BNHA: I am Reiji Toga

A thunderous roar shook the place.

Reiji's body fell heavily to the ground, like a lifeless rag doll. The impact echoed throughout the battlefield, generating a strange, almost unnatural silence.

All Might turned his head.

He had managed to repel the Power Nomu, pushing it back for the first time in the entire fight, when the other monster—the Speed ​​Nomu—abruptly disappeared from his field of vision. And then he saw it.

Reiji.

His body ripped apart, his left abdomen completely destroyed. A pool of blood expanding beneath him, growing wider, darker.

"No…"

Toshinori's heart stopped for a split second. Not from fear. Not even from physical pain. But from helplessness.

His student was dying… and he, the "Symbol of Peace," had been unable to stop it.

In the distance, the students saw it too. A muffled scream echoed through the stands.

"REIJI?!" Uraraka approached the body that had fallen just a few feet away.

"God...!" She whispered, falling to her knees beside him. The wound was grotesque: his left side torn away. His abdomen collapsed. Blood formed dark threads from his mouth.

And yet... Reiji was still breathing.

Barely.

A rasping sound escaped his throat, as if even his body refused to die.

Shigaraki noticed.

From the center of the field, pressing the wound on his own side, he twisted his neck with a grimace of disgust.

"Tsk... filthy insect... is it still crawling?" He spat.

Beside him, Kurogiri was beginning to regain mobility. Shigaraki's gaze darkened completely. The contempt was palpable.

"Kill it. Now," he ordered without hesitation.

The same Nomu that had left its work halfway moved at great speed; for Uraraka, it was barely a blink of an eye before the creature was in front of them.

The Nomu lunged like a murderous shadow, straight at Reiji.

CRACK!

A wall of ice violently emerged between the monster and its target. Frozen crystals shattered upon contact with the black claw, but they managed to deflect the attack… just in time.

"Uraraka!" Todoroki shouted, not wasting a second.

She was already moving, her hand outstretched, her eyes brimming with tears.

It barely grazed the creature's arm.

Gravity: zero.

The beast hovered in the air for a second, confused.

"Shoto!" she shouted, clasping her hands together with her Quirk activated.

Todoroki responded immediately. A gigantic ice pillar formed beneath the Nomu, propelling it like a cannon into the firmament.

SHHHHHUUUUUM!

The Nomu floated, weightless, suspended in the open sky above the battlefield. The ice column stretched high, even breaking the roof of the building and sending the creature soaring into the air.

Uraraka kept her Quirk activated, even as nausea surged through her, looking at Reiji to gather all the strength she had to hold on.

"No... not yet," she murmured, her eyes fixed on Reiji's bleeding body.

She knew that if she let go now, the Nomu would fall before Todoroki could prepare for impact.

And Reiji... Reiji deserved one more chance.

"Hold on... please... just a little longer..."

Her vision blurred. Nausea doubled over her insides. But still, she didn't let go.

"Uraraka," Todoroki murmured, beside her, surprised by her willpower.

She didn't hear him. She only saw Reiji.

He was just there. Lying. Broken. Dignified.

If she held out any longer, then the Nomu would take much more damage from the fall. Enough to defeat it.

And that was all Uraraka needed to hold out for another second.

Then...

Cancellation.

The Nomu fell like a meteor, without brakes, a black, misshapen mass descending at lethal speed.

Todoroki was already expecting it.

With a sharp gesture, he slammed his palm against the ground.

A swarm of ice spikes erupted from the concrete, sharp as spears, pointing skyward.

Just as the creature entered lethal range...

SHLAAK—CRRUNCH!

The impact was devastating. The Nomu's body was impaled on multiple icy stakes, one through the leg, another piercing its abdomen, and yet another piercing its shoulder. Its inhuman scream was muffled by the thickness of its own blood and the frost that sealed it in place like a frozen insect.

The ground shook. The structure creaked.

The monster writhed, unable to get back up.

Uraraka collapsed to her knees, panting. The effort left her almost breathless. Her stomach was clamoring to vomit, but she held it in as best she could.

