Chapter Text
The Catalina Casino was being swarmed by the residents of Avalon, who could barely make a straight line. At every entrance, someone from Class 1-A was listening to each and every heartbeat that came through those doors, ensuring that no Mosaics made it inside. Thankfully, since they were all Awakened, and because Brandon had done his best to calm people down, people couldn’t just swarm the entrances to get inside and disrupt the entire process.
On the roof, several others were monitoring the area to ensure no suspicious figures emerged from the woods. Ibara was using her Nature Magic to also monitor the forest for any disturbances.
Kaminari was still out cold. He had been laid out on the roof as it was probably the safest place for him to be. Among the people on the roof were Brandon and Bakugo. Brandon because he had a Skill that enhanced his eyesight and Bakugo because he was capable of aerial maneuvers, which would be important in the case of an attack. He needed to be unhindered on the roof to properly respond to any threats.
“So… Were you joking when you said you tried to kill yourself?” Bakugo asked bluntly.
“It’s in poor taste to joke about those sorts of things,” Brandon responded. He gestured his head towards the other figure on the roof, Noah Adler, who was also still unconscious. “Thanks for saving him by the way…”
“You say that as if I wasn’t obligated to save him,” Bakugo bit back.
Brandon winced. “Just take the gratitude. I doubt you get much of it.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“You can’t seriously expect people to answer those sorts of questions when you treat them the way you do. You gotta be willing to talk like a normal human being.”
Bakugo scowled, making a sound of discontent as he crossed his arms and looked out to the sea. Brandon shrugged, turning back to the surveillance, but he was shocked to hear Bakugo speak.
“You’re really that angry all the time?”
“Yes.”
“And you know why you’re angry?” Bakugo asked, to which Brandon nodded. “Then why don’t I?”
Brandon tilted his head, still focusing on the surrounding area. “Have you ever killed someone?”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’ve killed plenty of Vil-”
“Not something. Someone.”
Bakugo winced. “You’re asking if I’ve ever taken a human life?”
“I am.”
Bakugo felt a sudden chill run down his spine as he looked at Brandon, whose back was facing him. At that moment, he could only describe it as an out-of-body experience. Like he was looking at himself.
“Have… you?” Bakugo suddenly felt that the blonde’s dead eyes held more than apathy.
“Almost. How do you think I knew that Noah Adler was an assassin? He could smell bloodlust a mile away. Knew what I was going to do. He convinced me not to do it, if only for my own sake.”
“You were going to kill someone?” Bakugo asked, slightly on edge.
“Yep, and judging by your unease, you haven’t even slightly considered murder. Which is unfortunate.”
“Why?”
Brandon gave a slight smile. “Humans can occasionally aspire to be slightly less than pure evil. But we are animals, and animals do some fucked up shit. If you were just a murderous person, then we could dismiss your anger as wrath and little more.” His eyes narrowed for a second, looking into the forest, then unfocused. “You said it wasn’t your parents, and you didn’t seem to have a difficult upbringing. The words “Anger Issues” are just a convenient way to dismiss the source of that anger. No one is just born angry. Some people are born psychotic but that’s not you. You’re not calculating enough to be psychotic.”
“So who’d you wanna kill?” Bakugo responded, understanding Brandon’s path to dealing with him. They were playing Quid-Pro-Quo.
“My father,” Brandon responded simply. “So do you have any friends?”
“You can’t just gloss over the fact that you wanted to kill family…”
“Well actions speak louder than words and my father is still alive, so by that logic, my words mean very little.”
Bakugo grimaced. It had been a long time since someone had actually tried to play ball with him. Most of the time people just understood he was someone you didn’t want to be around, and left him alone. Brandon was one of the people whose curiosity outweighed his self-preservation.
“I’ve got friends in class,” Bakugo grumbled back.
“Acquaintances,” Brandon corrected. “It’s clear to see that they want to be friends with you. They’re the ones trying, you aren’t.” He then gave a genuine smile. Not one of his creepy half-smiles that looked like a scowl, an actual smile. “It’s okay, I don’t have friends either. The only one I could call a friend died a few years ago, during the Battle of the Damned.”
