In the brief, brief window between Tel's exit and the start of the battle, there was one short moment of silence where Izuku got to take in his foes in full.
Of the 5 undead abominations, 4 of them looked pretty much the same. The only thing that made the 4 stand out compared to those he'd seen before was that 2 of them were obviously female.
All four were tall and musclebound, with varying body builds, ranging from gangly and spindly(With muscles that just did NOT look right on so thin limbs) to huge and imposing in a manner like the one that attacked alongside the first invasion.
And of course, every single one of them had their enormous, oversized brain exposed to the world.
One was well over 2 meters tall, and though not incredibly wide, she was still muscled all over, with skin red as blood.
Another one(one of the male ones of the four) was spindly one, with yellow skin, long, unnaturally muscled limbs, and two enormous yellow wings that to Izuku seemed bizarrely familiar. Maybe he'd seen them on whoever the poor guy this monster once had been.
The third one looked about the same as the one who had been with the pajama man during the Yuei invasion. The only real difference was a lack of a beak, a face, upper jaw, and any visible eyes.
So… Pretty different actually.
And the final one of the standard four ones was a tall, and heavily muscled one, wide as All Might himself, with bioluminescent rings along the arms glowing a faint white.
They all varied a bit, but they all fit a standard mold.
And then, there was the final one.
It did not fit in with the rest.
Twice as tall as all the rest, it stood shoulder to shoulder with it's kin, even when hunched over.
Out of it's back, barely covered by it's black skin, its grotesque, mutated spinal column protruded like some disgusting gears made of bones.
The muscles at the sides of the neck that connected the head to the shoulders, also stood out hard against the creature's ebony skin, with the skin over it having been ripped off, leaving the skin around to hang around the edges like tatters, and the muscles that should have been covered to be exposed to the world in all their flayed glory.
And finally, there was it's head, where huge tatters of black, frayed skin hang forward over it's head giving it the appearance of wearing a ripped hoodie, casting the entire face in shadow.
Izuku, thanks to his excellent darkness vision, saw just a hint of the brain matter under said hoodie, and some square-shaped yet vicious teeth.
The most striking difference though was the eyes.
Whereas all the rest had normal, if a bit glassy eyes, this one… It had eyes like the mist guy. Glowing, golden ones, in a cracked pattern across it's skin.
He did not need to be reminded of said misty guy, to understand that this one was more dangerous than the others. His instincts told him that much on it's own.
That was also a completely wrong assessment, but Izuku would learn that on his own not that far into the future.
The brief pause in time before the calm broke was brought to an end, as the hooded on suddenly opened it's mouth, and out between those square teeth came a raspy voice.
"Who's the best here? The strongest?"
Then all hell broke loose.
3 out of the 5 five immediately made their opening moves.
The smaller black one went for the lion guy, the winged one took to the sky, and the red one suddenly had about two dozen sharp spikes that protruded from her body.
That was then launched forward in every direction in front of her in a wide arc-like pattern.
And they were fast too.
Izuku understood that he had to move out of the way now, or have to see if his suit would hold against those sharp spikes.
And so he did. He immediately bent his knee and jumped sideways with the goal of leaping up and then using the wall as a midpoint to jump off from to get into the air to make his next move.
He got into the air, and away from the spikes easy enough.
Then, the big, hooded one made his move.
It only took a split second, as it raised it's arm, and then… Izuku was hit. Hard.
He was hit so fast and hard that he suddenly, and without any warning, found himself punched straight through a dozen walls, an entire building, and slammed into the other wall of the building on the opposite side of the street into which he'd been sent flying.
For a moment white stars swam in front of his eyes, as all he felt was pain. Then the world came back into focus, and he realized what had happened.
The thing that had sent him flying, and was still holding him up against the wall, was the hooded one's arm, grotesquely expanded and lengthened as bones, muscles, and skin danced around the modified limb like a maelstrom of black gore.
Holding him up against the wall, was a similarly mangled and expanded hand that currently had a death grip around his stomach.
Then, in a moment almost as sudden as the initial attack, the maelstrom retreated back into it's origin, as the monster that had spawned it suddenly appeared right in front of him.
It had sent him flying with an expanding arm, then been pulled straight into where the hand had landed, like some grotesque imitation of Monkey D Luffy.
The creature anchored itself to the wall by digging it's Feet into the concrete, and then leaned it's face up and in front of Izuku's.
"You aren't Strong." The monster said in a disappointed tone, almost childlike.
Izuku responded by punching it so hard in the face that the skull broke.
Immediately, the death grip that had been locked around Izuku disappeared, and he ripped himself free from the enlarged hand and did a backwards flip so he now stood on the wall.
He was about to punch it again, this time putting all his weight into it, with the goal of sending it flying down into the street, only to freeze when he realized there were people below them.
New plan.
Izuku instead retreated up, and onto the roof itself, barely making it in time before the creature finished regenerating.
Then half the roof exploded as rather than make it's way up and onto it, as he had, it just punched it's way up and sideways through the building itself.
Stones shot all around like shrapnel, but his suit dealt with them easily enough without any further damage. To his body.
"So you are strong!" The monster exclaimed gleefully.
This time, Izuku actually did manage to dodge the attack, moving to the side as the giant arm monstrosity shot forward trying to smash into him once again.
It was fast. Damn fast, but not as fast as Black Cat's punches. So long as he saw them coming, and had his feet planted on the ground, he could dodge.
He could not tank the blows through. It might be nothing compared to The Punch the Rhino had used to cave in his chest, the blows this thing was giving were still monstrously strong, as the pain in Izuku's stomach, and far worse his back proved rather brutally.
Behind him, the dodged attack made something explode very, very loudly from the force of the impact, but Izuku ignored it. He had to focus all he had on beating this thing. If he did not manage that…
A line of black slammed into the creature, and then ripped it straight towards Izuku at high speed.
He did not hold back, and with his feet planted on the concrete roof, he put his back into a punch with his full weight behind it.
The blow was so hard that the shaky and already damaged floor almost broke under him from the force of it, but that was nothing compared to the effect it had on his enemy.
Izuku had only delivered this kind of punch a single time before. When he'd fought The Rhino, and that had ended with his own hand breaking.
Izuku's hand didn't break this time.
His enemy, however, did.
...
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