Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When I opened my eyes, I could tell with great certainty that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I shook my head, wincing slightly as I felt a pain in my skull, and blinked my eyes a few times to try to clear my vision of the fuzziness that had descended on me. The roof of my mouth felt dry, as if someone had lit a bonfire on my tongue and let it die out, and my lips felt more parched than they had ever been in my life. Add into this the splitting pain that rang around my sinuses, akin to a migraine, and I was not feeling great in that moment.

That wasn't why I could tell that something was horribly wrong, however. The pain was a minor inconvenience compared to the crushing realisation, as my vision cleared and I became aware of the sensation underneath me, that I wasn't where I last remembered I had been. I remembered being outside in the fresh air, the smell of grass and mud after rain, hearing the sound of the ducks on the pond near the library where I had been studying. And then...

Then I didn't remember. That was wrong.

Maybe that wasn't a fair statement. I could remember... something. Fragments, as if someone had projected my life onto a pane of glass and then smashed the glass, so that all over the floor tiny pieces of broken glass were showing me parts of my life. I tried to focus, and I just... couldn't get the key details.

I thought of my parents, and I could only see the blurry silhouettes of two people in my head, associated with the feelings of love and admiration and frustration that go hand in hand with parents and children. But then I felt something else, saw something clearer, saw a face I didn't recognise and didn't associate with the idea of "parent". The severe face of a stern man, with sharp features and short hair, stared back at me, and I was none the wiser as to why, or why I felt such strong feelings of anger and resentment boil up in me. This man wasn't my father. Why did he appear in my head when I tried to picture my dad?

Whatever had happened, I felt disjointed, broken, confused. Something wasn't right and I didn't feel right in the head. This didn't feel like a hangover or anything like that; this was something fundamentally wrong. And that wasn't the only thing that was wrong.

If I had been asleep on my home on my bed, I... well, I couldn't even get a clear picture in my head of my own bedroom right now. I could see details in fleeting; I could picture a huge window looking out onto a sprawling back garden, a double bed with a spring out of place that dug into my left kidney if I lay on my back, and a movie poster somewhere on a cream-painted wall. I couldn't even remember the movie even if I really focused. But this wasn't it.

This room was dark, one faded orange bulb overhead which flickered as if the power wasn't quite there. The walls were dark brown and orange, and smeared with something I couldn't identify, and didn't want to. This was a single bed, surprisingly comfier than what I was used to, but far too short, so my feet poked over the end and hung into space. Between that and the rather strong smell of stale alcohol, this definitely wasn't my place.

"This isn't my room."

I spoke aloud, to myself, and there came the next revelation. "And that's not my voice."

I sat upright and tried to process what I'd just heard, how jarringly familiar it all was. My normal voice was quite deep, and I remembered that friends and colleagues had told me it always seemed to have an air of sarcasm to it even when I was genuinely trying to be nice to them. The voice I had just spoken in had spoken in a language which I understood but which wasn't my own. The voice was sharp, raspy, almost nasal in places, and that wasn't just the result of a dry mouth or dry lips.

There were all sorts of complicated emotions in that tone; I could hear real venom in it, the voice of someone holding a grudge, but there was also a sense of... whininess? How else could I describe it? Entitlement and hurt, as if I was about to throw my toys out of the pram because I'd spoken with a voice that wasn't mine. As if I deserved better.

Why did I know the voice?

"Okay, what bullshit is this?" I asked myself, not expecting an answer from anyone, and I decided to take stock by looking at what else I had to offer. At that point I looked down my body as I lay there on the mattress, and got confused even more.

These clothes weren't mine for a start; I hated skinny jeans, but apparently I had gone for a lie down in black pants which didn't even reach my skinny ankles, and hadn't bothered to take the red trainers off I was wearing. Those I approved of, and the black hoodie I was apparently wearing was incredibly comfortable, if not my style. This wasn't the pressing issue though; that, in fact, was my body. My legs and arms were too skinny and I was too thin, but the worst was my hands. I looked at my hands for only a second, with the nails nearly ink black and the skin a deathly pale yellow, and nearly screamed.

These weren't my hands.

"What the hell happened to me?" I said to nobody in particular, before noticing on a table besides the bed there was a glass of water. Thank god for small mercies- I could at least stop my tongue from feeling like sandpaper. I reached out...

And as I grasped the glass of water in my hand, it crumbled to dust in a moment.

"What."

I looked at the dust on the side of the table, floating in a little pool of water that had until a moment ago been my drink. I looked at my hand, outstretched where all five fingers had touched the glass. I looked at the dust again, and then I made the worst mistake of all. I looked at the other object on the table.

For a moment I thought that I was being kept company in that bedroom by a giant spider, until I counted the number of limbs. It couldn't be a spider with only five. Then the part of my brain that was still struggling to work out how I had disintegrated the glass caught up with the rest of my brain, and saw what the grey and blue abomination was, with its little box at the base and creepy outstretched fingers. There was no mistaking it- that was the mummified hand of a dead person, sat on my table like an ornament, its fingers pointing towards me. Beckoning.

It was time to take stock. I was in a room that wasn't my own. I had skin that looked dead and arms that looked like they were about to snap like twigs at any moment. I had hands which turned whatever they touched to dust, the whiny voice of a petulant brat angry at the world, and a zombie hand sat on my bedside table like it was my most prized possession.

And then it hit me. The sudden realisation. The memories that came flooding back of hours glued to a screen watching heroes and villains duking it out with everything at stake. Of the times curled up in bed reading the latest chapter, wondering what the hell was going to happen next. Heroes that made you question what it meant to be a hero, villains that made you question if they were wrong, stories of heirs and successors and the intertwined fates of good and evil. Stories to last a lifetime, like no other.

Stories of a young hero to be, and a villain like no other whose touch turned things to ash.

"You can't be serious." I jerked upright with a thud, landing on my feet far lighter than I remember myself being, and stared around the room, desperately hoping my theory wouldn't be right. With a horrible feeling in my gut, I saw the sink in the corner of the room, the cracked mirror on the wall, and I strode over. I didn't want my theory to be confirmed, but with everything else I had I was almost resigned to it, a nightmare becoming true.

I stared into the mirror, and Tomura Shigaraki stared back at me.

"Right. I know you love your games, Tomura, but this glitch is weird even by your standards."

I cracked a smile at my own joke, and chapped lips broke into a crooked smirk with faded yellow teeth. That wasn't going to be a face I could get used to anytime soon.

Right. Think. What did I know? I had devoured the manga back in my old life, and had tried to convince anyone I know who may be interested that they should watch the show. Ignoring the fact that it was stupid that I couldn't even remember my own name from my old life, or what my own face looked like, my canon knowledge was as up to date as it could be.

"Somehow, I am Tomura Shigaraki," I said to myself, incredulous at what I was seeing. It really was him- bright red eyes surrounded by wrinkled, pale skin on a face which looked like it had been through hell and back. It hadbeen through hell and back. I knew Tomura, more than I knew myself. This was trouble.

I was now the heir to the throne of All For One, the villain who could match All Might and plunge society into chaos. I was the gaming-obsessed successor who inherited All For One the Quirk, tore apart the world with a myriad of powers. I had become the boy who had destroyed his own family when the abuse by his father got too much, who had been groomed for years and years by a megalomaniac to tear society down. In canon, this manchild unleashed a Nomu on UA students, took on the Hero Killer, took down Re-Destro, earned the loyalty of the calamity Gigantomachia, a walking natural disaster.

I had become the grandchild of Nana Shimura, the seventh holder of One For All.

At that point, I paused. I had some massive issues on my hands, not least the use of my actual hands; I had rudimentary knowledge of how Decay worked in canon but no practical experience with it. But my issues extended further than this. I knew about One For All and All For One. I knew that Izuku was the heir. I knew about All Might and his limits, I knew where All For One would be defeated, and unlike the Shigaraki I had watched, I was conscious and fully aware of my Shimura heritage. Whether he had blocked it from his memory or whether All For One had manipulated him, the Shigaraki I knew wasn't aware of this.

This would be trouble for me going forward. I needed to work out where and when I was, fast, or some of my knowledge would backfire massively on me. And I needed to work out how I was going to blend in for the time being, or risk being absolutely destroyed by the single most powerful villain to ever walk the face of the earth for replacing his carefully-groomed future heir.

That thought made me pause. I don't know what I had done to deserve this; I don't think I was a fundamentally bad person in my former life to deserve being incarnated into the body of the future Grand Commander of the Paranormal Liberation Front. But it left me in a precarious position. In theory, I could have worked out where I was and run away, left behind All For One and the League and found my way to the Heroes. If All Might was in his prime, I could give him the means and information to beat All For One sooner. I could have turned Tomura back into Tenko, made him a force for good, redeemed himself and acted as I pleased to try to do the right thing.

Not knowing where I was limited me in any event, but at whatever stage in Tomura's life I had been spawned into (the gamer talk was infectious but effective) it was bad news for me. Before Kamino, and any acting out on my part would leave me the target of a walking demon in a black mask; no matter who I ran to, I knew so little of the world and had so little grasp on my own power that annihilation beckoned. After Kamino, and I was now in a position where any transgression would upset powerful people and bring down the whole house. If I suddenly made Tomura good and abandoned leadership, nobody would believe me on the Hero side, and even worse I could be hunted by League allies, PLF allies, even the Doctor. He could set Machia on me and the thought terrified me.

"You're a coward," I said to myself, gripping the tap carefully with all but one finger, "but you can't do anything else."

Self-justification had led to my conclusion. I was a coward for not deciding to change Tomura's course, but as much as my heart was screaming to try to do the right thing, every rational thought in my head and every last fibre of my survival instincts told me I could not. I would doom myself with very powerful people if I did not play the part, wherever I had been placed in this role. I needed more information, but more than anything I needed to be convincing, a brat, a danger. I needed to be Tomura.

I needed to do well.

I was so engrossed staring into the mirror that I didn't hear the door open, and didn't hear anything until the polite cough behind me. "Tomura Shigaraki... forgive me, but I have been sent to collect you."

That voice, deep and ethereal and oh so eloquent, told me all I needed to know. He wouldn't be around shortly after Kamino, which meant that so much of that was still to come in Tomura's life. Whatever happened, I knew I had an incredibly powerful ally standing right behind me in the room, and someone whose mission it was to protect me. So long as I didn't jeopardise that, I could rely on him and his powers.

I turned and nodded, and for the first time myself I took in the glory of the being before me. The tailored suit was immaculate, and the treacherous rational part of my brain wondered where it had come from, but there was nobody quite like him in the world. He was an eldritch creature of purple and black fog that billowed with every shift in the air like some malevolent flame, and for a moment I found myself marvelling at the piercing yellow eyes that glowed within the smoke, like some primal creature in the dark of night. "Kurogiri. I want to be left alone."

I wanted to be left alone to come to my senses more and take stock, but he didn't know that, and Kurogiri certainly didn't flinch at the deliberately bratty response from me. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Your presence to discuss matters is required, Tomura."

I made a show of grinding my teeth together in frustration. "Why? What's so important it can't wait for ten minutes?"

"He's in a more open mood than he was with you before." Kurogiri bowed. "He just wants to talk. He is open to your idea."

He? Oh no. Kurogiri didn't need to be specific for me to work out who he was. This was far too soon, and inwardly I tried not to scream at the timing. I needed days, weeks more time to get to grips with being Tomura, and now I had seconds before the most important person in his life came calling. Before I most likely exposed myself and was torn to atoms for taking his prized heir from him.

I sighed, and stuffed my hands in my pockets, determined not to touch the fabric of the hoodie with all five fingers. "Fine. Let's get this done."

I had never experienced it for myself, but in an instant Kurogiri's fog flared out from his head and hands and completely surrounded me, the whole world going dark and purple. There was a strange feeling, not unlike the moment on a fast rollercoaster where the force of launch knocks the wind out of your lungs, and suddenly we were in an all-too-familiar new venue, orange light glinting off of rows of glass and faded leather seating. I wasn't, surprisingly, at all dizzy, and that meant for a moment I could take in my surroundings.

The bar looked a lot nicer in person than it did in the show; I'd have drunk there in my old life. I don't know if Tomura drank in show, but if I survived what happened next I would be making the most of Kurogiri's drink menu. I would have earned it by that point.

As I came to my senses and stretched my arms, I heard the crackle of static and then froze. I thought that the show had exaggerated, but a wave of aura unlike anything I had ever felt washed over me from that television screen and paralysed me on the spot. This was raw, this was primal, fear and horror distilled and emanating from one screen set up on a table by the dartboard in the bar. There was only one person who could do this.

I did the only thing I could do and bowed my head, expectant and afraid. "Sensei? You... wanted to talk."

For a moment there was silence, and then a deep chuckle from the screen, a laugh that crawled up my spine and made whatever hairs remained on my deathly pale skin stand up on end. "I must say, I didn't expect you to be so willing to talk to me so soon, given your anger only an hour ago."

"Time can heal any wound," said Kurogiri sagely, and I wished that the warper was still standing behind me as some form of companion. The fact that he had moved behind the bar left me feeling naked and alone standing before the screen, and the ultimate evil on the other side of it.

"Quite so, Kurogiri," replied the voice on the screen. "And time also allows us a moment to think. I realise I may have been unduly harsh on you, Tomura, and so I wanted to give you another chance to convince me that your plans should be supported."

All For One chuckled again, and I felt it in my bones this time. "Well now, Tomura Shigaraki. Tell me once again why I should let you go ahead with your plan to attack UA High?"

Chapter Text

"Well now, Tomura Shigaraki. Tell me once again why I should let you go ahead with your plan to attack UA High?"

