U.A High, Ground Beta Central Square ... The battlefield had gone silent with All Might's last punch.
Following which, the Symbol Of Peace had collapsed, his body emitting a steam cloud. 'Dammit! I was too careless.'
For today's training exercise, he had carefully planned just how long he would stay in his muscled form. He had already spent some time earlier today on her work so he's three hours were short. But for the time to complete the battle training, it should have been enough .... Then this happened.
Hidden underneath the steam, his weak form had fully surfaced.
The strong, bulging muscles were gone and athletic build were long gone, replaced by a scrawny build that made his tattered hero costume look two sizes too big for him.
'What happened?' Todoroki looked over
'You've gotta be kidding me.'
Ken stopped in his tracks at the sudden turn of events. He hadn't seen exactly what happened, but the steam cloud was enough. 'So he's out of time, huh?' With everything, he had almost forgotten that All Might was on a timer. One most likely further shortened after the brawl with NOMU. 'It's even worse than I thought. I ... Can't even move ...' All Might thought grimly.
With his body immobilized, removing the embedded shards in his fist was next to impossible. And he wasn't sure his body would allow him to transform back even if he could.
Worse, this happened in the midst of battle.
Once the smoke cleared, both the students, villains, and anyone who happened to come after this would see his weakened state.
'I'm not sure that Nomu guy is completely beat yet, and then there's the one with the Warpgate. If either hold me hostage, things are going to get real bad ...'
His thoughts were interrupted as the earth under his feet turned dark purple. Feeling his body slipping through, All Might's face changed drastically.
'I got him.'
Not far away, Kurogiri reappeared after changing his position, funneling a portal to warp away the symbol of peace.
He had called out to NOMU to save Shigaraki, hence his attention had been on All Might as well. Seeing the shards on All Might's fist just before the steam emerged, Kurogiri understood that the symbol of peace had lost his powers.
The perfect opportunity to capture All Might had arrived, and he took it without hesitation.
The steam had mostly dissipated, revealing All Might's side profile.
With just a glimpse, Kurogiri's eyes widened. However,
Just before All Might could sink in, a speeding blur shot towards the dissipating steam. The symbol of peace felt a firm grip grab onto the collar of his hero costume before pulling him away.
'Him again ...' With his hands grasping All Might, Ken's figure shot down the street without slowing down. "Retreat you idiot!" Turning his head, he yelled at Todoroki before disappearing out of sight in an instant.
Kurogiri turned his gaze, only to see Todoroki form an ice path propelling him away.
"Don't think you can get away ..."
".. Kurogiri .."
A voice stopped the Warpgate before he could proceed. "Huh? Tomura Shigaraki ..."
He turned. In the distance was a body lying flat on his face and two rods embedded in his shoulders. Only now did he realize that Ken had left him behind.
"Where ... Where are they? What happened?"
"They've escaped. Both the brats and All Might."
"... Arghh! ... Well, what are you waiting for? A wedding invite? Get these things off me."
Kurogiri's misty hands reached for the rods. However, the mist around his hands dispersed the moment he tried to touch them. "I .. I can't pull it out." Those petulant red eyes narrowed with ferocity.
"NOMU!"
He roared with gritted teeth.
Moments later, NOMU came along, missing an arm, bleeding heavily and staggering with every step. Yet it's face showed no pain and it came anyway.
"GET THESE THINGS OFF ME .."
It did. With gritted teeth, Shigaraki bore the excruciating pain as the rods were pulled out.
CLANG!
The rods hit the ground, slick with blood. Shigaraki's chest heaved as he staggered upright, clutching at the torn wounds in his shoulders.
"...Haaah… haaaah…" His nails dragged at his throat, or tried to. Unfortunately, lifting his arms now was impossible with his current condition.
Making him all the more irritable. "Where did they go Kurogiri?"
"South. Though I wouldn't advise you to go after them in your current state."
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" He snarled as his red eyes rolled to the side, wild, unfocused. "All Might. The brat. That bastard ruined everything."
