Chapter Text
By the time the sun dropped behind Nabu Island’s little mountain, the sky over the harbor had turned the color of old blood.
Katsuma Shimano didn’t notice that part at first.
He was too busy trying to work up the courage to tell his sister he wanted to be a hero.
Mahoro lay on the park bench, one leg kicked up, filming him with her phone. “Okay, go,” she said. “Give me your All Might pose.”
Katsuma puffed out his chest, thrust a fist up, and immediately wilted.
“I can’t,” he groaned, face going red. “It feels dumb.”
Mahoro snorted. “It looks dumb,” she corrected. “But that’s heroes, right? Loud and dumb.”
She zoomed in on his face. “So? You gonna say it or what?”
Katsuma swallowed. “I… I think I want to—”
The ferry screamed.
It was a long, metal sound, like the hull itself was trying to yell.
Both kids jerked their heads toward the harbor.
Out past the breakwater, the last ferry of the day had gone wrong. Lights flickered as it lurched sideways, cutting across the usual path. Spray fountained from its prow as it rammed the dock at an angle, splintering wood, sending tourists and locals alike tumbling.
Mahoro lowered her phone. “That’s… not normal,” she said.
The ferry’s roof tore open like a can.
Something stepped out.
Lightning crackled around its shoulders, stark violet against the darkening sky. Wind twisted, forming a spiral that punched through the low clouds like a fist.
Nine looked down on Nabu’s harbor with the clinical interest of a surgeon examining a patient.
“Go,” he said over his shoulder.
Slice jumped first, hair whipping as it fanned out into a dozen glinting blades. Her Quirk carved through dock supports, sending moored boats crashing into each other, chains snapping.
Mummy vaulted over the side, bandages unfurling like grotesque streamers. They snapped around lampposts, vehicles, a screaming food stall, puppeteering objects into towering, shambling constructs.
Chimera simply walked off the ferry, talons crunching through the deck plating. When he landed on the pier, the concrete cracked.
Panic blossomed.
Residents ran. Tourists dropped shopping bags, abandoned suitcases, tripped over each other trying to get away from the villains tearing the harbor apart.
Nine raised a hand. Wind shrieked; a waterspout rose, grabbed what was left of the last intact boat, and smashed it down onto the others.
“Break their lines,” he said. “Give them something to scream about.”
Slice smiled without warmth.
“Gladly.”
Mahoro’s phone nearly slipped from her hand.
“Villains,” she whispered. “On our island?”
Katsuma’s heart jackhammered against his ribs. His fingers fumbled for his phone.
“I—I’m calling the UA agency,” he said. “They’re heroes, right? They have to—”
He dialed the emergency line for Class 1-A’s headquarters, the number he’d memorized in a fit of childish hope.
It rang once.
“Tch, what?!” Bakugo’s voice exploded out of the speaker so loud both siblings flinched.
“Uh- uh- this is Shimano Mahoro,” Mahoro blurted ahead of her brother, nerves making her elbow him aside. “We met earlier, remember? There’s, there’s villains at the harbor, they’re destroying everything—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugo said. “Nice prank. We’re busy.”
“I’m not kidding!” she snapped, voice cracking. “They’re blowing up the boats! There’s this guy with lightning and one with bandages and-"
On the other end, a second voice cut in. “Kacchan, give me that,” Izuku said, more calmly. “Shimano-? What’s
The line went dead.
Mahoro stared at the phone.
“…he hung up on me,” she said, outraged.
Katsuma wasn’t listening anymore. Past her shoulder, he could see the harbor. See the smoke. Hear the screams.
And, far above, something else.
Distant, like storm clouds, shapes moved against the darkening sky that had nothing to do with Nine’s weather tricks.
He didn’t have the words for the feeling that crept down his spine as he watched the horizon ripple with unnatural silhouettes.
The first communication blackout hit Class 1-A’s headquarters like a glitch in reality.
Ochaco frowned at the wall-mounted terminal. “Huh,” she said. “That’s… weird. It just cut out.”
Before anyone could poke it again, the building shook.
Tsuyu’s tongue flicked instinctively, balancing herself. “Ribbit… an earthquake?” she asked.
The resident who stumbled in a second later, panting, said otherwise. “A villain!” he gasped. “Down by the shopping street! He’s, he’s wrapping cars in bandages and throwing them!”
Midoryia's stomach dropped.
Before he could ask more, the door banged open again and Fumikage sprinted in.
“There’s another at the beach,” he said, eyes hard. “Tsukuyomi here. Chimera-type, resistant to Dark Shadow. Mashirao is engaged, but we need more hands.”
Tenya sucked in a breath, jaw firming.
“All right!” he snapped, sliding into leader mode like it was a suit he’d been training to wear. “We split up. Bakugo, Kaminari, Kirishima, shopping district. Yaoyorozu, Jiro, Ashido, support and evac. I’ll lead Todoroki, Sero, Sato, and Tokoyami to the beach.”
He rattled off more names, more assignments. Everyone’s hearts pounded in unison.
None of them noticed, not yet, that the problem they thought they were dealing with was about to get… crowded.
Downtown, Mummy was having the time of his life.
“For a quiet island,” he drawled, “you have very cooperative architecture.”
His bandages snaked along the ground, around lampposts and vending machines, tearing up chunks of sidewalk and parked cars. Each one wrapped in burgundy cloth twitched, then lurched into motion, groaning as it mimicked life.
A mummified minivan lurched forward, headlights flaring like eyes. A bike rack, legs wrapped in bandage “muscle,” stomped after it.
Minoru and Aoyama were not having a good time.
“I am so out of sparkles,” Aoyama gasped, hand over his stomach, navel laser sputtering. “My tummy can’t handle this much magnificence!”
