Merry Christmas Eve! Or Happy Holidays depending on what you celebrate! I figured it would be nice to put this out on a special day, and if you're lucky I might even get a chapter out tomorrow on Christmas Day! Enjoy!

*******

[Skill: Nexus, Lord of Pathways]

Apex Skill

Mana Cost: 5% of the User's Max Mana is required to create additional bodies.

Contains the following Skills: Innumerable Existence, Parallel Processing, Eternal Soul, Unconquerable, Divergent.

*******

[Innumerable Existence: Allows the User to create exact copies of themselves. These copies have the exact same strength as the original as well as an exact copy of their Soul.]

*******

[Parallel Processing: The User's speed of thought is increased a thousand-fold.]

*******

[Eternal Soul: The User's Soul can no longer decay or be damaged directly. This also means that as long as one Innumerable Existence copy is still alive, the User cannot die.]

*******

[Unconquerable: The User is immune to all forms of mental control.]

*******

[Divergent: The User's Innumerable Existence clones each have their own consciousness, allowing the clones to each work on something different or fight a different battle. It also forbids the clones from working against one another or developing opposing goals, keeping them united while also allowing them to operate individually.]

*******

As Izuku continued to skim over Setsuna's new Skills, Setsuna herself was tearing into the remaining Mosaics, most of which were beginning to run off. It was clear this battle was lost for them. They could rake their claws against her and she would regenerate, and their Soul attack did literally nothing to her.

Izuku wasn't sure what her aging would be like with the Apex Skill, but as long as she kept one clone alive, she was actually immortal. It was almost too hysterical to believe.

As the Mosaics continued to flee, Setsuna's clones... or really her actual bodies, went chasing after them, hunting them like they hunted the people of Catalina.

Since they were technically all Setsuna's "real body" none of them were exactly clones, but they were also, by definition, duplicates of herself. It was kind of a Ship of Theseus paradox. But Izuku wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, the Apex Skill arrived at the last possible moment to save the day.

However, despite the Mosaics getting farther away, there was still a general sound of commotion coming from behind the Casino. "Go check it out! I'll handle this!" Setsuna's last remaining body said from the doorway, having recovered from the Soul attack.

Izuku blinked and shook his head. He knew what her powers were, and he knew she would be there, but it was still a bit of a head-trip for him to see another version of her up-close and talking.

"I know! I know! It's weird!" She said with a smirk, "Now go!"

Izuku nodded and used Gravity Magic to leap clear over the Casino. It could be brushed off as a jump by his classmates if they saw it, but no one was left on the roof aside from Kaminari, Jiro, and Noah. Anyone not covering an entrance or exit was at the very back of the structure, crowded around and looking at each other nervously.

On the ground, there were five corpses. All Mosaics by the looks of it. Kamikiri had cut two in half, his physical damage doing wonders to them. Yui dented the chests of another two, crushing their crystal cores, and the final had a hole in its chest, like when Brandon had killed the copy of the town mayor.

Speaking of Brandon, he was slumped against a wall, a trail of blood flowing down it.

"I literally... ugh..." He grunted as Esil fused his wounds shut, the discomfort of flesh regrowing an odd one to bear. "And figuratively, got stabbed in the back."

"The knight in shining armor jumped in front of a knife for..." Bakugo looked at Yui. "I don't have a clever nickname for her."

"She would've gotten stabbed right here," Brandon pointed at his jugular. Yui, compared to Brandon at least, was extremely short, 5'3" versus 5'11". So a stab at her neck hit Brandon in the back.

"You still could've died," Esil reprimanded, like a mother tending to a child who had done a stupid thing.

"Yeah well, you bleed out from your jugular and die within a few seconds. Didn't really think about the consequences at that moment." He nodded to Izuku and Bakugo. "We good up front?"

"Setsuna... kicked ass, so yeah we're good."

Brandon nodded, his wound now fully healed. "I doubt there's any Mosaics left in the crowd. They probably would have tried to capitalize in that moment."

"Unless they left a few as a backup plan," Kamikiri pointed out.

"Right, we'll still check everyone individually. Back to work, I guess."

