cheek-straining grin he could muster, and stood.
Cherry red leaked from his nose. His body begged for him to stay down.
But he stood.
“You may be strong, young Jason,” he rasped, “You may be faster than me, even. But where my body may fail, my heart’s desire to overcome will always persevere. So strike me as many times as you want. Rip me limb from limb. Break each and every one of my bones. Tear me apart, young man, and I will find a way to claim victory with nothing but my teeth. Because that is the kind of hero I am!”
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.
Jason tilted his head. A crooked grin - smaller than All-Might’s, but somehow even more eager - split his lips.
“Say less.”
And the broken stadium floor was torn asunder once more.
All-Might went into their second bout with nothing but a humbled respect for his young opponent’s strength, speed, and skill, and was immediately better for it. When he met Jason in the middle of the arena, his cape nearly shredding itself in the high-speed winds of his sudden acceleration, All-Might’s didn’t go for another headshot. Those were easier to see coming. Easier to dodge. With his mind beaten down and sharpened to a razor edge, he locked in on the one area that provided the most canvas for smashing-
The torso. Center mass.
This time, there was no shouting of Ultimate Moves or dramatic telegraphing of the punch. He kept his limbs tight, his body limber, and his core engaged.
Jason’s eyes flashed. He could see the attack coming, somehow - perhaps another Quirk? Combat Perception? But he’d recognized it too late, and had already thrown his own punch. There was no time for a counter-attack on either side.
So they clashed, fist against fist.
BOOM!
A shockwave of pure, concussive force burst outward on impact, sending overhead lighting rigs swinging wildly on their anchors. Every single person watching was forced to shield their eyes, the sound of their collision more akin to a bomb than any human motion. All-Might was an old veteran to the collateral effects of his attacks; his entire life with One for All had practically been an exercise of power and control ever since he’d inherited the Quirk from Nana, but Jason…
He could tell that Jason was still new to it. New to his strength, and his speed. And now that they were exchanging blows, All-Might could practically taste the minute hesitations. Jason wasn’t holding back, per se, but his attention was slightly divided. This was training for him.
The realization was mildly worrying.
‘There!’
An opening. For the shortest of instances, in that brief interim where Jason’s right fist was retracting back and his left was snaking forward, his guard slipped for just a moment.
All-Might abandoned his punch midway through, turning it into a vicious elbow that drove into Jason’s midsection with the force of a freight train. It should’ve been a clean hit - but his opponent was unlike any other hero he’d ever fought in close combat,. Jason only barely managed to throw away his own attack and block the punch, crossing both forearms against his chest, snapping his wings tight behind him to stabilize his core.
The impact sent both fighters skidding, feet carving twin trenches across the battlefield. The sleeves of Jason’s shirt were tattered and ripped apart, revealing not skin, but those same glossy black scales covering his flesh like segmented plates of metal armor. Steam drifted freely from the scuffed and battered part of his forearms that All-Might had struck, the scales already warped back in a vague impression of large, meaty knuckles.
Jason’s eyes narrowed, his breath coming out in slow, measured pants. “... Nice shot, old man.”
All-Might could only grin. “Prepare yourself for a hundred more!”
They moved as one.
And the battle was on again.
Jason lashed out with a rising knee aimed for All-Might’s sternum, but the Symbol twisted sideways, rolling his shoulder into the attack and using the momentum and his height advantage to swing his arm back and slam a heavy, overhead hammerfist into the young man’s collarbone.
The teen growled, only barely bringing his scaled palm back up to block it, but the force of the blow still brought him down to his knees, sundering the ruined floor beneath them and ringing out into the sky like a cannon ball against metal. He used his positioning well, however, dropping his palm, letting All-Might’s punch fall into the concrete and split stone instead of scale, and retaliating with a savage, perfectly-executed uppercut that the Symbol of Peace just barely managed to lean away from. The edges of it grazed his jaw, his grinning lips splitting open from the shockwave alone.
Blood splattered the ground. Not Jason’s. Not yet. But soon.
He could feel it in his bones. In his muscles. And despite his body screaming at him to start, One for All sputtering like a candle inside of his soul, All-Might found himself falling into that familiar, almost addicting lull of battlelust in spite of himself.