“He fought in that?” Bakugo asked incredulously. The Battle of the Damned was a famous Gate Break that took place in Texas. It was only a B-Rank, but it was filled with Villains that preyed on the fears and insecurities of others, which determined their attack strength. They were called Envoys.
Brandon nodded. “He had a strong sense of right and wrong… better than I did. His eyes would remind you of Izuku’s… Brave to a fault. He was the one who killed the Boss of that Gate.” He looked proud for a moment. “They just couldn’t touch him. Or so I thought…”
Bakugo wracked his memory for the details of the Raid. “He died after being brought to the hospital.”
“Yep. As it turned out, he hadn’t been avoiding their attacks, he’d been focusing it inwards, bottling it up so they couldn’t hurt him. But there was only so much he could take.” He shrugged. “Physically, there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. Doctors said it was just like his mind… broke. We both knew how to keep our emotions suppressed, but he used that for the better, and saved a lot of lives. Not me…”
“You’ve saved people too,” Bakugo hesitantly offered.
“Yeah, but I don’t care… I just don’t care for life anymore. Theirs or mine.” He looked back at Bakugo. “I tried to kill myself because I’m a failure. My passion is writing, but I suck at it.”
“I thought you said you could read people at a glance?”
“Well yeah, but it never translated. Some of my books got a lot of attention when they were published, but for the wrong reasons. Something just never clicked, and no matter how much time I put into my passion, I still sucked.” He scoffed. “And then this.” He gestured at his body, slightly increasing his Mana output to signify his Awakening. “I’ve never earned a damn thing in my life. That’s why we don’t click. You’ve got some ridiculous pride for your power, I think it’s a joke.” The venom in his words struck Bakugo. He truly hated being an Awakened Human. “My friend earned it… I just got lucky. And now I’m known for something that’s not even close to my own. It’s not the whole story, but yeah, that’s why I’m pissed off. So what’s up with you?”
“I had a friend…” Bakugo muttered, sitting gently on the roof of the building. “Izuku…”
As time wore on, and as people continued to be hurried inside the Catalina Casino, Bakugo detailed his early childhood with Izuku. How they were the best of friends, until they received their Awakenings.
“That’s when I started getting angry all the time. My parents chalked it up to puberty. But it kept going.”
“So Izuku is the fulcrum of it all,” Brandon said, letting out a sigh. He wanted to roll his eyes in annoyance. They could’ve saved a bunch of time if they’d just started there. “You looked down at him.”
“No… Yes… I…” Bakugo grumbled something under his breath. “I don’t know what about him pissed me off. I came to the conclusion that it was because he was so weak, endangering others and crawling along the ground like a pathetic worm.”
“You came to that conclusion? That’s not how anger works. Someone only searches for an answer because they’re looking for what their emotions are actually reacting to. You were attempting to fill the blanks in your subconscious. So the real question is what your subconscious was reacting to, not what you were reacting to.” He had a twinkly of amusement in his eyes. “Freud’s theory is that we treat others like shit when we-”
“I swear to God, if you tell me I bullied him because I had a crush on him…”
“Bwahaha!” Brandon snorted at the end of his laugh. “I knew I could get that response out of you. Nah, you guys were platonic friends, close as could be, but you’re not in love with each other. Anyone in their right mind could see that. Especially with him and Setsuna being so close.”
“Huh?”
“What?” Brandon turned around with a quizzical stare. “Did you not know?”
“No… he’s dating someone else in our class.”
Brandon cocked his head in confusion. “No… Certainly you’re wrong…”
“I’ve seen them kiss and hold hands, it’s disgusting!”
“Hmm… I’m sure I saw fear in her eyes, but not when with Izuku. You don’t trust someone to conquer your deepest fears unless you seriously trust them. I wouldn’t have even trusted my best friend like that.” He hummed to himself for a minute. “Maybe it’s just her. Unrequited love and all that shit. Romance has always been the one thing that’s hard for me to read, never really experienced it…”
“Yeah…” Bakugo grumbled, finding some common ground for the two.
