Chapter 1: Long Live the King

Two years ago, Midoriya Izuku, a quirkless first-year student in U.A. High School's General Studies program, vanished without a trace.

Three of his classmates disappeared the same day.

Two more the next month.

Six separate U.A. and police investigations were unable to produce hard evidence of any of their whereabouts.

"Kurogiri! Portal! Now!"

It wasn't supposed to be this way, Shigaraki thought to himself as he ducked under a barrage of fire and bullets and dove through a pulsing purple warp gate, landing clumsily on his knees on another floor of the same decrepit warehouse. The ragged screams and roars of his Nomu echoed throughout the building- after almost a year of nonstop running and fighting, they were the last ones left, the strongest and the hardiest, but even they stood little chance. All they could do was buy him time as he looked for a way out. This can't be how my story ends. I have to make it to the next level.

Wincing as blood began to drip from a shallow wound on his shoulder where one of Spinner's blades had grazed him, he forced himself to his feet and turned to Kurogiri, who stood panting at his side.

"They're right below us, and the Nomu can only buy so much time. Is this really the best you can do?"

Kurogiri straightened up, batting at patches of singed, still-smoking fabric on his trademark blazer- just moments prior, he'd nearly been engulfed by one of Dabi's attacks.

"I told you, there's some sort of dampening field surrounding the building- I can't generate portals anywhere outside this warehouse, but it would take a tremendous amount of power to restrict my quirk like this over an area so large. They either have someone new who can specifically counteract me, or they're using some sort of electromagnetic field generator."

"So we find the quirk user or we find the machine," Tomura gritted, his fist clenched. "Then we can get out of here, regroup…"

Regroup. He almost laughed aloud when the word left his mouth. What group? A year ago, the League of Villains had been swelling with talent under his undisputed command, with new recruits flowing in constantly, even when they were periodically forced to scatter and hide from police and hero investigations for months at a time. How quickly they'd abandoned him, all except a scant few. Twice and Dabi, Toga and Magne- no one had spared him the pain of betrayal, flocking to a rising new power within the world of villains like moths to a flame, eager to bow and scrape and bend the knee before the specter that had been hunting him relentlessly for over ten months now. Muscular and Moonfish, the last faithful holdouts from the height of his power, had both been killed escaping the last hideout, and now only Kurogiri and the Nomu were left. For how much longer, though? His enemies had found a way to defeat even the most powerful of the genetically engineered beasts, if their disastrous last encounter in Yokohama was any clue, and now it seemed that they could nullify Kurogiri's Warp Gate as well. Even the Doctor had cut off all contact with him, the last ray of hope that he'd clung to. Shigaraki could feel the game over screen looming.

"I'll go scout the perimeter and see if I can find what's creating the distortion," Kurogiri declared, snapping Tomura back to reality. "Carefully, of course. I'll use the noise of the fighting as my guide to evade their forces."

"Good, yes. Return here at once if they spot you. If you find whatever's blocking your quirk, bring me to you."

"Understood."

Kurogiri warped away with a shimmer of black and purple light, and Tomura was left standing alone. After pausing to let out a yawn, he scratched his neck and began to pace back and forth across the room, taking in his surroundings with eyes made heavy from a lack of sleep. Barrels and crates of plastic and metal were stacked all around him, their contents long since emptied and or forgotten. The room smelled of rust and decay, and the walls were slick with moisture, their paint peeled almost bare. Midday sunlight filtered in through the broken windows far above, but the sight was no comfort to him. He'd chosen this place for its remote location in a nearly abandoned industrial park, so there was no chance of bystanders hearing the sounds of the clash, for better or for worse. My best chance is to stay here and wait for Kurogiri, he knew. To be forced to hide like a cornered rat enraged him to no end, but with these odds, direct engagement was suicide.

Staying as silent as he could above the sounds of the raging battle below, he clambered up onto a steel crate taller than he was, using a smaller plastic drum beneath it to help him up. From there, he continued to climb the abandoned stack of containers as far as he could, until he heard footsteps approaching, and froze in his tracks.

