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Alex grinned as he saw the kid making a mess of the Villain.
Gearing through the multipliers, he again washed the land with increased gravity, still approaching the grayish blue-haired Villain.
The first time he had laid his eyes upon this one, the Villain was covered in hands.
Now, only a few of them remained intact, the Villain carrying a broken one in his left hand.
One look at Shigaraki's hollow eyes and Alex knew he had struck gold.
Now, this was a Villain that deserved his undivided attention.
"B…" Alex said, taking another step forward, almost towering over Shigaraki within the Villain's reach. "… I will throw you in B-level…"
Shigaraki didn't know what B-level meant.
Yet, the way Alex was looking down at him… made something snap within Shigaraki.
"… You killed grandmother and grandfather…" Shigaraki brokenly uttered, his arms shaking, lacking the embalmed hands that used to hold him. "… you even hurt mother and sister… and… father… father… father…"
Shigaraki's eyes landed on his father's hand, which he was holding in his left hand.
All these hands belonged to Shigaraki's family members, whom he had killed after his Quirk had manifested.
Now… only three hands remained intact.
One on his right wrist, belonging to his sister. One on his neck, belonging to his mother. And… one grabbing the back of his head, belonging to his grandmother.
The rest were gone. Forever.
And it was all because of the old man standing in front of him.
"I… will…"
Alex's hand lunged so fast that even afterimages got afterimages.
In one sweep, he grabbed Shigaraki's head, lifted him, and smashed him down on the broken earth, a boom ringing out in all directions.
Alex stood back up, shaking his head.
"… I don't understand," he thought aloud, lighting up a cigar. "Why do Villains… like you… think that they can take on experienced soldiers with Quirk… when they don't even know the tiniest thing about a fight?"
Suddenly, Alex felt a tinge in his right arm.
Frowning, he twisted his forearm and saw a redness under the dirt.
It was like the skin and the upper layer of muscle there had… rotted, revealing fresh blood and tissues.
Something related to rotting?! Alex wondered, shocked. "Oi, now that's a Quirk suited to a psycho like you…"
A hand lunged out of the dirt, going for Alex's thigh. It was so fast that it didn't feel like the enhanced gravity was even affecting it at all.
Yet, it couldn't touch the target.
A grunt of extreme pain rang out as the tip of Alex's slipper landed on Shigaraki's elbow, breaking his bones. Then, before the dangling forearm could fall, Alex reached down and grabbed the embalmed hand that was still holding onto Shigaraki's wrist.
Blood had become a new mask on Shigaraki's face, his right eye shut and swollen.
The hand grabbing his neck was deformed, and the hand holding the back of his head had loosened its grip as well.
But Shigaraki was still holding a light in his left eye, staring at Alex through pain… the fingers of his left hand tightening around his father's embalmed hand.
Alex took a deep puff of the cigar and threw it in the large crater next to him, hoping it would land on the teleportation Villain.
Then, slowly, he took off the embalmed hand from the Villain's wrist.
Shigaraki's left eye widened to the extreme, the end of his grayish-blue hair flailing.
"Calm down!" Alex snapped, as if he were talking to a child. "I am just taking it off because I don't want to hurt your family member…"
"…"
Alex shifted the embalmed hand from Shigaraki's wrist to his shoulder.
Making sure that it was secured tight, and even tightening the other hands on Shigaraki's neck and the back of his head, Alex nodded. "Alright… That's good… yeah?"
The Warden of the LA Villains Detention Center had been dealing with psychos for the last two decades.
And he had come up with his own way of doing things.
That those things were openly criticized by the Psychologists who knew about Alex's methods was a different matter altogether.
All Psychos were potential nuclear bombs, Alex believed. So, to not make them get stronger sporadically, the best way was to kill the fuel supply… i.e., the emotions that made their Quirks burst!
If you did that, then no matter what else you did to them… it wouldn't matter.
So, when Alex gently grabbed the Villain's right hand's wrist and shattered it with a gentle squeeze, a stunned Shigaraki couldn't do anything but scream, his eyes rolling in the back of his head.
[Do you want to win?]
Shigaraki couldn't see, hear, or sense.
Yet, he just knew what the old man was doing…
His father's hand disappeared from his grip and appeared on his left shoulder, as if comforting him for the pain that was about to come.
Death was gripping his left wrist as well.
[… Do you want to… go beyond?]
Why… Why… Why… Why?!!! Shigaraki wanted to change the world and its twisted ideals. He wanted to create a new world… a world without All Might. A world where… he decided the right and wrong. Then why… why couldn't he act…
[… Do you want to know… really?]
Motes of red light pulsed in Shigaraki's mind, the questions stemming from something unknown.
[… Do you want to relive those moments… child?]
"… Yes…" Shigaraki didn't know who was asking the questions, but he sensed what it was talking about. A stutter escaped his mouth, barely audible, as he accepted. "… I… want… to see them… Please…"
[… Very well…]
Darkness vanished.
It took away all the pain with him.
Shigaraki found himself in a room, surrounded by whiteness.
"Tenko!" A woman came rushing at him, smiling with joy. "… Where were you?! Come on. Dinner is ready."
"… Mother…" Shigaraki, now a child, looked at the woman in shock.
The woman held Shigaraki's hand and pulled him forward, and people began appearing in the whiteness… all smiling at him… for him…
Outside, under the wet, red mask on his face…
… the corners of Shigaraki's mouth twitched, becoming a bloody grin.
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