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CHAPTER START---
Standing in the tunnel leading to the arena Todoroki watches the crowd once again lose themselves as Midnight announces his next match.
With a sigh he raises his left hand, creating a small flickering flame in his palm. "Midoriya... you showed me what it means to be a hero, to help people," he crushes the flame in his hand, snuffing it out. "But I don't know how ready I am to start moving forward, but maybe I can help someone else..."
He sees Horizon enter the arena, hands in his pockets, not waving to the audience at all.
'Something is off,' Shoto realizes, Horizon's showmanship was suddenly taking a back seat, he was far more serious.
After Midnight announces his name Shoto begins slowly walking to the arena, his mind working overtime to go over his plan one last time. An exercise in futility.
'Freeze him as fast as possible, if that fails and he summons his sword I can use my heat to displace the Air Slashes...' he thinks, keeping it simple and adaptive.
"Are both of you ready?" Midnight asks, and neither boy reacts.Horizon just looks down on Shoto, and he looks up at Horizon who was towering over him. Only ten meters between them.
But from this far away the presence of Horizon felt more intense, as if he went from being mildly annoyed at everyone to being outright pissed. All for a reason Shoto couldn't understand.
"Uh, ok," Midnight said awkwardly, "BEGIN!"
Todoroki immediately lowers his stance, feeling the right side of his body cool down, a thick layer of ice spreads across the arena, cracking and breaking up before reaching Horizon.
'Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall!'
The ice on the floor erupts into a sharp burst of ice thrusting up at Horizon, and the moment it's about to make contact.
SHAMBLES!
His vision is suddenly blocked as Horizon appears in front of him, his right hand outstretched already and touching Shoto's chest.
MES!
"Hng!" Todoroki stumbles back, vision going blurry for a moment as he drops to one knee, breathing heavily. He looks up, trying and barely forcing himself to stand, seeing Horizon looking down on him with both hands at his sides.
Stumbling back one more time Shoto raises his right arm, trying to launch more ice, only for him to feel as if he got the wind knocked out of him. Wincing in pain and nearly doubling over he sees Horizon tilt his head slightly.
"My Quirk!"
"You really should have kept your mouth shut," Horizon says before stepping forward, connecting a solid right cross to Shoto's face.
His vision goes black for a moment as he feels his body crumple toward the floor, only for searing pain on his head as Horizon catches him by the hair, holding him up.
"Mmm," Todoroki's words fail, seeing blood dripping from his mouth, three teeth clattered across the floor.
"So weak," Horizon says, holding Todoroki by the hair a few inches off the floor, much to the horror of everyone watching.
Fighting through the pain Todoroki raises his right hand to Horizon's face, intent on using his Quirk once more.
SHAMBLES!
They both appear a few meters away at the ice structure Shoto made, with Horizon slamming him into it face first.
SHAMBLES!
They appear at a different piece of the ice and Horizon smashes his face in one more time.
Todoroki hangs limply in his hand, easily getting tossed back to the middle of the arena, rolling a few times before crumpling to the floor, blood running down his face from his mouth and forehead as Horizon walks up to him.
Shoto fights through the pain, forcing himself to sit up, looking up at Horizon with confusion and anger, glaring as best he can with a bloody face.
Midnight raises a hand to her earpiece as Horizon casually walks over to Shoto, "Nezu, he's gonna kill him," she mutters.
"No he won't," Nezu says. "He's being a bit rougher than usual, clearly something is off, but he won't kill him. The risk isn't worth it."
'What the hell does that mean,' Midnight wonders, seeing Horizon standing above Shoto. 'So he won't kill him because of the risk instead of because it would be the wrong thing to do...not much of a hero.'
Shoto once again fruitlessly thrusts his hand forward, this time his left hand, trying desperately to make a flame so Horizon would have to back away, adrenaline and fear gripping his heart and mind as nothing happens.
And in response Horizon only tilts his head, hearing the audience murmuring, trying to figure out what happened.
"You still haven't realized? Your Quirk doesn't work anymore."
"Hngh?" Todoroki's swollen and bloody mouth can't even form words, but the audience echoes his confusion.
Horizon sighs, deciding to start his big debut scene now, he can already hear the people all around the world constantly screaming his name, and he'd get to teach Todoroki never to talk about his family again...
"Your Quirk has three simple weaknesses," Horizons says. "Overuse your right side and you get frostbite, left side leads to heat exhaustion...but even if you could perfectly control them, you still need stamina. All I did was remove the source of your stamina, and without it, your body won't allow you to activate that Quirk, no matter how badly you want it."