"Come out, come out, boss." A familiar voice drifted up to him, and his eyes narrowed in anger. Magne. One of the first to leave me. Shigaraki was high enough and well concealed enough that he was practically invisible from the ground, as long as his pursuers didn't know where to look. Ignore her. Don't let her goad you into a fight. Stay put, and Kurogiri will return.

"Hiding won't work," Magne called, as if she'd read Tomura's thoughts. "My heat tracker picked up a spike, so I know you're here."

Keeping his body as still as possible, Shigaraki tilted his head just enough so that he could see Magne below him through a gap in the crates, walking toward the center of the room with her massive metal bar in one hand and a small, handheld electronic device with a display screen in the other. It was making some sort of dull beep at a regular interval as she held it up to each group of crates, moving from one row to the other. So she knows that I'm in the room, but not exactly where. Shifting one limb at a time, Tomura edged gently to the right, pressing his back against a steel canister so that it was between him and Magne, just as his former ally reached the stack he was hiding in. Apparently, that was enough to conceal the exact location of his heat signature for now- a few moments later, Magne passed him and moved on to the next row.

Shigaraki breathed a quiet sigh of relief, but apparently his pursuer was growing impatient. After a few more negative scans, Magne holstered the tracker at her side and grinned widely.

"So you're better at hide-and-seek than I thought. I'm glad, though- just means I get to try this new enhancer out." Stepping back to the center of the rows of containers, she raised her arms, and Tomura swore silently as everything metallic in the room began to creak and shudder. Her quirk only makes other people magnetic. What is this?!

He glanced out again; Magne was holding up her bar, which was now humming and glowing with dull white light on either end- his stomach sank as he realized that there were a number of coil-like attachments mounted on the rod hadn't been there before. So her gear has been modified too, it seems.

"How do you like this?" Magne called out as the shaking intensified, and all at once the steel crate he was perched on physically lifted several inches into the air, along with everything else he could see that was made of metal. "A special design to allow me to channel my magnetic energy into inanimate metal objects within ten meters of me, for a limited time. My new friends are so much more generous than you ever were!"

A glowing orb of electromagnetic energy began to swell at the center of Magne's bar, and Tomura's gut instinct told him that he didn't want to be touching anything metallic when it burst. Seizing the chance as Magne's gaze drifted in the other direction, Shigaraki leapt off the floating crate and towards his former ally, his hands outstretched; it was at least a four meter drop, but he could see no better option. Thankfully, Kenji was slow to turn around, and her body broke Tomura's fall as they both tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The moment he regained his bearings, Shigaraki clamped his hands onto the first exposed patch of flesh that he could find, and sank his nails in.

"AGH! Let go!"

That's no good, Tomura knew, dodging Kenji's clumsy attempts to dislodge him as the clothes and skin on his onetime follower's chest began to rapidly crumble and flake away, exposing the muscle beneath. Someone probably heard that.

Swinging her bar upward from where she was pinned to the floor, Magne landed a solid blow on her attacker's stomach and freed herself from his grasp before he had time to deliver a lethal dose of his quirk, but Shigaraki simply allowed his body to move with the momentum, landing on his feet and dodging Magne's next swing. I need to finish this quickly. Closing the distance between them in a single lunge forward, Tomura ducked as Magne swung the rod in a wild horizontal arc, sliding beneath it; his mind racing for openings, he latched onto the underside of the bar with one hand and onto one of Magne's knees with the other. He only managed to hold for a moment before she screamed in pain and swung her free foot into his chest, knocking the wind from him and most likely breaking a rib, but a moment was all he needed to render his opponent's weapon unusable and dissolve a patch of skin and muscle on a vital joint. I have the upper hand now, Tomura reassured himself, smiling even as he winced in pain. A perfect combo on this mini-boss. I just have to watch out for… a balled fist landed on his cheek before he could complete his thought or react in time to dodge- the raw power behind the blow sent him stumbling backward, and tore Father from his face. …Her pure physical strength.