That question had been asked to me by All For One, the monarch of the underworld, as I stood in a body that wasn't my own, in a world I hadn't been in for more than ten minutes. Me, a nobody from another universe, now stood there masquerading as the heir to the throne of an evil power like no other. Tomura Shigaraki, I was not, and yet here I was, being asked to justify myself by a living weapon of mass destruction, for a decision that wasn't mine.

Talk about out of my depth.

In the brief second that taking a breath in allowed me, my brain raced with the revelation that came as a result of All For One's question. Sure, I had become Tomura Shigaraki, and the giveaway that I was still speaking to the most nefarious villain known to this world had helped me place this stage in Tomura's life as BK (Before Kamino). But to hear All For One questioning Tomura on a plan to attack UA put everything into a whole new perspective. I knew where I was, finally, when I was. I could see what was coming.

And I didn't like it one bit.

I would have given anything to have heard words from All For One which had placed me later on, or much further in the past. I could have made the most of the whole situation if Tomura was still in his developmental stage, if his Sensei was still trying to see if he could raise him to become a future successor. If none of the canon I knew had already happened then I could have found a way to get out of my situation; I could have disappointed All For One and made him feel that he had no choice but to get rid of me into the wider world. I could have tried to flee, although the idea of being hunted down by the man behind the curtain gave me shivers even more than his aura did at this very moment.

That aura really was something else. I had dismissed it when watching the show as something played up for dramatic effect, argued with friends that it was more of a reverence thing coming from Tomura anyway, tried to claim that it was all just played up by dramatic organ music in the background that paralysed you by how grandiose it was. But no, All For One really did root you in place where you stood with just a few words; his voice was so eloquent and smooth and yet there was something absolutely horrifying about the glee and brutality layered into it. He was terrifying.

If this was what he could make me feel like from behind a screen, not even at his full strength, not even present to chide me for Tomura's failures, then I didn't know how I was going to cope when I met him for the first time. The skinny knees I was trying to get used to couldn't stop shaking as I stood there in front of the television, hearing his voice from the other side. All For One, the brutal scar on Japan's Quirked history, was right there.

God knows how All Might ever fought him.

That thought shook me from my brief reverie as I remembered what he had said. A plan to attack UA High, from Tomura Shigaraki, could only mean one thing. I'd been placed into this decrepit, entitled brat's head at the time where he was planning the USJ attack... although, as I thought harder, I realised I was assuming. Canon might make that so, but I had no clue if Tomura had planned anything sooner than the USJ- if he had, All For One had reigned him in, as there was no mention of it in the show.

Time to work it out.

I shook my head and smirked, trying not to flinch as long blue hair that wasn't my own swung in front of my eyes for a brief moment. "What's wrong, Sensei? You don't think I can do it?"

Behind me I heard an intake of breath and I realised that Kurogiri, stood polishing glasses behind the bar he had made his own, had gasped. "Master Tomura..."

"Oh Tomura, do you think so little of me as a mentor?" The question from All For One was mocking and sing-song, as if he was enjoying drawing this out. "I don't doubt that you could do it, but I wouldn't be doing my job as a teacher well to allow you to continue deluding yourself."

"Delusion?" I frowned and hissed that question out, pulling acting skills I didn't know I had ever had in any life out like my life depended on it. It kinda did, to be fair to myself- if he realised that I wasn't his Tomura, I was in for a world of pain. "Can't you see what I'm trying to do?"

"Enlighten me, Tomura." Those three words were heavy as nightfall, and I felt a chill go down my spine as I felt the full weight of his attention turned onto me. "What is the purpose of your little exercise?"

"You never get it." Improvisation was key, and I scratched my neck like I'd seen Tomura do in canon whenever he was stressed. It was surprisingly therapeutic, actually. I could get used to doing that. "All I want to do is take some boss mobs down for ya. Can't you let me do that?"

"Boss mobs..." All For One mused. "Forgive me, but sometimes your choice of video gaming vocabulary is something I do struggle with. Ah yes. I presume you mean the teachers at UA? Or perhaps, their newest teacher, All Might?"

Bingo. Thank you, All For One. We were first year of canon after all. Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief that my knowledge of everything I had seen in the show would come in handy, closely followed by a barely-contained groan that I now couldn't get out of making an enemy of Class 1A if the USJ was to go ahead as planned. "I thought you'd be more supportive if you wanted All Might dead."

"Ha!" His laugh was rich like toffee and dangerous like belladonna. "Believe me, my young protégé, I would like nothing more."

"Then why not let me try for you, Sensei?" Surely appealing to his own bloodlust was how Tomura would react here. "What's so bad about that idea?"

"Oh Tomura, must I spell it out for you? Perhaps I should use vocabulary from your hobby to help you understand." There was a brief intake of breath, and I could tell without seeing his face that All For One had begun to smirk, that gruesome wide smile on the terrible scarred face. "Kurogiri's power is an asset, and you're right to identify it as a key component of any successful attack plan. But on your current idea, you would have Kurogiri warp the whole party into a monster house."

... Wait. In my mind, there was a brief moment of hesitation and if my life was an anime, I'd swear there would have been a record scratch at that point. "A monster house?"

"How else would you describe the whole of UA, my apprentice?"

This... wasn't the plan. Tomura led an attack on the USJ with Nomu and a whole horde of side villains. Why in God's name was All For One talking about an attack on UA High itself? "Attacking... the whole of UA?"

"I see you've realised the folly in such a plan," All For One continued, seemingly oblivious to the look that had flashed across my face before I remembered my place and fixed a sullen grimace on my new face. "You would have us emerge into the middle of the school and begin to attack without discretion, or reason, or strategy, until we came across All Might and bulldozed him out of the way as well. Placing us there with Kurogiri's Warp Gate would be simple, I agree, as the coordinates for UA aren't exactly a secret. But this would be a plan to warp us and any supporters into the heart of UA, with all of UA's teachers, all of its students, that erstwhile chimaera running the show and his elaborately managed security systems, before we even got to All Might himself. A few obstacles is one thing, but to place all of that in front of All Might, on his home turf, as it were... that plan is doomed from the start, Tomura."

This was not what I was expecting to hear. That wasn't how canon had worked, that wasn't what Tomura had tried. There was no record of Tomura ever trying to get into the middle of UA, although in his defence I could see why he had thought it might be a good idea. As I remember it, Kurogiri's Quirk was supposed to be coordinate-based if he couldn't see the exact location (although this was of course subject to the power of suspended belief and bullshit plot convenience), so if Tomura could have got the coordinates for the staff room, or Nezu's office, that would give him a good springboard for an attack if he launched it while classes were in session. But...

All For One had shut him down. Shut me down. God this was confusing. And that meant Tomura didn't have a plan of attack at this time. Tomura hadn't yet got approval to warp into the USJ and target All Might...

Oh no. Was I about to cause canon?

This screamed bootstrap paradox and then some- coming into this with knowledge of the show, I was expecting matters to proceed as they were in the show. I was expecting a USJ attack and yet at the point I had come in, the idea had not been conceived. Except it had been, because the idea was in my head, waiting to be given substance from what I remembered in canon. And if I didn't give it, then canon could derail as I knew it. It could not- someone else may conceive the idea. But there was a chance everything could be avoided if I didn't share the idea...

But that wasn't an option.

I couldn't just leave matters here. I was Tomura now, and Tomura would be stubborn, wouldn't take being told no for an answer even by All For One. All For One himself would be suspicious if I didn't try to find another way to lash out against All Might and the system, and given how powerful he was there was no chance I could flee at this stage into the arms of the Heroes without suffering his wrath, without being destroyed. I couldn't give up now.

Most of all though, there were two little voices in the back of my head which screamed two quite dark and yet logical thoughts at me. The first was simple; if I didn't ensure that canon was achieved, I would be in the dark, would have no guide as to what was coming. The future could be even worse if I wasn't in command of where it was going, and the idea of being in command was far more attractive than the absolute crushing uncertainty. The second was even darker- I wanted approval from All For One, right? To keep myself safe? How better to achieve it than to set the ball rolling with a plan he couldn't fail to be impressed by?

My mind was made up, as much as every inch of me screamed that the hurt it would cause would be catastrophic and wrong. My only option was to share the plan to attack the USJ as I remembered it. Canon would be a self-fulfilling prophecy because of me, and the ball would be set rolling on everything, but I would know what I was facing and be prepared for it. People would be hurt, would die, because of this, and it would be on me, and yet the fear and lack of knowledge meant I was unwilling to consider anything else.

I hated the little part of me at the back of my brain which seemed to revel in the thrill of what was to come, no matter how dark, and look forward to going down this dark path.

"You seem awfully quiet, Tomura." Shit. I had forgotten about the small detail that was All For One, sat on the other end of a video call expectantly waiting for his apprentice to pipe up. "Is something troubling you?"

This was it. Time to take a gamble. I shook my head and chuckled. "Nah. It's just something you said, that's all. Something I found funny."

Kurogiri seemed to twitch from his position behind the bar, and I could tell that this response had made him nervous. "Tomura, I'm sure you don't mean that-"

"Don't panic like that, Kurogiri." I forgot how protective Kurogiri had been of Tomura, and clearly my attitude at this point was hitting the mark enough if the spectre was concerned my responses would piss off All For One. "It just made me think again, that's all."

"I can't say I'm not intrigued." I could have sworn there was a sound on the other end of the screen as if All For One had leaned forward. Not that I could see the bastard's face to prove it, but I'd have bet money on it. "What was it I said?"

"You called UA a monster house." Maybe I was overdoing it with the gaming lingo, but Tomura was obsessed at this point, right? "So maybe I shouldn't warp the whole party into the monster house. I'm thinking... maybe I need to change the stage."

"Change the stage... why Tomura, are you suggesting a different venue?"

"Yeah. One that means we can do as much damage as possible." I took a moment to see if the gravity of what I was about to say was really something I could settle my conscience to, but I wasn't fooling anyone, not least myself. This was the way forward, and I seized at it with both decaying hands. "Instead of UA... let's attack their precious USJ."

Silence. Absolute blissful silence from the end of the screen. For a moment I thought I'd got the hook into All For One, before I realised my fishing analogy was off- I had just thrown blood in the water, and the shark was sizing up whether it wanted to commit.

"... Their external training facility?"

Gotcha. I grinned and felt the chapped lips of the body I had inherited crease. "You got it. We don't want to deal with all the boss mobs, the endgame boss and all the minions, because even if we recruit, we aren't high level enough. But if we swarm the USJ, we can farm a small group of low levels before we get the boss."

"The plan... has merit." I had absolutely no relationship with Kurogiri myself, but it was heartening how quick he jumped in to contribute to 'my' plan. "The coordinates are simple to acquire and it is sufficiently remote. All Might would be teaching Rescue Training with maybe one or two other teachers, and one class of students. Compared to the whole school, it is an immediate upgrade, and we can escape from there before reinforcements arrive from the main campus."

"Who handles Rescue Training at UA?" I asked aloud, playing ignorant.

"Thirteen..." Kurogiri put down the glass he was stacking and nodded his foggy black head. "I can take them. Black Hole is a powerful Quirk, but they have little to no combat history. Opening a Warp Gate to redistribute Black Hole's effects-"

"Pretty devastating combo." I grinned at Kurogiri, and I mentally did a jump for joy as the shadow man seemed to preen at the attention. From my knowledge of canon, Kurogiri had been assigned to Tomura as a ward by All For One, but as much as Kurogiri served the same boss as Tomura, he was a guardian whose purpose was to ensure Tomura's safety and continued success- in other words, my safety. Whatever his relationship was with Tomura before I took this body, I had to be sure that Kurogiri remained onside and that his unfaltering desire to protect me endured. If singing his praises achieved this, I was all for it.

"So it's Thirteen, All Might, one teacher and a bunch of kids against our troops while we tackle All Might. Much better odds."

"I would be inclined to agree." There was something in All For One's tone that remained doubtful, and I was placing mental bets as to why. "Although I would hasten to add that we still require more resources. You would want to take All Might on in a head-to-head fight?"

"I wouldn't, I'd get wrecked." Time to take a long punt. "Nomu, on the other hand, would do just fine."

All For One's chuckle made me fear for my own life, and I wondered for a second if I'd overstepped. I stood by my bet though. Surely All For One and the Doctor would have shared their creations and their knowledge of Quirk manipulation with the future successor, or why else would Tomura have turned up at the USJ in canon with some hulking black abomination in tow? Nomu, the bird-brain with Super Regeneration and Shock Absorption, a host of other Quirks I didn't even know the full details of, was made to counter All Might, was described as the "Anti-Symbol of Peace"... Tomura would have known about such a creature if he was allowed to take it out on a school field trip and sic it on students. Surely?

"... And here I was thinking you hadn't paid attention when I showed you his full potential, Tomura."

Thank god that the logic in my theorising had been sound. "We need a brawler and a tank in our party anyway. But you wanna give me a party member who can dance with All Might? I'm all ears."

"I suppose... although I must say, I had hoped that the Doctor would be able to help him develop more Quirks. They could be invaluable to fight All Might-"

"But the more we delay, the more the school gets to train those damn hero kids," I countered, interrupting the supervillain to the consternation of Kurogiri behind me. "He's strong, and fast, and he's already got Shock Absorption and Super Regeneration. Hit them now and we take them by surprise, and Nomu still has a moveset that can take out All Might. He's ready now, Sensei."