"Reiji…" She whispered, trembling. "He's still breathing… Still…"

Todoroki didn't respond. His teeth were clenched. The veins in his neck were tense. He looked at Reiji and then at the sky.

Shigaraki watched them. Motionless. His expression, already dark, turned abysmal.

"They made my Nomu bleed…" He spat, his rage growing. "And that bastard's still breathing."

Reiji was still conscious, his thoughts lost in small babble that no one could decipher. Meanwhile, his jaw began to scream for an incessant amount of blood, as if that would restore his condition.

The Nomu's dark blood, still warm and saturated with mutation, dripped slowly from Todoroki's icy spikes. It dripped inconsistently as it tried to free itself from the grip.

A guttural roar pierced the air.

"FINISH IT!!" Shigaraki shouted desperately, reaching for the Nomu.

But he didn't have time to give another order.

An explosion roared to his left.

"I've got you, living cloud!" Bakugo fell like a projectile from the sky, his hand engulfed in violent sparks that exploded against Kurogiri's solid body, just as he tried to generate another portal.

The fog destabilized.

Kurogiri growled inhumanly, completely losing control of the space around him.

Before Shigaraki could react, an electric shock engulfed him.

"DON'T TOUCH ANYONE ELSE, TRASH!" Denki Kaminari appeared from the side, his arms outstretched, his fingers trembling with the released energy.

A bolt of lightning detonated directly above Shigaraki, forcing the villain to let out a dry, almost animal-like scream. His body convulsed, his skin charred in places, and his Quirk briefly deactivated.

"Now, get him out of there!" Denki shouted, his voice hoarse from the exertion.

But then...

CRACK.

The ice cracked.

Todoroki barely had time to turn around before he saw the Nomu, still smoking and bleeding, break its bonds with tremendous brute force. The ice spikes splintered like glass, and the monster fell to its feet on the concrete with a tremor that shook the entire field.

Its red eyes flashed with animal rage.

It no longer cared about anything.

There was only one goal: to protect Shigaraki.

And then it launched itself like a bullet toward its master, directly to kill its two attackers. Neither Bakugo nor Denki were ready for such a brutal onslaught.

But someone was.

A dry, thunderous crash pierced the atmosphere.

"YOU WILL TOUCH NO ONE ELSE!" Iida shouted as his engine screamed like a jet engine unleashed, his desire and motivation pushing his body to the limit, activating his Reciproc Turbo MAX at full power.

In the blink of an eye, he intercepted it.

Iida's leg connected squarely with the Nomu's face, diverting its trajectory with inhuman violence. The creature's deformed skull spun from the force of the blow, and its enormous body was thrown out.

Iida fell to the ground, his legs completely useless. They weren't broken, but he wouldn't have been able to stand for long.

"Reiji...!" he whispered, trying to get up.

But the nomu, now out of control, slammed into Reiji's motionless body. They were both flung in opposite directions, like broken dolls, landing with a crash several meters away.

"REIJI!"

"NO...!"

"IDIOT, YOU HIT HIM TOO!" Bakugo yelled, holding Kurogiri tightly.

Uraraka covered her mouth, gasping for breath. Todoroki stared at Iida, eyes wide with horror. Even Denki stopped moving, now dazed by the use of his power, slightly understanding the situation.

Silence fell over the battlefield for a moment.

Iida couldn't help it. He clenched his fists against the concrete.

'I... I just wanted to protect them...'

His teeth ground together. A nascent emotion of guilt and sadness surged through him.

'What have I done...?'

But then, something changed.

Reiji still hadn't touched the ground.

His body hovered just a few inches, propelled by the inertia of the impact. But what disturbed everyone wasn't his flight...

It was his face. He wasn't unconscious. He wasn't screaming. He was focused. Completely lucid. Cold. Like a predatory animal.

In his mouth, caught between his fangs, writhed a piece of black flesh, still throbbing, torn straight from the Nomu's neck.

