The alleyway rang with the echoes of battle—boots scraping against gravel, short bursts of breath, and the distant hum of a city that remained blissfully unaware of the storm unfolding above its streets. A soft breeze cut across the alley, tugging at loose fabric and shifting discarded debris, as if nature itself paused to witness what came next.
Aizawa stood firm, unmoving, the weight of the moment heavy in his posture. His breathing came slow and steady, not from fatigue, but from practiced control. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, tracing the curve of his jaw, but he didn't seem to notice. His red eyes—sharp, unblinking, resolute—were locked onto the figure just a few meters away.
Eidolon.
The boy's body trembled subtly, the tension in his muscles so taut he looked like a coiled spring ready to snap. His grip on the laser knife was tight, the tip quivering slightly with contained emotion. The filtered voice and armored exterior might've masked him to most, but Aizawa didn't see a villain.
He saw a child.
He saw Rei.
"You're not him," Aizawa said, his voice low but steady—like steel sheathed in calm. "You're not a monster. You're Rei."
There. A flicker. A barely perceptible flinch in Eidolon's shoulders, like an echo of a memory trying to surface.
"You don't know anything!" Eidolon barked, but even through the voice modulator, there was a crack in the foundation—something fragile beginning to show through.
"I know enough," Aizawa continued, unfazed. "I've seen what All For One does. What he turns people into. He doesn't make soldiers—he breaks them."
That was all it took. With a cry of fury, Eidolon lunged, laser knife flashing through the air like a streak of light. He attacked with trained precision—fast, fluid, unrelenting. Aizawa ducked the first swipe, his capture scarf whipping outward in an attempt to snare Eidolon's leg, but the boy twisted midair, landing in a crouch with practiced finesse.
"How do you know about him?!" Eidolon snarled, eyes blazing behind the mask. "You don't understand! He gave me purpose!"
"He took your purpose," Aizawa shot back. "Twisted it. Fed you lies until you believed them."
The words struck something. Eidolon's breathing hitched, his hand visibly shaking now. The laser knife wavered, its energy humming weakly. It was like he was caught between two voices—two selves—fighting for control inside his own skull.
Then came a loud crash. The rooftop shuddered slightly under the force of arrival. Kamui Woods vaulted over the edge, his tree-like limbs extending outward in defensive coils.
"You alright, Eraser?" he called, branches snapping into readiness.
"Still breathing," Aizawa replied tersely, stepping back to let Kamui move into position.
A second figure climbed into view, slower, but just as determined. Energi, his armor dented and scraped, the blue glow of his quirk still flickering across his gauntlets. His eyes immediately locked on Eidolon.
"You could've killed him," Energi said, his voice sharp, laced with a pain that went far deeper than physical wounds. "You nearly did."
Eidolon's head tilted slightly. "That was the mission," he replied, but the words sounded hollow—like something rehearsed too many times to still carry meaning.
"That wasn't you," Energi stepped forward. "Rei, I know you're still in there. You're not just some weapon. You never were."
Eidolon let out a choked noise, something between a growl and a scream. One of his ghost hands burst forth, racing toward Energi like a spear of translucent rage—only for it to slam into a hastily-raised shield, the energy shimmering as it barely held together.
Kamui countered immediately, a wide net of interwoven branches sweeping forward like a massive fan. The spectral hand collided with the wooden limbs, snapping several apart in an explosion of bark and splinters.
Aizawa blinked. In that instant, Eidolon froze. Another opening revealed.
"Why do you keep calling me that?!" Eidolon roared, fists clenched at his sides. "That name doesn't belong to me anymore! He took it!"
"No, Rei's the one who just spared Energi's life," Aizawa said softly. "He hesitated. That was you."
Eidolon's chest rose and fell rapidly. He looked at the three of them—cornered, overwhelmed. The mask made it hard to read his face, but there was something in the way his body sagged, ever so slightly. Fear. Fatigue. Uncertainty.
"No..." he whispered. "I'm not... I'm not him anymore..."
Energi took a slow step forward, his voice quieter now, almost pleading. "We all lost Strikeline. I know what it did to me. I can't imagine what it did to you. But you're still here, Rei. You're still fighting. That has to mean something."
"You don't get to say that!" Eidolon screamed. His voice cracked, raw with fury and pain. "You weren't the one broken! You didn't wake up in agony every day! You didn't bleed on the floor while he smiled and told you it was progress! You didn't forget your own name!"