He wasn't, of course. Nomu wasn't ready for even a tired All Might, and nor was he ready for the man to go beyond his limits in a battle which flashed vividly in my mind as I stood there. All Might had countered everything the black behemoth threw at him and returned it with gusto in a Plus Ultra Smash that won the fight, but I wasn't prepared to tell All For One that. If I had, and he found a way to secure the fight, it would change the canon future I had knowledge of, and I'd be up a creek without a paddle. He would have to be satisfied knowing that fighting Nomu reduced All Might's time limit, and I could breath easy knowing that I hadn't interfered to kill someone prematurely, or beat All Might before he was due to go down.

So all I could do was play it off as my enthusiasm to take the fight to All Might, and hope All For One didn't ask too many questions.

"Hm..." For a moment that seemed like an age, the screen was silent, and I tried not to let panic creep in or show on my face. To me, I was a little concerned that he didn't have an immediate retort to this; I figured that this meant that All For One was considering something unexpected, and if I had said something unexpected, I could have put my foot in somewhere it shouldn't go. "... Very well, Tomura. I am... surprised."

"Surprises are good, right?"

"Very good. I didn't expect that you would rise to the challenge and give me something more workable- part of me feared I would have to do this for you, and limit your learning opportunities. But instead you find a way to make a plan worth deploying, and who would I be if I did not encourage you on this path?"

"We'll make a leader of you yet," Kurogiri chimed in, and I couldn't help but notice the sense of pride in his tone. "Using your party to the best of their abilities in a plan like this... you're doing better than expected, Tomura Shigaraki."

"Heh, nothing to it." I scratched my neck again. God, it felt good; I was going to get addicted to this if I didn't get a grip. "Sensei, I-"

"Just one moment." All For One sounded amused. "This might be the perfect opportunity for a little experiment on my part."

Oh no. This wasn't in the script. "Experiment?"

"Your comment on the students was rather perceptive, Tomura. The more we wait, the more chances we give them of being able to defend themselves. To cause the maximum destruction, and the maximum pain to All Might... we can maximise the collateral damage. If he is a teacher, nothing would hurt him more than the loss of his students, after all. I know I would feel the same."

Little did he know how much of his student he had already lost.

Kurogiri moved from behind the bar and was suddenly looming behind me. "So you wish us to cause the most harm to the students present as well, Master."

"Precisely. And how better to harm the students than to pick on the weakest? The ones with the least experience?" All For One made a dark little noise of satisfaction on the other end of the screen. "The first years would be sufficient, don't you think?"

Huh. So the idea to go after the first years was his idea after all? Shame I couldn't claim all the credit but it made my work a lot easier. "Farming low level noobs? Works for me. Kurogiri?"

"I... have no idea what that means, but I agree with the Master. Did you... wish to use the asset?"

The asset. What the hell was the asset?

"It would be a good opportunity for them to prove their worth. And a good opportunity for Tomura to prove he's up to the task."

"You doubt me?" I growled, genuinely offended; it turns out even when stealing a plan from canon, I got defensive.

"I have every faith in you. But it follows that you'll need insider intelligence when to warp your forces into the USJ, to ensure that a first year class is there, to ensure that All Might is there, and to ensure that the facility isn't completely empty." All For One chuckled to himself. "Otherwise your whole plan will be for naught."

Okay, now I was placated. This was Tomura's break-in time, I could live with this. All I had to do was get in, nick a class list and get out again. Forget the fact that this was UA's hyper-secure campus crawling with Pro Heroes, I wasn't actually Tomura, and I had very limited knowledge of how to use Decay. This would be a cake walk. "You want me to break in? Dust a gate, steal some schedules, get on out again?"

"Something along those lines. Create a distraction; I'll have Kurogiri warp you in to meet with the asset. The asset can acquire you class lists and make sure that you're executing your grand plan at the right time. After all... what's the point in having someone on the inside of UA High if you can't use them properly?"

Oh great. He really had a mole inside UA. This... was not something that was familiar territory. If he had someone, then I had not seen them on screen the whole time I had watched the show, and if my memory of the manga was up to date then I don't think I'd seen any reveal for them either. I don't remember this ever being part of the plan but it looked like I was just going to have to roll with this as the first of many unexpected punches in this new body.

"They'll help us make sure it's a first year class?" I asked.

"Naturally. They'll have first hand experience of their current timetable, after all."

So it was a first year. All For One had a traitor in the first years. This was going to be a car crash. I scratched my neck to calm myself and muttered. "At least if they're involved in the attack, nobody's gonna think they're an imposter."

"That was rather my line of thinking. Although I wouldn't expect people to doubt them anyway- they're a rather forgettable sort, after all." Before I had time to question that line, I heard All For One hum to himself. "I'll go now, and make the preparations. The Doctor and I will contact the asset, and will confirm when a good time will be to make the meeting and retrieve your intelligence, Tomura. And I'll inform the Doctor that you want his prize possession-"

"I'll try not to break his toy," I said, with a smirk.

"See that you don't." There was some mirth in the villain's tone now. "Kurogiri, I will contact you when I need your assistance with the meeting, but for now, both of you rest. This was a good meeting- I am pleased we have made progress."

"... Thanks, Sensei," I murmured at the same time as Kurogiri bowed his head, before the television cut to static from All For One's disconnecting the call. It stayed like that until Kurogiri reached over with a smokey black hand and switched it off with a remote, leaving it sat in the middle of his bar humming. "God damn."

"Impressive work, Master Tomura. I haven't heard the Master so proud in a while," Kurogiri commented.

"Yeah, thanks Giri." I kept my reply brief and kept my back turned to the warper, just so that he couldn't see my shoulders shake as I let out a breath I had been holding in for some time. Alarmed, I reached up with one gnarled hand towards my chest, remembering at the last second to lift my pinky finger, before touching my heart and feeling it beating out of my chest at a speed I wasn't aware of until All For One left the call. I was terrified.

By the skin of my teeth, I had made it through the first 'meeting' with All For One relatively unscathed, and frankly that was a miracle. Now I just had the small matter of a UA traitor, an attack on the USJ to carry out, and the start of a dark path which would lead me to becoming the most dangerous villain in all of Japan... my heart wasn't going to cope at this rate.

No pressure.

"Kurogiri?"

"Master Tomura?"

"... I need a drink. "

(***)

Chapter Text

There were numerous things which had, over the last couple of days, completely confused me. Beyond the wider struggle towards acceptance as I infrequently had an existential crisis about the fact I had ended up in a completely new world, in the body of an anime villain and right at the start of his journey into darkness, there were numerous things about the world which set me off. Case in point? I couldn't wrap my head around just how muscle memory survived so well, even when a entire new person's consciousness had dropped into a person's head as a replacement.

It wasn't like I had given the whole 'what would happen if I reincarnated into another world' question much thought before. Nor could I ever say that I'd considered asking myself 'what if I just suddenly became another person at any point', or 'what fictional character would you end up becoming', either. Those weren't the sort of questions I had tended to ask myself, and honestly if anyone ever did, I would have several questions of my own about how much free time that person had, or how bored they were. Reality bit for me, hard, when I became Tomura Shigaraki.

My guides, in the first instance, were fiction. That wasn't exactly the sort of solid guidance I could really rely on in any event, given the wild differences in creative choice that certain writers or directors would pick. In the few things I could remember where someone just suddenly became another person, I couldn't find a consistent view on how easy it would be to adapt- for every story with a protagonist taking shaky steps forward on unfamiliar feet like a newborn lamb, there were blockbuster films where the character in question could shrug off dimensional travel like it was nothing, and do superhuman things without a backwards glance.

My experience had fallen somewhere towards the latter end of that scale, truth be told. Tomura had bandy legs, probably a little skinnier than mine had been in real life, and surprisingly smaller feet than I was used to- besides the odd couple of stumbling moments in the beginning, which I had blamed loudly on the numerous drinks Kurogiri had prepared after my talk with All For One, I somehow managed to get used to it quite quickly.

What then followed surprised me, over the next couple of days. All For One had left me to my own devices, apparently making preparations behind the scenes and speaking to the Doctor about the Nomu. I couldn't wait for the day I met Kyudai Garaki, the man behind the Quirk Singularity, a dark vision of society which just couldn't be denied no matter where one stood on the spectrum of heroes and villains. On my own, unsupervised, and left to entertain myself in Kurogiri's comfortable bar, I got to work learning what I could do. I hadn't expected that to be... so much.

One of the back rooms had contained a functional gymnasium, or the best equivalent that Kurogiri could source; sets of weights which looked brand new, a fancy running machine which could turn itself into an incline, and even mats for sparring. I had gravitated there the morning after I had drunk myself to sleep, partly out of stress of becoming a whole new person and party as a celebration for surviving my first dealings with All For One, and... I had been surprised. I had climbed up onto the running machine expecting to fall short of my usual low targets and blew every expectation I had away.

Tomura's fitness levels, strength, endurance? They had all survived despite my mind taking up residence in his like some dimensional cuckoo. To use his own turn of phrase, his dexterity stat was off the charts; it was more than enough reminder that I was now in a superhuman society now. It shouldn't have surprised me, because even at the USJ in canon, Tomura had been fast enough to get the drop on Izuku and his class, and strong enough to withstand blasts of air pressure from All Might's smashes that blew everyone else away. It was just... to think Icould do that as well? That was the unreal part.

His gaming abilities had survived too, much to my surprise. I had tried not to laugh when Kurogiri had dug out two gaming gloves along with the controllers- apparently All For One's generosity didn't extend to Decaying expensive controllers in a fit of rage, as Tomura had done before- but when I picked up the device and started to mash buttons? I was pulling off combos I shouldn't even have known were in the fighting games I had never played, taking short-cuts on race tracks despite it being my first time taking on Kurogiri (my one playing companion, and a surprising fiend at the MMOs. Apparently Tomura had rubbed off enough on him to learn).

It was, to borrow a gaming metaphor which he would love, like someone hadn't bothered to reset his EXP or skill tree when I arrived in his head. And I loved it. I couldn't imagine how hard things would have been to have to start again from zero and re-learn how to control a powerful Quirk like Decay, but here I was able to use it on instinct. I hadn't tried fighting anyone yet, partly to avoid embarrassing myself and partly because my only opponent to spar would have been Kurogiri; fighting a warper in close combat wouldn't have taught me anything. But trying out Decay on a bar stool, on some inoffensive furniture in a storeroom? I could use it just fine.

... Muscle memory was weird.

I looked down at the pack of cards I was holding in my hand, shuffling them at the same time as I thought, and tried not to smirk as I saw how I was holding my pinky finger out as if drinking fine tea. Even when I wasn't concentrating, I had grown accustomed to making sure Decay wasn't going to accidentally be activated. "Kurogiri?"

The spectre looked back at me from behind the bar, where he had been quietly perusing the selection of expensive imported spirits and moving a few bottles further up for better access. "Master Tomura?"

That one had been surprisingly easy to get used to hearing. Kurogiri's role, as I remembered it, had always been to prioritise Tomura's safety and look after him, raising him with valuable lessons and facing his petulance head on. Clearly the man had grown attached to the role and his young charge. That was the only explanation I had for why such a powerful being was content to call me Master, or indeed why one of All For One's most trusted lieutenants was so surprisingly good at video games when I invited him to pick up a controller and join me. I had learned very quickly that challenging Kurogiri at this world's latest version of Mario Kart was the real suicide mission, and not the attack on the USJ.

Still, winning him over had been one of my priorities since landing in his protégé's life entirely by accident. I had always thought that he had been remarkably under-appreciated in canon, for someone with such an incredible Quirk and sharp mind, although that wasn't really my reason. It was more to do with his proximity to the most dangerous man in the world, and how he could expose me to All For One as a fraud if I exposed myself. I needed a good relationship with the man of smoke if I was to continue to survive, so here I was.

Not like it was hard. He mixed a good drink and was good company for cards; he barely needed to do anything else.

I came to, shook myself, and looked up at him with an eye roll. "Didn't you say he would be here soon? What is he, stuck in a load screen?"

"Hm." Kurogiri made a little noise which I had realised was his way of laughing to himself, and his face flickered. It had been strange at first, seeing in the flesh a fully alive version of a 2D animated character with such a distinctive and non-human look, and it amazed me when I looked at him how he simultaneously looked real, and like the familiar drawn character at once. Even despite his unique look and being completely different to anything I had seen in my previous life, it was surprisingly easy to read emotion on a face like Kurogiri's; there was a look of mirth in those wide yellow eyes. "I believe he always prefers to refer to it as fashionably late."

I suspect 'he' did. If he was who I was thinking of, anyway.

As soon as All For One had approved the attack on the USJ, he had returned to consider the final arrangements with Nomu, and whoever his outside source in UA was; frankly, only someone as terrifyingly evil as All For One could make the word 'consider' sound like a death sentence. I had been surprised exactly how willing he had been to leave a substantial part of the planning to me, because even if I was his supposed heir, I was completely unknown before USJ and not a renowned strategist (not counting Tomura's eye for detail when it came for gaming tactics). It was not only a vote of confidence in Tomura's abilities at this stage, and his plan for attacking at the heart of UA, but also a boon for my own abilities to keep as close to canon as possible, and not end up out of my depth or breaking the established timeline.

That was before I recognised just how much Kurogiri was stepping in to help with the preparation. Tomura was a bit of a shut-in, true to form, and spent most of his days either training, watching the news or playing a game of some form rather than socialise. All as expected for All For One and his personal grooming of a successor, of course, but it meant that when I remembered the key components of USJ, I was glad to have Kurogiri on side. There was no way I would have even known where to begin to look to recruit a bunch of cannon fodder to our ranks, like Tomura had in canon from all the one-note villains stomped by Eraserhead, and yet Kurogiri took it all in stride.