Shigaraki tasted blood in his mouth, and felt some of it dripping down from his chin and onto the floor; luckily, the punch had been haphazard and poorly aimed, a reaction to pain rather than a precise attack- the damage could have been far worse otherwise. He backed several more paces away and began to circle his victim, who had fallen to one knee, wheezing in pain as she clutched the patches of exposed flesh and bone Tomura had left her. Her rod was discarded now, lying half-dissolved on the floor- she had no more tricks, just brute force. Shigaraki knew how to handle brute force. With a desperate cry of anger, Magne launched herself forward, her fists outstretched, just as Tomura knew that she would. Even with a broken rib, it was all too easy to sidestep the clumsy charge, drive a foot into the back of Kenji's injured knee, and wrap his hands around her throat as she tumbled to the ground. For a moment, he kept his pinkies raised, savoring the sweet satisfaction that came with holding another's life in his grasp once again, of listening to their reaction in the instant they realized that the end was inevitable.

"B-Boss, I-"

"Goodbye, Magne." Tomura let his fingers fall, tightening his grip when she began to thrash and struggle in vain, even as her windpipe crumbled to dust. It was over within a few seconds, though, and Shigaraki rose, panting, to his feet.

On the floor below, the Nomu had gone quiet now, and Tomura became acutely aware of how loud his own pounding heart was amid the deafening silence. Clutching his fractured rib with one hand, he grabbed hold of Father with the other and fastened it carefully back onto his face, then stumbled away from Magne's corpse and the stacks of crates and into an open space on the other end of the room. Finally coming to a rest when he reached a dusty workbench fastened to the far wall, he clung to the rusted metal like it was a life raft, trembling. Itchy. I'm itchy again. His hands shot up out of instinct, scratching at the already raw skin around his neck. Blood oozed steadily out in response, staining the tips of his fingernails a dull red. Why won't it ever go away?

"Kurogiri," he whispered, a plea. "Where are you? Don't leave me all alone. Not like everyone else. Not like…" He became aware of another presence in the room, and pivoted to face the new intruder, only to fall to his knees, his eyes wide. "…master?"

He blinked once, then again, but there was no mistaking it. All For One was here, standing just a few feet away, as tall and imposing as ever in his immaculate suit and jet black respirator mask.

"Master! You've come for me!" Tears of joy began to flow unbidden from Tomura's eyes, stinging as they washed down along his cracked and ruined skin, but he hardly noticed; a wide, jubilant smile of a like he hadn't worn in ages spread across his pale, bloodied face. "You've come to complete my training! To grant me your power, like you promised!"

"Yes, my boy. I'm here for you now, just as I always have been, and just as I always will be." Hearing his mentor's gravelly voice again was pure bliss for Shigaraki, who hung on his every word. "Didn't I tell you? You can fail as many times as you need to. That's what I'm here for."

All For One held out his hand, beckoning Tomura; within moments he was kneeling at his master's feet again, feeling that comforting hand brush against his head, letting him know without so much as a word that everything would be alright. Suddenly he was Shimura Tenko once more, abandoned and alone and afraid at five years old, and All For One's presence was just as reassuring now as it had been then.

"It's been so long," Shigaraki finally managed, his voice barely above a whisper. "So long since they took you away… I… I've lost almost everything. Even the Nomu are all used up. They've cornered me here."

"Everything that has been lost can be replaced." All For One moved his hand to Tomura's shoulder, and gently urged him to his feet. "I know I've been away, but I'm here now, and I can give you a new chance to start again."

"But… how did you escape Tartarus?" Shigaraki lifted his eyes to the indent on his master's mask where his own had once been, wiping the last of his tears away. "Won't they be chasing you? As soon as Kurogiri returns, we need to get away from here, find you a new place to hide…"

"That's not important," All For One cut in, shaking his head. "What's important is my gift to you."

Tomura's heart sped up again, and his eyes widened. Finally, after all this time, the power that he promised me. I can finally become the heir I was meant to be. All this suffering, all this loss, it must've been a trial that he prepared for me, to test my resolve. But I passed- I proved myself worthy.