He looked up.
"The Symbol Of Peace has fled. There's no way we can find him in time before other pros show up. The fact that they haven't noticed this long is ..."
BLAR! BLAR! BLAR!
"The alarms ..."
Kurogiri called out.
"Well, speak of the devil .." The blarring sounds only served to irritate him even more. "Tesla's probably been captured already."
"We should retreat. More heroes will arrive soon."
Shigaraki's head snapped toward him, spittle flying. "Shut up. Shut up! Do you have any idea what today was supposed to be? He was supposed to die! The whole rotten system was supposed to crumble when the people saw their fake symbol broken in half!"
He kicked the fallen rods across the ground, each word cracking higher. "And instead… instead I get humiliated by some brat in a mask. All Might's still breathing. The Nomu's in pieces. And you… you couldn't even warp them when you had the chance!"
"More heroes are coming. We've lost our chance. It's ... It's game over."
The mist rippled but held steady. "Even so, Tomura—"
"Don't say my name!" Shigaraki screamed, body trembling with rage. "This ... This isn't over. I'll kill him. I'll kill them all. That brat—Ken—he'll regret stepping into my story. I'll rip his friends apart. Destroy everything he loves."
He paused. Seemingly remembering something.
"The brat ... Does he have any family left?"
"Yes he does. A mother."
"Alright. That's good too."
Shigaraki uttered, his voice returning to calm. "We'll head there later when this all dies down. I'll break him, make him watch while I grind his mother into dust. Right before I send him to join her as well." The boy was no longer a pawn.
Pawns don't turn on their masters after all.
In that case, there was no use in keeping him any longer.
"Come on Kurogiri. Let's go."
"Home?"
Tomura fell into thought. "No. Not yet. First we have a special group we have to visit first." Under the mask, the sickly features lit up to what looked to be be a crazed smile.
"To think I almost forgot about them."
"The abducted children?"
"Yeah you moron." Kurogiri expanded into a warpgate, and Shigaraki walked through, mutters of vengeance sworn with the damaged NOMU following behind him like a dark breathing tank.
However, before he could fully step through ...
WHOOSH!
A projectile shot through the air, heading straight for Kurogiri's metal brace. "NOT YOU AGAIN!" Having watched Ken run away, Kurogiri had never expected him to hide somewhere waiting to strike when their guards were down. That was a villain's tactic. Not heroes. What were U.A teaching these kids nowadays?
How insidious.
His internal curses however, did not get rid of the problem. If he was hit in his braces, there was no doubt that his Quirk would stop functioning. However, Shigaraki was currently halfway through the portal. The dangers of a Warpgate destabilizing while someone was mid transportation was dangerous. Best case scenario, they would be ejected. Worst case, their bodies would be split in two.
Hence, Kurogiri quickly moved the gate forward, enveloping Shigaraki's body completely before turning it off.
The warpgate closed up, just before the rod passed its previous location. The result of this rushed Warping, was that NOMU, their ultimate weapon ... Was left behind in ground beta.
___
JAPAN,
ABANDONED INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX,
200KM SOUTHEAST OF MUSTAFU.
The rain hammered down like bullets from the iron-gray sky, turning the abandoned industrial complex into a maze of slick concrete and rusted metal. Steam rose from overheated machinery that had been left running for who knows how long, creating pockets of visibility that shifted with every gust of wind.
Team B moved in a tight formation through the labyrinth of storage containers and defunct assembly lines, their backs pressed together as villains circled them like wolves.
"How many more of these bastards are there?!" Bakugo snarled, his palms crackling with wet explosions that sent sprays of superheated water in all directions. The restraints that had bound him earlier lay in charred pieces somewhere behind them—the first thing he'd done after the initial ambush was blast them to smithereens.
"At least fifteen that I can track," Jiro replied, her earphone jacks pressed to the ground despite the rain. "But there could be more. This place is huge."