He apparently knew a guy. Someone we could rely on to bolster our ranks and bring in the villain equivalent of cheap labour to throw into the USJ. And, looking back on canon and who had helped so much in building the League's ranks and profiles, who was known for bringing in the strays of the world and giving them a purpose, I think I knew the guy too. Even if he didn't know me yet.

God I was excited to see him in the flesh. If he was involved at this stage, it would be hard not to have a fan crisis. The smooth criminal himself.

I sniffed, and looked down at the cards, picking at the frayed edge of an ace. It wouldn't do to geek out about someone I supposedly didn't know in this world. "Late or not, I hope he's a useful NPC. Sometimes the party recruit system doesn't exactly give you much good stuff."

"He'll get us what we need," Kurogiri said, reassuringly, one ghostly hand pulling an empty gin bottle down to clear a space. "As long as we have sufficient resources to occupy All Might, the ones who come with us into the USJ are expendable. It doesn't matter if they're inferior, or if we lose a few."

It was cold, and logical, and calculating. It made complete sense and it was the plan I wanted to go for too. It just... felt weird to me to hear Kurogiri talk about them so callously. Tomura's thing in future was building a League where people felt a sense of belonging, so it was hard to see the early days of him and Kurogiri being so far away from that. "I still want ones who can do the job. There's enough trash-tier mobs out there that I could drag off the streets-"

"Ah, but then I wouldn't be gettin' paid. And you wouldn't be gettin' the results yer after, right?"

Bingo. That charming old voice, so coarse and yet so louche, and the wafting smell of cigarette smoke to precede his arrival? The first real ally besides Kurogiri that I needed to make in this world. Of course he had to behind recruitment on this scale.

I turned, taking him in, the gold tooth shining with the light from the bar, the rough stubble around his chin from a few nights of not shaving, the crisp edges to his lilac blazer (clearly he cared enough to get his jacket washed and pressed, even if he looked a little haggard elsewhere) and the slick smile on his face. He was majestic, as much as I could ever have hoped, but to him I was a complete stranger, and so I didn't greet him with the affection of an old friend but the practiced sneer I had honed in the cracked mirror. "Big talk for a side character. Kurogiri. Aren't you going to introduce me?"

"Of course," Kurogiri intoned, head bowing slightly. "Tomura Shigaraki, may I introduce you to the broker? The most reliable of the ones I and the Master have enlisted over the years. It is a pleasure to see you again... Giran."

Giran nodded his head, and I inwardly jumped for joy when I saw the twinkle in his eyes, the twinkle that refused to disappear even after my rude greeting. "Eh come on, we're among friends here, aren't we? The name's Kagero Okuta, kid. If yer half as good a customer as yer ol' man, we're gonna get on just fine."

He looked over to the bar, and to his credit he didn't flinch at the sight of Father. I hadn't quite gotten used to wearing it on my face yet, even if the smell of formaldehyde didn't bother like I thought it would, so while All For One And Kurogiri generally insisted I wore it around people, I was taking the chance to let my face (and nostrils) rest. "I'd offer to shake but... doesn't seem like ya need a hand."

I snorted at the bad joke, genuinely, and put the cards down. "It's safer you don't." At the raising of his eyebrows, I realised what I had said, and huffed to myself. "I'm not threatening you. Trust me. Kurogiri, what does my Quirk do?"

"Decay. Fingertip activated. All five fingers require it to work." The explanation was so practiced from my companion, who seemed to shoot an amused look at Giran. "I suspect you would like to keep your arms."

"I'm actually kinda attached to them." Giran pulled up a stool behind me, as Kurogiri set a glass of something amber and sweet-smelling down on the wood in front of both of us. That was a new one, one I hadn't tried before. Kurogiri clearly had a favourite. "So. Tomura. You don't mind if I call you Tomura, do ya?"

"Depends. If you don't deliver the goods, I might mind." Okay, I was being a dick now, but in my defence Tomura was a dick in his early days. I wanted to befriend this charming old rogue, the rascal of the underworld, and go for drinks with him, but I had an image to uphold for oh so many reasons. "You've been able to get all the recruitment ready?"

"Just about. There's a couple of things I wanted to check with you, though. Buyer confidence, and all that. After being told about your plans, it's best to be sure-"

"How much has Kurogiri told you?" I shot a look at the spectre, to try to see if Giran would feel uncomfortable that he may have learned too much.

"Enough. Enough to get a few people interested." Giran took a sip of the drink, smacked his lips, and turned to look at me- I noticed for the first time that he wasn't wearing his ridiculous cheap glasses. Needless to say in true Giran fashion, he hadn't been intimidated by me in the slightest. "Going into UA is bold. No villain has tried that and succeeded since the rat took control."

"Nezu is a smart creature," Kurogiri acknowledged, wiping absent-mindedly at part of his bar; it was amazing how one man could treat a room as if it were his child. "One that slipped through the cracks, to the shame of many. His security measures are fortress-like-"

"But no fortress is invincible. I've played enough swarm the tower levels to beat even the principal at UA." I jerked a thumb at Kurogiri. "Besides, none of the villains before had him pulling the strings. Best party assist in the country."

He preened at the attention, and I inwardly laughed; the more I complimented him to bring him on side, the better. "I will gladly show them what we can do."

"I'll say." Giran's mouth twitched in a little smirk. "You were smart to ask for a electrical Quirk too. Found you someone you can use to disrupt the security systems, easy enough."

"How about the rest of them?" I took a sip of the spirit, coughed, and tried not to break my own composure as it felt like Endeavor himself had stuck a finger into my throat. How the hell did Giran drink that without flinching? "No morons, I hope."

"You're bound to get some. You're attackin' UA High, after all. Any villain startin' out on their path wants a bite at that cherry, if it helps them climb to get ranked." Giran took a pull of the cigarette he had been holding, and stubbed it out in the ashtray Kurogiri had hastily found. "That's all some of them want."

I could understand that. Most common thugs and one-time criminals didn't get a ranking in this Japan, mostly because the police and heroes were so good at stamping out career criminals. The majority didn't last long enough to get ranked, like Giran had managed, so there would be some desperate idiots in the mix at USJ who just wanted to grab a headline in case it got them the notoriety they craved. "Fine. Just give me some decent people to point them in the right direction first."

"I wouldn't leave fine customers like yerselves high and dry! Trust me. You'll get some good ones in there too."

"Huh. Good." I considered trying to nudge the cup of liquid fire away from myself before giving up, and looked him in the eyes. "Now, about the ones who we need outside the USJ-"

"Before that..." Giran interrupted, and I felt myself panic slightly at the unknown territory. "I've got a real good one interested, if you wanna try him. He'd come to the USJ with you and almost act as a lieutenant, in a way. He wants to get back at UA anyway but... he's got enough in him he'd be of some use for some time."

... Huh. That was new. And alarming. "A lieutenant?" I turned to Kurogiri. "Someone we might actually want to permanently add to the party?"

"So it would seem." Kurogiri put down his cloth. "Giran, to whom are you referring?"

"You'd know him, trust me. You don't commit crimes like his and go unnoticed. Not when everything's on fire." Giran's smirk was lethal. "I don't know why he's so interested in going after UA, but if you want him... ever fancied an introduction to the Blueflame?"

Blueflame... Oh hell no. Surely not? Giran was offering me Dabi ? Touya Todoroki himself? For the USJ attack?

... My mind wandered, images of a maniacal gleam in the eyes of a wild sociopath as flames burned blue around him. Of a young man with patchwork skin, hair dye running down his cheeks, as he actually danced in the face of his abusive father and brought his world crashing down. The reveal that Dabi was Touya, the long lost son of Endeavor, had been a brutal revelation and the last big reveal I felt before I found myself in a new world. The idea of now having him at the USJ... the carnage it would cause would be insane.

I just couldn't risk it. He wasn't at USJ in canon, and for the sake of everyone involved it was probably for the best- Shoto Todoroki would have been hunted down and numerous others could have succumbed to his flames if he had been. I couldn't allow myself to end up in a situation where I had taken such a step, thrown the established timeline aside and ripped up continuity for the sake of something cool. I'd be on my own, and that didn't bear thinking about. Not in this state, with All For One looming so menacingly in the background.

Now it was how to explain that to Giran without breaking the fourth wall, or revealing Dabi's secret to Giran of all people. He probably already knew, knowing the smooth bastard that he was, but I wasn't about to find out that he didn't.

"Yeah... not this time." I took another sip of that drink, which was not a smart move on my part. "He's not what we need for this level."

"Is that so?" Giran asked, looking cocky. "He's more powerful than all of the others, and yet you don't want him involved? Seems a lil counterintuitive to turn down someone who might actually hold up more than a few seconds against All Might..."

I nodded, noting that the broker didn't seem to be fazed by the notion that we were using the USJ to try to get at the Symbol of Peace. "If you're worried how we're gonna defeat the final boss, don't be. I'm not stupid enough to walk into his lair without a strategy-"

"No, no. You seem smart, I'll give ya that much." Giran's eyes seemed to glimmer with amusement as he looked at me, eyes dwelling for a second on my skinny arms. "Just not exactly... big. I'm not a gambling man-"

"Bullshit."

"But I wouldn't even think about bettin' on you to take All Might in a fight. Ya don't look the type." Giran leaned forward, clearly fishing for information, and I could smell the cigarette smoke like a stale aura around him. "Unless there's somethin' yer not telling me."

"Oh, I'm not the one who gets to claim the kill on All Might. That's all covered." I wasn't about to reveal Nomu's existence just yet, but I wanted to say enough to hook the older man. He thrived on knowing things which others didn't, so withholding information like this from him? That had to be a surefire way of keeping him coming back. "Nah. Kurogiri told you, I want strong brawlers to sap some of All Might's stamina on the way, but when we're in there it needs to play out within my plan."

"And he wouldn't be?"

Kurogiri chose the moment to wade in, thankfully agreeing with my bullshit plan to not disturb canon. "Forgive me, but since Master Tomura appreciates a gaming analogy, perhaps this one will summarise our position well enough. What you're offering us is a good playing piece, but we're playing a different game. He would be strong, but to properly use him we would have to rework our entire plan. One which we believe is specially designed to counter All Might."

"Exactly." I nodded, grateful that Kurogiri had made that sound convincing. "Changing everything last minute to accommodate the Blueflame? The Americans would call that throwing a Hail Mary. I don't wanna risk what we've worked on for that."

"... Hmm. A surprisingly fair point." Giran knocked back the rest of his drink, and it was clear that was a sign he didn't want to push the matter anymore. "I suppose he may be overkill."

"For this level? He's too broken. That said..." There was no harm in planting the seed, right? Making sure that canon steadied its course? "If you wanna send him our way after we're done at USJ... we can talk about recruiting him permanently then."

"See, that there? That shows me you're new to this, and just a little bold." Giran held up two fingers, both bearing cheap gold rings. "One, it's bold of you to assume he'd want to come back to you and talk shop after you turn him down for this-"

"Trust me." I grinned, despite everything. "When he sees what we do, he'll be running to join our party."

"Oh-ho! I was going to say two, it's bold that you assume you'll be successful." Giran laughed. "All Might isn't exactly small fry. Even if you're gonna wear him down, it'll take something special to win-"

"I told you, that's in hand." My eyes flitted to Father, ever so briefly, before going back to Giran. "You do your job in making sure All Might has some decent tanks to get through before he arrives at UA, and he'll be in just the right condition."

"Yer in luck on that front. Got you some decent distractions lined up. A really tricky gang of thieves who just love a good hostage, and a decent brawler making a name on the streets with a C Rank."

"A C Rank?" Kurogiri asked, clearly as intrigued as I was. I couldn't remember exactly all of the background villains involved with the whole USJ saga at each stage, and I certainly couldn't recall who among the rogues gallery was already at C Rank. That was a decent caliber of villain, given that Kurogiri counted (rather unjustly in my view) as B Rank. "Who did you convince to join?"

"Most of the established ones don't want to take on All Might, but this one? He saw the chance to fight some Pros and get All Might's attention as his moment of glory." Giran's gold tooth sparkled in the bar's dusky lighting as he smirked. "Habit Headgear. I think he sees his chance at glory and getting the promotion to B Rank, pers'nally."

Oh. Him. The giant pink muscly dude with the hood of muscle on his back. If I remember correctly, he got decimated by a single Smash, but then it was hard to find many villains who wouldn't. He had managed to hold off Kamui Woods and Mount Lady for long enough in canon to cause a scene, so... there was no harm in sticking to the tried and true approach. "... Heh. If he wants to take his chance and help us out, then good for him."

"A reasonable distraction, in the face of it." Kurogiri nodded. "Bring him with the others to meet. We can explain the plan to all when we have timings finalised."

"You don't have a date set?" Giran flicked a finger at his empty glass obnoxiously, and Kurogiri appeared to wince at the little noise from the glass as it tipped over. "It's a bit harder to corral people for ya when yer being spontaneous about when to launch an attack-"

"It's not spontaneous." It had taken a lot to get used to Tomura's dry voice instead of my own, but the slight hiss whenever I got mildly annoyed was perfect, I had to say. "Every good party has tanks, dps, healers, mages. We just happen to have a scout as well."

"We're waiting on the Master's intelligence network to confirm our best timing, for everything to be in place," Kurogiri explained, with the infinite patience I had admired in canon and admired here. "Once we have that certainty, we will need to move quickly. I apologise for giving you short notice, Giran, but I trust that you can adapt to this, and understand the need for reliable information to act on."