"Master, I'm ready to receive it. Make me your successor, so I can defeat my enemies and escape this place to be at your side again."

All For One chuckled beneath his mask, a deep, rasping sound.

"If you're truly ready, here it is."

Shhk.

Shigaraki felt the blade slide into his stomach, heard it pierce his flesh, noticed the warmth of the blood suddenly seeping out of him as it flowed across his clammy skin. But all the same, it took him several long moments to wrench his gaze away from his that expressionless mask and look down at the knife embedded up to the hilt just above his torso.

"I… what?" He stumbled backwards, his face contorted in confusion, staring at the knife like it wasn't really there. "M-Master?"

But when he looked up again, his master wasn't there anymore. All For One's flesh melted and shifted and swirled around itself until only Toga Himiko was left standing before him, a gleeful, sadistic grin on her face as she tossed aside the mask, shrugged away the suit's black coat, and began to loosen her tie.

"Wow, you sure are bleeding a lot, boss!" She cried as he stood speechless and paralyzed, a shrill giggle bursting from her lips. "You're so much cooler when you bleed! Do you want me to stick you again?!"

Toga drew two more knives from inside her sleeves, and the sight of the blades startled him back into action. Roaring in anger, Shigaraki swung his open hand toward her, but she simply darted out of reach, twirling in circles as her peals of laughter echoed off the walls. With a pained grunt, he reached down and dissolved the blade in his stomach, but the streak of blood that spattered across the floor when the knife turned to dust quickly made him regret the decision. Then there was a lance of pain in the back of his thigh- in one brief moment of distraction, Himiko had slipped behind him, and Tomura was forced to his knees as she drove the blade in deeper, wrapping her free hand around his side and pressing it into his open stomach wound.

"So much blood," she purred, withdrawing just as swiftly as she'd attacked, before he could react and grab either of her arms. Toga was back in front of him now, looking at the bright crimson dripping from her hand with wide-eyed amazement, rocking back and forth on her feet in glee.

"How dare you…" Tomura gritted, trembling with rage now rather than fear. "How dare you use his image… you are unworthy of it!" He struggled to his feet and lurched forward, but only made it a few steps before his wounds forced him back to his knees.

"Have some appreciation," another voice called; two more figures had entered the room, both young, both dressed all in black. The first wore a high-tech pair of goggles beneath his dull blue mane of hair, fitted with silver diodes that stretched back to rest on his forehead and temples. The instrument couldn't hide the purple bags beneath his tired eyes, though. "Do you know how many people I had to brainwash to get that blood for her? It took a while."

By now, Tomura knew better than to answer one of Shinso Hitoshi's questions, no matter how furious he grew. His allies had suffered the price for forgetting that simple rule too many times before. He let his gaze drop to the floor, his hands clenched.

"And to fall for this façade too, so unquestioningly." Seeing that Tomura wasn't biting, Hitoshi was talking more to himself now than to Shigaraki; he walked over to where Toga had dropped the All For One mask and picked it up, marveling at it. "Then again, I suppose Yaoyorozu's craftsmanship is as flawless as ever. I'll have to drop by and thank her for the detail on this."

"Oh, look at you, so snivelling and pathetic! Are you going to cry again for us?" The second figure, more well-dressed than the first, with a sleek, flowing overcoat and a silver tie that stood out against the black of the rest of his outfit, bounded toward Shigaraki, crouching down and peering at him with a wide, sneering grin. "But wait, weren't you supposed to be special?! Weren't you supposed to be All for One's heir? What an abosolutely pitiful sight- I guess we really are better than both of you!"

Something snapped in Tomura at that, and he surged upwards, grabbing hold of the boy's arm with one hand and swinging for his smug face with the other. His opponent caught him by the wrist just inches shy, holding his arm in place while his other sleeve started to flake and crumble in Tomura's grasp. He met Shigaraki's red eyes with his grey ones, still grinning as a stray lock of his neatly combed blonde hair drifted down in front of them.