Kirishima's hardened skin gleamed like polished stone as he deflected a thrown crowbar. "Don't matter how many there are! We stick together and punch our way out!"
"Easier said than done," Yaoyorozu muttered, sweat mixing with rainwater as she created another riot shield just in time to block a burst of acidic sludge. Her creation quirk was being pushed to its limits—between the stress and the constant demand for defensive equipment, her lipids were running dangerously low.
A villain with elongated limbs stretched around a shipping container, his rubber-like arms reaching for Tokoyami from an impossible angle. Dark Shadow erupted from the boy's torso, its form more solid and aggressive in the gloom of the storm.
"Stay back!" the shadow commanded, its voice echoing strangely in the rain. But even Dark Shadow seemed sluggish, the constant downpour dampening its usual ferocity.
"We're running out of room," Kirishima panted, his hardened arms carrying a slight tremble as he grabbed a piece of rebar and swung it like a baseball bat. "They're herding us toward that dead end."
He was right. Step by step, explosion by explosion, the villains had been driving them deeper into the complex. What had started as an open battleground was now a narrow corridor between two massive concrete walls, with nowhere to run except backward—and more enemies waiting there too.
"This was their plan from the beginning," Yaoyorozu realized, her analytical mind cutting through the chaos. "They wanted us cornered. Easier to capture that way."
"Capture?" Bakugo's laugh was sharp and humorless. "Let them try! I'll blow every last one of these extras to hell before I let them drag me anywhere!"
But even as he spoke, more figures emerged from the rain and steam. Twenty, thirty, maybe forty villains now surrounded them from all sides. Way more than in Canon.
Some had transformation quirks that made them barely human. Others wielded weapons that crackled with energy or dripped with substances best left unidentified.
"Alright, brats," called a woman with shark-like teeth and gills along her neck. "Fun time's over. Boss wants you alive, but he didn't say anything about uninjured."
"Just try it!" Kirishima roared, his quirk hardening his skin to maximum density. But they all knew the truth—they were first-year students, exhausted from fighting, backed into a corner against odds that would challenge veteran heroes.
The villains began to close in, weapons raised, quirks charging.
That's when the air tore open behind the villain ranks.
A familiar warp gate materialized with a sound like reality being unzipped, its purple edges crackling with spatial distortion. But instead of the controlled emergence they'd witnessed before, something was violently ejected from the portal—a pale figure tumbling through the rain to land in a heap on the wet concrete.
"What the hell—" Shigaraki's voice cracked as he pushed himself upright, his hands immediately going to the blood-soaked holes in his shoulders. "Kurogiri! What kind of amateur hour teleportation was that?!"
The misty villain materialized more gracefully beside him, though there was a tension in his floating form that hadn't been there before. "My apologies, Tomura. We were attacked again just as we were departing. I had to prioritize your safety."
"Attacked?!" Shigaraki's voice rose to a near-shriek, his nails trying and failing to find purchase on his neck. "By who? That brat with the rods again?!"
"The same. He attempted to strike my restraints just as the portal was closing. I had no choice but to—"
"You mean you panicked," Shigaraki interrupted. Eyes darting around. "Where's Nomu? Please tell me you didn't leave our ultimate weapon behind because you got spooked by one teenager."
Kurogiri's silence was answer enough.
For a moment, the only sounds were the drumming of rain on metal and the distant rumble of thunder. Shigaraki stood perfectly still, his body trembling with barely contained rage.
Then he exploded.
"YOU LEFT NOMU BEHIND?!" His voice echoed off the concrete walls, causing several of the surrounding villains to take involuntary steps backward. "Do you have any idea what that thing cost to make?! The resources, the planning, the—"
"IT'S YOU!"
The roar cut through Shigaraki's tirade like a blade through silk. Every head turned toward the source—toward the cluster of U.A. students who had been forgotten in the chaos of the villains' arrival.
