CHAPTER 218: CHAPTER 218: ALCATRAZ.

--Saturday, May 30, 2172

At the back, Mirko, like the other heroes, was sent flying by the shockwaves released from the attacks of All Might, Kai, and Salem. But even as she shielded her face from the fragments of rock shooting out like shrapnel, the rabbit heroine couldn’t help but gaze with shining eyes at the young man in the black armor. Even her rabbit ears seemed completely focused on him.

With her red eyes gleaming with a predatory light, Mirko watched as the two colossal flying slashes created by Kai, crackling with electricity, raced toward the spider’s back at an absurd speed. But to her surprise, just before the slashes hit the spider, strange ripples formed over it, as if it were a pond, and the attacks ended up ’sinking’ and disappearing.

At that moment, the ground shook even more violently, and as the tunnel began to collapse, the floor rose up as if it were the spider’s maw, trying to swallow All Might in a single bite. Simultaneously, the spider that looked like a furnace began to glow dangerously, which pushed Mirko’s alertness to the maximum. That spider seemed to be preparing to explode.

Alarmed, Mirko kicked a falling rock nearby, trying to propel herself toward the ground. But just as she was about to land, a powerful feline roar made the entire tunnel tremble. Looking up, Mirko saw Kai’s black panther standing in front of the furnace-like spider with its mouth wide open. In front of the panther’s maw, there was a bluish energy sphere nearly a meter in diameter, releasing thick arcs of electricity.

"Detroit Smash!!!"

At that moment, All Might’s powerful voice echoed everywhere, and the stone maw exploded into a thousand pieces, which shot out like shrapnel at absurd speeds in every direction.

"Get down!!"

Shino shouted urgently as she threw herself to the ground. At the same time, with a panicked expression, Ryuko also dove to the ground and created a barrier about a meter high. The barrier was made up of several layers of hardened earth and metal in equal parts.

Recovering from the stupor caused by such a tremendous display of power, the heroes threw themselves to the ground. As the barriers Ryuko created began to break apart under the shockwaves and shrapnel, Ryukyu, the dragon woman, looked at Shino and asked in a solemn tone, using the mental link that the red-armored heroine had created.

[Who is the man in the black armor? Not only is he ridiculously strong, but even his panther seems to rival All Might!]

[...] Shino fell silent at the question, watching the distant battle with a solemn expression.

Not willing to let the question go—mainly because of the danger such colossal power represented—Ryukyu prepared to press Shino for answers. But before she could do so, Ragdoll’s voice echoed in her mind, making an announcement that left her paralyzed for a few moments.

[He’s my husband! He’s really strong, but he doesn’t want to be a hero! The only reason he’s here is to protect us!!]

[You’re married?] Kamui Woods asked, visibly incredulous. Tomoko, with a proud look on her face, answered cheerfully.

[Yes! But it’s a secret! Don’t tell anyone!!]

[So you’re the one the kid was talking about!]

Mirko commented, realization dawning on her. Tomoko nodded proudly, which put complicated expressions on Shino and Ryuko. At that moment, Mirko asked with a huge grin.

[Hey Ragdoll, lend him to me now and then. I like him!]

[That’s fine. But you’ll have to convince him yourself!]

Tomoko replied cheerfully, as if she were talking about something completely casual. Edgeshot and Kamui Woods exchanged glances, their faces full of disbelief. Meanwhile, Shino and Ryuko traded bitter smiles. As for Mirko, she laughed happily, as if she’d just heard the best joke in the world, then replied with a huge grin.

[You’re really strange, but I like your style!]

[Could you stop talking about someone while he’s in a life-or-death battle with a super-powerful spider?]

At that moment, Kai’s calm voice echoed in everyone’s mind, making them feel a strange sense of embarrassment, like when the teacher catches you slacking off in class. But all those odd feelings were suddenly erased when thick black arcs of electricity crackled above their heads, followed by brutal shockwaves and literal hurricanes that threatened to send them flying once again.

...

With such incredible speed that he disappeared from sight for an instant, All Might began to move around the mountain-shaped spider, nimbly dodging shrapnel and the creature’s quick attacks with its legs. At the same time, the Symbol of Peace executed the classic boxing jab-cross, creating brutal consecutive shockwaves that ended up shattering the spider’s legs one by one.

Meanwhile, Kai began to kick the air with force, appearing and disappearing in different spots around the black spider—locations from which he launched powerful flying slashes. Some of these attacks were blocked by the spider, while others managed to hit their target.

These strikes had managed to remove almost all the spider’s legs, as well as two of its eyes and more than half of its abdomen. But even so, the spider was still alive and fought back with spears made of webbing that appeared out of nowhere.

[These spiders are just too tough...] Kai sent a telepathic message to his trusted assistant, his tone a bit bitter, but then he added, sounding a little more thoughtful.

[Although, just as I suspected. The spider’s spatial control has its limits, both in range and in speed. Also, it seems to consume a lot of energy—its ’voice’ is fading pretty quickly.]