"What a wonderful quirk you have, Tomura. I think I like it."

A pain unlike anything Shigaraki had experienced before suddenly lanced through his wrist, and in horror he realized that his own skin was flaking and cracking where his opponent held it, cutting off the feeling to his hand. He struggled to pull away and tightened his grip on the boy's other arm, but Monoma Neito simply laughed at his effort. The copycat, he realized, panicking. How could I forget?!

"Let go!" He cried, knowing full well the irony of his words, but in his injured condition he couldn't muster the stamina to overcome Monoma physically, and so they remained locked together in mutual agony for several brief moments that seemed to stretch into eternity.

"Begging for mercy, Shigaraki? So unbecoming of the successor of a great criminal empire! You really are inferior, aren't you?!"

Finally, Neito's arm and Tomura's hand fell away from their respective bodies at the same moment; Shigaraki fell back hard onto the ground, a wordless cry on his lips. Rather than recoil in shock or pain, though, Monoma merely glanced at the missing appendage, then suddenly collapsed into a pile of grey sludge, his damage threshold reached. A double.

"Twice!" Shigaraki roared. "Come out where I can see you!"

"He doesn't take orders from you anymore."

The air in the room seemed to take on an unnatural chill as a third figure stepped through the door- or perhaps that was simply a side effect of all the blood loss. Either way, Tomura shivered as he looked up to the shadowy outline of the one who had taken everything from him.

"None of them take orders from you anymore."

He stepped forward, coming to halt at the edge of a patch of sunlight filtering in from the window above them, his body half within it and half without. The sleek black exoskeleton he wore as armor gleamed in the dappled light, and Tomura grimaced as he recalled what it could do. At first glance it looked like no more than a strangely textured, slightly angular bodysuit complimented by a matching mask, but Shigaraki knew well that its appearance was deceiving- it was made of jointed plates of high tensile carbon fiber, as light as cloth and as hard as diamond, with hidden servomotors and impact absorbers in the arms and legs to give his punches and kicks the force to break through walls and shatter bones. The armor retracted half a moment later, though, folding into its case on its owner's back, revealing a white shirt and dark blazer, and hands tipped by gloves of elegant black leather. He had gone by various aliases in his steady, two-year rise from nothing to the top of Japan's villain hierarchy: Ringleader, Rainmaker, Silencer. Shigaraki had known his true identity all along, though.

"Midoriya Izuku." Tomura grit out the name like it was poison. "So you've come to kill me after all this time at my heels? Will that finally satisfy you, to have trampled everything I worked for into the dirt once and for all?"

"No." A shadow of a grin playing about his lips, Midoriya took another step forward, now fully in the sunlight. Much like his armor, his face was disarming- at first it appeared to be a simple high school boy's countenance, freckled and youthful, with a wild tangle of green and black hair. But there was something dark and unsettling in Izuku's eyes- something broken. His gaze pierced straight through Shigaraki as he stood looming above him, his hands clasped behind his back. "No, it won't satisfy me. But it's a decent start. I'd like to say this is all nothing personal, but that would be a lie."

He advanced toward Tomura again, unclasping his hands and hanging them at his sides as they slowly balled into fists.

"You insulted me, Shigaraki, Do you remember? You called me weak, and I couldn't let a lie like that stand. I had to demonstrate that I was stronger than you, because I knew I was, even then." He broke into a wide smile. "And now I have! Survival of the fittest is the only universal law, Tomura, and I'm the survivor. From the very beginning, you were the weak one. I didn't even need a quirk to beat you."

Tomura groaned softly as more blood leaked from his stomach, remembering how a quirkless boy had shown up on the League's doorstep two years ago, angry and ambitious and bitter at the world. How he'd laughed and thrown him out. You're of no use to us, Shigaraki had said, turning away and drawing the door shut behind him. Run along now, before I get angry. Over the past few months, he had replayed that moment in his mind times beyond count.