“Then be less magnificent!” Mineta yelped, popping sticky balls frantically, trying to clog up the bandage puppets’ joints. “They just keep, aaaah-"
He grabbed an old air-con unit that Mummy had half-wrapped and yanked, desperately trying to redirect its trajectory before it bulldozed a clinic doorway.
Toru's disembodied gloves flew uselessly at another puppet.
Mummy laughed, lazy and cruel. “Come on,” he taunted. “This is barely a warm-up. Where are the real heroes? This island’s supposed to have a whole class of kids with licenses.”
As if on cue, a blast of light and wind tore through his puppet line.
“WE’RE. RIGHT. HERE!”
Katsuki Bakugo slammed into the street like an angry meteor, explosions kicking him backward into a controlled hover. Denki landed behind him, surfing a live wire of his own electricity. Kirishima came last, hardening as he rolled, sliding between two bandage beasts.
“Get behind us!” Bakugo barked at Aoyama’s group, palms already sparking. “We’ll handle mummy freak!”
“You guys took your time,” Aoyama wheezed, staggering back.
“Traffic sucked!” Denki shouted, then jolted as a bandage-wrapped parking meter swung at his head. “Whoa, hey!”
The battle exploded into a mess of flashing laser beams, pop-off glue, hardened punches, and whirling cloth.
For a while, it actually went okay.
Bakugo blew apart three puppets in a row, laughing viciously. Kirishima cracked another in half with a Red Riot punch. Denki fried a bunch of bandages with his Indiscriminate Shock, grinning dopily even as his brain fuzzed out.
But Mummy was careful.
He didn’t try to overwhelm them head-on.
He waited.
Waited for Denki to overcharge and go noodle-legged. Waited for Bakugo to vault a destroyed puppet, exposed for half a second.
His bandages shot out, faster than the boy expected.
“Gotcha,” Mummy said, almost bored.
The cloth wrapped around Bakugo’s arms, legs, torso, then cinched tight. Immediately, he felt a horrible pulling sensation, like the bandages were trying to yank something out of him.
His grenadier bracers and support gear glowed, then flickered, his own costume turning against him.
“What the-"
He didn’t get another word out before his body jerked.
His own limbs moved without him.
“Ahahaha,” Mummy laughed. “You heroes and your fancy gear. It’s all just stuff to me.”
Kaminari’s eyes went wide. “BAKUGO!”
He lunged, but a bandage-wrapped street sign intercepted him, knocking him sideways.
Mummy turned his new puppet.
“Say hello to your friends,” he said.
Bakugo’s mouth twisted in impotent fury as his arm raised, explosions flaring against his will.
Great.
He was going to get brainwashed by a mummy on a backwater island.
Worst. Gig. Ever.
Mina skidded around the corner with Momo and Jiro on her heels, acid sizzling under her sneakers.
“Evac route this way!” she yelled to a cluster of terrified civilians. “Keep low, don’t look at the explosions!”
“Kind of hard not to,” Jiro muttered, glancing back as another boom lit up the street. “Bakugo’s having a lot of feelings.”
Momo’s eyes flicked between the battle and her evacuation map. “At this rate, the collateral is going—”
Something whistled overhead.
Loud. Heavy. Fast.
For half a heartbeat, everyone there, heroes, villains, civilians, thought it was just another of Bakugo’s blasts misfiring.
Then it hit.
The cannonball smashed down from the sky like a dropped planet.
It punched straight through the top of a building, leaving a circular hole, then slammed into the street between Mummy and his puppets with a thunderclap that turned everyone’s ears to static.
The shockwave rippled outward, shattering nearby windows. Dust blew. Bandage puppets stumbled and fell.
Mummy’s eyes went wide.
“The hell—”
The cannonball bounced once, twice, leaving craters, then rolled in a lazy arc… right into Mummy’s chest.
There was a brief, strangled “hugh—” before he went flying, bandages flailing, slammed into the side of a delivery truck, and crumpled to the ground in a heap of burgundy and regret.
The bandages wrapped around Bakugo went slack.
Bakugo hit the pavement hard, lungs sucking in air.
“What the actual-" he coughed.
Denki, dazed but conscious again, stared at the cannonball.
It rocked once more, then settled, hot and faintly smoking.
He squinted up.
Above, the sky had changed.
“Uh,” Denki said, eloquent as ever. “Guys?”
The clouds were full of ships.
Not ferries. Not military. Not anything Nabu Island had seen before.
Airships. Dozens of them. Big, bulbous hulls, spinning props, spiked prows. Every prow had the same face carved into it: a snarling turtle-dragon mug with horns and sharp teeth.
Banners whipped behind them, emblazoned with that same face in stylized black and gold.
And they were everywhere, blotting out the stars, engines humming in a bizarre, off-kilter harmony.
Because from the largest airship, from a hatch in its underside, something big and brown and very proud was dropping straight toward them.
“INCOMING!” Jiro shrieked, pointing.
The brown thing hit the street in a cascade of dust and masonry. When it straightened up, it was… a Goomba.
A Goomba the size of a small house.
He was a massive, rotund brown mushroom-creature with angry eyebrows, tiny fanged mouth, stubby feet… and a red-and-white coat. Atop his dome-like head sat a gold crown, gleaming in the fires. A white mustache bristled under his nose, somehow defying biology.
He looked around at the ruin, at the stunned heroes, at the unconscious mummy against the truck… and puffed himself up.
“Bwa ha ha!” he boomed. “I’m no ordinary Goomba… I am Goomboss, the great Goomba, the grand pooh-bah Goomba!”
“HOW MANY MONARCHS DOES THIS BOWSER GUY HAVE UNDER HIS EMPLOYMENT?!” Bakugo yelled up at the sky, voice cracking with outrage.
Mina, covered in dust, whispered, “He has a mustache.”