“Anyways… What I was saying is that you felt protective over Izuku. But he kept defying your wishes and going into Gates. So your care turned into anger and instead of supporting him, you became his bully. All subconsciously, of course. You got harsher and harsher the longer it went on, until you couldn’t even remember why it started in the first place.”
“That’s your diagnosis?” Bakugo asked, clearly skeptical.
“Unless you have a better one.” He smirked. “You’re still a dick by the way, because instead of talking, you decided to start punishing him.” His gaze grew serious. “My father raised me to be a standard male figure. No emotions, no crying, nothing. So, just my luck, I was born as a pretty sensitive kid, and cried at the simplest things. Every time I did, I’d get screamed at. I had to adapt to survive. That was his fatherly gift to me. And that was why I wanted to kill him. I wanted to show him just how hardened I’d become, to repay the one thing he gave me. I used to be just like Izuku, optimistic, caring, and kind… and now I’m bitter, angry, and pessimistic. I used to have empathy for the plights of others. Now it’s just a responsibility. I thought we were kindred spirits at first, that’s why I showed such interest in you. But you’re not entirely like me. You’ve still got something good left in you. Don’t lose it. Be an Izuku Midoriya, not a Brandon Burnett.”
For once, Bakugo was silent, his eyes downcast in thought.
“Contact! 274!” Maigo shouted suddenly, directing the roof’s attention.
“What’s 274?” Bakugo asked.
“Degrees on a compass,” Brandon responded, looking out in that direction. “Me and Maigo used to work together for a government funded special ops team. It’s military speak.”
“I’m getting something as well,” Ibara responded. “The trees don’t like it.” And indeed the group could see the trees swaying as a mass of something began passing through them.
“I can’t sense them…” Bakugo realized. Had it not been for the other scouts on the roof, it would have caught him unaware.
“I’ll warn the ground, Bakugo scout it out,” Brandon said, leaping off the roof. Kaminari, who had just come to, was shocked to see Bakugo follow the order without question.
Izuku had felt Brandon approaching the ground, so he wasn’t surprised by the guy taking steps midair to meet him on the ground. “What’s up?” He asked amicably, putting a hold on the line in front of him.
“We got incoming…” Brandon said quietly, as to not worry the Avalonians.
“What? I can’t sense anything,” Izuku protested. Even as a B-Rank he should’ve been able to feel them approaching, but his Monarch status meant that he should have felt them from miles away. “Raia said something about them hiding really well…”
“Neither could Bakugo,” Brandon responded. “We gotta move these people outta the way. It’ll be too much chaos. If even a single one of those things gets inside, we’re gonna have to start this whole thing all over again…”
“Jiro said the Mosaics couldn’t swim, right?”
“Mosaics?” Brandon asked. “You mean the mimics? Huh, not a bad name.”
Izuku felt a little guilty taking the credit for naming them when it had been Raia who told them. But he remained silent. After all, he wasn’t sure if he could trust the man before him.
When Izuku tried to imbue both Brandon and Maigo with additional Souls, the System had rejected it. They had all checked each other’s heartbeats earlier to ensure no one was a Mosaic, but Izuku had also checked Maigo and Brandon’s Souls directly.
Maigo’s looked normal, so Izuku had no idea what was going on there, but Brandon’s Soul was… different.
Human Souls took the form of a wispy sphere of sorts. They were an indistinct shape that had tendrils reaching out, as if spilling energy. But Brandon’s looked less like a ball of white light and more like a nervous system, with white veins running through him. It wasn’t human, but according to Esil, it also wasn’t a Mosaic Soul. Whatever the case, it wasn’t clear exactly what he was yet.
However, Izuku had heard him and Bakugo talking on the roof. It was hard not to hear considering his Sense Stat. Had Brandon been a Mosaic or some other malevolent beast, wouldn’t it be sowing dissent instead of trying to mend wounds?