"And do you know why I didn't need one?" Midoriya spread out his arms and gestured to his followers, more of whom were filtering into the room with each passing moment. Twice and Spinner. Dabi and Mustard. A few more he didn't even recognize, watching his defeat with amusement. "Because I lead people, not command them. Because I give them a plan to follow and ideals to strive for. Because I would defend them to my last breath, just as they would defend me. Because they know that no matter the odds, I can find a way to win. Because I'm a survivor, Tomura- I don't need a quirk to prove that to them. And the result of that bond? They respect me more than they ever respected you."

As Midoriya monologued, Shigaraki had been slowly mustering the strength to edge away from him, betting everything on one last burst of speed. The wall behind me is crumbling and weak. If I put all of my quirk into it, I can dissolve it enough to break through, and… That was as far as his plan extended, but it was the best he had right now. His muscles tensed, fighting through the pain of his wounds, and he began to slowly inch backwards, a bit at a time, until-

BAM, BAM, BAM.

Suddenly there were three smoking bullet holes arranged on the floor around him in a triangle, and Tomura's heart sank as he caught sight of a red laser dot, roving over his body before finally settling on his forehead.

"Ah ah ah," Midoriya chided, wagging one gloved finger. "You don't get to run away. Not this time, not ever again." He turned to the upper window, where the bullets had entered from, and held a finger to a wireless receiver in his ear. "Good shooting- I think we made the impression we needed to, but keep your eyes on him just in case."

Izuku returned his gaze to his prey, and there was a vicious hunger in his eyes now that turned even Tomura's stomach.

"I'm afraid I'll have to punish you for trying that. Shinso, if you would?"

Hitoshi advanced to his master's side, and cracked his neck before crouching down and peering intently at Tomura, whose eyes were flitting about the room, still looking desperately for some way out, for any way out.

"What do you think of these?" He asked, gesturing to his goggles, his tone light and conversational.

Does he think I'm some sort of idiot? Shigaraki's brows furrowed, and he stared up at Shinso defiantly. I know not to answer his… Suddenly a dull light flashed at the back of his vision, and like a wave of lead had washed over his muscles, Tomura found himself unable to move or speak. What?! His eyes widened in horror. But I didn't say anything!

"I can see they're working," Hitoshi continued, a grin spreading slowly across his face. "They're a new design. By making sustained eye contact with someone for a period of three seconds or longer, I can use my quirk on them without ever exchanging a word. They also help me compartmentalize my power, so I can control multiple people more easily." He paused, a slight grin playing about on his lips. "Would you like to meet one of the other people I'm controlling right now? You've been expecting him, I think." Shinso chuckled, a hollow sound, and raised his voice. "Go ahead and come inside."

Kurogiri entered the room slowly, reluctantly, his movements robotic, his blazing yellow eyes cast toward the floor. Tomura's heart sank with each coerced step.

"Watch," Hitoshi commanded, pointing at the man's defeated master. Kurogiri complied silently, but even without a proper face, the pain in his expression was clear. Then Shinso returned his attention to Shigaraki, his voice low. "Get on your knees. Place your arms behind your back. Don't resist."

Unable to stop himself, Tomura did exactly as he was asked. The world seemed to be muffled somehow, moving in slow motion, even as Midoriya ripped off Father and tossed it aside, then grabbed hold of a tuft of hair at the back of his neck and drove a clenched fist into his face. Just like that, the spell was lifted, and the world sped up again- there was blood dripping from his broken nose, and with his sleeve rolled up, Izuku's arm was much more muscular than he might have expected. He tried to swing his hand around to grab hold of his attacker, but Hitoshi was ready.

"Be still."

CRACK. Another punch, from the left this time. Shigaraki could feel one of his teeth loosening.

"Be still."

CRACK.

"Be still."

CRACK.

"Be still."

Tomura's face was a crimson ruin by now, one of his eyes quickly swelling shut. He braced himself for the next punch, but it didn't come; Midoriya turned around and stripped the bloodied gloves from his hands.

"I'm finished." His voice was tired, disinterested.