"Covert ops, huh?" Once again, the broker surprised me by reading perfectly between the lines and guessing the truth from such a vague explanation. Behind that arrogant smile lay a razor-sharp mind, a mind that missed nothing. "Your master managed to get someone into UA, after all. Now that's a story to hear over a drink, at some point after this."

"If we get through, you can hear it." With someone like him, I knew I could dangle the carrot of secrets and get a reaction. "Only if we succeed."

"Oh I hope you do. I'd quite like to have customers come back more than once." Giran's eyes twinkled, before he bowed his head to me and slid off the bar stool. "Well, as much I'd stay for a cozy chat, I think I have work to do to earn my paycheck. Speakin' of which..."

"Of course." Kurogiri smoothly slid an envelope - how old fashioned - onto the bar, which disappeared into Giran's jacket pocket before I could even register that he had reached out for it. "We will be in touch."

"I'm countin' on it. Say, do you mind givin' me a lift back? It seems a waste to fork out for a taxi-"

I was about to open my mouth and protest at him making such a brazen request, but the speed at which a Warp Gate formed behind Giran courtesy of Kurogiri nearly made me fall off the bar stool. I hadn't expected Kurogiri to actually comply, and as Giran gave a grateful bow and disappeared through the other side to places unknown, I turned to my companion. "Should you really be doing that for him?"

"Perhaps not..." Kurogiri shrugged, before adjusting his tie. "Then again, he has been a reliable asset for the Master and the Doctor in procuring subjects for the Nomu. We owe him a great deal."

Huh. I didn't think about how Garaki had ever gotten his test subjects. I assumed that he and Kurogiri had just ambushed suitable candidates off the streets, although when I thought about that properly that seemed ridiculous. "Well, we're gonna owe him even more money now."

"All worth it, in the end." Kurogiri paused, and looked at me; it was amazing how he could look right through me while looking me in the eyes. "We should talk to him about that Blueflame, Dabi. After everything is over. He may be a worthwhile recruit."

I looked away, trying not to smirk to myself at how easy this was turning out. I didn't even need to convince Kurogiri and he was helping me keep to the established status quo. "Sure. Every good party needs someone who can start a fire, right?"

"Oh, my dear Tomura. Even without your new ally, you could still set this whole system ablaze."

I don't know what intimidated me most about the whole thing. Whether it was the fact that his voice could inspire dread even in the most generous of compliments, or whether it was the fact that the TV had laid completely quiet on the table top without any input, before suddenly turning on without warning so he could chime in, I didn't know. I could have sworn he hadn't been present the entire time I had been speaking to Giran and Kurogiri, because I hadn't felt the shivers running down my spine or a black pit opening up in my stomach. Now he was here, somehow aware of exactly who we were talking about, and I was reminded just how terrifying the man who ultimately decided my fate in this world was. "... Sensei ."

"The recruits are mostly ready, Master." I don't know how Kurogiri wasn't flattened by the suffocating evil of the aura emanating from the 'SOUND ONLY' display on the television. Years of practice, probably. "We have sufficient obstacles before All Might reaches the school to exhaust his power. He won't be in peak condition by the time we strike, and when Nomu enters the fray, the Symbol of Peace will be hopeless in the face of him."

I admired the overwhelming blind faith in Garaki's creation. It could put in the work, I knew that much, but against All Might? Even with the damage it would do him, All Might would defeat Nomu, and my existence would be undisturbed. "Shame we're disrupting their communications system. A fight like that needs good boss music."

"The art of good theatre is not lost on you yet, apprentice of mine," All For One remarked, with an amused tone not unlike the tone of a father whose child finally admitted he had good taste in music. "I bring good news, for both of you. Your efforts with the broker won't be delayed for too long."

"You made contact with the scout?" I leaned forward, interested. "We can meet them soon?"

"Indeed. The first year curriculum appears to be running smoothly, for now. Their first classes are running smoothly, and the media seem to be even more interested in UA now that somebody leaked All Might's presence as a teacher to the press. A number of them plan on attending tomorrow to gather gossip from the students." There was a noise not unlike a laugh. "It would be folly to expect to gain anything from a school as tight-lipped as UA, but they will try."

"So they're our distraction?" I asked aloud, while marvelling at how quickly canon had arrived and how quickly they had progressed. If this was what I was thinking, I had literally been whiling away my time with Kurogiri and Giran while Izuku and company had carried out their Combat Training. Tomorrow would therefore be the day... Tomura dusted his way past the security. My curtain call. "I use them to get in... tomorrow?"

"During their lunch period, yes." All For One confirmed my suspicions, a cheery tone in his voice. "One simple distraction before Kurogiri warps the two of you to meet my asset, and gain the class list and timetables. Then we confirm the timing with the broker, assemble your troops, and watch the despair on All Might's face as his precious students lie trampled and broken beneath your feet. Sounds perfect, does it not?"

This was really it. Notwithstanding the internal confusion I was feeling about the prospect of meeting a UA traitor, someone I literally didn't know a damn thing about from canon beyond the crackpot theories I had read online, I was about to make my debut. I was about to commit down the path of evil, break into UA and set in motion a plan which would cripple All Might and bring the name Tomura Shigaraki into Japan's collective consciousness, to live in infamy forevermore.

I should have been terrified of the moral consequences of my actions, of the harm I was about to cause. Instead...

I turned to Kurogiri, heart pumping and adrenaline treacherously flooding my body, with a grin on my face. "You ready, Giri?"

"Hmm." Kurogiri loomed tall, and his predatorial yellow eyes sharpened with murderous intent. "I'll be right by your side, Master Tomura."

"Good." I looked at the screen, somehow not cowed by the aura coming from it, and clenched a fist that was somehow shaking with excitement at the thought of everything kicking off. "Let's fucking go , Sensei."

... When had I started to look forward to what came next?

Chapter Text

The sun was shining, birds were singing, and a bunch of desperate media hacks were shouting as they tried to grab the attention of anyone from UA. All that could heard, probably for miles around, were the sounds of them yelling at the teacher, hoping one of them would crack and come over to give them a juicy soundbite on just what went on behind closed doors. They had just found out All Might was now teaching, after all. Who could blame them for their interest?

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself a little as I stared over at the congregation from a distance. The small part of me that still marvelled at being in a completely different world had been enjoying watching the crowd as it gathered in the morning, trying to check out where the key faces of Class 1A were and get my first glimpse of some of them in the flesh. I couldn’t help it, really. Whatever situation I had found myself in, I was a huge fan of the series, so the chance to see some of them for the first time wasn’t something I was going to miss. Even if the wait afterwards had been killer.

So far Yaoyorozu hadn’t been hard to miss, arriving in a fancy car driven by someone else and brushing off the journalists with the practiced air of someone who had been born with that level of media attention. She must have had to endure several years of people scrabbling after a scoop on her family; I seemed to recall that the Yaoyorozu family was supposed to be an established Hero dynasty, and therefore rather famous (although oddly, I also couldn’t remember ever seeing any of these supposed celebrated Heroes in the series).

Talking of Hero dynasties, of the rest it had been Iida who was the most easily recognisable. I had almost jumped for joy when I saw his hand rise in preparation to chop the air repeatedly as he talked- he really did that in person too- before remembering my surroundings and the fact I wasn’t trying to earn anyone’s attention. Still, living in the shadow of Ingeniums past had apparently been good preparation for media scrutiny. I couldn’t help but chuckle as some of the less dedicated journalists sagged under the length of his honest responses. 

It had been a clever idea from All For One to get the press as a distraction, apparently. It seemed a little beneath him, but if there was one thing I was slowly learning about the most powerful villain on the planet, it was that he was remarkably petty. That was the only explanation I could find for how much joy he had taken in revealing that he had arranged for a leak to the press, exposing All Might’s teacher status at UA; what had been an underground murmur and the Hero gossip equivalent of an April Fool’s story had manifested considerable interest when All For One pointed the ‘right’ people in its direction. Only someone as powerful as him would take such pleasure in an inconvenience to All Might’s students.

With all of that motivating him, All For One had sent a loud gathering of reporters and camera crew to stake out the front gates, and so I had followed. I knew from my following of the series that Tomura had only attacked at lunchtime, and not in the morning, so it had given me plenty of time to ‘stake out’ the students. In reality, I had simply watched from afar and tried not to geek out whenever faces I recognised had crept in past the press. Possibly the biggest laugh I had been provided with was, to my surprise, watching the way in which Tamaki Amajiki and Mirio Togata arrived at school to be greeted by the press; true to form Mirio had taken everything in stride with a boyish glee at learning from the reporters of All Might becoming a teacher, and Tamaki had wanted to be anywhere but in front of a camera. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

It hadn’t been the time to strike though, and so a little way away from the pandemonium, I waited. I found it impressive that I was only standing a little way across the road from all the press and yet, despite probably sticking out like a sore thumb, nobody gave me any attention. I hadn’t seen Izuku Midoriya, because I was probably too late arriving through a Warp Gate to catch him, but certainly none of his classmates or any of the students and staff had looked my way that morning. Even as the day dragged on, the press remained, eager to catch students hopping out of campus for their lunch break, and so I took some time to enjoy a more quiet moment of reflection to myself, staring up at the buildings across the road.

UA High was every bit as awe-inspiring and intimidating in the flesh as it was on paper and on screen. Towering above the manicured parkland surrounding it, the main building was as distinctive as it had been on paper and screen; tall windows glimmered in the bright sunlight, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what went on in all those rooms. They couldn’t all have been classrooms, even if the number of people going into school in the morning was far higher than I had expected. It was impressive, sprawling and…

It shouldn’t have made me at all angry when I looked at it.

I frowned to myself, and picked carefully at the corner of the black hoodie I was wearing with two fingers; Tomura’s choice of clothing was not to my old style back home, but the comfort of the hoodie helped me out in moments like this where things weren’t entirely rational. I shouldn’t have been annoyed at seeing the place where the great Hero students of one of my favourite series had come from. And yet here I was, partly fuming about how ostentatious it all looked in person (as opposed to on paper), and partly fuming about just how much attention all the students were getting.

I couldn’t help but wonder if, along with certain reflexes, I had inherited some of Tomura’s baseline emotions when I was suddenly handed the wheel to his life and tried not to crash the great ship Shigaraki on shores unknown. It would have explained to me why I was hung up on something about people I knew to be objectively good (for the most part), why there was a twisted and irrational hatred I could feel bubbling deep within, for some reason the adrenaline started rushing and the blood started pumping at the thought of attacking them, taking on the USJ. I was way more excited than I thought that I would be about doing things canonically, by the numbers, and that scared me just a little bit.

All the way along I had told myself that I was doing this to get by, that it was the easy solution to make sure I didn’t rock the boat too much. I was telling myself that actually, the best course of action for me would be to stick to Tomura’s designated role. Now… I was having to remind myself that was why I was doing it.

As much as a little bit of me was scared by certain things that were to come, I was finding a larger part of me was a lot more excited about becoming a villain than I had ever thought.

I shook myself out of the reverie I had found myself in, at the faint sound of a bell, and I grinned. It still felt strange feeling Tomura’s very chapped lips crease into a smile, because it wasn’t my smile; his sort of grin was manic to look at, like… well. To borrow analogies from media I knew and that nobody in this world would have understood, he grinned like the Cheshire Cat if the Cat had been house-trained by the Joker. I never smiled like that back home, because while I wasn’t exactly a shut-in, I was reserved, and not at all wild. At least I thought I wasn’t wild. The more I thought to myself about what I was doing in this world, and the more excited I got about the mention of actually attacking the USJ, the more I had begun to question that.

The bell had been the reminder on campus that lunch break had started. I always found the idea of somewhere like UA having a bell rather old-fashioned, but it helped for the purposes of my visit today. It meant the students would be leaving their classes now, gathering to taste food from Lunch Rush, meeting friends and sneaking out to the shops. I couldn’t say I wasn’t a little jealous about the idea of getting food from the chef Pro Hero; his meals had looked divine on screen, and while Kurogiri was a decent cook, it probably didn’t compare.

Huh. The bar in Kamino was supposed to be close to Pizza La. Close enough that Edgeshot had impersonated a pizza delivery boy before the attack on the bar, anyway. Maybe it was time to try it tonight, when all of this was done. 

“Say, Kurogiri? What’s your thoughts on pineapple on pizza? I’m kinda leaning towards some tonight, after we finish here.”

The treeline rustled slightly behind me, slightly louder than the breeze which was blowing through the neighbourhood. “... You villain.”

I tried my best not to laugh at that response, snorting and turning to my companion as he contrived to lurk among the trees while wearing one of his sharpest suits. The fact he hadn’t been seen was a miracle, or a damning indictment on UA’s security measures, or both. “That’s what qualifies me? Not, you know, being picked as Sensei’s champion?”

“There are many reasons that qualify you. Entertaining that culinary monstrosity is one of those.” Kurogiri bristled, but I could tell it was good natured. “Not liking sushi is another.”

“You’re nuts, Kurogiri. I just don’t get it.” I really didn’t. Raw fish wasn’t for me, no matter how much love and tenderness Kurogiri put into making it. Between that, buying fine alcohol for his bar from abroad, and cleaning, the man was obsessed with his creature comforts. “Agree to disagree?”

“Fine.” Kurogiri chuckled, a deep noise behind me, before his tone suddenly became more serious. “I’m just waiting for confirmation from the Master’s asset. They’re locating a spare room for us, away from the main crowds, so that we can meet.” 