Momo, also dusty, whispered back, “He has a crown.”
"Why do all the kings have those???" Denki
Bakugo shoved himself to his feet, explosions already crackling in his palms. “I don’t care if he has a saxophone, I’m gonna blow his face off!”
Goomboss glared down at him. “So, these are the local pests,” he said disdainfully. “You assaulted my landing zone.”
“We were here first, you giant chestnut!” Bakugo snapped.
Goomboss stamped one stubby foot. The asphalt cracked under the impact.
“Bring them!” he barked.
From sewer grates, from cracks in the pavement, from behind toppled stalls, Goombas started popping up. Regular-sized ones this time, brown and stompy, their eyes gleaming with eager malice.
Mineta stared. “They look like- like—”
“Bad ideas,” Aoyama said faintly.
Denki flung his arms out. “OH COME ON!”
Because apparently, today, Nabu Island was buy-one-get-one-free on villain invasions.
High above, on the flagship’s deck, Eri gripped the rail, tail lashing with excitement.
The sea wind tore through her hair, tugging at her horn and little crown. Her new black shell gleamed under her cape. Beside her, Junior leaned over the edge of his clown car, piloting it in place, eyes shining.
Below them, the island looked like a toy: tiny streets, tiny houses, tiny explosions.
“This place is perfect,” Eri said. “So many roofs to jump off. And look, the harbor’s already on fire. That’s convenient.”
Junior laughed. “Yeah! Whoever’s down there did half our job.”
Behind them, the deck was a chaos of organized Koopa nonsense. Wendy barked orders at Koopa Paratroopas as they loaded cannonballs. Lemmy rolled past on his ball. Morton tested a chain on a Chain Chomp, which barked happily at the distant, terrified city.
Kamek hovered near Bowser, staff glowing, checking coordinates on a magical map.
“Warp anchors are stable,” he reported. “We can bring in reinforcements if needed. Tartarus breach proved the range.”
Bowser stood at the very front, paws braced on the railing, cape flapping behind him. His eyes gleamed with predatory joy.
“That’s our new vacation spot?” he rumbled, looking down at Nabu. “Cute. It’ll look better with skulls.”
He turned his head. “Drop the Goomboss,” he ordered. “And a few Chain Chomps. Let ’em announce us.”
“Already done,” Wendy said, gesturing at the distant street where Goomboss was loudly introducing himself.
Bowser watched, pleased, as Mummy went flying.
“Huh,” he said. “Didn’t know there was already a mummy here. Good thing we’re cleaning up.”
Junior’s clown car bobbed impatiently. “Can I go down yet?” he asked. “I wanna see if any of these losers are fun.”
Bowser smirked. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Take Eri. Don’t level the whole island yet. We still gotta put a castle on it.”
Eri’s tail thumped. “Yes!” she squeaked. “Come on, Grape!”
The purple Yoshi bounded up, tongue lolling. Eri scrambled into the clown car beside Junior, Grape grabbing onto the rim with both stubby hands.
Kamek flicked his wand; the clown car’s engines hummed louder.
“Remember, dear,” he said to Eri. “If you see any local ‘heroes’, do not underestimate them. They’re undertrained, but they get creative under pressure.”
Eri bared her sharp little teeth in a grin. “I like pressure.”
Junior slammed the throttle.
The clown car dove.
Bowser watched them go, something warm and worried and proud all tangled up in his chest.
Then he leaned back, cracked his neck, and eyed the island like it was a boss arena.
“Kamek,” he said. “Find me the strongest thing on this rock.”
Kamek’s eyes glowed as he muttered in that old Darkland tongue. Points of power flared on the magical 3D map hovering between them.
One pulsed brighter than the rest, near the island’s heart.
“That one,” Kamek said. “Something… wrong with its energy. Twisted. Like All For One, but… diluted.”
Bowser’s grin sharpened. “Perfect.”
Without another word, he vaulted up onto the rail and dropped.
Paratroopas and Magikoopas all looked over at once.
“Is- is he gonna—”
Bowser spun in the air, tucked into his shell, and fell like a literal meteor toward Nabu’s central district, laughter rumbling in his throat.
“Kamek,” Wendy said conversationally. “Do we… have a landing plan?”
“His Majesty is the landing plan,” Kamek replied dryly.
Near the beach, Chimera’s laughter mixed badly with the sound of shattering ice cream coolers.
“You kids are tough,” he admitted, brushing off a scorch mark from an earlier blast. “But you’re not tough enough.”
Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow struck, claws raking across Chimera’s fur and feathers. The villain barely flinched, grabbing the shadow with one massive hand and twisting.
“Ribbit, Tokoyami!” Tsuyu cried, launching her tongue to wrap around Dark Shadow’s limb, tugging him free.
Chimera swatted her aside with his tail. She bounced, coughed, but rolled back to her feet, eyes narrowed.
Ojiro’s whirlwind kick stung. Sero’s tape got shredded. Sato’s sugar-high punches made Chimera grunt, then smirk.
“Not bad,” he said. “But I’ve eaten tougher.”
His nostrils flared.
He smelled fire on the wind.
Not Endeavor. Different. Sharper. Like… cartoon lava.
He tilted his head.
Over the dunes, above the treeline, he saw it: a sky full of alien ships.
He paused mid-swing.
“…are those… turtles?” he said.
Sero blinked sweat out of his eyes and dared a look.
“Bro,” he muttered. “I have no idea.”
Chimera frowned, suddenly annoyed. “We didn’t plan for other villains,” he growled.
Somewhere overhead, Nine would be seeing the same thing.
Nine had just finished tearing open a convenience store door, no kids, just hysterical tourists, when the first shadow fell over him.
He stepped out, narrowed his eyes, and looked up.