As he walked off to once more calm the crowds, Esil gave Izuku a worried glance.

"What is it?"

"The stab wound was right next to his heart and cut into it. He would've bled out just as quickly as Yui if I hadn't been here."

Izuku sighed. "That's the job."

"It was stupidly risky for him," She said, once again admonishing the act.

But to that, Izuku had to smile. "You're talking to someone who spent his entire teenage life doing stupidly risky stuff. Just be glad there was no permanent damage."

That seemed to calm her down a bit. Esil was still trying to get used to the fragility and nature of humanity. Though she denied it, she still had a bit of Luxian logic in her brain. She had a tough time comprehending some of the things humanity did. She didn't know that the more you tried to understand humanity, the worse your sanity became.

"Let's finish this up," Izuku said to the rest of the class, all of them going back to their stationed points.

When Izuku returned to the front of the building, he found Setsuna standing in front of the doors with her arms crossed. She was staring straight ahead, making Izuku think she was controlling the other clones, so he waved a hand in her face.

"Wha-What the hell was that?"

"Oh... uh, sorry, I thought you were spacing out."

She rolled her eyes. "No. It's like we all have our own processing power, so there's no real mental strain in controlling them."

Izuku nodded. He had read as much in the Skills menu, but putting something into practice that involved - what was essentially a hive mind - could have some pretty weird effects on a human.

He sighed. "I was supposed to be protecting you, but you ended up protecting me. Thanks."

"Oh my god, has Yaomomo told you how much of a God complex you have?"

"Huh?" Izuku was taken aback by her tone.

"She probably said it in a nicer way, but yeah, you've got just as much pride as Bakugo." She looked annoyed. "You think that because you have power, you have a responsibility to do everything for everyone else. Save everyone. No one actually thinks they can do that unless they're stupid, or they have a God complex. I know you Izuku, you're not stupid."

"Uh... wha?" Izuku stumbled over his words, much like Brandon with Bakugo, it had been a while since he'd been so directly confronted about a character flaw by someone he cared about.

"Have you read the Bible?" She asked.

"No...?"

"Well even in the Bible, God couldn't save everyone. Some people went down the wrong path and he couldn't deter them. Not even the most powerful entity in the universe could save everyone... okay that analogy kinda falls apart if you don't believe in God but you get my point."

"Do you believe in God?"

Setsuna scoffed. "When my parents first died I tried to find some meaning, some reason, so I read the Bible. And it's all crap. That's why I think that attitude of yours is crap. I know you feel bad when someone gets hurt, or something bad happens. And that empathy is what makes you better than Bakugo. But what I learned from reading that stupid book is that bad things happen, sometimes with no meaning or reason at all, and we can't always stop them. You can't be responsible for all of us Izuku, no matter how powerful you are. You live your life and try your best, and what happens will happen."

"Is that what you try to tell yourself?" Izuku responded. "To offset your fear?" Setsuna winced as Izuku hit back where it hurt. "I could hear your thoughts when your Skill manifested. I could feel your terror. 'What happens will happen?'" Izuku shook his head. "I don't believe in a God either, because I don't believe in fate. We forge our future with our own hands. I can't save everyone, but I can try. If pushing myself saves one more life, I'll do it."

"What about your life?" Setsuna asked, looking saddened.

"You're afraid to lose me too, huh? That's what you were trying to say?" Izuku finally understood where this was all coming from. Her fear of losing him. She was telling him to live more selfishly, to not try as hard, to not push himself. To live a safer life.

She didn't answer.

"I used to have nightmares," Izuku began. "After my father went missing, I had nightmares every night about losing my mom or Kei as well. Then my mom fell into the Eternal Slumber. I had more nightmares, about not being strong enough to protect Kei. I thought that she would go missing too. That's part of the reason why I kept entering Raids, kept fighting. The only way to overcome your fear is to fight it directly. And here I am. I never would have started a relationship with Momo, I never would have gotten the System, and I never would have met people like Kaina, like Nejire, like you. Your Skill didn't manifest because you were scared, but because you couldn't stand to lose to the fear any longer and you fought back against it. That's what a Hero is."