“Sounds sensible.” I had been a little confused by the timings from how I remembered watching the show, although admittedly it was well in the beginning of my interest and a lot had happened since then. Even so, it had seemed nuts to me that Tomura could achieve anything by busting down the gate and running onto campus; by the time the security systems would properly trigger, and the Heroes would get the situation under control, it was tight margins to avoid getting caught and actually achieve his goal. 

Then I remembered that I had forgotten one very crucial individual, stood beside me in an immaculate suit and waistcoat. Kurogiri had made it all so simple, and so much more comfortable for me- teleport into the classroom once the coordinates were received from the ‘asset’, speak to them as much as possible, trigger the security measures when inside, and then leave. Profit. I didn’t know how I hadn’t thought of it before.

It still seemed wrong, though. A little too convenient, in a way. I wasn’t going to complain if it helped me with my own personal safety in the interim, but I hadn’t seen any of this going on on-screen. That in of itself made me feel a little nervous, because I was treading unknown water by going ahead with this in the hope that it aligned itself with what I knew and what would keep me safe. I could only hope, anyway.

There was a faint sound of buzzing, only briefly, and it took me a second to recognise it as the sound of a phone. “Is that the Spy class?”

“It is indeed.” Kurogiri had pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket, his ethereal face appearing to frown slightly. “They’re in position. One empty classroom is ours, for a meeting.”

“Good. Then let’s get this cutscene…” I trailed off, looking at the object in Kurogiri’s hand, and just how damn ancient it looked. “Seriously? What is that piece of trash, Kurogiri? All of Sensei’s resources, and you’re using that as a burner phone?”

The spectre had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Would you believe me if I said I have a soft spot for more retro items-”

“Retro? That thing probably has Snake on it, it’s that old.” I shook my head, laughing a little to myself as Kurogiri pocketed it. “At least you’re not using it because you ‘don’t get touch screens’ or some shit like that.”

“...”

“... Oh, come on.” Part of me wished I had brought Father along, so I could hide behind it and glare at the apparently useless warper beside me. “Just load up the level for us, would ya?”

“Yes, Master Tomura.” Kurogiri’s reply was apologetic, but he wasted no time in activating his Quirk and enveloping us both. I still couldn’t quite put my finger on how to describe the feeling of being warped, before the darkness surrounding me changed into the bright lights of a classroom, empty desks and the sound of chatter in the corridors outside from people completely unaware that we had just bypassed their security and could easily violate the sanctity of their Hero course haven with a blink of an eye. It was quite impressive. “And so, we have arrived.”

“It’s crazy to think how easy this was,” I remarked aloud, and I couldn’t help but smirk a little; this was a genuine reflection on my part, and not me playing to type in the slightest. “It almost makes you wonder why Sensei didn’t want to warp in and attack here. Difficulty setting doesn’t seem to be that high.”

“And no security cameras in the classrooms.” Kurogiri chuckled darkly. “It seems they trust their teachers immeasurably to not take that precaution. Much to their detriment.”

“They trust their teachers, and nobody else.” I rolled my eyes. “They really didn’t stand a chance with this.”

“Underestimate them and you’ll regret it.” I had almost forgotten how the plan was to meet All For One’s supposed asset in the school, the rumoured and fabled UA traitor who nobody had ever found out the identity of in my old world. Their voice caught me off guard. “The security is a lot tighter than it might look.”

I couldn’t place the voice for a second, and so I spun, taking in the traitor in all their… glory? No. That wasn’t the right word. Now I understood, after all, why All For One described them as a forgettable sort. Glory would imply there was something impressive about the individual, and yet for all I recognised him, he was so unspeakably plain . “So you’re the asset Sensei mentioned, huh? I wasn’t expecting someone so… low level.”

Mashirao Ojiro’s face twitched in an unpleasant and sour look, and I enjoyed watching his thick tail bristle and stand upright. I only ever really remembered him as a minor background character, someone whose personality was bland to the point that one of the major character traits others seemed to pick up on was ‘seems to be into Hagakure’. Considering his tail probably reacted to emotions, the level of poker face he must have deployed to not only blend in, but be a complete irrelevance in Class 1A would have been impressive. 

I hated the fact that my mind was currently fixated on how uncomfortable his tail must have made his school uniform. God knows how he did it.

Ojiro sent the most vanilla glare in my direction. “Coming from the one he picks as his favourite. You don’t look like much.”

I felt my lip curl up, involuntarily, at that response. Tomura was twiggy in comparison to the boy who apparently obsessed over martial arts, and even I could see that, but I just didn’t like being called nothing special from a guy who literally nobody put in their top 10 characters. Hell, I’m pretty sure people would forget him from their top 20 students in Class 1A, and they had Mineta . “Big talk. Why don’t we go now, and we’ll see who comes out in one piece, Ojiro?”

The blonde boy’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know my name?”

Huh. Oops. Was I not supposed to know who he was? Dammit. And Kurogiri was there too. How did I improvise an answer to- ah. Kurogiri.

I coughed, and turned to look at Kurogiri, primarily so I could commit to the gamble. “Blame Kurogiri. If he doesn’t want me to hear when he talks to Sensei, he shouldn’t be so noisy.”

Kurogiri took a step backwards. “I’m sorry, Master Tomura! When I mentioned your temper, I only meant in case anything went wrong-”

Bingo. To borrow Tomura-speak, my luck stats must have been off the fucking charts. “If I was mad at you for what you said, I’d have made sure you knew then. Not waited until now, in the middle of a mission.”

Kurogiri clasped his hands together, and bowed. “Of course. I apologise for any offence caused.”

Phew. That was lucky. I turned to Ojiro and snorted to myself. “We’ve got a job to do, anyway. More important things to talk about.”

For a moment, Ojiro looked like he wanted to say something, but after briefly holding my gaze he looked down and tutted to himself. “Sure. You want a class list, right? And timetables?”

“That’s right.” I paused, and looked at him. “Say, did Sensei tell you why we wanted it?”

“You mean your plan to go after the USJ?” Ojiro actually rolled his eyes. Jesus. He was displaying more emotion here in front of me than I swear he ever did in canon. “He’s only enabling you by letting you waste so much time on something so doomed to fail.”

“Doomed? How?”

“It’s not simple enough. The more you over-complicate, the more chance that you will fail. And it’s pretty bold of you thinking that you can take All Might in a straight fight.” Ojiro shrugged. “Not that I’ll care if you get smashed into pieces. If it means our master puts some time into someone who could actually do the job for him, then great.”

I felt the irresistible urge to scratch at my neck, and did so. “So you’re jealous, huh? That’s your whole shtick? Shame.” I couldn’t resist the dig that came next. “Still, shame you didn’t get trusted with the whole plan. If you had… you’d have known I’m not gonna be the one to fight All Might. I’ve got that all taken care of.”

For just a second, I watched his bland face twitch, and I knew that had really kicked Ojiro right in the self-esteem. “... Whatever. Take your list.”

“Before we do…” Kurogiri tilted his head meaningfully towards the door. “We need to create our distraction, now, before anyone starts questioning where young Ojiro has gone during the lunch break-”

Bold of Kurogiri to assume anyone would notice.

“They’ve just elected a class representative. Trust me, I’m sure they’re all chatting too much about the results of that to notice,” Ojiro said, just a slight bit of resentment still in his tone.

“Nonetheless, we are the ones who risk ourselves by remaining here any longer than necessary.” Kurogiri’s Quirk activated, creating a small hole, just enough for someone to put their hands through; I couldn’t help but think how genius this was to avoid being caught by the security cameras or identified. “Master, if you would-”

“Yeah, yeah.” I stepped forward, ignoring the strange feeling of how the cold outside air felt around my wrists and how I couldn’t see my own hands in front of me. As I made contact, the smooth concrete cool to the touch, I felt Decay surge up and begin to crack the gate, and withdrew my hands- in amongst the press reporters, nobody would see anything, and my Quirk would continue to destroy in my absence until the concrete rotted through. “Now we let the damage over time do its job.”

“Given what you’ve just done…” Ojiro stepped forward, offering me paper copies of the documents which he knew I had come for. There was a class list and Quirk list in there- I looked briefly at the list, and tried not to scoff at the words ‘Super Power’ written beside Izuku Midoriya’s name- and the all important timetable, among other less interesting paperwork. “I’m not sure you should be the one holding this.”

“Relax. My Quirk is easy to control.” I snatched the documents off of the tailed kid, careful not to let my index finger touch them, and briefly flicked to the timetable. “... Say, Kurogiri. We can turn around our prep in a day, right? Because they’re going the day after tomorrow-”

Kurogiri’s eyes flickered yellow with alarm briefly, before he composed himself and nodded. “It may be close to ask Giran to assemble our hired help, but… I’m sure we can manage.”

“Good. Fucking limited time events, right? They just launch whenever, and nobody gives you much notice about the entry requirements.” Okay, I was probably being a bit over the top with my gaming lingo these days, but in my defence it was fucking infectious. “We’ll make it work.”

At that moment, the klaxon I had been expecting for some time decided to finally wake up. “WARNING. LEVEL THREE SECURITY BREACH. WARNING-”

“Took a while for them to make it in.” I tutted, and nodded to Kurogiri. “I guess that’s our cue to pull out.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Kurogiri’s Quirk begun to flare, opening up a gate inside the classroom which no doubt led back to the safe haven of the bar. “And time for you to take your leave as well, Ojiro.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Ojiro nodded, unfazed by the siren. “I wouldn’t want them to ask why I’m missing.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think they care.” It was a cheap shot, but I didn’t like how the kid was reacting to me (even if I wasn’t the Tomura he thought I was). If he was going to be deliberately obnoxious to me, I would respond in kind.

Although…

As Ojiro turned to the door and began to walk away, I couldn’t help but find one thing a little curious. “Say, Ojiro?”

The brat actually sighed at me. “What?”

“Answer me this.” I folded my arms, with Kurogiri’s black Warp Gate billowing behind me. “What brought you to Sensei? How come you ended up at a Hero school as his little spy?”

“Master Tomura,” Kurogiri began, “I highly doubt now is the time-”

“Like you’d understand.” The way in which Ojiro said that shook Kurogiri and took me a little by surprise from just how he said it. It wasn’t angry, but there was sadness brewing underneath the surface, with resentment and weariness at having to deal with it. “You know what our society does for Mutant-type Quirk discrimination? We have groups like the Creature Rejection Clan running around unchallenged, because the Heroes think they’re a joke, just a group of fanatics who can’t do anything big. They’re not the worst part, though. At least they’re open. It’s the ones who move away from you on the train, the ones who watch you around their store, the ones who whisper behind you. They’re the worst.”

Ojiro looked at me, with a face I couldn’t fully read. “It’s alright for people like Mirko, and Gang Orca. They can be flashy and cool, and they can get fans another way. But for ordinary people like me, who don’t do anything special and just live with a Quirk that makes some people hate us for just who we are… the world’s a mess. So if the people on top aren’t going to change it… All For One sees it. He’s the one best placed to take control, the one who understands this. That’s why I’m here.”

“Huh....” He wasn’t all wrong. I had seen in canon how Quirkless people could be victimised by people like Bakugo, and how Mutant-types had fallen foul of discrimination. This society still encouraged it, enough to turn people like him. Tomura hated this society for several reasons, and I was starting to see one of them.

Ojiro tutted, and looked away. “You’re spoiled, Shigaraki. He even told me he gave you his name. You’ve lived under his wing your whole life, got every bit of special treatment going. You’ve never had to experience what I have, so you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Maybe not.” To my own great surprise, what came next was driven more by my own view, and not a second-guess at how Tomura would respond. I still thought that it wasn’t a stretch, given Tomura’s desire to tear the whole thing down around him, but it surprised me how much of what I said was from my own thoughts as much as it was from the role I played. “I don’t have your type of Quirk. I can’t understand that. But you’re right. We shouldn’t live in a world that accepts this, where people hate us because of this shit. It’s broken. And that’s another reason why I wanna tear it all down, and hit the reset button.”

Ojiro wasn’t looking at me, but he paused at the door, holding back from leaving, before he nodded. “... All of them have to pay, huh?”

“Heh, yeah.” My cracked lips curled upwards. “Starting with All Might.”

“... Good.” Ojiro lifted a hand to wave behind him, and I could tell that even despite him not looking my way, I had earned some begrudging respect from the martial artist. “Now don’t kill me in the crossfire of your mess. I’ll see you, Shigaraki.”

“...” Kurogiri remained silent for a while as Ojiro closed the door behind him, disappearing into the mass of rushing students in the corridors. “Well done, Master Tomura. I had sensed there would be discord between you two, but you handled that rather well. You see his value, too?”

“He’s not just a pawn, I’ll give you that.” Ojiro could be valuable, and while it wasn’t on the script, I needed allies. Tomura’s willingness to sacrifice his pawns at the USJ in canon wasn’t matched by how he treated those nearest to him- at least not completely- and if he was indeed the UA traitor, I couldn’t afford an enemy in him. “He made some good points.”

Kurogiri hummed. “You aren’t the only person who wants to bring an end to the Heroes. Several others just have very different reasons for doing so.”

“I see.” I nodded to Kurogiri, and took a step backwards towards the Warp Gate, reassured that we had what we came for and didn’t need to dwell on UA any longer. All things had gone rather well, all things considered, even if I was on terra incognita for some of that meeting, and now I knew I had just under a full day to prepare for the USJ, and get that mess sorted. “Let’s go, before we get a damage penalty.”

I had a lot to think about, in the meantime, even without battle preparations. I had always admired canon for creating villains who could be believable; their methods might have been shocking and cruel, but the grain of truth in several of their (often conflicting) messages couldn’t really be denied. Tomura’s message that everything needed to be annihilated was terrifying, but he wasn’t wrong about just how broken and hypocritical the system could be. Maybe I believed it more than I knew, given how readily I accepted that view now, given how easily I was swayed by what Ojiro said to me.

