A Certain Flying Head in MHA

Giggling came from the skies in an almost maddened glee before it turned to manic laughter. Some heroes with enhanced hearing tensed up and looked above them into the direction of the sound.

With certain individuals that recognise his voice now somewhat worrying for his sanity, Kizuki continued on. Unbeknownst to himself, his eyes swirled with the two shades of violet and dark purple as a small tint of its colour bleeding into the bell. Kizuki, still crackling with almost maddened glee, dove in from the tall heights in the sky.

Another chime rang out, but this time it didn't stop. The sound only got faster the closer he got to the behemoth form of All for One.

Smoke billowed from Kizuki's neck and out came shadowy wisps of heads in troves from the cloud of darkness. Perhaps it was adrenaline, but more and more heads followed into the fray with no signs of stopping.

As they were too slow, plenty of heads are already gone from ricochets and stray shots but that was fine in Kizuki's books as they were immediately replaced. There were also plenty that were dispelled before they had the proper chance to manifest due to the air pressure of All Might's and All for One's attacks. A lucky detail that Kizuki's figured out even in his hysterical laughing is that since the heads aren't properly manifested yet before they had a chance to siphon from other sources, they didn't have any proper organs to store the memories so they couldn't be sent back to him.

Meaning that the Wisps-Heads wouldn't give him a headache no matter how many he created so long as they are destroyed beforehand.

And it was due to this discovery that Kizuki is unleashing as many as he can without stopping, unlike before when he was conserving energy. Because this time, in his eyes, this is the ace-in-the-hole that he needed in this battle.

When the Wisps-Heads weaved through the other heroes and their attacks, finally reaching All for One, they immediately parasitized on him. The wispy nature form of the heads consolidated and turned into regular heads, and those regular heads added fuel to the fire shooting their eye-lasers while retreating.

The solid outer layer made up of buildings and other debris started to crumble and fall off in an accelerated pace, exposing the sludge-like material underneath.

Seeing that All for One is now having problems with his recovery speed, everyone seemed to have gotten a second windfall and besieged him with a plethora of attacks.

His armour of debris is peeling away piece by piece, and the innermost sludge-like material is losing its consistency, turning less viscous and beginning to resemble gray muddy waters. The streets below are flooded with the substance, leaving the heroes no choice but to climb for higher ground even at the risk of falling from the unstable footing that trembles with the tremors of battle.

Approximately two and a half minutes later, the behemoth's size was reduced to about ten meters. It was at this point that All for One began to feel the pressure, sprouting more arms and more mouths. His monstrous form gaining a touch of eldritch aesthetics, with the arms of various lengths and shapes would grab handfuls of anything at their immediate surroundings and throwing them into the open mouths.

Anything.

The rubble from the collapsed buildings, the pieces of the ruined roads, the remains of the giant robot, the corpses littered across everywhere, and even those that failed to move away in time.

Seeing their comrades being eaten alive, the others felt fear in their hearts. Some decided to retreat a bit to put more distance, some braver ones stood their ground, but some of the weaker willed ones among them even turned tail and ran away. Even though Kuzuki understands their fear, seeing them running in such a cowardly fashion, he knows that they are the ones who entered the profession for fame and glory.

The dip in morale and numbers can be felt in waves. With the villain using the quirks of the recently deceased --Both from the heroes and the littered corpses-- for a few times before they fizzled out.

Perhaps it was the fact that they saw some of their own die in such a way, or perhaps it was because they didn't want a villain desecrating their death, their fighting spirit was reignited even as they are afraid, and they fought harder.

Another Forty seconds later, he was reduced to four meters. With his reduced size, the villain regained most of his mobility. Despite still being a big target, attacks are reaching him less and less. Somewhere along the way he even got a quirk that allowed him to stick objects onto him. Not only did this give him another outer layer of armour but it also allowed him the opportunity to eat his shell from the inside.

Or at least, that was his plan. Too bad that Nedzu caught unto it. Even with the giant robot destroyed, the rat still has eyes watching the current events and is still participating.

The planned armour was destroyed by everyone almost as soon as he acquired them, leaving him vulnerable for more attacks and Wisps-Heads.

A brief moment later, he was down to just two meters tall.

Kizuki had memories of the past flashing in his mind as he watched on. He sees history repeating itself, with All for One now resorting to speed to overwhelm his opponents.

Unseen to anyone else, Kizuki was a dark expression on his face. His heart only calm because of the bell ringing in sounds only he can hear.

This time, he isn't afraid.

Because this time, All for One is surrounded both land and sky with the Wisps-Heads. No matter where or how fast he runs, he would touch those heads and have his strength siphoned.

This time, there is not escape.

At this point, All for One is a shadow of his past self mere hours prior. And yet, here the villain still stands tall even when he's both surrounded and is of feeble heath. Here, the bogeyman of the modern Quirk's era, his visage feral and insane. Parts of his body replace with the sludge and rubble, the cybernetics gone, cannibalized by his earlier quirks to increase his mass.