The airships slid across the clouds like sharks under water. The prow faces leered. Cannons flashed as more cannonballs dropped elsewhere on the island.
For a moment, Nine simply stared.
…this is not part of my variables, he thought.
He hadn’t planned for competition.
Wind tugged at his coat, bringing with it the stinging scent of unfamiliar magic and Koopa fire.
Slice landed on a lamppost nearby, hair-blades already out, eyes following his gaze.
“Friends of yours?” she asked.
Nine’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. “They reek of… something else.”
“Those were the castle guys, right?” Mummy’s voice crackled over their comm, a little fuzzy from recent concussion. “The ones that stomped Tartarus? I just got pancaked by a bowling ball from their ship. We’ve got a lot of villains on this island now.”
Nine watched as one particularly large airship rotated, its cannons reorienting.
Beneath it, he could sense multiple power signatures: something monstrous and spiky (Bowser), several smaller but sharp ones (Koopalings, Eri, Junior), plus the heroes already scrambling.
The rational move would’ve been to withdraw, reassess, and approach later.
Nine’s veins pulsed with pain and fury.
His cells were failing. Every time he used more than a fraction of his power, he could feel the degeneration creeping further. He didn’t have the luxury of retreating and waiting while some gaudy turtle-king declared himself ruler of this rock.
He needed a cure.
He needed the cell activation quirk.
He needed it now.
“We stick to the plan,” Nine said. “They’re a distraction. Good. Let them draw attention. We find the children, secure the quirk, then decide if we address this… Bowser.”
Slice’s lips quirked. “So that’s his name,” she said. “Charming.”
She swung her hairblades back, slicing a falling chunk of debris in half as she hopped down.
“Where?” she asked.
Nine’s eyes flashed as his scan quirk swept the island.
He felt Shimano’s lingering signature. Green, similar, resonant with a pair of smaller blips further inland. One of those smaller ones had the same pattern, but… different. Younger. More malleable.
“There,” he said, turning toward the residential district. “The children.”
He started walking.
Then stopped.
Somewhere between him and his target, a new power had just… arrived.
It hit his senses like a physical blow. Raw, loud magic. Pure destructive potential. No quirk factor that matched anything he knew. It was as if a piece of another world had just been dropped into this one.
Nine turned his head slowly.
In Nabu’s central plaza, a crater had appeared where a fountain used to be.
Smoke and dust boiled.
From its center, something huge and scaly straightened up, shaking off chunks of shattered stone.
Bowser rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck. Bits of broken fountain statue slid off his shell. He took one big breath of Nabu air, nostrils flaring.
“Ahhh,” he rumbled. “Smells weak.”
Around the edges of the plaza, a handful of civilians who hadn’t made it far enough from the harbor attack froze in place, staring.
Two trainee heroes, Tenya and Todoroki, caught in transit between assignments, skidded to a halt at the sight.
“What is that?” Iida blurted.
Todoroki’s heterochromatic eyes narrowed. “That’s… Bowser,” he said quietly. “From Kamino. And the news.”
Bowser looked around, disappointed.
“No welcome party?” he called out. “No strongest warrior standing in the middle yelling about justice? Boring.”
He stomped toward the nearest intact building, a bank, and kicked its door in like it was cardboard.
He stuck his head inside.
“HEY!” he boomed. “Anybody strong in here?!”
Only a terrified clerk and a potted plant answered.
Bowser snorted and pulled his head back out.
“This island’s flimsy,” he complained. “Kamek, you sure the strong guy’s still here?”
Kamek’s voice floated down in his head, courtesy of a little shell-comm. “I assure you, sire,” he said. “The signature hasn’t moved. It’s heading toward the residential area. Likely seeking someone as well.”
“Ooh,” Bowser said. “A rival shopper.”
His eyes glinted.
“Good.”
He started walking in the direction Kamek indicated, each footstep leaving a shallow crater in the street.
Nine stepped into view at the end of that same street, coat whipping, purple veins glowing faintly under his skin.
For a moment, the two just looked at each other.
Bowser, massive and spiked, radiating cartoonish malice. Nine, tall and sleek in his limiter suit, radiating surgical menace.
The air between them crackled: raw magic from one side, twisted quirk energy from the other.
Nine took in the shell, the horns, the aura. The obvious non-human physiology.
Not a quirk mutant.
Not anything this world made.
Stain had been right, then.
Bowser studied the bodysuit, the canisters, the strange mask-corset bristling with plugs.
He sniffed.
This guy smelled like All For One had smelled. Same underlying rot, less… deep. Like a cheap remake of a boss he’d already beaten.
He grinned.
“Well, look at you,” Bowser said. “You’re new.”
Nine’s eyes flicked past Bowser toward the residential district.
“Move,” he said simply. “You’re in my way.”
Bowser’s grin widened. “That’s cute,” he said. “Nobody says that to me and keeps all their teeth.”
He planted his fists on his hips, looming.
“I’m King Bowser,” he announced. “Koopa King. Future ruler of this world. I’m here to conquer this island, steal the best stuff, and maybe punch a hero or two. You?”
Nine regarded him, unfazed.
“Nine,” he said.
Bowser paused.
“…Nine,” he repeated.
“Yes,” Nine said.
“That’s it?” Bowser asked. “Just Nine? Not ‘King Nine’ or ‘Lord Nine of wherever ’ or ‘Dr. Maskface’? You run outta numbers after eight?”
For the first time since arriving on Nabu, Slice, watching from a rooftop, had to press her hand over her mouth to restrain a bewildered snort.
Nine’s jaw tightened for a fraction of a second.
“That name,” he said coolly, “is enough.”
Bowser snorted, amused.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s dumb.”
He cracked his knuckles, tail lashing.
“You look strong, though,” he added. “So I’ll forgive your bad branding. Long as you give me a good fight.”