Bakugo's crimson eyes burned with recognition and fury as he stared at the pale young man. Behind him, Kirishima's face had hardened into something that matched his quirk—unbreakable resolve mixed with protective anger.
"You're the bastard who kidnapped us!" Bakugo's palms ignited, twin explosions building in his grip. "I'm gonna blast you into next week!"
Without hesitation, both boys launched themselves forward. Kirishima's hardened form crashed through the line of surprised villains like a cannonball, while Bakugo used controlled explosions to propel himself through the air, his trajectory aimed straight at Shigaraki's shocked face.
"Get away from him!" Bakugo roared, his right hand building toward a massive blast. "HOWITZER—"
Space twisted around them like a funhouse mirror. One moment they were flying toward their target, the next they were tumbling through purple void, disoriented and weightless. The warp gate spat them out exactly where they'd started, sending both boys crashing into the muddy ground behind their classmates.
"How annoying," Shigaraki muttered, his earlier rage cooling into something more focused and dangerous. He studied the group of students with those unsettling red eyes, taking in their exhausted faces, their defensive positions, their obvious desperation.
"You know," he continued conversationally, as though he hadn't just been screaming moments before, "I was having such a terrible day. First that brat with the rods ruined my plans for All Might. Then Nomu gets left behind like yesterday's garbage. But seeing you all here... wet, tired, trapped..."
His lips curved into something that might charitably be called a smile.
"Maybe this day isn't a complete waste after all."
Yaoyorozu stepped forward, her voice steady despite the circumstances. "What do you want with us?"
"Originally? You were bait. A way to lure the Symbol of Peace into a trap." Shigaraki's hand rose to scratch at his neck again. "But plans change. Maybe instead of using you as bait, I'll just use you as an example."
"An example of what?" Tokoyami asked, Dark Shadow coiling around him like living armor.
"What happens to people who get in my way," Shigaraki replied simply. "Don't worry. I'll make sure to record it. The world should see what happens when heroes fail to protect—"
"Ugh .. Tomura..."
The name came out as a strangled gasp, so quiet that it barely carried over the sound of the rain. Shigaraki's head snapped toward his partner, irritation flashing across his features.
"What now? Can't you see I'm having a moment here?"
But Kurogiri wasn't responding to him. The misty villain was staring down at himself with something approaching horror, his glowing eyes wide with disbelief.
Behind him, unnoticed by everyone except Kurogiri himself, his shadow had begun to move independently. It stretched and writhed against the wet concrete, growing longer and darker until it seemed to have substance all of its own. Then another shadow rose from his own, emerging from the ground like smoke given form, reaching upward until it stood directly behind the warp villain.
The entity had no face, no eyes, no distinguishing features at all—just a vaguely humanoid shape composed of living darkness. But its intent was unmistakable as it reached forward with appendages that might have been arms.
"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki snapped, finally noticing his partner's distress. "What's wrong with—"
CRACK!
The sound was sharp and final, like a bone breaking or metal snapping under too much pressure. Kurogiri's scream cut through the air as the shadow entity gripped the metal restraints that controlled his quirk and simply... twisted.
The braces shattered like glass, pieces of broken metal falling to splash in the puddles below. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was what happened next.
Without the restraints to contain his quirk, Kurogiri's misty form began to collapse inward on itself. The purple fog that made up his body contracted violently, compressing into a smaller and smaller space until—
FWOOM!
The implosion was silent but devastating. Where Kurogiri had been floating moments before, there was now only empty air and the scattered remnants of his metal restraints, already being washed away by the rain.
The shadow entity faded back into nothing as quickly as it had appeared, leaving no trace of its presence except for the absence of its victim.
Silence fell over the industrial complex like a heavy blanket. Even the rain seemed to quiet, as though nature itself was processing what had just occurred.
Shigaraki stared at the empty space where his partner had been, his scratching urge forgotten in the face of this new impossibility.
"Kurogiri?" he whispered, his voice smaller than anyone had ever heard it. "Kurogiri?!"
___
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