I didn’t know if I should be scared that I was buying into everything so much now.

“... Right away, Master Tomura.”

The inky blackness of the Warp Gate surrounded me, UA fading to nothing, and the tingle of excitement at the thought of the USJ being on the horizon betrayed my true feelings on my life as Tomura Shigaraki.

Chapter Text

It was kind of impressive how quickly Kurogiri and Giran had been able to corral a large number of villains into some dingy and festering warehouse, with the promise of fame and a half-decent paycheck. 

It was almost suspiciously impressive, in all honesty. Part of me would admire how brilliantly convenient it all was for the plot that so many had answered the call to Giran and been so willing to participate, given that the League of Villains was a complete non-entity around the time that I had become Tomura Shigaraki. It had been a name of no significance, a group bounding into the spotlight from directions unknown with a bold and outrageous first attack. Sure, something terrible had been built afterwards, but with no reputation to go on there was no compelling reason for half of the assorted mooks gathering under the rafters to have even considered turning up here.

The part of me that was a fan of the series, and clung onto the knowledge that I was an interloper in this fictional world, still recognised how the goddess that was Plot Convenience had clearly had a part in all this. The part of me that was embracing this surreal experience as my new reality had, in fact, found the explanation for why it appeared so convenient. Kurogiri’s powers were a blessing, yes… but Giran’s ability to charm had been beyond anything I had expected.

I had expected him to be an old smoothie. He had been capable of impressive things, after all. This was the man who had been able to somehow convince the vicious Himiko Toga not to gut him and to actually follow him to that fated first meeting with Shigaraki down the line. This was the man who had managed to bring the lone wolf Dabi, Touya Todoroki himself, to the attention of the League of Villains. Apparently in this universe, Dabi had been on his radar even before the USJ had taken place. Clearly, there was some potential.

Just how much ability there had actually been had blown me away. Kurogiri and I had emerged back at our base, fresh from the excursion to UA to meet with the traitor Ojiro, and had immediately debriefed All For One on exactly how pressed for time we actually were. We had just under a full day to prepare for the attack on the USJ, something which seemed mammoth and unrealistic the moment I said it out loud. All For One hadn’t reacted at all badly to that news, however, hadn’t even batted an eyelid at the scale of the endeavor (ha) ahead. Greater plans had been forged in less time, he had said.

Giran, on the other hand… leaned forward with a gleam in his smile and a twinkle in his eye, put down his whiskey, and asked what we must have thought of him if we didn’t believe he could pull through. And then my jaw had dropped, as he got to work .

Giran’s brain was just one giant contact book for every back-alley crook and underworld denizen from one coast of Japan to another, and it appeared to have no limits. He had plucked telephone numbers seemingly from thin air, almost as if he was making them up, and the people had picked up within seconds. That was when the charm had begun to work, when Giran really began to flex his networking muscles; every single person who had been called, he spoke to them about family, about partners, about things going on in the neighbourhood with rival gangs or former associates. Within minutes, he had reeled them all in with the promise of the big day, never once misselling what it was- somehow, he had made the thought of a suicide mission rushing UA High School and trying in vain to take down the Number One Hero attractive. Whether these people saw it as a glorious crusade, a chance at infamy, or a quick three-step score, he had them all hook, line and sinker agreeing to come to hear out what the League of Villains had planned…

I took a look around, leaning against a pillar just off-set from the front of the stage, and tried not to balk at the scale of the crowd that had gathered. There were around sixty or seventy villains who had been present in canon, if I remembered correctly, but even in a large and abandoned warehouse which they all emerged into from a spread of Kurogiri’s portals scattered across the room, that was a lot of people floating around. Some were keeping their distance from others- enemies of enemies, perhaps?- while others embraced like old allies and even in some cases, like old lovers. 

These were the faceless goons doomed to be used as pawns by me in the event that changed UA’s future forever. They were nobodies really, nothing special in the grand scheme of things and never heard of again save for the occasional mugshot as Tsukauchi and the cat-policeman (shit. I’d forgotten his name) loaded them into the back of vans. I didn’t have a clue about half of their names, beyond a few of the more recognisable crooks who had generated their own fandom wiki pages; Hanzo Suiden and Tesla lurked in different corners away from each other, while Martial Hair and Needle Hair appeared to gossip like old best friends and Sharkyonara (how could I forget a name so stupid?) snuck in at the back on his own, eager to prove whatever point he thought he had. And yet…

Some of them were terrifying, up close and in person. That really wasn’t something I could understate. These were C and D-Rank villains, in reality, people who had racked up enough notoriety to have records as long as some of their arms. There were murderers, kidnappers and thieves in here for certain, traffickers and sex offenders and all sorts of depravity lurking under the beams. I had to tread very carefully even if Tomura Shigaraki was destined to be greater than these dregs of society- right now I was a pale imitation of what Tomura would become, even if I had thankfully retained some of his physical ability. Not to mention, you know, that I wasn’t actually the man himself. I could try to hold my own and of course I still had his Quirk, but right now a fight wasn’t really what I wanted.

The awareness of just how dangerous some of these people were was enough to make me fiddle with the strings of the hoodie to tighten it around my head. I was wearing Father, because All For One would expect nothing less, but even with that shield I had pulled the hood up to retreat underneath it, comforted by the feel of the fabric. Tomura’s prized piece of clothing was wearing off on me the more I buried myself into it… if I ever ended up travelling back somehow, I’d be damned if I didn’t find a way for this to come with me. 

But still, I preferred to keep my head down right now. Most of the attention was on Giran, standing centre stage on the wooden platform he’d built as if he owned the damn place, and on Kurogiri who was the natural centre point anyway. He was the one whose portals were bringing people in, and was therefore drawing attention even as he stood motionless on the stage, various villains murmuring at the sight of his suit and his smoke. He was enough to catch the eye in any venue, and I didn’t mind that. It had given me some time to think, and it meant that when someone so dreadful and powerful as Kurogiri bowed to my commands, it would put nobody here under any illusion about who was running the show. Whatever that meant.

Truth be told, there had been some slight panic as the first villains arrived. Speaking in public hadn’t been something I sucked at in my previous life, whatever I remembered of it, but speaking as somebody else was a whole new experience. I had to live up to Tomura in whatever I said to these people, and they weren’t just drawings anymore; they were disturbing flesh and blood, and dangerous individuals. I was aspiring to keep on track with canon, so… today had to work.

“Wow. Guess you’re the type of guy who thinks actions speak louder than words, huh?”

I briefly froze at the sound of the woman’s voice that came from just to my left, as somebody approached. I hadn’t counted on someone finding their way over here, because as far as I knew Tomura didn’t really interact with (or care about) any of the disposable people who agreed to take part in this. “What do you mean?”

“Most of the guys in this room, if they come back from a job with a broken arm or a bloody head, will tell you ‘you should’a seen the other guy’. You, though…” The speaker stepped into the light, and I was struck by a number of things. She was approximately my age, for starters, early twenties- it was strange how ‘my age’ could apply to me and Tomura, shorter, and wearing a gym tank top that had seen better days. Shoulder-length messy white hair, off-white and unkempt, surrounded a face which had deep-black eyes with no distinction between pupil and sclera, and her grin was framed by something else. Mandibles? No, not quite the right word for spider’s jaws, tipped with fangs and what appeared to be venom sacs. I’d get it at some point. “You really went and advertised what you did to the other guy by wearing what’s left of him on your face, huh?”

I could give all sorts of excuses as to why I didn't do the sensible thing, and give her the cold shoulder. I knew I should have done, because I didn’t even remember her face among the background characters involved in the USJ, let alone those with a second of dialogue. But I was weak. I’d been thrown into a new world on my own, my only company being Japan’s greatest villain, a smoke cloud in a tailored suit, a sleaze in a less-tailored suit, and an angsty teen with a tail. A quite attractive woman my age was now showing me attention, and so despite myself and who I needed to be… I embraced it. “Father’s not the only one I have. The others didn’t get to come today, though.”

Strangely, those pitch-black eyes seemed to light up because I had actually responded. “Father? What happened to the rest of the family?”

“They’re shy.” The woman laughed, and I couldn’t help it as my face twitched underneath Father. Music to my ears. “Nah, they’re just… not needed until we start the actual quest. No point coming fully-equipped when this is just the prep phase, right?”

“Oh, you’re holding out on us, I get it. Don’t want to show off your max stats and scare everyone else off.” The spider-girl put one hand on her hip as she spoke. “Let me guess. The extra hand gives you extra dexterity?”

Oh, this one was a geek too. The real Tomura would have loved her. I could sort of see the appeal, myself. “Something like that.”

“Heh.” The other hand shot out, and it took me a second to look beyond the discoloured and long white nails to realise that I was being offered a handshake. “Jirai Gumo.”

“Jirai Gumo…” I faintly trailed off for a second, before the realisation of where I had heard that before finally caught up to me. That was something from my old world too… the nostalgia washed over me in waves as I was reminded of life points, and the heart of the cards, and I smirked. “Seriously? What sort of nerd names themselves after a Yu-Gi-Oh card?”

“What sort of nerd gets the reference?” This one was good. I liked her. I didn’t care that she wasn’t part of the main crew, Jirai Gumo was now one of my favourites. Bias and all. “Fitting name, right?”

“Guess it works.” I looked up at her, and hoped she could see my face curled into the vicious smile Tomura had perfected. “Tomura Shigaraki.”

“Full names? You’re bold, or too trusting, or both. Haven’t even taken me out to the USJ yet, and you’re giving me the works.”

“Who said it was my real name?” Okay, that was too close for comfort. As much as I was enjoying the bantering, her ‘ooh’ing was as close as I was prepared to get before I accidentally revealed that I could remember Tenko Shimura’s past pretty damn clearly. All For One would be too suspicious, and so I folded my arms and stiffened a little. “Trust me. You don’t want to do that.”

“If you’re worried I’m gonna poison you, relax.” Jirai Gumo flexed her fingers. “The nails only carry venom when I want them to. You’re too entertaining.”
“It’s not your Quirk I’m worried about.” From the depths of the hoodie, I pulled a small glass which had fallen from the edge during Giran’s recruiting dash. I had intended to put it back, but for whatever reason I wanted to show off, and it was a treat to watch her eyes widen as Decay destroyed the glass. “It’s mine.”

“Ho… destructive touch.” Jirai Gumo looked at me, one of her spider-jaws clicking. Chelicerae. That was the word. “I’m guessing it needs all five fingers, or you probably wouldn’t have made it to become an adult.”

“Smart. Maybe you’re not just a peon like most of these idiots.” I meant it, as much as it felt like something Tomura would say. “Maybe you might get trusted with more responsibility.”

“You gonna put in a good word with the boss for me? And they say chivalry is dead.” Jirai Gumo’s cocky energy slipped a little as she looked over to Kurogiri, yellow eyes closed as he stood in the centre of the stage. “Never seen someone who can warp like he can. Let alone so many people.”
“Yeah… that’s an impressive Quirk.” She didn’t know the half of it like I did, with all that knowledge about how Kurogiri had come to be from the wreckage of Oboro Shirakumo. I stuck to the diplomatic answer, and tried to use that to learn a little more about my new companion. “You think he can take All Might with it? TP bullshit against brute strength seems like a good match-up.”

“Hell nah.” The abruptness of her answer was astonishing. So little hesitation, like it was just common knowledge that All Might was too strong. “Nobody can beat him. I respect someone strong when I see ‘em, and the ability to warp like that might actually give All Might a hard time. But it’s not enough.”

“And yet you still came here. Along with all the rest of us.” It was a fair observation to make, I thought. “If you thought this shit was doomed from the start… why even turn up? What drives you enough to ignore that and still stay to hear what he has to say?”

“Honestly? If you’re expecting some grand speech about my motive, think again.” Jirai Gumo’s sheer black eyes should have been soulless and without depth, but they were anything but as she stared at me. “Not everyone in here has some kind of tragic backstory to push them down a path of revenge. Not everyone lets themselves be eaten up by hate and wants to rage against the corrupt system. Not everyone wants to wake up every morning and grab glory for themselves.”

“Nah. Everyone’s programmed to have something that drives them.” I didn’t believe that, for one second. I had seen enough documentaries about criminals who became notorious despite living a comfortable and unremarkable life to believe otherwise. But Tomura had a reason to tick, as did most of the villains in My Hero Academia. It was truly rare to find somebody without some hidden agenda, and I didn’t accept that she was that person. “You’re just holding back on me.”

“Takes a little more time for me to be comfortable sharing that. My bad.” She didn’t sound at all apologetic. “I know, it’s not fair. You’re wearing your daddy issues on your face, and I’m not giving you a crumb. Get through the other side of this in one piece and maybe I might spill some more.”

Strange. The second that she mentioned daddy issues, I felt a brief flash of heat inside me, pure rage for just the slightest second. Kotaro Shimura was Tomura’s father and not mine, but even so there was some phantom pang of hatred in my guts as Jirai Gumo spoke. Tomura might be gone, replaced by me, but the scars of his upbringing had cut deep enough for even me to feel them. “You don’t know half of it.”

She shot me a small smile, something genuine that I hadn’t expected from someone who was supposed to be (as Tomura would put it) a bit-part NPC. “I don’t… but someone has to pay for it, right?” 

