Phantoms Dance: Ch 4

-Rain of Sins-

-Phantoms Dance: Ch 4-

Pawn Log 1: All Might.

With recent developments regarding my understanding of my true situation, I have decided to finally do something I had thought I would never do again. Spend time that would be better suited elsewhere to meticulously breakdown and analyze the Persons Of Note (or P.O.N. "pawn" for short) that I am likely to come into contact with, to prepare for a worst case scenario of conflict.

And who better to start with than the man that I have analyzed more times than anyone else in the world?

All Might.

The Symbol of Peace. A Titan of strength, who's feats are comparable only to ancient figures of myth like Hercules.

It is not enough to say that All Might is strong, All Might IS strength.

Allow me to explain. 

Strength is a measurement, we say someone is strong because they can lift X amount.

All Might, at his prime, reached the theoretical limit of the force a human body could be capable of exerting without tearing itself apart, and then proceeded to steamroll past it. How he's not dead by ripping himself apart, is a mystery.

He is capable of flattening mountains, of changing the weather simply by the air pressure exerted by waving his hands. There have been no less than thirty different attempts to measure his strength by various groups- the HSPC, UA, The American government, The UN, I-Island. All have failed because every measurement device, no matter how advanced, or how sturdy, either caps out or is crushed as he slowly ramps up the weight.

All we have left then, are approximations. Mathematicians theorizing that this or that absurd number is his strength because they calculated the speed a leaf was flying in the wake of his movement. I'm not saying that their numbers are wrong per say, just that they don't capture the full picture. 

Yes, All Might exerted X amount of force while doing this one thing, but that doesn't mean it's his limit. The true fact is that we've never seen All Might go all out, without needing to worry about collateral damage, without needing to worry about protecting anyone.

And if Ujiko is to be believed, the one and only time that happened, it resulted in a semi-international government coverup to hide the fight of All Might and All for One. The fight kicked so much dust up into the atmosphere that it obscured satellite surveillance of the region for almost a week, and the sheer kinetic force of the fight pulverized the surrounding land so thoroughly that it's now nothing but sand down the shattered bedrock, and is referred to not only as a desert, but as an ecological dead zone for miles on end.

All Might has surpassed any sort of quantifiable definition, it's such an extreme power that we lack the physical means of measuring it on Earth. On a celestial scale, we can measure the forces of black holes, neutron stars, and gravity wells to a high degree of certainty because we calculate it based on the exertion they put on other celestial sized objects. All Might, meanwhile, is the size of a man. His surroundings don't include planets and stars, they include trees, buildings, rocks, and fragile fleshy humans. We cannot measure his full strength based on the exertion he puts on other objects, because those objects dissolve into dust under the pressure even while he holds back.

It is not enough to say that All Might is strong, All Might IS strength.

If there's any disadvantage to his strength it's that his marital ability has almost certainly degraded overtime. In his early years as a Hero, he traveled across the world, favoring America in particular, and learning many martial arts. The lack of any real need to use those skills when every job can be done with a fraction of the brain power and a flex, would naturally lead to his finesse atrophying.

…But that's it. That's his only true natural weakness.

He's mastered measuring his output, so collateral damage isn't a huge issue. He's not a genius, and maybe a bit dense, but he's not totally stupid.

His side injury, time limit, and internal damage are all lingering scars from his fight with All for One.

I struggle to think of a concrete plan to deal with him even with such handicaps! How anyone could possibly hold their own to him in his prime, let alone drag him down to such a withered state is…

…

Regardless. He has learned to not only survive with injuries that would kill anyone else, but to thrive, leading Japan into a so-called "Golden Age of Heroes" while practically a cripple in his shrunken form, and limited to a scant few hours every day. Do not underestimate him.

Entropy, naturally, is my ideal solution, but against such power, I have concerns over its current potency.

The procedure for any confrontation is simple. Dump any of the Rapture projects, dump the nomu, dump an army of Crows or whatever beasts you can, directly on top of him, and use the opportunity to escape. Any time he spends on the buffers, the less precious time he has to spend hunting you down.

Time is on our side, but against All Might… that might genuinely be the only thing.