"You're really cheesy, you know that?" She wiped away a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

"I'm fine with being compared to cheese, it's tasty!"

Setsuna stared at him for a solid minute in stark silence. "There are... too many jokes to make, I think you just short circuited my brain. And that's with the Parallel Processing Skill!" Despite her utter disbelief at Izuku's response, she was smiling ear-to-ear.

"Wait so you can see the System now?"

Before, if someone wanted to know what Skills they had, it required a trip to their local Hero Commission within their country for a specialized test. Of course, most people didn't really have many Skills to begin with. They were rare, less so than Quirks or Re-Awakenings, but they were still another area that led to specialization and added power. It was why a C-Rank like Brandon could hold his own to begin with, or even got popular in the first place, having that many Skills was just weird.

People could also discover their Skills by accident, and because Skills were pretty well documented and usually uniform, unlike Quirks, you would know what Skill you had. Omni-Movement was rare, but also well-documented, meaning that if someone stumbled upon their abilities in action, they would know it was Omni-Movement, whereas Quirks could basically be anything and weren't cohesive between people.

"I can see a list of my Skills and their descriptions, but I can't see anything else."

"I guess that means that it's like a self-contained System for convenience." With a bit of experimenting and deductive reasoning, they figured out that Setsuna didn't benefit from any Stats or Levels. She was still a B-Rank essentially, strong, but not incredibly so. It was her specific Apex Skill in the situation that led to her decimating the Mosaics. In other words, she got lucky, they all did.

[Alert: Target Souls are not capable of Apex Evolutions, but can be evolved for lesser increases in ability.]

[Tenya Iida, Kyouka Jiro, Denki Kaminari, Fumikage Tokoyami]

While Setsuna's System was self-contained, she could now thankfully see the rest of the System from Izuku or Momo's point of view, and together they went over the list.

"That's it? Four others? And they're not even getting Apex Skills? And Yui's not on the list!" She pouted especially hard at Yui's rejection from the System.

Izuku smiled at Setsuna's greed. "Hey you gotta be grateful for what the System does give us, not what it doesn't. And besides, there's a lot of stuff we don't understand yet about Souls and Skills. It seems like the two are connected, maybe Souls are like... extra capacity for Skills."

"But if I got the same amount of Souls as everyone else, shouldn't we all be getting the same level of power-ups?"

Izuku shrugged. "There's probably some sort of conditions that need to be met."

By now, the sun had fully risen over the horizon, and the severity of Bakugo's destruction was revealed. Practically the entire forest bordering the North side of town was a pile of ash. Mosaics littered the ground, some from Bakugo's rampage, some from Izuku's Magic before it became ineffective, and most of them from Setsuna's clones, which were still hunting down even more Mosaics. Since it didn't matter if those duplicates died, then she could afford to be aggressive with them and keep the Mosaics on the defensive. It would help them clear the island later, because as soon as the town was checked for signs of humanity, they would have to sweep the island multiple times over to ensure they didn't miss any, which would result in the Mosaics just ballooning in numbers again.

"Should we evolve the-"

[Alert! System Access detected!]

[Alert! User is not verified!]

[User: Kaina Tsutsumi]

[Block access?]

[Y/N?]

"No!" Izuku answered instantly. He knew there was a war going on, Raia had told him as much. He just had to trust Momo, his Shadows, and his homeland to make it through while he dealt with this whole debacle. Regardless, he wasn't going to restrict any power-ups, especially in such situations. People needed all the power they could get.

[Confirmed. Kaina Tsutsumi's Soul is evolving.]

Izuku tried to pull up the details on Kaina's evolution, but the System was still having trouble accessing the rest of the world. It was a miracle these sorts of alerts made it through at all. At the very least, it was comforting to know that Kaina would be getting her own power-up to assist Momo.

Izuku wiped some sweat from his brow as the situation resolved itself, which just left Setsuna's question of evolving the four others.

"Evolve," Izuku said, not even questioning it. Just like the war, everyone needed all the power they could get, and Setsuna's Skill proved that these power-ups could single-handedly save them.

*******

[Tenya Iida's Quirk: Engine, is being evolved into Quirk: Overdrive.]

