Chapter 255 - 254: Strongest

Kaito lowered his hand, letting it rest casually inside his pocket.

"I'll even add a handicap to make it fair," Kaito offered smoothly.

He looked across the packed marble lobby, meeting the eyes of twenty determined teenagers.

"I won't use my Canvas Quirk for the entire hour," Kaito promised. "If any of you can touch my suit just once, you win."

"..."

"..."

The entire room went completely still.

Bakugo twitched, his crimson eyes narrowing into absolute slits.

Pop. Pop.

Tiny, violent explosions sparked aggressively across his sweaty palms.

"Stop looking down on us!" Bakugo roared, grinding his teeth. "I'll blow that smug smile right off your face!"

Standing near the back of the crowd, Denki Kaminari bumped shoulders with Mina Ashido.

"Wait, seriously?" Kaminari whispered, a massive grin spreading across his face.

Mina pumped her fist quietly.

"This is basically a free ticket!" Mina cheered under her breath. "Just a game of tag!"

Izuku Midoriya didn't celebrate at all.

Standing near the front of the group, Midoriya gripped his scarred hands tightly.

He chewed nervously on his thumbnail, his mind racing through countless tactical variables.

'He wouldn't offer that handicap unless his base physical stats were completely monstrous,' Midoriya calculated rapidly.

Standing right next to him, Shoto Todoroki tilted his head.

"He must be extremely confident in his agility," Todoroki noted quietly.

Momo Yaoyorozu bit her bottom lip, looking highly concerned by the hero's relaxed posture.

"Fufufu..."

Sitting behind the sleek reception desk, Makoto covered her mouth to hide a loud giggle.

Seeing her boyfriend playfully act as a final boss for a bunch of high school students was incredibly entertaining.

Standing inside the glass-walled office, Mirai Sasaki and Tsunagu shared a deeply exhausted look.

Both veteran pros knew exactly what was about to happen.

They clearly remembered Kaito have monstrous body and unexpected martial arts that even Mirko wanted it.

'He is leading them straight into an unwinnable tutorial fight,' Mirai realized, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Tsunagu simply shook his head, feeling a little bit sorry for the overconfident kids.

They realized Kaito was intentionally creating an impossible obstacle course to safely stall the students and give them reason.

Kaito clapped his hands together once.

CLAP.

"Alright," Kaito announced cheerfully. "Everyone gather up tight in the center of the room."

The teenagers looked around in confusion, awkwardly shuffling closer together.

Chopping his arms wildly through the air, Tenya Iida stepped forward.

"Are we truly going to fight inside a corporate lobby?!" Iida asked loudly.

Ochaco Uraraka looked around nervously at the expensive architecture.

"We're going to break all this nice glass..." Uraraka worried, holding her hands up.

Kaito just smiled, raising his right hand in the air.

"Don't push each other," Kaito instructed calmly.

He snapped his fingers.

SNAP.

A seamless, entirely untelegraphed shift in reality occurred.

The white marble of the agency lobby vanished instantly.

--<>--

Location: Takoba Municipal Beach, Musutafu

A cool ocean breeze swept aggressively across the open coastline.

The twenty students of Class 1-A stumbled as their shoes suddenly sank into soft, uneven terrain.

"Whoa!" Eijiro Kirishima yelled, waving his arms wildly to keep his balance.

They all looked around in absolute shock.

The bustling Tokyo streets were completely gone.

A massive, empty stretch of white sand and crashing waves surrounded them.

"He teleported us!" Minoru Mineta panicked, grabbing his own head.

"I didn't even feel a Quirk activate," Mezo Shoji muttered, his multiple eyes scanning the horizon.

Midoriya gasped softly, his green eyes going completely wide.

He stared out at the crashing waves and the pristine coastline.

'Takoba Municipal Beach...' Midoriya thought, a heavy wave of nostalgia hitting his chest.

He looked down at the clean white sand beneath his red sneakers.

This was the exact place where he spent ten grueling months hauling garbage to inherit One For All.

The emotional weight of the location made Midoriya grip his fists even tighter.

Standing a few yards away near the shoreline, Kaito casually stretched his neck.

"We have plenty of room here to avoid collateral damage," Kaito noted, looking around the empty beach.

He turned back to face the stunned high schoolers.

All traces of his playful, teasing demeanor completely vanished.

Kaito dropped his hands to his sides, his expression turning incredibly firm and serious.

"Don't treat this like a school sparring match," Kaito warned, his voice cutting clearly over the crashing waves.

He locked eyes with Midoriya, challenging the boy directly.

"Treat me exactly like an endgame villain boss," Kaito ordered smoothly.

"If you hold back even a fraction of your power, you won't even graze my clothes," he promised.