-Rain of Sins-

Rain crashed down to the Earth in a torrent, no longer held back by a straining leash, the artificial storm raged down upon Japan with all its wrath. Lighting lit up the sky near continuously, illuminating countless black wings in the air, as thunder drowned out the world

Charybdis screeched as it lumered forward, only for a golden comet to slam into its chest, sending it crashing back into a large building.

All Might grunted, bracing his feet against the monster's massive chest, and kicking off with enough force to crack the scaled, pushing the beast back again, this time through the building.

But as he flew off, an enormous tail swept at him from the side, clipping him, and sending him spinning. The resulting crash from how fast he was going would have turned any other man into paste, but All Might hopped back to his feet with his signature smile, and dusted himself off.

He took the moment to size up his opponent.

Firstly, it was massive. 

Its main body was easily as long as two American school buses, and that wasn't counting the snake-like necks, or the long tail that nearly doubled its length. Actually the size was somewhat deceiving, it was actually even bigger than it looked at first glance, considering it wasn't completely flat or completely vertical. 

Its upper and lower body acted somewhat like a centaur, the four thick reptilian back legs were like ancient tree trunks, mainly for holding up its weight. Meanwhile its upper body was held vertically off the ground, its front four appendages were thinner, sharper, covered as much in barbed exoskeleton as they were scales, with jagged claws and even enormous bone scythes, the size of cars, on one pair.

Dual reptilian heads glared down at him hungrily with eight gleaming red eyes, rows of teeth larger than a human head, and twin pairs of horns.

And then there was the tail. Almost as long as the entire rest of the body to act as a counterbalance, completely prehensile, and with three car sized claws on the end of it that turned it into a hand from Hell.

…

Ok, look, he'd only fought two things from this Sovereign guy, and got monologued at by him for a couple minutes, but he was starting to sense a pattern with the whole tail thing.

Charybdis screamed as it charged at him again, and All Might rushed to meet it.

A single arm swung down to crush him like a bug, and the Symbol of Peace swung a fist up to meet it. The impact was deafening, and shattered the floor beneath him, but it was the creature that lost, its hand being launched back- something All Might was quick to capitalize on, throwing a brutal left hook that shattered its wrist.

A roar shook the ground, and the lizard brought all three of its other arms down to crush him.

The Hero launched himself forward, jumping and narrowly sliding over the first scythe as it swung diagonally to cut him in two, rolling under a clawed hand, and then jumping at the second scythe as it slammed down into the pavement, using it as a springboard to leap up and onto the giant monster's upper elbow.

Charybdis hissed at the tiny man running up its arm, as one of its heads shot forward with an open mouth and rows of teeth.

All Might waited until the last possible second before jumping into the air, twirling himself while airborne to re-orientate, and landing directly between its horns. He grabbed onto one of the sharp bone protrusions to steady himself, and then repeatedly began to rain down blows into its skull.

It roared in pain, swinging its head around violently in an attempt to dislodge him, but he held firm, and kept up the assault.

He didn't have much room to build up a full power SMASH but it didn't matter, he just kept bashing it, again, and again, and again.

Until suddenly.

He just stopped, and jumped off.

The head stared at the golden dot flying up into the sky for a brief moment, wondering why the tiny man had given up such an advantageous position, before its twin smashed into it with a horned headbutt at full power.

All Might let out a booming laugh as he reached the apex of his jump, far above the city, and still directly above the monster.

"NEW HAMPSHIRE SMASH!" He shouted from his gut as he reared back and punched the air, the pressure from it launching him back towards the ground like a bullet. He raised both hands up above him as he sped towards the twin heads, still somewhat tangled by their necks.

Two fists, two heads.

"DOUBLE DETROIT SMASH!" As his fists of justice slammed into Charybdis, it created a shockwave that shattered any windows still remaining in the area. He could feel bone and scale cracking as he drove the heads down, into the ground, and cratering into the concrete road.

The rest of the monster fell to the ground with a mighty crash, and All Might slowly stood to his feet.

He stared down at the bloody and broken heads, burred several feet into concrete, and completely unmoving.