Strength against strength. Man against man.
Power against power.
The tempo increased.
He laughed, loud and voracious, even as his cheek caved from a kick that was only dampened by the slightest of head-tilts.
Faster.
Harder.
They moved so violently that air bent and wavered around their bodies from the sheer speed and heat of their punches and kicks. Every hit came with the force and viciousness of a fighter jet, every block and counter ringing out into the sky with the crack of sound struggling to keep up. Every dodge was the narrowest margin between victory and defeat, because taking a full, clean hit this late in the game meant death. Jason’s fighting style - if it could even be called that - was fluid but chaotic, like some sort of primal instinct given choreography. Like even he was only barely cognizant of his own skill. All-Might recognized pieces of it; boxing, wrestling, even a bit of Muay Thai, but there was something else beneath it. Something inhuman.
Jason ducked a roundhouse kick that carved a fifty-foot wide trench into the far wall, and buried a searingly hot palm into All-Might’s solar plexus.
BOOM.
A geyser of dust erupted beneath the Symbol of Peace’s boots as he slid back, coughing hard through the pain, trying not to fold over and relinquish his forward momentum. One and a half of his lungs burned. His ears rang. But even through all of that, he began to see it.
Jason wasn’t just fighting him.
He was learning him.
Every attack. Every dodge. Every breath and shift of weight. This man… He was adapting. Refining. Growing faster, stronger, and more efficient by the second, with each and every exchange. His blows came in tighter arcs now. He was no longer relying on sheer speed or power alone. He was beginning to mirror All-Might’s own rhythm, interrupting his timing, baiting reactions. Every missed punch was one Jason would never fall for again, and slowly but surely, he was gaining ground.
Whereas One for All was already beginning to slip away.
It wasn’t extinguished. Not yet. But it was dimming fast, like the final heartbeats of a dying star. It pulsed through his ruined body like molten lead, burning every nerve, every vein, straining against the limits of what he could endure. And he’d already endured a lot in this battle. More than he’d thought he’d be able to take.
While Jason was speeding up…
All-Might was already beginning to slow down.
Their fists met again - his own wide, calloused knuckles colliding with Jason’s clawed hand in a thunderclap that split the sky open and tore clouds into ribbons high above them. The shockwave blasted outward in concentric circles, ripping the banners from the stadium walls, flaying away the distant synthetic turf by the meter. The crowd of students and staff roared as one, a single ecstatic wave of noise, but their voices were swallowed by the cacophony of destruction as the ground buckled beneath the force of the clash.
And still Jason advanced.
Each strike was worse than the last. Not because it hurt more - even though it did - but because it was smarter. Sharper. More precise. He ducked under a wild haymaker and pivoted with a step that was almost too fast to see, launching a spiraling elbow directly into All-Might’s floating rib. Something cracked. No- multiple somethings. The impact lifted him off his feet, sent him skidding backward on a trail of pulverized and bloodied rock. He barely caught himself on a knee, coughing red into the air.
And when he looked up… Jason was already there.
A blur. A shadow. A storm.
It’s crazy how fast momentum can shift in a fight like this.
All-Might threw up a cross guard just in time to take the next punch, and it still drove him several feet into the ground, knees cratering concrete, heels snapping tile. He growled, roared his refusal in the face of defeat, forcing himself upright with an uppercut that was more desperation than strategy, and Jason actually grinned - not sadistically, but with the manic glee of someone who had finally found a worthy opponent.
The grin made something old and buried twist inside of him. A memory. Of fights past. Enemies he’d faced in his prime, when the entire world still believed he was invincible. When he still believed it. When the dream was fresh and the Symbol of Peace had not yet begun to crumble beneath the weight of its own legend.
But this was not then.
And Jason, despite his eccentricities, was no villain.
“NOT… YET, YOUNG MAN!” he bellowed, foamy red spittle flying freely from his frayed lips, “NOT YET!”
Yagi’s arms trembled as he pushed himself up, blood trickling from his mouth, his eye half-shut and swelling. The air was filled with dust and an invisible, static-charged pressure. Whole sections of the stadium were in ruins now - stands cracked open like eggs, empty seats hurled skyward by the wind shear of their earlier exchanges. Fires flickered in the far corners where the friction of fists had ignited grass and plastic. The battlefield looked like a warzone, and still Jason advanced, his black mantle swirling around his body like smoke.