Todoroki looks up at him, not understanding what he meant at all, then stares down at his hands, currently kneeling before Horizon.
Trying and failing to create fire or ice.
"Here, let me show you," Horizon holds out a hand, and in it appears a beating heart, red and healthy, preserved in a jelly-like clear cube. "Your stamina engine..."
Todoroki's heavy labored breathing suddenly becomes desperate panicked pants. Sweating profusely as he grips his chest, tearing at his shirt and undershirt. His body and mind flooded with panic and fear.
All while some of the audience reel back in horror or lose their lunch.
"IS THAT HIS FREAKING HEART?!" Mic screams, followed by terrified murmurs all around the stadium.
A moment later Shoto rips open his top, exposing his creamy skin, well-defined abs, and a square hole in the middle of his chest where his heart should be.
He completely freezes, looking into his own body.
Even more people lose their lunch as the cameras focus on him and the beating heart in Horizon's hand.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine unless something happens to this," Horizon gestures to the heart, then give it a light squeeze.
"Arrngh!" Shoto screams out, clutching his hollow chest and doubling over. "Oh don't be such a baby, I barely touched it," Horizon scoffs.
Todoroki reaches up, still in immense pain he desperately reaches for his heart, only for Horizon to take one step back taunting him.
"This should teach you never to talk about my family," Horizon says, clear for everyone to hear him.
He raises his free hand, summoning his sword to his palm, and immediately swings down.
"NO!" Midnight rips her costume, releasing a pink mist.
But he'd already slashed Shoto, slashing his head diagonally, seemingly killing him.
Everyone reels back in horror but Horizon dodges Midnight's whip before warping away, just in time to avoid Cementoss's cement attack, a wave of the substance trying to swallow him.
"HE'S NOT DEAD!" Horizon yells, causing both Pros to freeze, still glaring at him, but their eyes flicker off to the side for a moment.
They see Todoroki cut into two pieces on the floor, his arm reaching out randomly, confused and dizzy.
And Endeavor is already kneeling beside him, not sure if he should reach out and help or just wait, frozen in fear and confusion, all his flames currently shut off as his world crumbles apart.
Midnight is the first in the arena to snap to her senses, everyone else still staring in shock, "HORIZON! This must be one of your Quirks, start explaining or you're disqualified!" she says, ignoring whatever interests Nezu had in the boy.
Unable to stand by as someone possibly kills one of her students.
Horizon straightens up, still surrounded by the pink mist she was emitting, her Quirk, Somnambulist, a powerful sleeping agent that's even more potent against men.
"Quirk, singular," he says, straightening up and summoning his scabbard onto the blade, holding his sword in his left hand and Shoto's heart in his right as he makes his grand reveal."
"My Quirk gives me multiple abilities, each capable of being a powerful Quirk on their own," he looks at the surprised faces of the crowd, until now many people either didn't bother trying to solve his Quirk or assumed it was some sort of spacial control ability.
"Obviously, everyone has seen my warping," he shrugs. "And you all know about my healing, but..
AMPUTATE, those are my ranged slashes," he lifts his sword to draw their eyes to it. "A lot of range and they divide things as they are, overcoming feeble things like resistance and material composition, if it exists, I can divide it."
"We thought those were Air Slash," Midnight says.
"And now you know better, I simply cut reality," he says with a humourous tone, as if suppressing a giggle at all the surprised faces. "Any living thing I cut with the ranged slashes is harmlessly divided of course, "he raises the beating heart.
"Next I suppose is Counter-Shock, it lets me generate electricity.
Takt, again, not Telekinesis, I just order the world to move and it obeys.
Booster-Shot, temporary surge in physical strength.
Injection-Shot, invisible bullets that also ignore defenses, they only do internal damage...
And a few other things I'll keep up my sleeve, but that's all everyone has seen me use today, you'll have to keep watching for more," he says casually, enjoying all the murmuring from the crowd.
"What kind of Quirk is that?" Midnight asks, both intrigued and wary of him, no longer sure if he was even human.
"A virtually endless bag of tricks, the ability to manipulate the world around me in whatever way I desire, that's the power of my Quirk, HAND OF GOD!" He boldly announces. "Japan's first, and the world's second...Mystery Class Quirk!"
For a long moment, everyone is so surprised that they're silent.
Then realization hits.
They have a Mystery Class Quirk.
A superhuman prodiy at UA.
Training to protect them.
To be a hero and fight for them.
They have a new top-tier hero right in front of them.
And the crowd goes absolutely wild, screaming and cheering to the point that Horizon felt as if they were trying to rupture his eardrums.