"Huh. " He scratched his chin. " Well, that was kind of underwhel-"

The right head shot out of the ground, slamming into him with the force of a freight train, its horns, small for the creatures size, suddenly seemed so much larger as one of them burrowed into his gut and speared him through like a shish kebab.

All Might was sent flying into a wrecked HPSC vehicle, the thick armor crumbling under him like wet paper.

He didn't even have any time to gather himself before pain flared up his right arm as dozens of teeth larger than bananas ripped into his flesh. He couldn't suppress a pained cry as the second head ripped him up by his arm and flicked him towards its twin's gaping maw.

Half a second and pure instinct was what saved his life, his arm shooting out on its own to grasp the largest fang as it came down, and push back against it. 

The serrated tooth cut into his palm as it slowly began to inch down towards him. He grunted in pain as other teeth, further into the mouth, bit into his flesh. 

"Damit!" He grit his teeth as he braced his free hand against the roof of the mouth and pushed against it, which in turn pushed him down onto the lower fangs that cut into his shoulders. 

"I'M THE SYMBOL OF PEACE! " He ripped his impaled foot off a curved white hook, and braced it against the bottom jaw. " I… WILL NOT… " He branched himself and pushed , slowly forcing the mouth open even with such terrible leverage. " BE FOOD… " Charybdis whined in fear as its jaw was slowly forced open. It wrapped its long snake forked tongue around its prey like a rope and tried to tug him towards its throat, but as All Might climbed to his feet, holding the mouth open with both hands, it was too late. " FOR A LIZARD!"

All Might stood triumphantly, covered in blood and saliva, but with the mouth fully held open. He tightened his grip around the large fang, cutting deeper into his hand, and ripped it out with a mighty tug.

The monster howled in pain, but he wasn't done yet, he flipped the tooth, holding it like a sword, and sliced off the tongue coiled around his waist, before stabbing it up, into the top of its mouth.

Charybdis screamed , and All Might, as close as physically possible to the sound, felt his ears pop, and his vision go fuzzy. His grip loosened, and a second later he was sent flying down the street, skipping along the ground like a stone, digging into the stone with each contact, before eventually sliding to a stop, and knocking over a metal light pole.

Slowly he pulled himself to his feet, coughing up blood, and glanced up to see a very pissed off lizard spit out a bloody tooth, before growling at him with two rows of perfect fangs.

"Regeneration, really? " All Might rolled his shoulders as he watched the hand he'd broken snap back into place. " Why do all the tough ones have regeneration nowadays?" He reached down and picked up the light pole, hoisting it over his shoulders like a greatsword.

"LET'S PLAY BALL!"

All Might blurred as he shot forward Charybdis, a plume of broken debris blasting up in his wake. He swung the pole like an oversized baseball bat, hitting a descending scythe so hard it cracked the bone blade, and snapped the light pole in half.

He knocked aside a second arm before spinning the pole and hurling it like a javelin, and spearing it directly into the creature's chest.

Charybdis wailed twice with two heads, one in fury and the other in agony. It's titanic bulk lumbered back, rearing back on its back two legs, and dropping its entire weight down to squash him. All Might threw himself back, just barely avoiding doom, but the shockwave by itself was enough to send him flying.

The roar of engines cut through the cacophony of the storm, and three sleek fighter jets blasted overhead, hugging as low as possible to avoid detection until the last second. 

"Control, this is 05-Blue-7, I'm coming up on the target, and have a clear shot."

"Take it blue!"

The pilot didn't even waste time responding, flipping off his bird's safeties, and opening fire, trusting his wingmates to follow suit.

The sky lit up as the jets unloaded everything they had at the beast, bullets and rockets tearing into its side, ripping an arm off, and causing rivers of dark acidic green blood to spill to the ground, and bubble as they ate through the rock.

The monster hissed as it swiped one of its good arms, blowing away the smoke, to find a glowing star of gold hanging in front of it.

"TEXAS SMASH!!!" All Might SMASHED the right head, knocking it back like a paddle ball into the other one.

His moment of victory was short lived though, as a giant tail swung forward and slammed into him, sending him flying through several skyscrapers.

Charybdis growled, setting at the bugs who dared oppose it. It stomped forward, but those flying metal birds which spat fire were already so far out of reach.

How dare they! How dare they!!!  

