While the rooftop above was rumbling with fire and combat, Aizawa's gaze was stuck on the thing before him. The snarling, twitching mass of sludge that wore something reminiscent to Dante's face.
Little Dante crouched, the tendrils behind him writhing as if they were alive.
He was a lot smaller than Dante, about half his size, but his strength was all the same.
If only he had more sludge to work with, he'd be a lot more formidable.
Aizawa didn't say anything else, he just looked back at the rooftop.
Little Dante's form flickered. The sludge drooped slightly.
He felt it. His body got heavier and less stable.
"Hm? Ah right… you're trying to cancel him, yeah?" Little Dante growled.
"You are both connected. If I cut off the source—"
"—What makes you think I'll let you?"
Little Dante vanished, his left arm had shrunk and reformed in the form of claws on his right hand.
By being smaller, he was faster.
Aizawa barely managed to sidestep the first strike and whip his capture scarf around, catching little Dante's leg and yanking him into the wall. He splattered all over the place, but the sludge all came squirming back to one place and reformed into little Dante.
Aizawa's hair floated up, his gaze just barely on Dante—
—but before he could, something slammed into the ground beside him.
Four large blobs of sludge, each one equivalent to three arms, landed in the alley with a sickening splash.
Little Dante's eyes widened with manic joy. "Ohhhh hell yes."
Two of the blobs twitched and then started floating, one at a time they flew in little Dante's direction and molded with him.
"That bastard knows me so well…" Little Dante said, his voice doubled with excitement and malice.
Now his form thickened, grew bulkier. His arms grew in both size and length. His legs became longer, more flexible. His entire body looked like a twisted, volatile echo of the thing Dante was scared of becoming.
Aizawa narrowed his eyes, calculating. "You're not Dante… are you? Dante was never able to do anything like this…"
"You're damn right."
"Why are you going this far? For what? Survival? Revenge?"
"Dominance."
A tendril immediately flew from behind him, whipping at Aizawa's feet, another tendril flew in from above, forcing Aizawa to leap between the two.
One of the sludge blobs that hadn't fused with little Dante suddenly grew and shaped into the figure of a man just a little shorter than Aizawa, throwing wild punches. Another one rose into the air and split into rows of razor sharp spears, launching one by one in Aizawa's direction.
Aizawa didn't let it get to him. He immediately incapacitated the sludge man, used his whip to block some of the spears before using it to redirect the spear to little Dante.
The spear stopped just infront of Little Dante's mutated face before it fused with him.
"Yeah you're definitely not Dante all right, a parasite maybe?"
But, despite Little Dante's usual rage, he didn't seem to care at all.
"I might be a parasite, but at least I'm not old, like you."
Aizawa's eyes widened as he felt something behind him.
He quickly moved out of the way of a dark red man holding a sword.
The sludge construct immediately shifted his stance and slashed once more.
Aizawa managed to block the swing, but the impact shoved him back. He rolled, bounced and came to a stop.
"Is that…"
Only to see Little Dante quickly approaching him, sludge tendrils fused with his arms to replicate the High End Nomu's strength.
Little Dante giggled. "This is my element."
Aizawa's hair floated upward and he tried to use his quirk.
But it was fruitless.
Little Dante didn't flinch. Didn't slow. Didn't waver.
Because there was nothing to cancel.
"You're getting it now, surely? Did you not understand what I meant by 'you can't cancel the quirk of a vestige'?" Little Dante grinned, teeth stretching across a deformed face. "By vestige, I mean I am a representation of the quirk. Or well, it was my quirk and now the only thing left of me is the quirk? Oh well, I'm sure you're not allowed to know the details but whatever. You can't cancel my quirk because I don't have a quirk. I am a quirk. To cancel me you'd need to kill me."
Aizawa ignored it, he lunged forward, low to the ground, grabbing his combat knife.
But his strike passed right through Little Dante's chest who simply lessened the hardening on his chest, then rehardening to lock Aizawa's hand in place before kneeing him in the gut with the force of a canon.
Aizawa flew backward, rolled and barely dodged a spear made of sludge that slammed into the concrete where his head had just been.
"Y'know," Little Dante chuckled as he stalked forward, arms twitching. "This fight is pretty poetic. All this time I've wanted us to become villains, and you have just kept on pushing him to be a hero."
Aizawa squinted.
Little Dante continued, "I've been stuck watching from the back seat this entire time. But this—this—is my fight. I earned it."
He raised both hands.
The detached sludge around the alley twitched, rippled and then started floating. Dozens of floating shards of sludge shaped like jagged daggers, short swords and even crude blunt weapons.
He lowered his hands suddenly, grinning while the sludge constructs flew forward.
Aizawa dodged left, but a sludge mace slammed into his ribs.
He tried to counter with his scarf, but a chain made of sludge wrapped around it midair and an axe cut it off.
Another strike, a warhammer flew straight into the pavement near his legs, sending up debris.
That's right, little Dante had already cracked the code to manipulating sludge that isn't attached to his body.
Aizawa was breathing hard. Bleeding. Cornered.
Little Dante morphed his own body, his legs transforming into something reminiscent of ostrich legs that carried him way faster than his regular legs, grabbing Aizawa by the collar mid roll—
—before slamming him into a dumpster, caving in the metal.
"You're a strong one, teacher. But I'm not like Dante at all, you don't know me." He snarled.
Aizawa coughed, blood running from his nose. He reached for a flash grenade, but a tendril of sludge wrapped around his wrist and snapped it out of his hand.
His hair rose once more, a last ditch effort.
Still nothing.
"You keep trying that and your eyes are gonna fall out." Little Dante raised a spiked mace and levelled it at Aizawa's throat. "I could kill you right here, right now. But I don't think Dante would like that very much."
FWOOOOOOSH!
Suddenly, a gust of red feathers cut through the air and before either of them could adjust, Hawks was here, arms around the injured Aizawa.
"Time to go, Eraser!" Hawks barked. "We need to retreat, the kid's a monster."
Little Dante lunged—
But a wall of shimmering red feathers spun around the two, blocking any of Little Dante's attempts just long enough for Hawls to get the hell out of there, soaring over the buildings.
Little Dante watched them fly away into the sky, the alley around him was a mess.
He let the weapons made of sludge retreat back into his body.
"Cowards," he muttered. Then slowly, he grinned.
He looked back up toward the rooftop where the real Dante was.
He leaped back onto the rooftop to see it was a blazing mess, there was fire everywhere and in the middle, stood Dante.
Little Dante's form suddenly melted and rejoined with his host.