With his wings spread out behind him and his brown skin slick with splatterings of oil-slicked scales - along his cheek, consuming his forearms, and burning a trail down the middle of his bruised, exposed abdomen - he looked like some draconic, inhuman force. Something inexorable.
Something like death itself.
And Yagi…
Yagi refused to bend his knee to death.
Something fundamental in his body pounded. It was a sound - a heartbeat of indomitable intent, a warcry only the soul could hear.
He felt it rise in his chest, through the pain, past the hollow groan of failing muscle. It wasn’t One For All. Not anymore. That power, though still there, was beginning failing him, the final sputters of a flame that had long since become too small to maintain its blaze.
No. This was something entirely separated from the Quirk he’d inherited - the same Quirk he’d already given away well over a month ago, to someone special. What he felt wasn’t One for All.
It was simply his will to persevere.
His rage.
His purpose.
Yagi roared, the sound shredding through his throat like broken glass, and launched forward with everything he had left. Every tendon screamed, every ligament threatening to rupture, but his fists moved like meteor hammers wielded by the Gods of Old. Jason’s eyes widened infinitesimally, both arms swinging up to weather the onslaught, but that reaction - that fleeting moment of surprise - was more than enough for the broken Symbol to feel vindicated in his wrath. One after another, he unleashed punch after blurring punch, a flurry that burned away the skin at the edge of his knuckles from its sheer speed.
It was a relentless stream of attacks, driven by fury, love, grief- … By everything he had ever carried for the people who believed in him.
And each one battered across Jason’s defense like a blacksmith’s hammer warping steel.
BOOM!
“SMASH!”
He swung.
BOOM!
“SMAAASH!”
He pressed.
“SMAAAA-”
BOOM!
He…
Stopped?
Yagi heaved for breath, his entire body shaking with the fleeting vestiges of One for All and his own burning will. His eyes, deep pits of black dotted with twin pinpricks of luminous cerulean, widened in disbelief.
Because he didn’t stop.
Jason caught his fist.
His unrelenting barrage of smashes had pushed the young man to the edge of the stadium, mere inches away from falling back into the ripped apart turf. Jason’s draconic arms, previously protected by layers of wicked black scales, were fully human once again - though their rich brown coloration was gone, replaced by a sickly purple and yellow. His forearms were shaking, steaming, the left one bending forward at a horrifying, unnatural angle, hanging limp over Yagi’s left fist.
But the right one gripped him like a vice. And Jason’s eyes, wide and bloodshot and glowing with a fervor that could not be normal, locked with his.
There was a beat; silent, suspended, as if time itself refused to witness what came next.
Then-
CRACK!
Jason’s counterpunch was so fast, so brutal, so final, it was almost elegant. He dropped his palm, allowing the Smash to fall through and slam into his face, but the hit had already bled away the majority of its momentum - and Jason took it to the chin. Literally. But, in return, he spun low, dragging his knuckles across the cracked floor like a dragon dragging its claws, and launched up in a blur with a body blow that slammed into Yagi’s liver with the impact of a meteor strike.
His legs gave away, and the broken Symbol dropped.
His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets..
He hit the ground on his knees, gasping for a breath that just wouldn’t come. Something inside him had popped from the punch, and he felt the rupture ripple up through his abdomen like a tidal wave.
It happened like a mask melting off.
His musculature collapsed inward, violently. His right arm thinned at the shoulder, sinew withering like sucked-up marrow. His chest caved slightly on one side, ribs visibly retracting beneath skin that tightened up to the point of grotesqueness. The chiseled, heroic proportions of half his face vanished beneath the cruel erosion of time and exhaustion, becoming pale and bony. His right cheek hollowed. His right eye sank into itself, a dark bag forming beneath the socket. The right corner of his mouth twisted downward into an exhausted, pained grimace.
His breathing rattled in his throat like death throes. Yagi’s head lolled back, and all he could do was stare.