Bakugo didn't hesitate for a single second.

BOOM.

Violent explosions erupted from both of his palms, illuminating the afternoon beach.

Green lightning violently sparked across Midoriya's entire body as he activated Full Cowl.

Todoroki stomped his right foot into the sand, generating a massive wave of freezing air.

Twenty trained heroes fully activated their Quirks, preparing to launch a massive, coordinated assault.

--<>--

Bakugo completely ignored Kaito's warning.

BOOM.

Violent explosions erupted from both of his palms.

The sheer force launched the furious teenager across the sand like a living missile.

"Stop looking down on us!" Bakugo screamed, twisting his body mid-air to generate maximum torque.

He swung a massive, spark-laced right hook directly at Kaito's face.

Kaito kept both hands tucked casually inside his pockets.

Activating the Six Styles technique Kami-e, Kaito let his entire body go limp.

He flowed backward like a piece of paper caught in a violent gust of wind.

Bakugo's explosive fist passed less than a millimeter from Kaito's nose.

FWOOSH.

The shockwave blasted a huge crater into the white sand behind the hero.

Sliding effortlessly to the side, Kaito smiled playfully.

"Anger makes your right hook incredibly predictable," Kaito teased smoothly.

He tilted his head, watching Bakugo skid across the beach.

"Try hitting me like you actually mean it," he added.

Hearing the taunt, Shoto Todoroki stomped his right foot onto the ground.

CRACKLE.

A massive, jagged glacier of ice violently ripped across the coastline.

The freezing spikes raced directly toward Kaito's boots.

Kaito simply hopped backward.

He let the massive ice structure shatter harmlessly against the empty space he just occupied.

Watching from a few yards away, Izuku Midoriya rapidly analyzed the hero's movements.

'His reaction time is completely unnatural,' Midoriya thought frantically. 'We have to cut off his escape routes.'

Green lightning violently sparked across Midoriya's body as he activated Full Cowl.

"Sero, lock down the left flank!" Midoriya shouted over the crashing waves. "Mineta, cover the right!"

Hanta Sero swung his elbows forward, shooting multiple strips of thick tape to form a makeshift barricade.

Minoru Mineta grabbed several purple spheres from his head, throwing them wildly across the sand to create a sticky minefield.

"Yaoyorozu, above him!" Midoriya ordered.

Momo Yaoyorozu immediately pulled a heavy steel capture net from her exposed forearm.

She tossed the weighted net directly into the air above Kaito.

Surrounded on three sides with a metal net falling from the sky, Kaito laughed out loud.

"Great synergy!" Kaito complimented genuinely.

He activated Soru.

Kicking the sand ten times in a single microsecond, Kaito vanished in a complete blur.

SWISH.

The students' coordinated attacks violently collided in the empty space.

Sero's tape wrapped tightly around Mineta's waist.

"Hey, watch your aim!" Mineta yelled as the tape dragged him across the beach.

Momo's heavy steel net dropped straight down, pinning Eijiro Kirishima to the sand.

CLANK.

"I'm stuck!" Kirishima complained, struggling against the metal wires.

Kaito reappeared ten feet away, leaning casually against a rusted piece of scrap metal.

"Your teamwork is solid," Kaito advised politely. "But your execution leaves too many blind spots."

Rikido Sato ripped open a small packet of sugar, pouring it directly into his mouth.

His muscles instantly bulged outward.

"Let's rush him!" Sato yelled, charging forward alongside Mezo Shoji and Mashirao Ojiro.

The three close-quarters fighters launched a chaotic flurry of heavy punches and sweeping tail attacks.

Kaito didn't block a single strike.

He swayed and pivoted gracefully through their combined assault, using their own momentum against them.

Tapping Sato's elbow, Kaito sent the muscular student stumbling directly into Shoji's multiple arms.

THUD.

He casually stepped right over Ojiro's sweeping tail without breaking his relaxed posture.

"Too slow," Kaito teased, flashing a bright grin.

Yuga Aoyama struck a pose near the shoreline, firing a blinding Navel Laser from his belt.

Mina Ashido slid forward on a trail of acid, spraying a wide, corrosive wave right behind the laser.

"Go, Dark Shadow!" Fumikage Tokoyami commanded.

The massive shadowy bird swooped down from the sky, aiming its sharp claws at Kaito's blind spot.

Kaito lifted his right leg, swinging it in a sharp, upward arc.

Rankyaku.

A compressed, crescent-shaped blade of pressurized air shot forward.

FWOOSH.

The air blade cleanly sliced Aoyama's laser in half.

It completely dispersed Mina's acid wave in mid-air, scattering the harmless droplets into the ocean.

The remaining gust of wind threw Dark Shadow entirely off course.