“Well if they can’t swim, and we don’t have the time to evacuate the area, just take them around back and we’ll do our best to let nothing get through,” Izuku promised, deciding to trust Brandon for now. The Catalina Casino was a cylindrical building, placed just on the coast, meaning the backside was flanked by water on all sides.
“No chance of the Shadow guy showing?” Brandon asked.
“What?” Izuku’s heart skipped a beat for a second, feeling like the mention was a little too coincidental.
“He’s one of Japan’s right? I heard he could teleport? It’s not like anything else can get through as far as we know.” The sun was just beginning to rise, but it didn’t seem like anyone was on their way to help. The ferry service, which operated early in the morning, was likely going to be the first to realize something was wrong. They had already shot off a few flares, but even if a National-Rank showed, it wasn’t like they could get through Raia’s barrier.
Izuku shook his head. “I’m not sure…”
Brandon clicked his tongue in annoyance before putting on a disturbingly believable calm smile. “Alright everyone! We’re a bit crowded over by this entrance so we’re gonna take you around back to continue the process! Just stay in a line and follow me!” He put up a good front, but the people were clearly nervous.
As soon as the process was underway, Izuku made steps of Dark Magic in order to join some of the others on the roof. Setsuna was still watching the entrance on the ground so it wasn’t like they were leaving it undefended.
“How bad is it?” He asked, angling his head in the direction of the forest. No one questioned his Dark Magic. After all, they had the understanding that he could use all six elements because of his Omni-Elemental Gem, which was still with Momo. He just had to hope no one asked him to use the other elements.
Bakugo’s explosions lit up the sky over the forest, briefly giving Izuku a glimpse of shapes moving through the thicket.
“Hard to say,” Maigo responded. “None of us can sense them, and Ibara’s Nature Magic has a limit.”
“My best guess would be 57,” Ibara answered, her voice calm and angelic, but threatening at the same time. Izuku always felt a little uncomfortable around her with how religious she was.
57 wasn’t that high of a number, not for a regular battle at least, but in context it was a disturbing amount. If a single one made it through, well… Raia might have been right about flattening the island in the first place.
“Esil!” Izuku yelled over the side of the building, towards one of the other entrances that Esil was managing with Aizawa. She quickly handed over the responsibility to their professor before flying up to meet him. “Can you enclose this place in a barrier? Or at least block it off so that the Mosaics can’t reach us?”
She nodded, taking place over the center of the building, hovering in place as her body began to glow with energy. For a moment, Izuku saw her Soul - which was a solid white sphere as opposed to the wispy shape of human Souls - glow brighter.
The Casino was on its own little peninsula, making it a very straightforward bottleneck. And since they had spent all night ferrying people inside, they had more than enough room to fit everyone behind the casino. All Esil had to do was make a single wall that essentially made the Casino its own little island. That would keep it quarantined while the class killed off the Mosaics.
They’d still have to make sure none of the civilians forced their way inside the building in a panic, so there was always the chance of something going wrong, but unless Izuku was willing to execute a few thousand innocent men, women, and children, it was their only hope.
“Alright… Jiro?” The girl was sitting next to Kaminari on the roof, still shaken by her own encounter with the Mosaics. Her head jerked up upon hearing her name, almost in fear. But Izuku didn’t plan on having her fight. “Can you send a message to Bakugo with Sonic Magic?”
She nodded meekly.
“Tell him to start blasting.” From his position hovering above the Mosaic army, Bakugo was in the prime spot to start hammering them without worry for collateral damage.
Jiro pressed her palms together, whispering to herself and transmitting it over the air to Bakugo. “It’s done…” She said.
Bakugo’s propulsive explosions had been pretty small. They were loud and bright, but over such a distance they looked more like firecrackers. But the next blast he let off was like a monster.
Emerging from his palms, the fiery plumes raced towards the ground, smoke and heat engulfing the area. It was like a bomber had dropped a high-ordnance explosive on Catalina.