I was snapped away from saying anything further by a polite cough from Kurogiri, something which he had somehow amplified using some base part of his Quirk. He could make his voice carry as much as his portals, apparently, and it made him all the more badass for it. “That’s everyone gathered here. Unless you had extended the invitation to anyone I wasn’t aware of, Giran?”

“No, no, I think yer’ on top of things, ‘Giri. No one else I’m expecting.” Giran had climbed up onto the stage immediately- of course he was right there ready to go- and with a smile that sparkled of gold teeth and reeked of cigarette smoke even from a distance, he commanded attention. It wasn’t quite charisma, but it was damn close. “Thank you all for comin’! I appreciate a few of ya may be more desperate for the money than the rest, but it’s good to see so many.”

As laughter rippled across the room, a number of people clearly used to Giran’s ways, he shrugged and carried on. “I know what some are thinkin’. Somebody actually wants to organise a gang to attack All Might? Sonovabitch must be crazy, stupid or both, right?” Gee, thanks. Way to sell me to all of these idiots. “And to go after him at the heart of one of UA’s fine facilities, that fine old establishment where he teaches? It sounds like suicide to a few of ya, I’m sure.”

“Giran…” Kurogiri rumbled, saying out loud what I was thinking. “We don’t want to drive these people away. We need their help.”

“Aw, I know. I’m just warming the crowd up a little. They wanna hear what ya’ve got, right?” Murmurs from several villains, agreement. “They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t interested.”

“That’s right!” I craned to see who was yelling. Of course. Sharkyonara. The man was an embarrassment and a joke. “Tell us how we kill All Might!”

“See? At least one’s keen!” Giran chuckled, mostly at the villain’s expense, and others joined him. “So why don’t you hear from the main man himself about what he has planned, huh?” Several necks craned forward, and I resisted the urge to grin at how most people focused on Kurogiri. They really expected him to be in charge, huh? “So how about it, Tomu? Wanna get your ass up here and make your pitch?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” I wish I could have stopped and taken a picture of the look on Jirai Gumo’s face as I pushed away from her, let the hood drop from my face and skulked up to the stage. There were several murmurs of surprise, but there was clearly a moment where she wondered if she had fucked up speaking to the boss as she had, and wanted to get hit by lightning. One nil to Tomura. “Never known a party recruit system which needs the MC to give a speech like this, Giran. This is weird.”

“You’re about to be bold and make a statement attacking UA, Shigaraki. The spotlight was always gonna find you.” Giran made a show of clapping me on the back, and smiling glassily despite the audible muttering at the back. I caught someone say the word ‘twig’; they must have been unimpressed about how skinny I was. “This here’s your esteemed leader, folks! Treat him well.”

“May I present Tomura Shigaraki, of the League of Villains.” Damn it, the League was a joke at this stage, and yet the pride with which Kurogiri said it sent a shiver down my spine. “Master Tomura, the floor is yours.”

“Thanks, Kurogiri.” I ignored the whispers at how Kurogiri had called me master, and resisted the urge to smirk in Jirai Gumo’s direction. “I won’t waste time. I hate All Might-”

“Join the club,” heckled someone from the back.

“But you know what makes me sick? About how he always wins. It’s that everyone fights him like he’s not the final boss.” Stick to gaming analogies and I couldn’t go far wrong at being authentic Tomura, I reasoned. “They fight him like they’re equal, and they get one-hit-KOed every damn time. There’s no… strategy.”

I looked over the rest of the room, pausing briefly to look at Jirai Gumo and noticing that my words at least got through to someone. “Nobody stands a chance against him like that. But one pawn doesn’t win a 1v1 with a king by rushing him. Take a number of pawns and grind him down… and you can checkmate the king.”

“Sounds like you’re calling everyone here pawns,” came a shout from the side. Wasn’t that the guy who tried to shoot Aizawa with finger guns? “That ain’t nice-”

“Nice? We’re a bunch of villains in a warehouse plotting to kill All Might, and you want nice ?” That got at least a couple of laughs, even if I hadn’t played it that way. “I want to play the game with All Might. The long game… I want to wear him down to checkmate and kill him. So that’s why I got you all here. His route into UA has become pretty obvious from where he’s been reacting on the way, so we’re gonna put a few sidequests in place. Obstacles.”

“People like Habit Headgear, who have already been briefed by Giran as to their assignment,” Kurogiri continued smoothly, with a nod to the bulging pink villain. Sheesh. That guy looked immense and was somehow only a one-scene C-Rank… this world’s ranking system was harsh. “To take All Might on and cause problems he feels compelled to respond to. To get in his way.”

“Yer happy with the plan, Habit?” Giran asked, waving at Habit Headgear. “Get yourself near to Kamui Woods’ Agency, where the little twig can’t handle you, and cause enough hell that All Might comes to ya?”

“I’ll get some hostages.” Habit’s grin was vicious as he rumbled his reply. If I remembered correctly, he was a murderer in canon; I didn’t doubt that for one second in person. “Make him really sweat.”

“Yer a sure-in for B-Rank that way, my man! Good idea!”
“Right…” I spoke up, and heads flicked back to me. “Habit, and a few others, get the chance to take All Might. They can cause a problem on their own, and if one of them wins… then the EXP for the victory is theirs.” They wouldn’t win. But they could hope, if it helped convince them. “And while they stall him, and wear down his stamina-”

“I bring us all to UA, to the class All Might is supposed to teach,” Kurogiri finished, smugly. “All of us, against twenty students and two teachers… they don’t stand a chance.”

“And that’s how we hurt him,” I continued, pressing it home. “If he gets stalled, then there’s one thing that hurts a Hero like All Might most, and that’s the people he can’t save. He’ll be weakened by the time he gets there on top of that, and again when all of us turn on him.”

“And then what?”

I paused, briefly thrown off by the voice of someone I couldn’t see near to the front of the room. I didn’t recognise that. “... Then I finish him off. I’ll kill that bastard.”

“ You ? You’ll kill All Might?” With a murmur the crowd parted slightly around the man, and I caught a full sight of him. Tall with bulging oversized arms, it was a wonder I’d not seen him before; he must have been crouching. He had gelled spiked hair, and looked for all the world like a caricature of a gym chad, if not for the two enormous saber teeth that jutted from his protruding upper jaw. “Please. Half this room would eat you alive.”

I squared my jaw, trying not to be annoyed at how many murmurs of agreement they were. “Who the hell are you, and why the hell do you want to die so badly?”

I tried to pour enough of Tomura’s resentment and violence into that voice, but Saber-Tooth didn’t care for my threat. “Die? Like you’d kill me. I’d snap your dry ass in half before you could even beg for mercy, little boy.”

Kurogiri bristled. “You dare-”

“And you call him ‘master’? How pathetic your League is.” Saber-Tooth’s voice was dark and monotone, and the floor genuinely pounded as he stepped forward. “I wanted to see the idiots who thought they had a right to be in charge. Like your plan is something special. But you want us to do all of the work for you, throw away good people like Habit like they’re expendable toys, when you’re not strong enough to finish the job. You should back down. Let someone with true strength handle things.”

So this was an alpha male declaration of war, was it? There was no backing down from a fight sadly; I nodded to Kurogiri, and got one back. Fine. Kurogiri would have my back, and deal with this idiot. If he wanted a fight, I’d have to go through the motions before he was put in his place. “You wanna pretend to be a mini-boss? Fine. You’re not worth the effort… but if you’re not gonna know your place, then you can die like a mini-boss, too.”

His response was instant. Shit. For a brute, I had been expecting him to lumber up to me with absolutely no speed, and for me to get time to shout a plan at Kurogiri. Instead, he leaped forward, clearing hiding deceptively-strong legs underneath his pants, and I found myself with almost no time as I sprawled into a dodge. Tomura was quick. This guy was also quick, and his fist was coming right for me as I landed the dodge, anticipating exactly where I had to go…

It was instinct. Nothing more. I was angry. Angry that nothing was easy. Angry that I was miles away from home in a body that wasn’t mine, trying my best to fit in and yet nowhere near any answers about what happened to me. Angry that even as I tried to accept the role I had been given and not expose myself to All For One, idiot meatheads with superiority complexes wanted to kill me for no sensible reason. And I snapped, as the beefy arm and huge fist came barrelling towards me. I reached again to leap away into a dodge, and as I did… 

I slapped down with both hands. Hard. Connecting against the side of his arm, pushing his strike away to punch the air and pulling myself away at the same time.

… I’d really just done that, hadn’t I? “... Bastard.” I said it as much for what he had forced me to do as I did about his personality and attack on me. “Dumb bastard.”

“Master Tomura!” Kurogiri billowed, unhappy at being unable to react sooner. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” I glared at Saber-Tooth, who had staggered upright. “Didn’t know your NPCs had a death wish, Giran.”

“This is…” Yeah. Yeah, I’d done that. Saber-Tooth lurched as he tried to stand, and as my blood raged with adrenaline, I saw what I’d done. I’d been so committed to being Tomura that I hadn’t thought about my own reservations on hurting people, instinctively doing what I had to do to beat this idiot. And the worst part was that I didn’t feel revolted by the fact I’d hurt someone like this… I felt a thrill coursing through me, sheer bloodlust and victory. What was I becoming? “Your… Quirk-”

“You’re just a low-level mob…” I had to commit to it, as Decay made his bulging arm crumble and pushed him back down to his knees. I had him beaten. What a joke. “And you really shouldn’t have pissed me off.”

A true king… must inspire fear. Who was it who had said that in the series? Gigantomachia, I think. Now I understood what he had meant. This group of insignificant villains wasn’t the type of group who would respond to Tomura offering them hope. They wouldn’t respect his authority if he promised them false dreams. But they’d fall in line if they were afraid, small people knowing their place beneath a proper villain. That was my role. “Kurogiri?”

“Master Tomura?”

“Bring Nomu here. I want them all to see.”
“Are you sure? I don’t know if the Doctor will approve-”

“I don’t care what the Doctor thinks.” It was about showing who was in charge. And Nomu was part of how I could do that, as the agitated murmurs of Saber-Tooth’s friends grew louder and the idiot failed to pull himself up. Low pain threshold, apparently. Must have been too used to getting his own way. “Bring. Nomu. Here.”

“Y-Yes, Tomura.” The obedience from Kurogiri was remarkable, and another portal immediately reared into life behind me, with a nod from my partner. “He is… coming.”

“Good.” I walked over to Saber-Tooth and kicked out with one leg, sending the meathead tumbling backwards, unable to defend himself properly with one arm. When I spoke, it was with my voice raised to the whole room. “None of you had the wisdom stat to plan anything like this before. I did. This is my League of Villains, and you are joining my party to do as I say. Then All Might will die, whether that’s at my hand… or his.”

I could feel the rumbling of footsteps behind me, and the looks on people’s faces as a hulking shadow fell over me. I could feel and smell his disgusting breath on my back and even though I couldn’t turn around to appreciate him just yet, the look of horror from several present was all I needed. Seeing a Nomu for the first time, especially the Nomu designed to go toe-to-toe with All Might… no wonder several of them were realising who was in command. “ GREEGH !”

“This… is Nomu.” I waved one hand in his direction. “Nomu? Stamp your right foot.” Thud. “Stamp your left.” Thud. “Punch the floor.” That one felt like a crack, reverberating through the entire warehouse. Point proven about his super strength? I hoped so. “See this? If I told him to jump off a roof, he'd do it. He answers to me... the perfect weapon made to hard-counter the Symbol of Peace. So let's be clear. You all have a job to do in this party, but try to test me, and if I don't kill you… Nomu or Kurogiri will.”

Several faces looked over between the mass of muscle that was the USJ Nomu, and the smokey mystery that was Kurogiri, and had clearly made their mind up already. Time to make their minds up. Sacrifices had to be made. “I’m gonna tear down UA, and All Might, and destroy his precious society. With or without everyone here. So if you’re really gonna waste my time and try to slow me down…”

I should have hated that I didn’t hesitate. Both hands, grabbed onto the shoulders of Saber-Tooth, swatting away his one arm like it was easy and pressing down hard. There was a horrible cracking noise, and an anguished groan from the villain as he began to crumble and die at my touch, but I ignored both of them to look up into the audience. Straight over to Jirai Gumo, hoping I had read the expression on her face right. “Do you all understand?”

She didn’t disappoint. Staring straight at me, one fist was raised into the air, and she yelled as loud as she could. “For the League of Villains!”

“For the League of Villains!” The cry was taken up at the back of the room, surprisingly. I would have thought the people closest to Saber-Tooth to see Decay tear him apart would have been the next to fall in line. Then I saw who it was, and it made sense. Of course Sharkyonara was a follower. “For Shigaraki!”

“For the League!”

“For Shigaraki!”

The cries echoed out across the room, and as I felt the last remnants of Saber-Tooth crumble into dust at my finger-tips, I looked over to the spider-girl. If I had blinked, I would have missed the wink she shot me; clever girl, understanding just what was needed to tip everybody into submission. I liked her even more. “This is it, League of Villains.”

I had just killed someone. There was no way in my old life that I would have been okay with that, or should have been okay with that, but here I was standing in his ashes, and I was revelling in the attention. Enjoying the sense of thrill that tingled inside me because of what I’d done. I was going down a slippery slope and fast in this new world… and somehow I was enjoying that a lot more than I should have. 

I turned to Kurogiri and Giran, shooting both of them a quick nod, and Kurogiri’s voice boomed. “Assemble here tomorrow, at the time Giran will send to each of you. Be ready. Tomorrow, we will attack the USJ and hurt the Symbol of Peace.”

Tomorrow was the big day, after all… and right now, standing over my fallen opponent and with a crew of villains cowed into submission before me, I couldn’t wait.