Primal, simmering anger welled from its gut, and something deep inside its chest rose forth, screaming to be unleashed!

And unleash it, it did.

The first Rapture project reared its heads towards the Heavens and bellowed a warcry that shook the earth! Water that had poured from the sky like a bleeding wound trembled , flooded roads that had become raging rivers throbbed , as the storm itself began to beat like a heart.

With a roar that matched its wielder, a pillar of water surged into the air, dwarfing the so-called "skyscrapers" around it. Three crude claws ripped from the tip and crushed the slowest fighter into a flaming wreck of metal scrap.

"That thing's got fucking hydrokinesis!" Martin exclaimed, as his helicopter circled overhead, rocking violently in the storm. "Bring us lower, and get those guns online!" He slammed a fist against the cockpit. "We need to take this thing out NOW! Before it figures out how to properly use that quirk, or we're all dead!"

"Yes sir." The captain acknowledged over the radio without even a moment's hesitation, and the vehicle began to dip.

Charybdis crashed through abandoned buildings like legos as it pursued All Might. A piece of concrete debris, larger than a car, slammed into its slowly healing side like a bullet, then a second.

All Might huffed as he ripped another chunk out of the destroyed ground, holding it overhead, giving it a spin and then hurling it as hard as he could, breaking the sound barrier with each throw.

He was ready for the thing to charge at him, or maybe throw something back, but was totally caught off guard as spears of water stabbed up from the ankle deep lake he stood in, and speared through his chest, waist, and legs, before wrapping around him and chaining him to the ground

"A-A mass water manipulation quirk in an artificial Typhoon!? " He hacked up blood. " You've got to be kidding me!"

A violent chopping noise drowned out the beast's scream of victory as a black helicopter swerved in overhead, its spotlight bearing down on the monster, and its machine gun whirring up before it even got a lock, unleashing a stream of glowing lead at the left head. The bullets failed to punch through the thick skull, but easily turned the eyes on the side of its head to mush.

Charybdis howled, an arm of water springing up and ripping the side off the chopper, exposing its inside to the elements.

"UP! UP!" Martin shouted as the craft rocked and tilted, a hair's breadth from losing control. "SHIT! Get us some distance! We'll hit it from afar!"

The aircraft pitched, and flew off, but it had done its job.

All Might gasped as he fell to the ground, free from his watery chains. He scrambled to his feet and rushed towards the nearest building, to get out of the rain and water.

The building he chose, whether intentional or not, was Sohomi Eagle Tower, which had been the heart of far east Tokyo some 60 years ago, before the entire district had to be abandoned because of a chemical Villain named Toxic Chainsaw.

To date, even rusted and unmaintained, it was the third tallest building in all of Japan.

All Might crashed through the doors, a wave of water rushing behind him.

Up and up he ran, racing through the building. Up as torrents of water ripped up through the floor beneath him. Up as geysers with tips of knives punched through windows. Up as claws of chitin and scales ripped through the walls and swiped at him.

The building lurched as Charybdis began scaling the side, tilting the tower as it pulled its immense weight after its prey.

Thunder echoed in the distance as the black helicopter made a second run, painting a line into the beast's side with a stream of lead.

A spear of water shot out, narrowly missing the helicopter as it veered to the side in panic.

"Another pass! Hit its eyes again! If we can kill it's sight we might be able to call in another bombing run!"

The craft shook with a thud, and Martin looked up to see a large black bird perched on the ripped open side of the chopper.

"Caw!" The bird spread its wings, the tips of its feathers glowing blue.

Martin pulled his pistol and leveled it at the avian, but the lighting that struck from the sky was faster. The chopper exploded into flames, half of its main blade flying off, and it fell from the sky, crashing one of the three heads of the HPSC into a fiery grave.

One of Charybdis' heads sneered in satisfaction at the crash, but the other pulled on its brother, beckoning it to continue their climb upwards.

Up and Up.

Even as the building listed, and groaned under the weight.

Up! UP! After the infuriating prey!

Until, at long last, the top.

All Might's eyes widened in panic as he slammed through a final door and found nothing but a small metal railing and open air. 