Behind him, distant booms marked Goomboss cackling and Bakugo screaming in outrage. Somewhere closer, a small clown car zipped between buildings, Eri laughing gleefully as Grape flattened a mummified vending machine.
Nabu Island had wanted hero training.
It had gotten, instead, a convergence.
Nine lifted his hand, wind swirling around him. Dark clouds gathered over the street, lightning flickering in their bellies.
“I don’t have time for distractions,” he said.
Bowser rolled his shoulders, flames gathering at the back of his throat.
“Too bad,” he replied, grinning, stepping forward into the center of the street.
“Because I love distractions.”
And with that, king and would-be “one true ruler” faced each other under a sky full of invading ships, a sleepy island’s quiet shattered by the first clash of two worlds’ monsters.
Down at the beach, Chimera had just flattened another sand sculpture when something purple and furious kicked him in the face.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
“YOSHI!”
Grape’s heel connected with Chimera’s snout like a sledgehammer. The beast went skidding back through the sand, talons digging trenches as he tried to stay upright.
Ojiro froze mid-kick. “What the-"
Tokoyami blinked. “is that a dinosaur?”
Tsuyu, already bruised, squinted. “I believe that is… Eri’s pet.”
Chimera spat blood, blinking hard. “Where did you come from?” he snarled, wiping his muzzle. “You don't look like a student.”
“YOSHI,” Grape said again, dropping into a fighting stance.
He didn’t have a translation quirk, but the meaning was clear:
I'm gonna kick your ass.
Chimera grinned, showing a mouthful of mismatched teeth. “Fine,” he growled. “Let’s see what you’ve got, lizard.”
He lunged, claws out, teeth bared.
Grape met him halfway, one foot slamming into the sand to launch himself forward. The ground cracked under the force.
His first kick snapped up under Chimera’s jaw. The villain’s head snapped back; saliva flew.
“This thing is strong,” Fumikage muttered, watching.
Chimera swung a taloned hand, aimed to bisect the Yoshi. Grape ducked, tail whipping around to sweep Chimera’s legs out from under him with bone-breaking force.
Chimera crashed to the ground, cracking the stone path beneath the sand.
“Rgh—!” He lashed out with his tail, but Grape jumped, flutter-kicking in midair, then stomped down on Chimera’s chest with a Ground Pound that made the whole beach lurch.
The impact drove the air out of Chimera’s lungs in a woof.
Tsuyu had to slap a hand on a lamppost to stay upright. “Ribbit…”
Tokoyami stared. “…I’m reconsidering my life.”
Chimera tried to trigger more of his monstrous form, muscles bulging, horns beginning to sprout-
Grape’s tongue snapped out, wrapped around Chimera’s wrist, and slammed it into the ground hard enough to sink the arm to the elbow in sand and stone.
He followed up with a flurry of savage kicks to the face and ribs thak-thak-THAK each one leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the villain’s hide.
Finally, Grape put one heel on Chimera’s sternum, shoved him flat, and planted his other foot on the villain’s jaw, pinning him like a trophy.
“Yoshi,” he said firmly.
Translation: Stay down.
Chimera, dazed and half-buried, wheezed something obscene and then passed out.
The 1-A students could only stare.
“…We should not make him mad,” Mashirao said faintly.
Grape snorted, flicked sand off his toes, and took off at a sprint. cracking the ground again, as he headed back toward Eri, leaving the broken beast behind.
Slice had been having a decent day.
Good hair, good explosions, a couple of frightened kids almost within reach.
Then a six-foot murder-princess punched her in the face while doing her hair.
Back near the residential streets, Eri had ditched “tiny princess” for “tall nightmare.”
The Super Mushroom had popped from a ? Block Junior tossed her way. One bite, and fwump, she’d shot up like a weed, dress and shell scaling with her until she stood eye-to-eye with most pro heroes.
“Kinda weird,” she commented, looking at her hands. “Papa’s always big. I like it.”
Slice’s first volley of hair-blades had already been in the air.
Eri stepped through them.
Not around.
Through.
She weaved like she’d been born in a bullet hell, body sliding between spinning blades by inches, fireflower aura still faintly flickering around her.
Slice’s eyes widened. “What the-"
Eri reached her in three long strides.
The first punch snapped Slice’s head to the side. The second drove into her gut.
Then Eri got mean.
She walked.
Just… walked forward, pushing Slice back with a constant rhythm of punches, bam-bam-bam, each one snapping the villain’s head or torso sideways like she was on the end of a spring.
Slice tried to retaliate, hair whipping into spears and scythes. Eri didn’t even glance directly at them, tilting her head, twisting her shoulders, letting blades pass close enough to nick her dress but never her skin.
Eri stamped her foot down.
Her boot pinned Slice’s foot to the cracked pavement, grinding down hard enough that bones creaked.
And with perfect, infuriating contempt, she pushed her own hair back with her off-hand, as she punched even more. While looking the other way.
(Author's Note: I added this Naoya hair bit in post like yesterday)
“Don’t you look away from me!” Slice snarled, swinging low.
Eri’s next punch caught her square in the jaw while she still looked away, adjusting a stray lock.
“You talk too much,” Eri said.
Above them, Junior came whipping in with a delighted cackle in his clown car, Grape sprinting into the street from the beach, scales scuffed but proud.
“You’re late,” Eri said, not looking back as she hammered another strike into Slice’s ribs.
“Yeah, but look,” Junior called, thumb over his shoulder. “Grape beat the big furry guy!”
“YOSHI!” Grape confirmed.
“Good boy,” Eri said absently. “Wanna do a combo?”
Junior’s grin took up half his face. “Shell time?”
“Shell time,” Eri agreed.
Slice, dazed but not yet fully out, forced herself upright. Her hair whipped around her, blades forming a defensive cyclone.