"What kind of Quirk is that?!" Kaminari yelled in sheer disbelief.

"I told you, I'm not using my Quirk," Kaito reminded them cheerfully.

Deciding to change the battlefield, Kaito kicked off the air itself.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

Using Geppo, he stepped rapidly into the atmosphere.

Hovering thirty feet above the beach, Kaito looked down at the shocked teenagers.

Midoriya didn't hesitate.

"It's the same move as Rabbit Hero Mirko!"

Thick, dark tendrils erupted from his arms as he activated Blackwhip.

Midoriya grappled onto a tall pile of scrap metal, slingshotting himself high into the air.

"Uraraka, now!" Tsuyu Asui called out.

Ochaco Uraraka slapped Tsuyu's back, removing her gravity entirely.

The frog-girl leaped with incredible force, sailing high into the sky alongside Midoriya.

"Die!" Bakugo roared, propelling himself upward using targeted explosions.

He formed a circle with his hands, aiming an AP Shot directly at the hovering hero.

Kaito easily wove through Midoriya's chaotic whip strikes.

He gently pushed Tsuyu's long tongue aside, offering her a polite smile as she floated past him.

Bakugo's concentrated blast of light ripped through the air.

Kaito simply leaned backward, letting the deadly beam pass harmlessly over his chest.

"Hold still!" Bakugo screamed in pure frustration.

Kaito constantly stayed exactly one inch out of their reach, entirely controlling the aerial dogfight.

--<>--

Dropping gracefully back down to the white sand, Kaito checked his expensive watch.

Forty-five minutes had already passed.

The students were completely drenched in sweat, panting heavily under the afternoon sun.

Their legs shook violently from overusing their Quirks.

Midoriya landed hard on the sand, gripping his knees while gasping for air.

He looked around at his exhausted classmates.

'He is completely controlling the rhythm of this fight,' Midoriya realized, feeling a deep sense of dread.

Every single combination they tried was instantly diffused.

Kaito stood near the crashing waves, entirely untouched.

His suit didn't have a single speck of dirt or sand on it.

He flashed a wide, encouraging grin at the tired teenagers.

"You guys need to stop holding back," Kaito advised cheerfully.

He crossed his arms, looking directly at the heavy hitters of Class 1-A.

"Use your absolute strongest moves," Kaito demanded.

He gestured for them to come forward.

"Treat me like a true endgame threat if you want a chance to win this game."

--<>--

"Don't worry about hurting me," Kaito told them cheerfully. "After all, you guys are still weak."

"..."

"..."

The entire class froze.

Bakugo's eyes twitched violently.

Midoriya gripped his knees, catching his breath while glaring at the spotless white suit.

They had fought the League of Villains and survived the Shie Hassaikai.

Hearing a hero call them weak while standing entirely untouched with his hands in his pockets stung their pride deeply.

'He's right,' Midoriya realized internally. 'We haven't even scratched him.'

He looked around at his exhausted classmates.

"We have to cross the line," Midoriya called out, green lightning flaring intensely around his body. "Use everything!"

Eijiro Kirishima slammed his fists together.

"Red Riot Unbreakable!" Kirishima roared, his skin transforming into a jagged, monstrous shield.

Denki Kaminari locked his sharpshooter equipment onto Kaito's chest, charging a massive blast of high voltage.

Koji Koda screamed toward the ocean, commanding a massive flock of seagulls to dive-bomb the hero as a distraction.

Kaito finally took his hands out of his pockets.

He activated the Six Styles technique Tekkai, hardening his muscles like tempered steel.

Kirishima swung a devastating, unbreakable punch directly into Kaito's bare forearm.

CLANG.

Kirishima's eyes went wide in pure shock.

"You can make your body like steel?!"

The hero's arm didn't even budge a single millimeter.

"It's a martial art called Iron Body..."

Activating Soru, Kaito instantly sidestepped Kaminari's lightning blast and the chaotic swarm of seagulls.

"Die!" Bakugo screamed, unleashing a massive Cluster explosion that filled the beach with blinding light.

Todoroki swung his right arm, sending a roaring wave of pure fire across the sand.

Midoriya shot Blackwhip into the surrounding scrap metal, slingshotting himself forward into a devastating Manchester Smash.

Fumikage Tokoyami completely released Dark Shadow, unleashing Ragnarok to crush Kaito from above.

Kaito lifted his leg and swung it in a sharp arc.

Rankyaku.

A compressed air blade instantly sliced Todoroki's fire wave completely in half.

Pivoting gracefully, Kaito grabbed Midoriya's ankle mid-smash.

He used the boy's own momentum to throw Midoriya directly into Bakugo's blast radius.

"Look out!" Midoriya yelled.

Bakugo instantly canceled his explosion, tumbling across the sand to avoid blowing up his own classmate.