He was on the level of the clouds, they were as thick and as black as ink. He stood in a void, only lit up by occasional lightning strikes that illuminated flocks of black wings circling around him like sharks before a meal.

A giant clawed hand, larger than himself, crashed down to his left, gripping into the building, and slowly two demonic twin heads rose up to meet him. Two forked tongues flicked out like snakes, tasting the air, and eight eyes stared down at him with pure fury , some not even fully regenerated.

Charybdis hissed at him, the two heads leaning forwards, mouths twitching as they contorted in unnatural shapes.

"Prey~"

It whispered.

All Might smirked.

"NOT TODAY!"

He raised a foot as high as he could and stomped down on the building with enough force to shake it.

Between the immense weight of the kaiju, and the sudden impact, something snapped .

The building groaned as it tilted further, and began to fall.

Charybdis howled and reached forward, desperately trying to grab him, but All Might kicked himself up, pushing the building even further past its tipping point.

A demonic scream tore at his ears as Charybdis tumbled towards the earth. The noise was double but singular, overlapping itself, like four sets of metallic nails on a chalkboard.

All Might punched behind him, rocking himself forward back towards Charybdis. Fire bloomed in his chest, as the generations before him lent him their aid! The strength of his master, and his master's master, and his master's master's master! AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN OF HEROES THAT DATED BACK TO THE DAWN OF QUIRKS!

Lighting struck in the distance, illuminating the sky behind them for the world to see! 

The twin heads of Envy and Gluttony stretching forward with open maws and a rushing tsunami behind them, the STORM ITSELF rushing to its call for aid! 

The air shimmering from heat as a GOLDEN METEOR crashed from the heavens!

"UNITED. STATES. OF. SMASH!!!"

And the world went white.

-Rain of Sins-

Aoyama shouted in surprise and stumbled as an earthquake rocked the ground beneath him.

"What was that?" The knight asked as he steadied himself and helped a nearby lady to her feet. "I thought those dampeners I-Island buried in the coastline a few years ago stopped our earthquake problem?"

"My God…" La Brava whispered, pointing into the distance.

Aoyama followed her gaze, and jaw dropped at what he saw.

The storm that had dominated the skyline was gone, in its place stood a dark mushroom cloud that reached up to blot out the sun.

"W-Was that a nuke!?" Mineta stuttered as his mind whirled. "DID WE GET NUKED!?!?"

Aoyama stared in shock, unable to believe his eyes. "Come on, we need to get there!" He began stumbling forward before realizing everyone else was still frozen. "COME ON!"

And with shaky legs, the Knights rushed off.

-Chapter End-

So I initially wanted to have this in the last chapter, but then I thought it would be cool to put all the important fights in one chapter, so I delayed it and got (rightfully) shouted at for "blue balling readers".

Then as I was writing the next chapter I realized it was all waaaay too much to have in one chapter, unless I wanted it to spiral into something like 20k fucking words, soooo yeah.

Here's this. The kaiju fight as its own chapter. I kiiiinda went overboard, but hey, that's the fun part about writing, I can go overboard, because I've set everything up the right way.

I've mentioned it before but in this fic I'm writing All Might under the logic that when he has a successor, he weakens dramatically overtime as his quirk is funneled to whoever he chose. It's kind of the only thing I can think of to explain how he was fine to carry all of Japan on his shoulders for decades as a dead man walking, and shrug off the side effects, but suddenly fall apart over the course of a few months after giving his quirk to Izuku.

Is it cannon? Prolly not. Is the theory totally waterproof? Meh. But it allows me to write stuff like this fight, so I'm going with it! 

I mean c'mon, if the slight suspension of disbelief of something cannon doesn't even fully explain is what it costs for TOTAL AWESOMENESS, you know what I'm going for!

And yes, there was a reason for the name Charybdis, the water quirk was planned ahead of time. I mean, can you think of how terrifying it would be to fight something with total control of that quirk during a storm? Every rain drop could be a knife falling at your head!

Gives me shivers!

Oh, and Izuku is going back to his analisis thing, wow, there's no way that could ever be a problem for anyone! It's not like the character point that cannon kinda wound up just forgetting every once and awhile could be the most terrifying thing possible to put into the hands of the Izuku in this fic.