“Ah!” Ibara yelped in discomfort. “The trees…” She looked on, dejected, as explosion after explosion rained down on the area. Bakugo had already seen the Mosaic capacity to survive, he wasn’t holding anything back now.
Between his Sense Stat and his Artifact, The Eye That Sees All, which highlighted enemies in red like a video game, Izuku was able to spot several limb bodies flying through the air. He couldn’t sense their Mana, but he could see them, and since they were highlighted red, it meant they were still alive.
Realizing that letting any Mosaics escape would only prolong this war, Izuku reached out with Gravity Magic, snaking it to whatever target he could get ahold of. With a single thought, any corpse flying through the air was instantly crushed into the size of a golf ball, their hearts and strange cores decimated in the process.
[Level-Up!]
Izuku was surprised to see the System Alert. He hadn’t leveled up in so long he’d almost forgotten about it. But despite getting experience for killing the Mosaics, he wasn’t getting their Souls. Esil confirmed that they did, in fact, have Souls, and yet, his Soul List remained stagnant.
[Level-Up!]
It felt like hours before Bakugo’s explosions stopped, but only five minutes had passed in reality. The blonde had been shooting off massive blasts non-stop, so it was impressive his Mana held out for as long as it did.
Izuku knew that he had killed about 9 Mosaics for certain, leaving the other 48 unaccounted for. He wasn’t sure if Bakugo’s blasts had been enough to damage the crystalline cores, so until they could count up the bodies, they had to assume there were still the full 48.
Bakugo, having very little Mana left, was forced to reserve the rest of it to fly his way back to the casino, landing on the roof with a heavy thud, his energy spent. He cast a quick glance at Izuku, but it wasn’t the usual pride-filled demeaning stare. Instead it was almost like he was looking to him for validation, like he was saying, “I did good right?” It was clear that his talk with Brandon had an impact. Between that and his confrontations with Momo and Izuku, something finally seemed to click for him.
Izuku gave him a nod of respect and Bakugo let out a sigh, falling onto his butt. He had done his part. Not only had he weakened and allowed several of the Mosaics to be killed by Izuku, but he had cleared the area of shrubbery or places to hide. The Mosaics seemed to thrive on subterfuge, so being able to see them out in the open, clear as day, was a massive advantage.
Even still, the mimics were undeterred, marching forwards, closer to the barrier that Esil had put up. They would be stuck behind it, and Izuku and the others could peek out, do some damage, retreat, recover, and repeat. It would be an easy win.
At least, that’s what they thought. The first Mosaic to reach the barrier reared back his arm, bony claws peeking out from his fingers, and dragged them across the yellow energy.
“GAH!” Esil collapsed in a heap on the roof and the barrier shattered.
“Wha- What happened?!” Izuku and Kaminari rushed over to her.
“My… My Soul… that attack hit my Soul…”
Izuku confirmed it with his own eyes. Esil’s Soul, a solid shape, was now looking more like a human Soul, wispy and indistinct. It caused a question to emerge in Izuku’s mind.
“Is it coincidence… or does it mean that all human Souls are damaged?”
He brushed off the concern, turning back to the Mosaics, now shambling towards the casino. Some were still regenerating their bodies, so they looked like zombies with their exposed flesh and unsteady gait. The rest looked mostly human, but a few were very clearly still in the process of mimicking a target, red glistening flesh reflecting the rising sun and unblinking eyes focused only on the next meal. There were way more than 48. There were close to 200.
“Kaminari!” Izuku shouted, conjuring a wave of Dark Magic spears.
The lightning boy didn’t need to be told twice. “Time for some payback!” He shouted, raising his hands in the shape of finger guns.
In sync, both boys began unleashing blasts of Magic. Izuku’s first wave of spears ran right through the hearts of the Mosaics, killing them instantly. And Kaminari’s lightning burned a hole straight through their bodies.
10 died almost instantly. Esil’s barrier collapsing had been a fright, but it also seemed like their offensive capabilities would make up for the lack of defense. That was, until Izuku launched his next wave of spears.