[That’s only natural, master. It costs us a lot of aura too. Even the male Drider, who was much more powerful, took pauses between teleportations.] Sage replied in a calm tone, her wings shining with different colors as she wore her female guard uniform. Kai responded in a calm voice.

[That’s true. Although I feel that the way this spider manipulates space is much more compatible with what we want to do with the ’Inner Palace.’ We need to capture it or, at the very least, make a full copy like we did with the Drider.]

[I’m on it, master.] Sage answered seriously. Meanwhile, Kai glanced at Salem’s fight out of the corner of his eye, having sensed something odd in the ’voice’ of the spider he was fighting.

"Salem, shoot at All Might’s spider."

Noticing that Salem was about to shoot at the furnace-like spider, which seemed on the verge of exploding, Kai quickly gave a calm order. All Might immediately stepped forward at super speed, then delivered an uppercut to the air right beneath the spider and announced loudly. All Might’s powerful blow generated a massive upward air cannon that sent the spider flying upward.

"Detroit Smash!!"

In perfect sync, Salem turned his head and let out a powerful roar. The huge sphere of energy in front of Salem’s maw shot forward at high speed toward the spider. Thanks to the powerful upward air cannon, both the spider and the sphere of electrical energy were launched upward, blasting through all the earth in their path and threatening to reach the surface.

"All Might, let’s both go after the one that’s about to explode—let’s send it into the sky."

Sending a rapid volley of flying slashes at the black spider, Kai announced in a firm voice. As the black spider crashed against the wall from Kai’s attacks, now left without legs or a stomach, All Might quickly replied while moving toward the furnace spider.

"On the count of three."

Kai swiftly threw the sword he was holding in his right hand at what was left of the black spider’s torso, focusing his full Conqueror’s Haki on it, then shot toward the furnace spider. When the sword pinned the black spider to the wall, creating cracks that spread out like a web, Kai arrived at All Might’s side. Kai’s right fist was tightly clenched, surrounded by ominous, dark arcs of electricity.

"1, 2, 3. Detroit Smash!!" All Might counted down and shouted loudly, once again delivering a brutal uppercut toward the furnace spider.

"Electric Collapse."

For his part, Kai announced in a neutral voice as he sent an uppercut in sync with All Might’s. But just as the two shockwaves collided, a powerful electric explosion erupted right beneath the spider, further boosting the upward air cannon.

With unstoppable force, the air cannon created a tunnel toward the surface and sent the spider shooting through it at an absurd speed. At that moment, Kai sent a mental message through the mental room Shino had created.

[Let’s move; this place is about to collapse.]

...

In the back, where the heroes were barely managing to stay on the ground thanks to Ryuko’s metal cables, everyone saw the place start to cave in, with huge rocks about to fall on their heads. At that moment, All Might sent a punch their way, unleashing a shockwave that blasted the falling rocks away.

At the same time, Ryuko manipulated the ground to create pillars of earth that moved everyone toward All Might and Kai. Halfway through, Mirko jumped from her earth pillar and landed in front of Kai, grinning widely as she looked at the black spider impaled against the shattered wall.

"You’re really impressive, kid. We need to train together."

"Sure, but let’s get out of here alive first."

Kai replied in a calm tone as he sent several flying slashes with his left sword to destroy the debris falling from the ceiling. But just then, the ground shook violently, and through the hole All Might and Kai had created to the surface, flaming air began to pour down.

"Let’s go!!"

All Might quickly ordered, and all the heroes started running through the tunnel, getting as far away as possible from the collapsing area. Meanwhile, Kai, who was bringing up the rear, couldn’t help but look at Sage, who had her delicate hand on the spider while in [In] mode. Kai asked in a worried tone through the mental connection they shared.

[Did it work?]

[Yes! Forcibly cutting the neural connection was effective, master! Alcatraz detected it as defeated!] As she returned to her master’s side, Sage replied in an excited tone, which made Kai smile. The blue-eyed boy gave his next order in a visibly satisfied tone.

[Perfect. Now time it precisely. Just before the explosion reaches the spider, isolate it. Make it look like the explosion consumed it.]

[I’ll do that.] Sage replied with a beautiful smile as her dress shifted back to her usual blue light gown. Kai nodded and quickened his pace behind the heroes, with Salem at his side.

Besides creating a couple of pacts for Static Mark and crafting the armor, during their preparation time, Kai and Sage had gone back to study Alcatraz from scratch. Although Sage was aware of how the Alcatraz ability worked, since she was born with it, even she wasn’t sure of all the details—and the failure to capture the male Drider had made that very clear.

The way Alcatraz worked was relatively simple. At most, Alcatraz could mark up to 275 living "entities" as prisoners, as long as Kai was the one to defeat them or deliver the finishing blow. But among those prisoners, Alcatraz could only isolate a maximum of 36 and could only have total control—using them as puppets—over three prisoners at a time.