“I’m not- done—” she hissed.
Eri stepped back, finally taking her boot off Slice’s foot.
“Okay,” she said calmly. “Let’s finish.”
Junior tucked into his shell inside the clown car, then launched himself out of it, the Koopa shell spinning like a spiked bowling ball.
Eri pivoted, her long leg snapping around in a powerful soccer kick.
Her foot connected with Shell-Jr.
THOOM.
He rocketed into Slice’s chest, the impact lifting her off her feet.
Before gravity remembered its job, Grape jumped, tail whipping for balance, and kicked the spinning shell like it was a penalty shot.
It smashed into Slice’s back, sending her flying the other direction.
Eri was already there.
She kicked again.
Shell, villain, and air all shook. Slice’s eyes rattled in her skull.
Back to Grape.
Kick.
Back to Eri.
Kick.
Back to Grape.
Kick.
Every hit bounced Jr’s spinning shell from one of them to the other, turning Slice into the world’s most unfortunate pinball, caught between a demon princess and a furious Yoshi.
“YOSHI—” KICK “—YOSHI—” KICK.
“She’s not looking so good,” Junior’s muffled voice came from inside the shell between impacts.
“Good,” Eri said, hair whipping around her shoulders as she turned for the final volley.
She reared back and slammed her heel into the shell with everything her mushroom-boosted muscles had.
It smashed into Slice’s face one last time with a crunch.
The villainess flew backward, blades of hair disintegrating into limp red strands mid-air as she slammed into a wall and slid down, eyes rolling back.
She didn’t get up.
Eri exhaled, mushroom power already beginning to bleed away, her height shrinking back down slightly with every breath.
She rolled her shoulders. “That was fun,” she decided.
Junior popped his head out of his shell, wobbling. “I’m dizzy,” he complained.
Grape patted him sympathetically with a big purple paw.
Above them, clouds were gathering, dark and heavy.
And somewhere a few streets over, Nine’s fight with Bowser was beginning in earnest.
On the other side of town, Class 1-A had discovered something important:
You can be the top hero course in Japan and still get your butt kicked by angry mushrooms.
“KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE KIDS!” Iida yelled, engines in his calves flaring as he launched himself through a wave of brown bodies.
He kicked three Goombas in one blur, thud-thud-thud, but for every one that popped into smoke, two more seemed to hop out of warp pipes and cracks.
Goomboss stomped through the center of the chaos, crown gleaming, mustache bristling.
“You cannot defeat the might of my army!” he bellowed. “My Goombas are endless! I, Goomboss, will trample you flat!”
He charged.
Todoroki slid a glacier across the street, ice blooming from his right side… only to see Goomboss plow through it like it was styrofoam, stubby feet punching fractal prints into the ice.
“His body weight,” Todoroki grunted, sliding aside with a blast of fire. “It’s like a battering ram.”
Sero swung in on tape, scooping a screaming civilian out of the way as Goomboss barreled past.
“Can someone please explain why the giant chestnut is harder to stop than the dead-eyed dragon?” he yelped.
Mina skated on her acid, burning Goombas under her feet. “Because the giant chestnut has a crown!” she shouted. “And also apparently infinite minions!”
Kirishima smashed another Goomba with a hardened fist. “Every time I blink, there’s more!” he yelled.
Koda was shrieking at nearby birds, begging them to peck the attackers. A flock of gulls heroically dive-bombed a cluster of Goombas, actually slowing them down, for about three seconds.
Then a Chain Chomp hit the street half a block away, dragging its handler, and the birds decided they had somewhere else to be.
Yaoyorozu had conjured a barricade of steel wedges, trying to funnel the Goombas into chokepoints, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming.
Everywhere a Goomba tripped, another jumped on its head and used it as a springboard.
“This feels like some kind of nightmare training sim!” Kaminari cried, zapping a cluster and promptly frying his own brain cells again.
“They’re small and weak individually,” Tenya barked, carving a path. “But they’re-"
“-overwhelming,” Todoroki finished, watching as two Goombas tripped Bakugo at the same time, sending him stumbling just in time for Goomboss to clip him with the edge of his stomp.
Bakugo hit a wall, slid down, and dragged himself back up, snarling.
“I’m so done with this entire SIDE QUEST!” he roared, blasting a Goomba so hard it ricocheted off three others.
Even Mineta had run out of commentary, his face pale as he spammed Pop-Offs in all directions.
For the first time since they’d arrived, Class 1-A genuinely started to feel like they might be crushed under sheer numbers.
And then, a street away, a different kind of battle turned everything.
Bowser took the first hit on purpose.
Nine’s Air Wall crashed into him like a freight train of pressure, shoving him back through a newsstand, splintering wood and scattering papers like startled birds.
He hit a parked truck, dented it, then pushed himself off, cracks radiating from his feet in the asphalt as he straightened up.
He grinned.
“Nice,” he said. “You got a wind shield. Fancy.”
Nine hovered a foot off the ground, coat whipping, eyes cold behind his limiter mask.
He’d already scanned this creature once.
No quirk factor. No standard signature. Physiology entirely foreign.
And still… the sheer output this being produced was absurd.
“Predictable brute,” Nine said. “I’ve seen heroes like you. All brawn, no strategy.”
He raised his hand again.
A translucent, slightly distorted layer of compressed air snapped into place before him- an Air Wall shimmering like heatwaves.
More condensed walls spun into being around Bowser, boxing him in.
“Let’s see if your shell can handle this.”
He clenched his fist.
The Air Walls snapped inward from all directions like a flexing fist, pressure spiking.
For a human, even a pro hero, it would have been catastrophic—bones crushed, organs pulped.
Bowser winced theatrically as the air screamed, asphalt buckled, and a nearby car crumpled like a soda can.