The Dark Magic bit into their flesh, but stopped short of the heart. Kaminari’s lightning knocked the Mosaics back and burned their skin and muscle, but didn’t pierce through like before.
Realizing the dire situation, Izuku gathered his Gravity Magic, targeting the closest 6 or so Mosaics and attempted to crush their hearts. It didn’t work.
Izuku exerted more and more energy with each second, but it had no effect, and eventually, he had to give up to not expend all of his Mana.
“They’re evolving in real time!” Izuku hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense that an alien species that specialized in evolution would be able to easily counteract gravity once they realized what was happening. There was no doubt in his mind that they had experienced the gravity of other planets.
Just like that, one of the most powerful Magics on the planet was negated.
Izuku pushed his perception to the limits, speeding up his thought process to the point where time moved in slow motion.
“They’ll adapt to anything we throw at them… Maybe if we keep alternating attacks? Could there be a limit to the evolutions they can undergo?” Izuku remembered learning about the process of evolution. Sometimes, certain traits had to be removed from their genetics to make room for a different adaptation. But it was a longshot. The evolution that the Mosaics displayed wasn’t the same as evolution undergone by Earthly species.
“But then how…” Izuku turned around to look at Noah Adler, still unconscious. The man wasn’t Awakened, and yet he had killed four of the Mosaics with a Magical knife. That achievement on its own was practically unimaginable, but when you threw the Mosaic evolution into the mix it just didn’t make sense. “Unless…”
“They can evolve immunities to Magic, but not physical attacks!” Izuku cried out, leaping from the roof. He landed right in front of one Mosaic, his hand flat, ready to pierce straight through its chest. He may not have been able to use Gravity Magic to kill them instantly, but he could use it to enhance himself. He multiplied the mass of his hand, and simultaneously lessened the effect of gravity on his body. The more mass and speed of an object, the harder it would hit.
And sure enough his hand shot through the Mosaic like it was made of paper. He would have to repeat it a few times to make sure they didn’t gain an immunity to physical damage as well, but something about them being immune to Magic and not physical attacks made sense to Izuku. It was Magic that had given humanity its fighting chance. So if this species had gone to other planets, conquering most of them with Magic Immunity would likely be enough. And no matter the situation, negating Magic could be done with other forms of Magic and enough energy. If the force of a physical attack was strong enough, there was no negating it. It had kinetic energy behind it, but it would require a massive amount of energy and some defiance of physics to outright negate that type of force. At least, that was Izuku’s theory, he would find out soon enough if he was wrong.
Setsuna, who was still guarding the doors, detached her arms, flying them towards the Mosaics at a pretty impressive pace, knocking them down and tearing out their hearts to crush in her hands. It was pretty brutal considering their similarities to humans, but it had to be done.
Kaminari stayed on the roof, using his lightning to knock back anything that got too close. Izuku was grateful he hadn’t followed his lead. Even if he wasn’t doing damage, he was strategically spacing the Mosaics out to ensure no one was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. He may have seemed a bit of a dunce in day-to-day life, but there was no denying that he had a mind for battle.
They had to be careful not to commit too many of their forces to the frontlines, lest a Mosaic creep inside the building, so it came down to Izuku, Setsuna, anyone on the roof, and Iida, who was rushing in to join the fray. His speed and the force behind his kicks wasn’t enough to outright destroy the hearts, but like Kaminari he was helping them keep a tactical advantage by knocking the Mosaics around without being caught. Unfortunately, the Mosaics were not so easily conquered.
At one point, Setsuna’s right arm mistakenly flew between a group of Mosaics and, seizing the opportunity, they all pounced atop the arm, holding it down. Izuku didn’t think much of it at first, Setsuna could regenerate her body parts if they were destroyed, after all. But that line of thinking was interrupted by Setsuna crying out in agony.
Izuku turned around in a panic. Setsuna was on the ground in front of the door, writhing in pain. The source was clear, her Soul was being destroyed.