The mutated blood fell like dark nectar down his throat. It dripped down his chin, trickled down his collar, soaking his torn suit.

His eyes, open, empty, and bright… saw nothing. Only instinct. Only impulse. Only need.

'More...'

'I NEED MORE!'

It was the fragmented thought of a brain that no longer reasoned with logic, but with hunger, with thirst, with impulses burned into existence by years of torture and suppressed need.

Then he fell.

His body hit the ground with a dull force, sending dust and fragments of concrete flying.

But this time… it was different.

He was no longer the same.

The blood laden with the Nomu's DNA entered his throat; his body absorbed it, integrating with its particles and giving an extra boost to his natural recovery.

His veins pulsed beneath his skin, dark, swollen, as if an alien force were coursing through them. The Nomu's blood still sparked within his system, disordered, violent, incompatible with any human body...

Except his own.

His Quirk, released by necessity rather than will, began to spill from the gaping wound in his abdomen. The blood he was losing... was returning.

A thick thread rose from the pool beneath him, slowly enveloping his exposed organs, tissue by tissue, as if stitching his own flesh with a liquid needle.

It wasn't pure regeneration. It was a reconstruction done by force. Aided by his Quirk. Sustained by desperation.

And, behind all that... True regeneration, that of the Nomu, was beginning to awaken within him. It wasn't as exaggerated as the Nomu's, but it had caused his own to evolve to another level.

The wound in his side throbbed, closing millimeter by millimeter, like a crack that refuses to stay open.

But Reiji didn't care.

He didn't hear the screams. He didn't feel the burning. He didn't see his companions.

Only a scent.

Blood.

And not just any blood.

The Nomu's.

The monster had fallen not far away, still dazed, its body wounds closing from Todoroki's beaks and Iida's violent kick.

It was alive. And bleeding.

Reiji inhaled deeply, his nose filled with the thick, ferrous, mutated scent. His pupils dilated until they devoured the entire iris. His pulse quickened. The wound didn't even hurt.

'It's there... It's close... More... more blood...'

His body crawled.

Slowly at first. Then with a chilling determination.

Her fingers digging into the ground. Her muscles, still torn, obeying on pure impulse.

Mei's containment suit began to emit red sparks, internal alarms going off.

"Neural Instability! Uncontrolled Blood Pulse! System in containment!"

But Reiji wasn't listening.

His body exploded with blood, as his legs began to run like an animal at uncontrolled speed toward the Nomu. The creature immediately took him as an opponent, using its own speed to close in on Reiji and delivering a blow to his chest that sent him flying back into some structures.

Even so, the blood had adhered to the Nomu with all its might. Reiji immediately recoiled, his mouth dripping blood from the blow. He didn't care about the pain, he didn't care about his health; his only goal was to finally satisfy the urge for blood he felt right now.

The Nomu tried to hit Reiji again, but the blood on his shoulders enveloped him for a moment. Enough for Reiji, with renewed speed, to lunge at the creature, sinking his fangs into its neck to satisfy his instincts.

With each drop he drank, his blood became more aggressive, and his recovery increased even more.

"Activating extreme protocol!" Reiji's suit pressed against his own body as spikes coursed through his entire being, trying to calm the wild animal he had become.

But Reiji didn't care, and neither did the Nomu when he broke free from his restraint and pulled Reiji off him, causing him to hit the ground hard.

Even so, Reiji got up instantly. His ribs were broken and his lungs were bleeding, but it didn't matter. He didn't feel it; he launched himself at the Nomu again. Hitting him with all his might, trying to make him bleed by any means necessary so he could drink his blood.

The Nomu wasn't far behind either, hitting Reiji again and again with force. Each blow seemed like it would bring the boy down, but even when his bones broke, he would launch himself again while his recovery worked at top speed.

The fight between the two became a dance of destruction, like two beasts that didn't know how to give up.

"Damn..." Shigaraki muttered, panting.

His left arm dangled limply, and part of his body was burned.