The silence that had fallen over the stadium was funereal. Even Midnight, the ever vocal and seductive announcer, had fallen silent, both hands covering her mouth from where she watched from the reinforced spectator’s box, alongside a gaping Cementoss and a grim-faced Nezu.
The Symbol of Peace… Had lost.
Jason’s foreboding words, mere seconds before the battle’s start, came back to him then, in the pits of his shame and defeat. “Fine. Fuck it. I can show you better than I can tell you, All-Might, so hold off on the healing. Just don’t try to cancel me when I beat the brakes off your crippled ass.”
Well, he did regret it. He regretted it with every fiber of his being, now.
He’d underestimated Jason completely. Assumed him to be just another misguided youth with a powerful Quirk. But he wasn’t misguided, though he was young. Jason knew exactly what he was doing, and had been since the beginning. The second Yagi had refused healing, the fight stopped being a fight. Instead, it was a lesson. A brutal, savage, humiliating lesson.
And he, for the first time in decades, had been the student.
“Y’know,” Jason murmured, suddenly a mere few inches away from the kneeling relic. His voice was quiet - much quieter than it had been before, no longer bouncing off the stadium walls and filling the air with its drawl. He spoke words meant only for his defeated opponent. “This could actually be good for you, All-Might.”
Yagi’s dark, unfocused eyes blinked, swimming for a moment before locking in on the squatting teenager. Jason’s broken arm hung limply by his side, but he didn’t seem to notice - or even care. He was staring directly at Yagi with an intensity that burned, his head tilted slightly to the side.
He didn’t wait for him to respond. Not that he even could. Not while he was actively working to keep himself conscious.
“You could take this defeat to the chin, and use it as an excuse to finally retire. Everyone here’s a witness. These kids have smartphones. It’s almost definitely gonna be leaked outside of U.A.’s, and Nezu’s, realm of influence.”
Jason lightly tapped his own forehead with a clawed index finger, a lazy, blood-smudged smile forming. “I’m decently smart, you see. I know Midoriya Izuku’s the successor for One for All. Anyone with half a brain can tell. So boom, you retire. I take ‘Deku’, give him actual training, and turn him into a one-man wrecking crew. Maybe even give him a few more ‘Quirks’ to mess around with, beyond the other stuff he’ll eventually get from One for All being such bullshit. Can’t promise he’ll keep the cinnamon roll-like innocence. That ain’t really my style. But he’ll be strong. The strongest here, that’s for damn sure.”
Yagi twitched.
No.
He knew Jason, now. After fighting, and being defeated by him… Yagi felt that he had a measure of the young man’s character and strength.
And the thought of his beloved heir returning to whatever hellscape that made Jason into the monster in human form that he was now…
He refused.
It must have shown on his face, because Jason’s grin grew even wider. “Cool. Second option… You take my hand, pull yourself to your feet, grab the motherfucking balls your momma blessed you with, and fight me. For real. No ‘half-crippled’ bullshit. No holding back. No worrying about killing me. Because that ain’t what I signed up for, All-Might.”
His grin slipped away as if it had never been there in the first place, and Yagi suddenly felt pressure. So much pressure, pressing against his spine, digging its way into the already shaken meats of his brain. Beyond the taste of blood that was thick in the back of his throat, he could feel something like lightning. That familiar feeling of biting into copper wiring from before.
And then Jason was gripping him by his atrophied wrist, and the feeling faded.
“If you disappoint me again,” he said, deathly serious, “I’ll kill you and kidnap your apprentice. Deadass. So stand up, and show the fuck out.”
Yagi couldn’t even absorb the full scope of the threat-
Because his body was suddenly burning.
Not with pain, though. No, every waking second for the past several minutes had been pain in some form or another, and he’d honestly become insensate to it. This… This was different. Some warm, mysterious, purifying energy that burned gold as it suffused his frame, restoring his energy. Fighting back the pain. Like fire purging impurities from metal, it swept through his crumbling frame and scourged him for the rotted remains that All for One had left him with, and incinerated them to ash.
Only to forge them anew.
It began in his palm, where Jason’s clawed hand clasped his own with a tight, almost desperate strength. His fingers were warm, much warmer than skin should be, and Yagi knew, intrinsically, that it had nothing to do with his new draconic traits. Heat as pleasant as the noonday sun pulsed between them - pure, bright white and radiant gold. If hope had a temperature, it was this.