He thought the Mosaics had done something weird to strike Esil’s Soul, but now he realized that they could attack anything and have that attack trace back to the Soul it was connected to. Esil’s barrier was apparently connected to her Soul, allowing them to attack her through it. It was like a piercing attack, and Setsuna’s arm was the perfect link for them.
Realizing the danger, Izuku and Iida began rushing for the Mosaics tearing into Setsuna’s flesh and, by extension, her Soul. But the remaining monsters saw the opportunity. They were intelligent enough to infiltrate society, so a simple game like “keep away” was nothing to them.
Izuku tore through body after body, but he knew he wouldn’t make it in time, Setsuna’s Soul was growing faint. He could force more Souls into her with Soul Manipulation, but he knew from experience with Nagant that it wasn’t such an easy fix. Souls could patch up some damage, but they essentially worked like medicine, their effects needing time to be apparent. Even then, he tried feeding another 100 Souls to her.
[Error, target Soul is under attack.]
“No!” Izuku began firing off Gravity Magic, Void Magic, he even tried Torture Magic to act on the pain receptors of the Mosaics as he continued racing forwards, the situation fully sinking in. Iida wasn’t strong enough and Izuku was too hindered by the Mosaics that had no concern for their own well being.
Again, time slowed to a crawl. But this time it wasn’t on purpose. Izuku was reminded of his promise to Takashi. He would protect Setsuna, no matter what… and yet, there she was, dying under his watch.
“NO!” He tried to force his way past the Mosaics, ignoring them altogether. But with each Mosaic he ignored, an attack on his own Soul was landed.
Izuku was borderline impervious to physical damage, but the Mosaics attacked Souls. They took their opportunity to rake their claws across his skin and shred another bit of his Soul in the process.
“Baruka!”
The Elf Baron had been working from behind the Mosaic forces. Cloaking in stealth he had been slowly breaking down the backline, but he too wasn’t strong enough to reach Setsuna’s arm.
Another Mosaic struck Izuku and he fell to the ground, his entire existence in pain. He had never suffered a Soul attack before. It was more overwhelming than even Beru’s presence.
He batted aside the Mosaic, but another was on top of him in no time. He had to commit everything to defending himself, and even then, he was growing weaker with every passing second.
In that moment, Izuku felt something tenuous tugging at his mind. A voice, Setsuna’s.
“I can’t lose him… I can’t lose anyone ever again!” Even in spite of her pain, he felt her will reaching out, pushing through to touch his Soul. It was the same as the Spiritual Essence Path he had created between himself and Lady Nagant when healing her.
[Target, Setsuna Tokage’s Soul has met the appropriate requirements.]
[Would you like to evolve her Soul?]
[Y/N]
“Yes…” Izuku faintly answered the System.
[Confirmed.]
With a force that shocked even Izuku, Setsuna’s arm exploded from the pile of Mosaics, coming to hover right besides Izuku after punching away the mimics near him. And then, it began to regenerate.
Turning around, Izuku could see Setsuna stand up, her right arm also regenerated. Which meant the arm besides him was growing an entirely new body, identical to Setsuna.
[Setsuna Tokage has acquired Apex Skill: Nexus, Lord of Pathways.]
A small piece of the new Setsuna broke off, forming another clone, and another, and another, until 8 of them were standing before Izuku, shielding him from the Mosaics.
They were undeterred, launching themselves at her copies. If they could damage a Soul from a single arm, then certainly they could damage a Soul through an entirely new body. It was just a bigger target for them-
Their claws raked harmlessly against the many Setsunas. Each one of them had a gleaming Soul, a bright solid shape in the center of their chest and not a single one even budged in response to the Mosaics.
“I’ve spent my entire life being afraid of losing everything that mattered to me,” All of the Setsunas spoke in perfect sync, stomping towards the Mosaics, grabbing and tearing them limb from limb, extracting their hearts and crushing them like an unstoppable force. “And soon, you’ll know the same fear.”