All Might stepped forward from the wide encirclement, his fist raised and tensed.

And it is here today-

"Your reign of terror ends now."

-that the Symbol of Fear finally fell.

~~~~~~~

Fighting All for One took a significant toll on everyone.

It began with the Nomu attack that lasted for about two hours. Without any prior warning beforehand, everyone was taken by suprise and had to fight under prepared. And then afterwards, luring and battling All for One by his lonesome.

Despite doing out best to get him out of the cities, we had no choice but to confront him inside leading to devastating loses.

Initial estimates count that even with evacuation orders issued, there had been approximately three thousand confirmed civilian casualties and plenty more assumed to be buried in the remains of the collapsed infrastructure.

And as for the infrastructure itself, there has been about three and a half thousand buildings destroyed, both partially and completely. Electric lines have been brought down, the roads have been ruined and the water lines have been disrupted.

The investigations aren't even over yet and the total cost has already been estimated to reach six trillion yen in damages alone. This incident has already reached the levels of a natural disaster.

And this was only the cost of defeating All for One specifically. The damages fighting Gigantomachia, the leftover Nomus, or even the doctor hasn't been factored in.

It has gotten to the point that the prime minister has officially declared what happened to be a Class-S rated catastrophe to have nore leeway with the law.

Both foreign and national aid groups have already started to pour in their support. The donations started to be reigned in as well for the sake of the survivors.

Currently, those people are being held in emergency makeshift shelters, like school gyms or public venues. Volunteers are handing out drinks and blankets but most of the victims are still shaken up by what happened. It won't be long before government-mandated therapists and welfare officers would be sent in as well, to gauge these people's mental stability, give them trauma-care and to make sure that they don't take their own lives after experiencing such a traumatic event.

The heroes that participated in the battle are already resting, mostly. Some of them began helping the volunteers by handing out supplies or uplifting the survivors, the last one isn't particularly working. Nedzu is already working on the logistics to help recuperate, well, everything. Although still tired, everyone sneered when he said that he'll personally see to having the licenses of the defectors revoked.

All Might being All Might, immediately leaped away to help the other forces elsewhere. Not even waiting for a quick heal, Granny is gonna have his head later for that. I understand that the man wants to deal with what remains of the enemy forces, and that he wants to reassure the general public, and that he probably also wants to deal with other villains who are wanting to take advantage of the situation to pursue their own goals...

Who am I kidding? That old oaf didn't think about any of that and probably just had his body move to 'save the day' before his mind can process the thought.

As for me?

"No... Nono, please god no. Please, there has to be something... J-just try one one more time, please."

"...I'm sorry for your loss."

The medic tent, obviously. These people were the last ones of this batch. I was already feeling numb to the situation considering that I've been repeating the exact same phrase for the past couple hours so it was easy ignoring the nth sobbing behind me. I then left the makeshift room, which is just a bit space partitioned by a curtain.

There are other people in this evacuation centre, the floors are... Well, there's enough room to walk around in, considering that plenty of people died. There are plenty staring off into the air and others that are not confronting reality by keeping themselves as busy as they can.

I continued walking while I debated whether or to continue. 'Physically, I'm fine. My energy reserves are also fine. But...' I paused my steps, a pit of guilt formed in my stomach. 'I...' A sense of déjà vu came over me and I remembered what Kuroko told me back then when something like this happened. I turned to the nearest hero. "Hey, I'm taking my break."

"Sure!" He said as he adjusted the box of blankets he was carrying. "Honestly, you should've taken one as soon as everything started to calm down. You were a real VIP out there. Go on ahead, I'll tell the others you'll be unavailable."

"Thanks..." I nodded at him and left.

I didn't really have a destination in mind, so I absentmindedly spent some time just walking around. Seeing the ruined city from the sky was something, but walking in the scene of the disaster is completely different.

Is it bad that I feel like painting this scene?

I took out my phone and saw that the messages were piling up. My friends were undoubtedly nervous about my wellbeing. My heart warmed at that and I felt guilty about forgetting to text them that I was fine but I've just been so busy dealing with emergency patients. I couldn't help but smile a bit when I saw my original schedule for next week to be overhauled by Kuroko. She's really serious about not letting myself burn out so she cleared most of what I had planned. Not like there was anything important anyway, but it is still really sweet of her to do that.

"Hey, Kid!"

"Hm?" I turned over to the voice. It was another hero volunteer that was approaching. He has a steaming bowl in his hand. "Here, that guy over there wanted you to have this." He pointed over to one of the open tents. Over there is someone in a white outfit that gave me a thumbs up.

It was the pro hero Lunch Rush.

Right. I forgot that he was sent here to help alleviate the pressure. It doesn't seem like much, but a good warm meal can get far when it comes to emotionally vulnerable people.

I accepted the bowl from the other hero's hand and thanked him. I continued to walk while periodically taking a sip from the soup. 'I take a nap after this. An hour or two sounds fine.' I thought idly. 'Then it's back to work.'