The words landed like a shockwave. Kamui's branches stilled. Aizawa's eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in grief.
"You were just a kid," Aizawa said. "None of that was your fault."
"Stop calling me that!" Eidolon shouted, and another ghost hand formed. But Aizawa's eyes narrowed—snuffing it out in an instant.
"It's your name. And I'll say it until you remember who you are."
With a cry of frustration, Eidolon rushed forward again, knife gleaming in hand, swinging wide at Aizawa. But Energi moved first, intercepting the blow with a reinforced armguard, then firing a blast at point-blank range into Eidolon's chest.
The boy was thrown back, tumbling across the rooftop with a gasp of pain. He landed hard and stayed still for a moment, winded.
But slowly… he rose.
Eidolon's eyes burned with pure, unfiltered hatred. His breathing came fast now, ragged, each gasp fueling the storm of darkness in his veins. Even beneath the mask, the tension in his shoulders spoke volumes: this wasn't Rei anymore—it was a weapon set to destroy.
A crack of silent signal within his mind. His moment. He rushed forward in a flash of motion.
Energi didn't hesitate. With practiced reflex, he slapped his hand forward, summoning his glowing energy shield.
Boom!
Eidolon slammed into it with brutal force, the impact rattling the concrete beneath their feet. He rebounded, propelled backward, eyes still blazing. He spun midair, using his momentum to pivot, and launched himself headlong across the rooftop—only to end up charging at Kamui Woods.
Kamui's wooden branches swirled defensively, but he hadn't anticipated such ferocity. Eidolon's laser knife flicked out faster than thought, cutting through the woodstock armor like wet paper.
Crunch—
The knife sank into Kamui's side, narrowly missing his ribs. Kamui's arm went slack, and he crumpled to one knee, pain registering on his face.
"Kamui!" Aizawa shouted, voice tight.
Eidolon barely noticed. His eyes flicked up, landing on Energi again—still standing, still defiantly holding his ground. With a guttural roar, he darted toward him, faster than before.
Target locked.
Boom!
This time, Energi didn't have time to raise his shield. Eidolon's shoulder slammed into him with shattering speed, knocking Energi clear across the rooftop. A metallic crack echoed as he slammed into the wall, sliding down in a slump.
Aizawa's breath caught.
Another moment.
Eidolon stood alone now.
Only one threat remained.
Aizawa took a careful step back, boots crunching against the gritty rooftop surface. His body remained composed, shoulders square, every movement deliberate. Outwardly, he was a statue of control. But beneath the stillness—beneath the mask of calm—a war waged in silence. His heart pounded like a slow, heavy drum. His throat was dry, and every breath came like it had to be earned. And still, when he spoke, his voice came low and even, like a rope extended into the abyss.
"Rei—please. Don't let him win."
It wasn't a command. It wasn't even a plea. It was the softest kind of resistance: a father's voice, a teacher's hope, a desperate man trying to reach the child lost beneath all that armor.
Eidolon advanced, footfall after footfall echoing like hammer strikes in the still night. His body moved with unnatural grace, every motion too smooth, too calculated. Like a puppet obeying strings pulled tight from below. The black armor swallowed the light, but Aizawa didn't need to see his face. He could feel the cold, thick fog of darkness pouring off the boy—like poison heat rolling from the mouth of a furnace.
It was suffocating.
Eidolon raised the knife in his hand. The blade shimmered in the moonlight—thin, cruel, and humming with barely contained energy.
Swish—
Then, he launched forward.
The motion was sudden, explosive—a blur of speed and lethal intent. But Aizawa didn't flinch. He didn't run.
He activated his quirk.
His red eyes ignited, flaring like twin embers in the darkness. The air crackled with invisible energy as his Erasure field expanded, locking onto Eidolon's quirk like a spotlight on a phantom.
In an instant—poof—the ghost hands vanished. Dissolved into nothing mid-reach, their power blinked out like a dying star. The laser knife, still gripped in Eidolon's hand, froze just inches from its arc.
Everything stopped.
The rooftop became deathly still, wrapped in a cocoon of silence so complete it felt unreal. Even the wind seemed to hold back. A frozen frame in time.
Then—
Thud!
A shadow dropped from the sky.
A figure crashed into Eidolon's back with bone-jarring force.
It was EmPee.