Checking his expensive watch, Kaito noted they only had five minutes left until the WHA raid began.

"I'm going on the offensive," Kaito announced cheerfully. "Don't worry, it isn't lethal."

SWOOSH.

He vanished in a complete blur.

Appearing instantly behind Minoru Mineta and Toru Hagakure, Kaito raised his hands.

He delivered precise, pinpoint nerve strikes right to their shoulders.

TAP. TAP.

Their bodies instantly locked up, freezing entirely like stone statues.

Kaito kindly caught their stiff bodies before they could fall into the sand.

He politely carried the two paralyzed students to the sidelines.

He carefully propped them up against a piece of driftwood so they could watch the rest of the fight.

"Just a temporary martial arts paralysis," Kaito explained calmly. "It wears off in an hour or two."

"WHAT THE?!"

"Is that even another martial art skill?"

"...How many techniques and skills he used now?"

"This should be the seventh one"

A wave of pure horror washed over the remaining students.

They realized Hero X physical body was monstrously strong without even using his reality-warping Quirk.

Kaito moved through the exhausted class like a ghost.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

"No!!"

"Get out!"

Hanta Sero, Kyoka Jiro, and Mina Ashido locked up completely.

Thud.

Kaito caught Mina gently, dragging all three of them to the sidelines and sitting them next to Toru.

He tapped Tenya Iida mid-sprint, effortlessly stopping the speedster in his tracks.

He tapped Momo Yaoyorozu right as she created a heavy shield.

Mashirao Ojiro, Mezo Shoji, and Rikido Sato tried to box him in with close-quarters combat.

Kaito casually wove through their heavy strikes, tapping their pressure points flawlessly.

THUD.

The three students froze and tipped over, landing softly in Kaito's waiting arms.

Yuga Aoyama, Ochaco Uraraka, Tsuyu Asui, and Koda went down in the exact same fraction of a second.

Tokoyami tried to defend himself with Dark Shadow.

Kaito simply slipped past the shadowy bird and tapped the bird-headed boy's neck.

Kirishima and Kaminari fell stiffly backward.

Kaito dragged them all to the sidelines, arranging the paralyzed students neatly like dolls.

Only Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki remained standing.

Huff. Puff.

They were panting heavily, barely able to keep their Quirks active.

"We do it now!" Bakugo roared, charging a massive Howitzer Impact.

Todoroki prepared his ultimate Flashfreeze Heatwave.

Midoriya pushed One For All to the absolute limit, preparing a devastating St. Louis Smash.

Knowing the time was almost up, the three strongest students grouped together for one final, desperate gambit.

They launched their absolute strongest attacks directly at the white-suited hero.

Kaito activated Soru, completely vanishing from their line of sight.

"Where did he go?!" Bakugo yelled, looking wildly around the empty beach.

"Right behind you," a calm voice whispered.

Kaito appeared directly behind all three boys simultaneously.

His hands blurred in a flurry of precise, calculated movements.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

He hit the pressure points on the back of all three necks in less than a single second.

Midoriya's green lightning instantly vanished.

Bakugo's explosions died out completely.

Todoroki's flames extinguished in a puff of smoke.

The three strongest students froze entirely, collapsing forward onto the white sand.

THUD.

Kaito crouched down next to them, letting out a soft, amused chuckle.

"Why would you think a villain to just stand there and wait for you to charge your ultimate attacks?" Kaito joked casually.

Midoriya couldn't move his body, but he stared up at the hero in absolute shock.

He was completely overwhelmed by the terrifying reality of the skill gap.

Kaito grabbed the backs of their collars.

He effortlessly dragged Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki across the sand, pulling them toward the sidelines with the rest of their paralyzed classmates.

He carefully propped the final three boys up against a wooden beach fence.

Dusting off his trousers, Kaito looked down at the twenty immobilized teenagers.

The afternoon sun cast a long shadow over the beach.

Kaito completely dropped his playful smile, his expression turning deeply serious.

"You guys are incredibly strong," Kaito acknowledged, his voice carrying perfectly over the crashing waves.

He looked directly at Midoriya.

"You've survived terrifying situations, and your generation will probably surpass all of us," Kaito continued smoothly.

He crossed his arms, looking across the defeated class.

"But you are still kids," Kaito stated firmly.

"You don't need to always risk your lives away just to fix the mistakes of the adult world," Kaito lectured softly.

He turned his back to the students, looking out toward the ocean horizon.

Raising his hands, casually slicking his white hair back.

"Leave everything to me." Kaito ordered over his shoulder.

"Cause right now, I am the strongest..."

--<>--

Support the journey here:

patreon.com/Dr_Chad

(9 Advanced Chapters)