Toga squealed with glee and wrapped her arms around her lover, gazing up at Izuku with adoring eyes.

"Oh baby, that was amazing! The blood, there's so much of it everywhere, but you didn't have to stop! Can I keep cutting him for you? Can I, can I?"

"He's not worth your time, darling." Midoriya planted a single kiss on her forehead, declining to so much as glance back to the man he had just beaten. "He's not worth our time anymore. All that remains is to leave him to rot. Shinso?"

"Bring her here," Hitoshi commanded, looking to Kurogiri. "The woman on the roof across the street."

With no choice in the matter, Kurogiri obeyed- a few feet away, a warp gate opened up, and Hatsume Mei stepped through with a smile on her face and a rifle in her hands.

"How do you like my new baby, Hitoshi? It works great, doesn't it? Oh, they've all been working so well today!" She was practically bouncing with glee, only pausing for a moment to glance over at Magne's remains, and the modifications on her half-dissolved rod. "Well, all except Number 2113 over there, but that was mainly due to user error. Still, over a 90% success rate!"

On Hatsume's right arm guard, an electronic display gave the diagnostics for all of her creations in the area, a constant stream of data that only she could decipher. From his vantage point on the ground, Shigaraki scowled. Aside from Midoriya himself, Hatsume had been the most consistent thorn in his side over the past year, developing countermeasure after countermeasure to each powerful quirk wielder left in his arsenal of followers, and at the same time constantly and dramatically improving the capabilities of her allies with every innovation. She was also deadly in her own right, though, given a sniper rifle- with a quirk that let her see clearly up to five kilometers away, Mei had no need for a scope, using only a laser spotter fixed to her rifle's barrel and a specially crafted eyepiece that compensated for wind speed and bullet drop. Ten months into this bloody struggle, Tomura had long since lost track of how many of his allies had fallen to her lethal accuracy and range, gunned down when they least expected it.

She had slung the weapon in question over her shoulder at the moment, and was currently peering at the armor case on Midoriya's back.

"The new folding mechanism I developed is working perfectly, I see! Amazing- this has always been one of my favorite babies!"

"We'll discuss your babies later." Izuku cut her off with a single wave of his hand, and she quickly lapsed into a respectful silence. He strode up to Kurogiri, a hand on his chin; Shigaraki could feel his heart tightening in his chest. No- let him go, please.

"You're strong, and your quirk is useful. I like it. You'll come with us."

Shinso snapped out a series of orders to that effect, and Tomura breathed a ragged sigh of relief. At least one of us will be getting out of this, old friend.

"Hitoshi, did you have Yaoyorozu make burners as I asked?" Izuku still refused to look in Shigaraki's direction as he paced about the room.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, give me one."

Shinso pulled a cheap, plastic flip phone from his coat and tossed it to Midoriya, who wasted no time opening it and dialing a number.

"H-Hello? I-Is this emergency services?" In an instant, Izuku's demeanor had changed completely, his voice wavering like a nervous schoolboy's. If he hadn't known better, Tomura might have thought there were actual tears welling up in the boy's eyes. He's that versatile, huh? "I think I saw some vigilantes fighting villains at the old steel warehouse in Nabu Ward! P-Please come quick, I'm so scared!"

The moment he closed the phone, though, the darkness in his eyes returned.

"Dabi, Monoma, Hatsume. Comb the warehouse and destroy any evidence that we were here before the police arrive. Leave the bodies of the Nomu intact, though- let them believe that the organized presence that the League represented is finally extinguished. Spinner, Twice, gather everyone else on the first floor and wait for my command to depart- our new friend Kurogiri is going to be very useful for transportation. And Toga, Shinso…" There was a sudden coldness in Midoriya's voice. "Dispose of this trash, would you?"

Like clockwork, everyone snapped into their assigned tasks- Shigaraki's eyes widened in rage. All this time and effort to trap me here, to kill me, and he can't even be bothered to watch the end himself?