"Oh, and one more thing," he makes a show of taking a deep breath, pulling in as much of Midnight's sleeping gas as possible before breathing out, and everyone gets quiet to listen in, excited to learn more about their future superhero.
"Mortal ailments and diseases don't really work on me because...well, you get it, right?" he asks jokingly, seeing Midnight just blankly staring at him as he shrugs off her Quirk. "But hey, at least you smell good."
She blushes slightly at that but quickly looks unamused as he walks over to Shoto and Endeavor.
"You can have this back," he says to them, tossing the heart down at Shoto only for Endeavor to quickly react, snapping out of his trance and gently catching it. "Next time he runs his mouth about my family I won't be putting him back together for you."
Horizon snaps his fingers, and Shoto's pieces flicker about for a moment before he appears perfectly assembled on the floor in front of his dad, completely unconscious from the shock of being divided and the heart attack.
"Todoroki is unable to battle, Horizon wins," Midnight announces in a confused and worried voice, immediately running over to Shoto and calling some medical robots to help her.
Endeavor barely snaps out of his stupor as the robots arrive with a stretcher, and by the time he looks across the arena, Horizon is long gone.
Another person he was destined to play second place to suddenly appeared...
Sitting in the locker room Horizon idly scrolls through his 'Yay!' page, watching his follower count climb to twenty million as his name is trending.
His mind no longer as angry now that's he's slapped Todoroki around a bit...
---Kamino Ward, Tokyo, Japan...
Sitting in his large chair All For One mutes Shigaraki's video call and turns to doctor Garaki who sat beside him, narrating the action of what happens on screen since All For One had no eyes, only 'seeing' with infrared.
While Shigaraki was ranting about how unfair it is for the heroes to have that cheat code called Horizon, the adults decided to have a constructive conversation.
"A Mystery Class Quirk," Garaki says. "To think a third would appear so early, and within our very own borders..."
"Hmm, but this is also problematic, Nezu has him in that fortress six days a week," All For One says. "We can't get to him in there unless I go in person, even if we send Gigantomachi he can't capture someone who will warp away."
"Neither can you, at least not yet," Garaki says.
"Mmm, my sources within the Hero Commission are slow but useful, apparently Nezu kept his information from them as well."
"But even if that plan works, is engaging him truly wise?" Garaki asks. "Mystery Class Quirks are head and shoulders above all others, that was the reason we sent Arsenal to kill that girl all those years ago in America...too bad her sister also had the same Quirk,that damn Star and Stripe..."
"Yes but this time I'm sure we can have some leverage to bring him to us, and I'll be using Shake Down."
"That will kill you!" Garaki yells.
"Relax doctor," All For One chuckles at his friend's worry. "I won't be using it directly, we'll place it in a Nomu."
"Hmm, I won't have enough time to clone it in that case with the amount of Nomus we're currently making, but I suppose with a Quirk like that you only need one use."
"Precisely, we simply need to wait for our spies to do their job..."
All For One then unmutes Shigaraki's screen and the incessant rambling about the unfairness of this whole situation continues, causing both men to groan in annoyance.
Since the appearance of this new walking miracle, All For One couldn't care any less for his apprentice, now only keeping him around to hurt All Might.
Both he and doctor Garaki were counting down the days until they could dispose of him...
---Off The Coast Of New York...
Standing atop a next-gen X Class fighter jet America's number 1 hero stands tall, moving 3000 kilometers per hour, the wind blowing her long blonde hair.
Standing at 6ft4 -193cm-, the same height as Law, but slightly more muscular. Her entire costume is styled like an American flag, her cape made of red and white stripes, long and flowing. Blonde hair modeled after All Might's. And the entire skin-tight suit is red and blue with the same stripes as her cape mixed in. Metal bracing around her midsection and shoulders purely for aesthetics.
Smiling proudly, Star and Stripe, America's number 1 hero, and currently the single most powerful person in the world.
Casually walking across the hull of the black jet under her feet, as if it weren't even moving, Star makes her way to the front and leans forward, looking through the glass to wave at the pilot.
Inside she sees a brown-skinned man seemingly made of rock, average height and build but shaped strangely, with a bushy white mustache, hand on the flight juke controlling the aircraft.
"How is the sports festival going?" Star asks commander Agpar.
"The first semi-final match is starting," he says. "It's Endeavors son against that Horizon kid."
"Did All Might make an appearance yet?" Star asks, her inner fanboy coming out.
"How about we deal with this nuke then you can watch it yourself, he'll probably only show up for the medal ceremo---" they're both cut off by a beeping in their ears.