And then it moved.
Yagi’s mouth opened in a soundless cry, the blood and offal that had just been jamming his throat shut abruptly burning away beneath the surge of energy. It was too much, too bright, like his soul had been scooped out of his decaying body and thrown into the heart of a star. There was light - light behind his eyes, in his bones, rushing through his veins and burning them gold beneath his skin. It pressed into his ruined side and went to work; muscle, sinew, even the parts he didn’t know were still bleeding after all these years mending in bursts of heat.
His lungs filled. Properly.
He didn’t even realize he had forgotten what that felt like until the shock of breathing - unimpeded and clean - rocketed through his chest.
The Symbol of Peace staggered forward, unable to hold the weight of that miracle inside his chest, but Jason’s grip did not falter. It steadied him.
Yagi shuddered.
His shoulder - his right shoulder, the one that had shrunk within the loose shell of his skin - jerked as something deep within realigned, clicked, and rethreaded itself into place like a puzzle finding its missing piece, bones growing thicker and stronger, threading over with dense and healthy muscle. A rib popped into existence, followed by several more, forming a whole cage. Tendons snapped taut where once they had hung slack and empty, while flesh thickened with strength, pulling taut over bone.
His face, still hollow on one side, flexed, the skin tightening until the stroke-like difference evened out, and the hollowness filled with health and color. He could feel the difference, like time had reversed itself around his body. Even his heart seemed to beat fuller, heavier, a drum given back its rhythm.
Then-
FWOOM.
One for All.
Its power ignited inside of his newly reforged core like a bonfire given oxygen after years of smothering. The embers that had only just been reduced to sparking smolders roared into brilliance, a nova of inherited strength crackling in his blood and sinew. Yagi arched backward with a startled, strangled gasp as the power of generations surged into him - not as a burden, never that, but as a gift he could finally lift without pain for the first time in years. That familiar voltage danced through every nerve with a rhythm that felt familiar again. For the first time in what felt like eternity, his power fit inside his body.
It belonged again.
He was back.
…
All-Might felt the tears burn in the corner of his eyes. It was all too sudden - the defeat, the healing, and now, the emotional release of a lifetime of sacrifice suddenly, through what felt like a miracle, being reversed. He rose, slowly, breath shuddering, new bones creaking from disuse. And when he stood, it was the first time in a long time that he was able to stand with his spine unbent, his legs firm beneath him, without feeling agony rip through his lower intestines.
He looked down at the smaller teen who still held his hand loosely, claws now relaxed, glow fading.
Jason arched an eyebrow, a small, knowing smirk twisted the corner of his mouth. "You good?"
He couldn’t answer. Not at first. His throat was too tight. His chest was filled with something enormous - multiple somethings that he couldn’t even hope to vocalize. Gratitude. Awe. Reverence, maybe. A childish, irrational sense of salvation.
All-Might knew that if he were to speak right now, in this moment, he would only stutter and hiccup and make an absolute fool out of both himself and the young man who’d given his life back. And he could not repay such a priceless gift with something like that.
So he did the only thing he could.
He pulled the young man into a massive bear hug.
It was pure instinct, overwhelming and desperate, as he wrapped his bare, muscled arms around him and squeezed. Jason let out a surprised grunt, caught off guard as his feet briefly left the ground, his ribs creaking from the pressure.
“Thank you,” All-Might whispered, his voice fractured and tearful. “From the bottom of my heart, young Jason... Thank you.”
He held on a moment longer, eyes closed amidst the eerie silence of the stadium, anchoring himself in the reality of the moment… Before Jason made a strained noise.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough,” he muttered, squirming just enough to drive an elbow into Yagi’s freshly healed side. He didn’t even feel it. “Not in front of the chicks, man.”
Yagi laughed, and the sound was loud. Choked. Wet. It felt strange in his throat, like rediscovering a part of himself long buried.
When was the last time he truly laughed? A laugh that wasn’t only to calm the hearts of other people?
“A hero who can go head to head with the Symbol of Peace and defeat him with only a broken arm to show for it… is embarrassed by a simple hug? How delightfully teenager-like. It is good, then, to know that you are a young man, and not some eldritch horror in human skin.”