[Quirk: Overdrive]

Quirk Class: S-Rank

Cost: Stamina is drained relative to the speed of the User.

Description: Speed and Agility increased 1000% percent. When in motion, the User cannot be stopped by physical force, only Magic has a chance to slow them down.

*******

[Kyouka Jiro's Quirk: Sonic Heartbeat, is being evolved into Quirk: Resonant Cataclysm.]

[Quirk: Resonant Cataclysm]

Quirk Class: S-Rank

Cost: There is no cost, but this Quirk can only be used by timing it with the User's heartbeat.

Description: If timed with the User's heartbeat, all Sonic Magic is enhanced 500% By default, all Sonic Magic is enhanced by 250%

*******

[Denki Kaminari's Quirk: Electrification, is being evolved into Quirk: Stormbringer.]

[Quirk: Stormbringer]

Quirk Class: XS-Rank

Cost: Requires a strong force of will to maintain the Stormbringer form

Description: The User's Lightning Magic is boosted by 250% In addition to that, the User gains access to a form of Lightning Magic called Stormbringer Magic. The User can summon a lightning storm and meld their consciousness into it, becoming pure energy. However, the lightning storm causes disruption within the Soul, making it difficult to control and requires practice.

*******

[Fumikage Tokoyami's Quirk: Dark Shadow, is being evolved into Quirk: Disciple of the Shadow Monarch.]

[Quirk: Disciple of the Shadow Monarch]

Quirk Class: XS-Rank

Cost: Nothing

Description: Any enemies killed by "Dark Shadow" will be resurrected as a temporary Shadow for 12 hours before fading away. Each Shadow has its own countdown based on when it was killed. All temporary Shadows are controlled by the User and not by the Shadow Monarch or Empress.

*******

"Well... they're definitely gonna have some questions when they discover all of this..." Setsuna said, looking over the list. "Do you think they get a notification like us?"

"Not sure..."

"Hey guys!" There came a shout from the rooftop, Kaminari. At first it was blatant confirmation that the four had, in fact, seen something from the System, but rather than mention that, he said. "Everyone's inside and you're not gonna believe this, but Thomas Andre is here!"

"Huh?!"

Setsuna split herself off again, leaving a copy by the door so no one could sneak in. Izuku looked between the two of them for a second, until Setsuna snapped her fingers and said, "They're both me, dummy!"

"R-Right..." He was having a lot of trouble mentally processing the hive mind that now was Setsuna. Using his Dark Magic to create steps, both of them leapt up to the roof.

By now, the barrier that Raia created was visible. It was like a shimmering bubble, much different than Esil's more solid Barrier Magic. Because of that, everything beyond the island was shimmering slightly.

The ocean sloshed against the barrier, separating itself from the rest of the diverse ecology of the sea. Outside the barrier were a few boats, and a destroyer.

"Thought America didn't care about this place?" Bakugo said to Brandon.

"It's a big thing now. A few people missing isn't newsworthy. A barrier separating us from the rest of the world?" He scoffed. "In 2013 there was this TV series called Under The Dome. People lost their minds over it. Of course, the ending sucked, like most mystery stories, but it got people invested. A real life occurrence and Thomas Andre comes running," He sounded bitter, choking out each word with a heartfelt sense of 'fuck off.'

"Shouldn't we tell them off?" Bakugo asked. "If these things get out..." He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Brandon shrugged. "A friend of mine in town knows morse code, he's sending a repeating message to them by using a high-powered flashlight to relay the situation. But Andre is Andre, he thinks with his fists and his dick. Guy's got all the strength of All Might, but none of the class. When All Might was here he acted like a humble tourist, Andre acts like he owns the place."

"Wait... you met All Might?" Izuku asked, his Hero fever kicking in.

"He visited once for a day or two. I said hi to the guy, but I didn't want to bother him. He was already swarmed with fans. He said something weird to me about... Souls? I don't know, it was typical cliche Heroic stuff I suppose." He shrugged. "There was a Gate that day, I had work to do."

Izuku felt a chill run down his spine. Souls had now been brought up several times in regards to the guy. Was he playing an angle? Was he genuinely unaware of