Star immediately stands upright atop the plane and folds her arms across her chest, focusing her eyes to see kilometers away.
"It's on the radar now, get ready," Agpar says.
"Yeah, I can see it," she says. "Fly directly into the nuke, let's make this quick so I don't miss All Might's appearance, you keep an eye on the tournament for me..."
"Damn Evolutionists," Agpar grumbles. "If we could just bait out their leaders we'd be able to lock them all up, bunch of cowards won't show up as long as you're in America..."
"Can't blame them," Star chuckles, "I'm the strongest woman in the world..."
They both immediately notice the dot on the horizon, the nuclear missile heading directly for Manhattan, powerful enough to crater the entire island.
After Agpar sets them on a collision course he turns back to his phone, watching the sports festival live as Star deals with the nuke, there couldn't a more relaxed duo in the face of a superweapon.
As the missile gets close enough Star activates her own Myster Class Quirk.
"NEW ORDER: The Atmosphere around me will gather and materialize into an avatar of me, one thousand times my size!" Star decrees, and her Quirk makes it so.
Around and behind her the air gets heavy, invisible to the naked eye but to her, she saw a naked version of herself, a colossus of solid air with the jet at the waist. Smiling fearlessly as the missile gets closer.
She throws a quick jab, and the avatar does the same, making contact head-on with the missile and detonating it a kilometer away.
Star and Agpar fly directly toward it, not that they had a choice with the jet already being inside the 10km blast radius, 2310 technology truly is no laughing matter after all.
With a thought she deactivates her order, and the avatar immediately disappears. She extends her right arm forward after quickly moving to stand at the very nose of the plane, making sure the blast wave would hit her before the plane.
"NEW ORDER: The nuclear explosion and connected shockwave will compress into a spear for me to throw!"
The moment the shockwave touches her hand, exactly what she said occurs.
New Order, the Mystery Class Quirk, bestowing the wielder with the voice of god. Allowing her to speak and bend reality, with limitations of course.
A common trend between the two Quirks of this class to exist.
While Hand Of God makes the user act as god, imposing their will on the world with them standing at the center of their universe, this simply allows the user to become the voice of god, imposing their will on reality through words.
While Hand Of God has much less limits after an ability is created, New Order allows its user to effectively change the world at will, but the trade is that New Order has many more requirements for activation.
But Hand Of God has clear limits in itself. Such as the way it can only exert that much will onto other living beings. Making Law unable to simply grab people and toss them around while alive. Or the fact that every time Law uses Shambles he first locates the object or person within his room, the more focus and energy he takes to perform an in-depth SCAN of the area the faster he will run out of stamina.
It is for this reason he doesn't simply use dust particles to warp about, as focusing on them would completely drain him after two or three warps at best. Anything an average human would be able to see and hold is many orders of magnitude easier and more energy efficient.
But neither Hand of God nor New Order can do truly anything, simply because God cannot tamper with free will.
If these truths were made public, the classification would almost unanimously change from Mystery Class to Divine Class.
So it's to the surprise of no one when the nuclear explosion compresses into a spear shorter than Star herself.
Holding the red spear of energy and force in her grasp, Star rears back her arm and puts her back into a throw. With her immense physical power, currently, the strongest on the planet. Combined with the weightless nature of the spear itself, the clouds above them shatter as a red trailing beam is left in the wake of her throw.
Saving millions of lives and doing more than most of the world's heroes can, with two simple commands...the strength of Mastery Level 80, Mystery Class Quirk.
One-VS-One, compared to every other combatant on the planet, at least in their current state, Star and Stripe is entirely invincible, she simply will not lose.
Agpar simply sits back and continues watching the sports festival, even as a beam of red energy rockets toward the sky and pierces the outer atmosphere.
Sending the nuclear blast safely into space.
"Uh...Star," Agpar says, a hint of concern in his voice. "I'm changing our route to Washington DC."
"Huh, what's going on, did President Harrison call?"
"No, but he will...apparently his doctor is Japan's new rising star."
Star chuckles at that, "that Horizon kid, not surprising since he can warp."
"Yeah, not just warp...looks like you aren't the only Mystery Class anymore..."
Star's smile falters as she stands with her arms folded, raising a finger to tap her chin as she considers what this may mean for them and the world.
Then her smile returns.
"Well then, I can't wait to meet him..."
END CHAPTER---
For anyone wondering, if Star fought Horizon to the death as they are currently...he has almost no chance of surviving. Been waiting for weeks for ya'll to get to this chapter :)