Jason shoved at his chest lightly until he released him, which All-Might did with no fuss, before brushing dust off the tattered remnants of his mantle..
“Yeah, yeah. Thank me by trying to beat my ass with that newfound strength of yours,” he said, glancing up with a lidded, deadpan eyes. “Now get your game face on, Symbol of Peace. Reset yourself, stretch out the kinks, and then… We’ll make this crowd believe in gods again.”
And Yagi…
Yagi smiled.
Not the practiced, pristine smile he wore for the world, nor the exhausted twitch of lips he’d offered his colleagues in recent years.
It was a real one. A joyful one. Fierce.
It was the kind of smile a man wore before leaping into battle with overwhelming hope in his heart, and the might of titans contained within his fists.
Because All-Might was whole again.
And by God, he was looking forward to showing the world.
______________________________________________
The stadium had gone supernova.
Cassie sat cross-legged on the bleachers, cradling Eri in her lap like a porcelain treasure too small for all the noise and thunder booming around them. The little girl had wedged herself securely into the crook of Cassie’s arm, as if any separation might cause the world to go wrong again. The crowd roared like an avalanche crashing through mountains, but Eri’s eyes - wide and scarlet, like pools of blood - weren’t watching the rest of the crowd.
No.
She was fixated solely on the two figures standing in the cratered, concrete-strewn ruin of what had once been a neat and orderly battle stadium. Her tiny hands clutched fistfuls of Cassie’s overcoat, knuckles white with excitement, with fear, with awe. With hope. Every time Jason moved, Eri’s breath caught. Every time All-Might stood tall again, defiant against injury and age, she gasped aloud, her voice trembling with pure, undiluted emotion.
It hurt a bit to realize that the sight of blood and broken bones didn’t even garner a second glance from her.
“Big brother’s winning, right?” she asked for the fifth time, voice high and breathless with wonder.
Cassie glanced down at her, brushing pale strands of hair from Eri’s face with a gentle stroke of her thumb. “Of course he is, munchkin. Jason-oniisan has plot armor thicker than a fu-... frickin’ Gundam.”
Eri giggled- a soft, shaky, glittering sound like chimes caught in a summer breeze, and Cassie felt something delicate and protective flutter weakly in her chest, nestled amongst the anxiety, excitement, and pride she was already juggling from the brutal showing happening below. She pulled the girl closer into her side with a smile, and Eri melted into her without hesitation, resting her head beneath Cassie's chin, as if her tiny body understood - trusted - that this was safety now.
There had been a time, not even a couple hours ago, when Eri flinched at every single one of their movements. When she couldn’t make eye contact. When even the slightest of raised voices made her shrink into herself and tear up, because she expected violence or death to come right after.
But now she was screaming in Cassie's lap, high and shrill and uncontainably joyful, chanting, “Go, big brother! GO!” at the top of her lungs while tears glimmered in her eyes; not from fear, but from feeling too much. Cassie had to swipe at her own cheeks before they gave her away.
‘God, Jason. What the heck are we even doing?’
The thought came with a smile she couldn’t suppress. It bloomed across her face with a flush of pride and exasperated, all-consuming love.
Cassie knew Jason better than anyone - better than Amy, better than Sherrel… Hell, probably better than himself. And she knew that, despite how much he tried to act all nonchalant and cold, like the dark horse of the fucking multiverse, he was easily the most caring and protective man she’d ever met. Whether it was Riley, or Eri, or some other lost, lonely soul somewhere out there in one of those infinite numbers of realities, the fact of the matter was that they’d never stop saving lives. They’d never stop improving them.
Which was why she wasn’t necessarily surprised when her soulmate healed All-Might, right when he had the old man dead to rights.
It didn’t surprise her, but damn if it didn’t rankle the try-hard munchkin inside of her soul something fierce.
“Why is big brother holding his hand like that. Are they friends now?” Eri asked, leaning forward. She wriggled in Cassie’s arms in order to get a better look at the delicate scene, and amongst the silence of the crowd, her innocent voice rang loudly despite how naturally quiet the young girl was.