But the shell?
The shell didn’t crack.
“You done?” Bowser called, voice muffled in the roaring air.
Nine’s eyes narrowed. He layered more pressure, veins in his temples standing out.
The limiter suit whined faintly.
Within the crushing sphere, Bowser deliberately jerked his limbs in a jerky, predictable pattern. Step, punch, twist, step, punch.
Nine’s scanner picked up the rhythm in seconds.
He reacted accordingly.
Air bullets formed, high-pressure packets slamming into Bowser’s exposed limbs every time they moved into the same point in the pattern. A handful of Bullet Lasers lanced in through micro-gaps, scoring lines on Bowser’s arms and chest.
On the rooftops, Slice (before her smackdown) and Mummy (before his cannonball nap) had both watched in disbelief as the giant turtle let himself get tagged.
“What is he doing?” Slice had muttered. “Is he, losing?”
Hawks, far away watching through his bodycam feed in Commission HQ days later, would replay this segment over and over, frowning.
Because from the outside, to anyone watching Nine’s scanner cut the air in neat predictions, it looked like the creature king was being outplayed.
Nine himself felt a flicker of satisfaction.
“Predictable,” he said. “You telegraph every move. Power wasted is power lost.”
He shifted his stance, redirecting his Air Walls to slam Bowser sideways into a building.
Concrete cracked. A balcony gave way. A street sign toppled.
Inside the pressure sphere, Bowser gritted his teeth. It did hurt. This guy had real muscle behind the quirks.
But he’d fought gods. He’d tanked black holes. He’d been crushed by weights bigger than this just in training with his kids.
More importantly: the pattern he wanted was set.
He let his legs stumble, just a little, dropping to one knee like the pressure finally overwhelmed his balance.
Nine’s eyes glowed a little brighter. His scanner overlay drew a predictive line straight to Bowser’s exposed skull.
The villain extended a hand, fingers crackling with gathered Bullet Laser power, aiming for the head.
“End,” he said simply.
He didn’t see the little princess on the roofline behind him, hands already gathering the void.
Eri could feel it.
Her Supreme Art was like an itch at the back of her skull, a pressure behind her horn. Using it on Ryukyu had nearly drained her dry; she’d wanted to collapse.
But the high afterwards, the knowledge of copying something so big, had stuck with her.
Now, she was better. Stronger. Papa and Kamek had made her practice control every night. She’d learned where the edges were. When to stop. How not to blow herself up (Kamek had stressed that part a lot).
She looked down at Nine, at the way his power gathered, at the strange suit on his body.
“Jr,” she said quietly. “Spin up a shell for me.”
Junior, hovering nearby in his clown car after their Slice victory, gulped and tucked in without question. Grape planted himself like a bodyguard in front of the building entrance to keep any stray heroes away.
Far below, Bowser dropped to his knee.
To Nine’s scanner, it looked like fatigue.
To Eri, it looked like the exact opening she need.
"You're too easy." Nine said, ready to finish this
"Because I was setting you up." Bowser said, knowing damn well Eri wanted a new power
Eri took a breath.
Darkness coiled around her hand, not like fire, not like Ryukyu’s dragon shape, but like a hungry star.
“Supreme Art…” she murmured.
She stepped right off the roof.
Gravity grabbed her. She fell, dress snapping around her legs, horn-crown tilted back.
“…Singularity!”
The world tilted.
Everything went quiet for a heartbeat as all that darkness condensed into one point at her fingertip.
Then it fired.
From Midoriya’s distant vantage point, already sprinting to regroup with his friends, it looked like someone had punched a hole in the world and filled it with black lightning.
The beam slammed straight into Nine’s side.
Not center mass, she’d aimed for his original quirk, the one the scanner whispered to her about in that tiny fraction of time as the Singularity passed through his core.
Weather Manipulation.
The one he’d been born with.
The one whose signature still lingered deepest in his cells.
Nine screamed.
Not just from pain.
From exposure.
For a second, his body flickered in Eri’s vision into layers. Quirk factors like strands of light, wound through his DNA. At the center of the mess, one particular pattern glowed brighter, wild, swirling, tempestuous.
She seized it.
Singularity ripped that pattern’s blueprint out without physically removing the quirk itself. Instead, it made a copy, sealed it into a spinning black orb that flew back up the beam like a returning bullet and slammed into Eri’s palm.
She hit the ground a split second later, knees bending to take the force, the orb hovering over her hand, vibrating.
Nine staggered, Air Walls flickering, attack aborted.
The blast ripped through his limiter suit.
For months, Garaki’s tech had kept a lid on the alien power he’d stuffed into Nine’s body. Ztar energy, scavenged and adapted from something that had fallen through the same kind of crack that had brought Bowser’s castle here. It had been vented, regulated, trickled.
The Singularity beam didn’t care about “regulated.”
It tore through the masks and chest brace, shattered the containment plugs, and punched out the other side.
The canisters on his back exploded in bursts of purple vapor. The ten gray plugs along his collar and brace popped like corks.
For a heartbeat, everything stopped.
Then the Ztar power rushed in.
It flooded his cells, eager, vicious, black-and-violet energy licking through every crack. His failing tissue, previously shredded by Weather Manipulation knit in a surge, wounds sealing, degenerative damage vanishing.
Nine gasped, eyes going wide.
The constant background ache he’d lived with for years… stopped.
He felt… whole.
Stronger than ever.
Limitless.
He laughed, the sound sharp and a little too high.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Yes. This is what I need.”
He didn’t feel the other cost. The way the dark energy ate lifespan like candy, burning his candle from both ends. That was a problem for a later him.
Right now, he felt unstoppable.
Bowser, climbing out of a crater that Air Wall had slammed him into, blinked once.