If he controlled them only partially, the number increased to seven. But this came with the risk that the prisoners could resist the control. In fact, if their will was strong enough, they could even ignore Sage’s orders. However, even if they resisted partial control, the Alcatraz mark wouldn’t disappear unless Kai wanted it to or if he died—which would cause all the isolated prisoners to die with him.

But within that simplicity, there was a point that turned out to be quite misleading: what was considered "defeated." During the attempt to capture the male Drider, it was shown that even cutting its brain in half wasn’t enough for the ability to consider it "defeated." So, Kai and Sage began running different experiments to determine what criteria Alcatraz used to judge a defeat.

Of course, those who contributed tirelessly to the success of the research were the lab rats, who were able to enjoy a few moments of freedom before being captured again.

Thanks to all the tests, Kai was able to determine that the point at which Alcatraz judged someone as defeated was when the "voice" of the living entity faded almost completely, being totally unconscious.

Since Alcatraz’s criteria seemed to be somehow linked to the "spirit," Kai decided to test his theory of the soul-spirit-body trinity by manipulating the body to affect the spirit.

After giving it some thought, Kai and Sage concluded that the best approach was to use electrical aura to forcibly cut off a target’s neural interactions for a few seconds, just barely keeping the targets alive.

Although everything had worked perfectly with the lab rats, and Alcatraz recognized them as defeated once their neural interactions were cut, Kai and Sage still had doubts about whether that approach would work on the spiders.

So, they decided to add a full-power Conqueror’s Haki attack, hoping the combination would be enough. Fortunately, everything worked as expected, and now Kai had a valuable living "database" on the power of space manipulation.

...

...

...

As the heroes raced through the tunnel at full speed, Ryuko extended her right hand to touch one of the walls and activated her quirk, wanting to mitigate the incendiary shockwave as much as possible. Soon, the back of the tunnel began to twist and shrink, while multiple layers of hardened earth barriers coated with metal formed.

As the incendiary shockwave crashed against the deformed walls and barriers, they began to melt, allowing it to advance almost unimpeded. Gritting her teeth, Ryuko activated her [Vital Reactor] at maximum, causing small electric sparks to surround her body. As if a dam had burst, the tunnel walls began to deform at an astonishing speed, closing completely.

At the same time, the layers of earth and metal barriers not only began to form much faster, but they were also much thicker. In addition, the barriers were now completely covered in what looked like a thick layer of polished, gleaming steel. This was very different from the previous metallic coating, which had not only been dark, but also appeared thin and fragile.

"!!!"

Shocked, Ryuko glanced over her shoulder. There, she saw that the incendiary shockwave was now being contained before it could reach the last layer of the multiple barriers. Not believing what she was seeing, Ryuko stared at her hands in astonishment, while the other heroes came to a sudden stop and turned to look at her, their faces full of disbelief.

The moment she activated her [Vital Reactor] at full power, Ryuko felt something click inside her body. In that instant, she suddenly felt much stronger, and the earth and metal became much easier to control, as if they had suddenly become "lighter." Still, she never imagined she would be capable of such a display of power.

But even though she was surprised by the incredible strength that seemed to fill every cell of her body, Ryuko felt an indescribable sweetness in her heart that made her look at Kai at the back. The very fact that she could use so much power without a single side effect was proof of Kai’s tireless efforts.

After all, although that strength was based on One for All, she had seen what happened to All Might’s successor when he used too much power. So, Kai had not only accomplished the nearly impossible task of copying One for All but had also modified and adapted it so they could use it without worries. A titanic task that must have cost him blood, sweat, and tears to complete.

Most likely, while she slept peacefully, the love of her life stayed up late working to increase her strength and keep her safe. Such a display of love and dedication was so great that Ryuko felt herself falling in love with her Kai all over again.

At the same time, however, the beautiful heroine couldn’t help but fall into deep contemplation about whether she truly deserved so much love and care and what she had done to earn it.

"I didn’t know you’d become so strong, Pixie-Bob." Edgeshot commented in surprise as he looked at the silent Ryuko. Snapping out of her thoughts, Ryuko replied in a serious tone:

"Let’s move. Even if I managed to stop the shockwave, this place could still collapse at any moment."

"Pixie-Bob is right. Let’s move forward!" All Might soon ordered in a serious tone, taking the lead into what seemed like an endless, dead-end tunnel.

Following the Symbol of Peace, the Pussycats looked at Ryuko, then at their own clenched fists in surprise. That was the power Kai had given them without asking anything in return—a power with the potential to put them on equal footing with the greatest hero in history, the one and only Symbol of Peace.

Even though Ryuko’s display of power was still a bit short of All Might’s greatest feats, Kai had explained to them that the [Vital Reactor] was an evolving ability. The more time passed, the stronger they would become. So as long as they trained diligently and mastered the skill, the next Symbols of Peace could be them.

When faced with the possibility of achieving a dream they had never even dared to consider before, Chatora and Ryuko—who both knew they had made Kai angry—couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and guilty.

Even so, if the same situation happened again, they would probably make the same choices, since they were true heroes. Still, disappointing someone who had given them so much without asking for anything in return was a too bitter pill to swallow.

***

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