“He sold the fight, Eri,” she muttered with (mostly) fake bitterness, pinching the bridge of her nose. “He went and healed the strongest man in the world like a big, dumb, golden retriever. Or dragon. I guess. But yes, they’ve always been, uh, friends. Kinda.”
"Mm. But what's 'sold the fight' mean?"
Cassie giggled in spite of herself, playfully squeezing Eri’s adorably chubby little cheeks. “It means, Eri-chan, that Jason’s aura farming again.”
And that was when All-Might, now fully healed and standing taller than ever, pulled Jason into a massive hug.
The crowd went absolutely wild.
The students of Class 1-A, her ‘neighbors’ for the night, were screaming just as much as Eri had been when the violence was at its peak. Uraraka had both hands over her mouth, vibrating in her seat with tears pooling in the corner of her eyes, while Tsuyu and most of the other girls clung to each other for comfort. Sero, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Mina were standing on their chairs, fist-pumping the air and waving their arms like windmills as they cheered for their hero. Even Todoroki, who’d been silently fuming beside Bakugo for practically the entire battle, was holding a hand against his heart, eyes wide.
But no one, absolutely no one, was louder than Izuku Midoriya. The boy was full-on sobbing, snot dribbling from his nose and tears creating puddles beneath his feet as he shouted with all the power his lungs could muster, “ALL-MIGHT, I- I BELIEVE IN YOU! JASON IS STRONG, BUT YOU- YOU’RE ALL-MIGHT! YOU CAN DO THIS-”
“NO!” Eri shouted, nearly falling out of Cassie’s lap in her excitement, “JASON WINS! BIG BROTHER, KICK HIS BUTT! STOMP HIM OUT!”
“E-Eri-chan,” Izuku gasped, recoiling away with his hands held protectively against his chest.
The kid was clutching his pearls.
…
Cassie couldn’t help it. She laughed, loud and free. The battlefield was an absolute warzone now, so she couldn’t even imagine how the fight would go from here on out. Smoke rose from shattered stone. Craters dotted the ground like impact marks from fallen stars. The ring had been torn apart and reformed a dozen times over by Cementoss, and poor Midnight’s voice was practically cracking every syllable now from the stress she’d put on her throat, screaming just as much as everyone else throughout the match.
“Round reset! I- I repeat! We are resetting the round, and this will be the final one! Fighters, please - return to your starting positions!”
Cassie could hear the tears in the woman’s voice. She could see Cementoss down near the base of the stands, hands moving in a blur as he reinforced the structural pillars of the stadium. Panic looked suspiciously like cement barricades ten feet thick and twenty feet high, but she - and he - knew that a couple of punches were all it took to ruin whatever work he put in now. She could appreciate the dedication, at least.
And there Jason stood, tall amidst all of the destruction. The costume Sabah had created for him - the same costume Cassie had helped design - was in rags, the only surviving components being the pants, the boots, and tattered remnants of the black mantle/cloak. He’d apparently healed himself at some point between being healing All-Might and being hugged by him - or, maybe he even healed himself while healing All-Might. Regardless, he appeared to be back in peak physical condition, one hand resting lazily in his pocket.
He waved toward All-Might through the smoke and dust, and his voice, magically amplified, echoed across the arena.
“How about this, old man?” he called, the lopsided smirk audible in every single syllable. “Five hits. Five exchanges. We finish it here, and whoever’s still standing by the end is the winner. Sound fair?”
All-Might, his signature grin wide and broad on his face, slammed a massive fist against his muscular chest.
“You have given back to me what I had long since thought lost,” he said solemnly, his loud voice somehow filling every square inch of the stadium. “For that, you will have my eternal gratitude and loyalty. But tonight, young Jason... I will not hold back. Not any longer. And I ask that you - for these next five clashes- honor me in the same way.”
The words settled like gravity over the crowd. Cassie’s breath caught.
“Wait. Wait-” Her head whipped toward the spectator’s box, where Nezu was whispering to a pale-faced Recovery Girl, and then to the sidelines, where Cementoss was desperately at work. “Oh my god. Please tell me U.A.’s got insurance. Or at least, like, a budget for national catastrophes.”