“…that’s Ztar juice,” he said.
Eri, panting, the orb in her hand stabilizing, frowned. “Ztar?” she echoed. “Like the evil stars Kamek warned me about?”
“Yeah,” Bowser said. “It’s like Star Power’s mean cousin.”
He squinted at Nine, whose aura had turned jagged and wrong, purple arcs dancing over his skin, eyes glowing in a way that had nothing to do with his quirks.
“I did not put Ztars in this world,” Bowser muttered. “So either someone’s been raiding my trash, or someone brought them here."
Eri glanced at the orb in her hand. It pulsed, dark and wet, full of roaring wind and swirling clouds.
“You gonna keep that one?” Junior called down, wobbling in his clown car.
Eri nodded.
“Already works fine,” she said. “No need to tweak.”
She closed her fist.
The orb crunched like glass.
Weather Manipulation seeped into her veins, a cool, electric shiver under her skin. For a second, the sky above her seemed to roll in answer.
She grinned.
“That’s nice,” she murmured. “Might play with that later.”
Nine straightened fully, suit in tatters, skin crawling with dark veins that pulsed like living tattoos.
He flexed his fingers.
A wall of wind howled to life in front of him with zero strain. Lightning danced in his palm like a tame pet.
He stared at Bowser.
“This power,” he said softly, almost reverently. “This strength. Not even All For One gave me this.”
He smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Thank you,” he told Eri.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re welcome,” she said, “now die.”
Bowser rolled his shoulders. “Kid’s got her priorities straight,” he said.
He looked over his shoulder at Junior.
“Hey, Jr.”
Junior gulped. He’d been hoping Papa wouldn’t say that.
“…Yeah?” he said.
“Got that black paint on you?”
The clown car’s cargo hatch opened with a little clank. Inside, nestled among Bob-ombs and backup shells, sat a sealed jar of paint so black it seemed to eat the light around it.
Junior bit his lip. “You sure?” he asked. “Last time I did that you went full ‘AAAAA’ and Mario had to scratch you back to normal.”
Bowser snorted. “Yeah, yeah, I remember,” he said. “Lake with all the cat stuff, giant bells, screaming, good times.”
He flexed his claws, feeling the Ztar-charged air prickle against his scales.
“This time’s different,” he said. “I’ve practiced. I’ve got it under control… mostly. And I’m not letting some knockoff All For One with stolen Koopa trash out-bad guy me me on my own invasion day.”
Junior hesitated for about half a second.
Then he grinned.
“…Okay,” he said. “Let’s make everybody wet themselves.”
He grabbed the jar, popped the lid, and dumped the paint over Bowser’s back.
It spread unnaturally fast, slick shadows crawling over his shell, down his arms, across his chest, up his neck. His normal green scales vanished under oily black. Spikes darkened, then lit from within with molten yellow and red at the tips. His hair ignited into a brighter, more violent flame-red.
Eri stepped back instinctively, Grape yanking her a few paces away by the hem of her dress.
The air temperature dropped.
Clouds bunched overhead like clenched fists.
Thunder rumbled.
Nine’s eyes flicked upward.
Wait. That’s-
Rain started.
Not a sprinkle. Not a drizzle.
A wall of water slammed down out of nowhere, sheets of rain drenching the street in seconds. Lightning forked across the sky, thunder cracking almost simultaneously.
Nine reached for his Weather Manip Quirk, instinctively trying to push back, to redirect the storm, to calm the winds.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
His new Ztar-boosted power ran smack into something bigger and meaner.
Fury Bowser's storm.
Because this wasn’t normal rain.
This was Bowser’s rage made weather.
The black paint finished its work.
Bowser’s already formidable frame swelled, muscles bulging, shell expanding, horns elongating. His head seemed to shrink slightly relative to his massive chest and arms, making his body look even more monstrous.
His eyes opened.
No pupils. Just glowing, molten gold slits in a field of black.
He drew in a breath, and the storm bent toward him, rain curving slightly mid-fall around the aura of heat he exuded.
Lightning licked his shell spikes, dancing between them like playful cats with knives.
Every hero and villain within sight radius felt the same thing:
Predator.
Pure, undiluted, primally wrong.
Endeavor, miles away watching the broadcast feed in some hospital, would later see the recording and feel a chill crawl up his spine, the sensation uncomfortably similar to when All For One had turned his gaze on him at Kamino.
Nine took a half-step back despite himself.
This wasn’t in his data.
“What… is that?” he whispered.
Eri’s eyes sparkled like a kid on a festival night. She bounced on her toes, pointing at him.
“That,” she said happily, “is Papa when he’s really mad.”
Junior, drenched, hair plastered down, still grinned through the rain. “Fury Dad,” he said. “You’re so dead.”
Bowser straightened to his full, monstrous height, shadow dwarfing buildings, rain hissing into steam where it hit his skin.
He rolled his neck.
The sound was like boulders grinding.
Then he spread his arms, claws gleaming, and threw his head back.
The roar that ripped out of him wasn’t the usual cartoon bellow.
It was deeper. Harsher. A demonic echo that seemed to vibrate in the bones of everyone who heard it, shaking windows, rattling teeth, making even Goomboss pause mid-charge and blink.
Mushrooms, heroes, villains, children, they all looked toward the center of the island as the sound rolled over Nabu like a tidal wave.
Lightning struck the street beside him, carving a molten line.
Fury Bowser looked down at Nine, who Ztar or no Ztar suddenly felt very, very small.
Dark flames licked at the corners of Bowser’s mouth.
The rain intensified, as if the sky itself was trying to wash away what it had just seen and failing.
Bowser grinned, all teeth and apocalypse.
“SHOWTIME!!!!" he roared .
"Why does he always say that?" Eri asked tilting her head
"Because it's awesome." Jr said