His descent had been silent, precise—a calculated dive from the rooftop's upper ledge. He landed directly atop Eidolon's armored frame, knocking the breath out of him with the sheer force of his fall. EmPee's legs straddled the boy's shoulders, his hands slamming down against the back plate of Eidolon's armor in one smooth, practiced motion.
And in that same instant, he triggered his quirk.
BOOM.
A wave of electromagnetic force erupted outward, silent but devastating. It spread like a ripple across the rooftop—distorting the air, causing lights to flicker and electronic panels nearby to sputter and die. The surge slammed into Eidolon's systems all at once.
His body arched.
Muscles clenched violently.
The armor sparked, seams flashing with brief bursts of white-blue light. His limbs jerked uncontrollably as the electromagnetic pulse ravaged his nervous system and any internal electronics supporting the suit. The knife dropped from his hand with a clang, bouncing against the rooftop before skittering to a stop several feet away.
Eidolon collapsed in a heap. A tangle of twitching limbs and sparking joints.
Aizawa exhaled slowly—just one breath, tightly measured—and took a cautious step forward.
But EmPee immediately held up a hand.
"Let him crash first," he said, voice low and harsh, like a warning pulled from the edge of battle. His gauntlet still glowed with faint energy, small arcs dancing across his fingers. The rooftop lights reflected in his eyes, making him look ghostly and grim.
Aizawa nodded once and stopped, watching closely.
Eidolon stirred.
He groaned, body sluggish and disoriented. His limbs jerked slightly, spasming like a machine trying to restart after a system-wide failure. But this time—this time there was no rage behind it. No screaming charge. No fury.
His head lifted slowly, as though dragged upward by invisible chains.
His eyes—unfocused beneath the mask—fluttered open. Blinking against dizziness, struggling to orient himself, to understand. To remember.
He saw the figures around him.
Aizawa.
EmPee.
Kamui Woods—injured, slumped against the rooftop wall, wooden limbs splintered and curling like broken fingers.
And something behind his breath hitched. Recognition. Maybe not full. Maybe not conscious. But there was something there. Something real.
He tried to rise.
His arm scraped across the rooftop, the palm slapping against concrete. A sound small enough to get lost in the city—but it echoed loud in that moment.
EmPee tensed.
He stepped forward, hand glowing again.
"Stop," he said.
Another EMP pulse rippled from his palm.
Eidolon crashed down again, spine arching from the impact, his body sparking once more.
But he didn't stay down.
He refused to.
He blinked hard. He clenched his fists. He groaned, as if dragging himself out of the depths of a nightmare by force alone.
He was still trying.
Trying to move.
Trying to get somewhere.
Aizawa crouched down, his motions slow, non-threatening. His voice dropped even further, speaking not as a hero—but as someone who cared deeply, hopelessly, for the person in front of him.
"Rei," he said. "This is halftime. Not the end."
His words were like a tether dropped into stormwater—something to cling to. Something that refused to be washed away.
Eidolon trembled.
Another flicker of movement.
He shifted a hand—not in anger, not to strike—but toward Aizawa.
There was no quirk.
No blade.
Just a single, trembling finger, extended as though reaching out in confusion. Or in need.
EmPee's breath caught in his throat.
Kamui stirred as well, reaching out from his spot on the ground. One of his branches lifted shakily, extended—not to bind, but to support.
Eidolon's gaze wandered, eyes tracking the movement. A storm of thoughts churned behind that visor.
"I…" he started. The word broke before it could be finished. It barely escaped at all.
But it was real.
His lower lip, hidden beneath the helmet, trembled.
The knife lay forgotten behind him. His entire posture shifted, as if the weight of what had been done—and what he had done—was pressing down now, heavier than any blow.
The armor sagged.
Shoulders drooped.
He looked smaller.
Exhausted.
Aizawa stood slowly, his gaze never leaving the boy.
"Let us help you," he said. The words were steady, not soft, but firm with purpose. "We're not letting you go back in there. Not alone."
Eidolon didn't reply.
He didn't have to.
His hand dropped, falling limply to the concrete.
He didn't attack again.
He didn't flee.
He didn't resist.
He just slumped forward, the black armor groaning faintly as he collapsed fully onto the rooftop, head bowed.
And in that moment—in the hollow space between action and aftermath—there was no cheering.
No celebration.
Just breathless, aching silence.
But inside that silence, something stirred.
Not victory.
Not defeat.
Something quieter. Something deeper.
Something that hadn't dared to show its face for a long, long time.
Hope.