No one answered her. They were just as spellbound as the rest of the crowd, straining to hear and see every little detail.
Jason chuckled, rolling his shoulders with a loud, nauseating crack that echoed through the battlefield like splintering wood.
“Within reason, sure. I’ll follow your lead,” he said easily. “Just basic mana reinforcement. No spells, no weapons, no bullshit. That work for you?”
“Indeed!”
All-Might nodded once, the motion somehow both somber, excited, and anxious, all folded up into one emotion. His fists clenched at his sides, he widened his stance, and the Symbol of Peace powered up. Like a motherfucking Dragon Ball Z character.
Gold lightning erupted from his frame like a divine storm given human form, arcing over his limbs, filling his eyes, sending bolts drifting up and into the aether. His costume had been mostly annihilated in the previous exchange, leaving him only tattered remnants clinging feebly to the bulky, shredded musculature of a man who’d practically been born to carry the world on his stupidly wide back. Even from a distance, Cassie could feel the intent to win emanating from the titan.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, damn. Shit’s getting seriou-”
A growl - dark, primal, and deadly - ripped its way through the air, and also through her ovaries.
Attention swung to Jason’s side of the arena.
An explosion of raw, pure, unfettered mana erupted from his body, sparking off of his skin and scales like arcs of blue lightning; an arcane mirror to the bleed-through of All-Might’s One for All.
Her man wasn’t doing the stereotypical DBZ pose. Knowing him, he’d probably die before squatting down and screaming like he had to take shit. But his muscles were tense, his back ramrod straight as he gripped his right forearm with one large, clawed fist. Long, curving horns - as black as the scales that now encased his arms up to the shoulders, and his legs up to the thighs - burst from his temple and curled back into a regal, hellish-looking crown. The wind behind him cracked like a bullwhip, sharp and vicious, and that’s when she saw it; a tail, long, thick, and ridged with wicked silver spines.
When it lashed itself to the side once more, the very same wall that Cementoss had just reinforced…
Was sliced clean through, sparking a line of crackling fire where the spines struck the metal frame beneath.
Eri gasped in delight, clapping her hands like a child watching fireworks.
And surprisingly - or unsurprisingly, knowing Jason - he heard her, even through the crowd. His head tilted, glowing eyes blinking before narrowing in their direction, and he winked. Once.
Cassie would’ve slammed her skull into the ground if she wasn’t on the edge of her fucking seat already.
‘What an aura-farming, chuuni-coded dork.’
Eri, on the other hand, squealed. “Did you see that, Cassie-neechan?! B-big brother saw me! He heard me cheering for him! D’you think he’ll win now?!?!”
She wanted to reply. Hell, even she didn’t know who’d win now. But before she could even think to open her mouth, it was All-Might who cut her off.
“Then, for now, young Jason,” he said, taking one slow, monumental step forward, “I will leave you with these words.”
Their respective auras flared - One for All on one side of the arena, and thick, unrelenting magic on the other. The air grew dense, hard to breathe. The very fabric of space around them screamed under the weight of their presence, wind billowing up into the night sky.
“GO BEYOND-!” All-Might bellowed, his voice shaking the heavens.
Jason’s grin widened, splitting his lower face like a scar - all sharp white teeth and wide, glowing silver eyes.
He’d never looked as much like a dragon as he did right then.
“... Plus Ultra.”
Cementoss screamed something unintelligible, and several walls of stone - easily fifty feet tall, and a quarter as thick - erupted from the middle of the arena floor. A translucent, light blue forcefield glimmered into existence in front of the screaming crowd, arcing up and over the arena in a concave that traced the vague outline of a dome over the stadium. Cassie barely had time to scream ‘take cover’ as she shoved Eri into the depths of her coat and threw her weight over her-
Before the arena exploded in a storm of concrete, air pressure, and blue and gold lightning.
Not even the sky survived.
And as she shielded Eri with her body, protected from the debris but her hair and clothes whipping violently from the ambience of the hurricane-level winds…
Cassie found herself giggling, tears stinging her eyes - part amazement, part fear, and all unadulterated, overwhelming pride.
“Goddamn it, Jason,” she whispered, “you always gotta be the main character.”
And truly…
Cassie wouldn’t have it any other way.