His eyes searched for a way out. And then he saw Bakugo, still holding Kurogiri but completely absorbed in the completely different level of fight Reiji was waging.

"You..." Shigaraki muttered, smiling with bloody teeth.

He crawled over to him. His fingers trembled, but they still held the power.

CRACK!

His hand went straight for the boy's face. Katsuki realized instantly and barely had time to cover himself with his suit. The decomposition immediately spread over the grenade's forearm.

"What the...?!" Bakugo jumped back.

WHOOOOM!

A gust of mist appeared.

Kurogiri.

"Mr. Shigaraki," said the distorted voice of the transporter. "This place is no longer safe."

"We'll leave... But not before I take something." His gaze returned to Katsuki, who perfectly understood the meaning of his phrase: "Come on, kid!"

Shigaraki tried to grab Bakugo, but the latter reacted with an explosion that sent him flying backward.

"Don't touch me, you fucking lunatic!"

The villain spat blood. Kurogiri enveloped him in the mist.

"That's all for today."

And they disappeared.

Just as All Might raised his final fist.

"UNITED STATES OF SMASH!"

Meanwhile...

Reiji kept fighting.

Or rather, trying to keep up.

The Speed ​​Nomu was more resilient than expected. He didn't have the brute strength of the previous one, but his speed, altered by surgical engineering and artificial Quirks, made him an impossible demon to stop.

Reiji knew it. He felt it with every blow.

His regeneration, once a constant sea, was now only a slow trickle. His bones no longer knit with the same precision. His breathing was erratic. His vision was blurry.

Mei's suit emitted a final warning.

"System at its limit! Internal overheating! Imminent collapse!"

But Reiji wasn't listening. He couldn't. He only saw blood. He only wanted more.

And so he jumped again, though his leg didn't fully respond.

The Nomu intercepted him mid-flight, twisting its body with a whip of brutal speed, and threw him to the ground like a rag doll.

CRACK. The impact was sharp. Painful. Final.

The suit finally activated forced containment.

An electric shock ran through Reiji's body. His muscles tensed. His eyes rolled back.

And he fell. Unconscious.

"REIJI!"

A female voice broke the chaos.

Melissa Shield burst onto the scene, sliding across the cracked ground, her eyes fixed on the creature towering over Reiji's unconscious body.

The Nomu, already covered in blood and wounds from the brutal confrontation, had set his sole objective: to finish the job. To finish off the boy who had nearly eaten him alive.

But Melissa wouldn't allow it.

Explosive energy built up in her body. Her legs trembled, creaking, threatening to fracture under the strain, but she didn't back down.

"No... you're not going to kill him today," she spat through gritted teeth, her voice cracking with fear and exertion.

The Quirk pushed her body to the limit. Her muscles tore internally. Her arms vibrated. Sweat trickled down her forehead and back. The mechanical supports squealed. But she held on.

She gritted her teeth. She screamed. And moved forward.

Her right fist charged to 100%.

The Nomu spun toward her, roaring in response, its movements swift but clumsy from its wounds. It leaped straight toward her.

Too late.

Melissa jumped as well, her legs applying explosive force that resonated with the ground.

And with a roar louder than the monster's, she threw her punch straight at the creature's face.

"UNITED STATES... OF SMASH!!"

BOOOOOOOM!

A shockwave swept through the entire area.

The air erupted with unbearable pressure. The ground cracked under the impact. The broken glass of the buildings pulverized. And the Nomu flew like a broken puppet, crashing into a concrete column that collapsed on top of its body.

Silence.

Only Melissa's broken gasp. Her right arm dangling limply. Her suit was shredded. Her legs were completely purple and broken.

But she didn't collapse.

She crawled over to Reiji, who was still unconscious, his containment suit smoking, his face stained with dried blood.

"I... I have you..." She whispered, reaching up with her only useful hand to touch his face.

"You're safe... impulsive idiot..."

And finally, she collapsed beside him.

It was finally over.

***

(I thought I'd uploaded it a while ago, but I was wrong. My bad)

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