"Aw, boss, Hitoshi'll make it so quick though!" Hatsume cried in protest, tagging along at Izuku's heels. "I've got some new babies that could really make him suffer if you know how to use them."

"She's right," Monoma chimed in with a gleeful smirk. "Someone as pathetic as him isn't worthy of an easy death! Not to mention, I do like his quirk. If we take him back, I could have an opportunity to study it and find some… creative applications for it."

"He doesn't deserve any more of our time or our effort." Midoriya countered in a tone that brokered no argument. "We've wasted enough on him by now." Just as before, his subordinates nodded silently before returning to their objectives. Izuku started to step through the door, but after everything, Tomura couldn't let him leave that easily. Not like this…

"She'll defeat you." The words tasted like bile on his tongue, but he spat them out all the same. At the room's threshold, Midoriya paused. "You think you're invincible now that you've beaten me. That you've removed all opposition. But she's still there. She'll still be hunting you. Without my master's power, you'll never be able to defeat the new Symbol of Peace."

"Is that so?" Even with the boy's back to him, Shigaraki could feel him smile. "You still buy into that nonsense, don't you? That you were the chosen one to defeat the Symbol of Peace? I almost pity you, actually. The press can fawn over her all they like, but All Might's errand girl doesn't concern me. She's just one woman, and she'll die like all the others, when the time is right. A shame you'll never be able to see that moment come."

There was a flash of motion at the corner of his vision, and a sharp pain suddenly shot through one of Tomura's legs; Toga had slipped behind him and injected him with her blood collector while he was focused on Midoriya.

"Suck, suck, suck… I'm gonna drain you dry, Mr. Boss!" She wore a sadistic grin as she worked, and any attempt that he made to resist was swiftly counteracted by Shinso, who was standing above him. Shigaraki glanced back to the door and opened his mouth to throw one final barb, but Midoriya was already gone.

"One canister should be enough." Hitoshi cut her off just as Tomura began to feel lightheaded- with all the blood he had lost by now, he was surprised it had taken this long. "Go join the others. I'll handle this."

"Aww, you're no fun!" Himiko pouted, but she complied all the same, darting off to find Midoriya and leaving Shinso alone with his victim. At first, Tomura thought that the boy might finish him off himself, and braced himself for the inevitable blow, but it never came- when he opened his eyes, Hitoshi was standing near the entrance, a soft smile on his lips.

"Dark Shadow. Kill."

There was a rustling movement in the nearest corner of the room, and for the first time Shigaraki noticed that there was a shape hidden among the shadows, the vague impression of a body surrounding by pulsing darkness. It emerged into the dim light one labored step at a time, but when it unfurled to its full height, letting out a roar from its beaked mouth, the shadow was well over ten feet tall. Tokoyami Fumikage, he knew, his memories stretching back to the broadcast of the U.A. Sports Festival, so far in the past now. One of the two first-years who vanished a month after Midoriya and his group's initial disappearance. So they've had you and Yaoyorozu all along?

There was no more time to reflect on the past, though. Tokoyami's pace was steadily quickening as he and his shadow advanced on Tomura, one massive, clawed limb reaching toward him. Beneath the veil of sentient darkness that surrounded and enclosed the young man's body, he could see tears streaming down Fumikage's beak as he drew closer, and once he was near enough, Shigaraki realized that he was mouthing out the words 'I'm sorry'.

When he was within arm's reach of Tomura, the yellow-eyed head drifting far above Tokoyami let out another roar, and the beast charged, talons of darkness outstretched.

Shimura's gaze drifted to his Father's hand one last time, lying discarded on the floor, to the others lining his arms. Mother. Grandpa. Grandma. Hana. His breath escaping in a soft sigh, he closed his eyes, and all at once the itching finally stopped.

"Game over," Tenko whispered, as the shadow rushed forward to meet him.

Hope you guys enjoyed the start of this take on a VillainDeku AU! The next few chapters will be a series of flashbacks to explain how everything got to this point, and from then on, it'll be alternating chapters from the heroes and villains.

Let me know what you think in the comments! Who do you think All Might's successor is?