Writing BNHA Fanfics (& actually posting them here)

Chapter 29: Icarus Falls

5 minutes ago… 

“I’ve tried to talk to him…” Shuichi Iguchi muttered as he took another sip of broth. “These few weeks, but lately, I haven’t been able to find him. He’s probably been at the Doctor’s lab all this while. More experimentation, I guess.”

“Did you, after last Monday’s meeting?” Sako chewed on a roll of sushi. 

“Would you have? You saw how he looked...I think I’m too late.” Spinner stared at the stagnant bowl of soup. “He’s too far gone.”

Atsuhiro sighed and put down his chopsticks, staring at the grandeur of the lounge’s walls. All of this, this lavish life the League has been indulging in was because of Shigaraki. 

“I thought,” Sako said, “That Shigaraki was growing as a leader. He’d made wise decisions with the Liberation Army, so I felt…assured in our future. But I forgot that he was given the opportunity to fulfil his dream.”

“It didn’t hit you until you saw him last Monday, did it?” 

Compress shook his head. “I never once believed I would see Shigaraki offer himself as one of the doctor’s experiments. You would truly have to be inhuman to –” He caught himself. 

The awkward silence created by Sako’s implication was thankfully interrupted when Himiko Toga burst into the lounge and shouted, “Where’s Jin?” 

“We haven’t seen him, Himiko.” Sako was about to invite her to join them, but he thought better of it upon seeing the creases of worry on her face. “What’s wrong?” 

He was answered with a door slammed shut on both of them. That’s a good enough answer. Compress locked eyes with Spinner, a mutual understanding passing between the two. They rushed to catch up with her. 

“Toga!” Spinner called. “Ask the Doc! He’ll know where Twice is!” 

She skidded to a stop. “But I don’t have my earpiece!”

“I’ll do it. Check on her.” Compress muttered. Iguchi nodded. 

As Sako was attaching his communicator to make contact, Iguchi reached the girl’s side. “What happened to Twice?” 

“I — I think he’s gonna tell Hawks.” 

“About?”

“About the plan! Shigaraki’s plan!” Toga growled. 

Iguchi went slack-jawed. “No, he can’t. He’s —“ 

“Courtyard, now.” Compress’ tone left no room for further discussion. The three broke into a run. 

As Iguchi looked at the vast square beneath them, he spotted two figures. One in a black bodysuit and another with two noticeable crimson wings sprouting from his back.

------

“Hawks!” 

Keigo spun around to see Bubaigawara Jin frantically waving his hands, running to him. Donning a cordial smile, he waved in return. There he is. 

“What’s up, Twice?” He said, once Jin stopped in front of him. 

After catching his breath, Twice grabbed Hawks’ shoulders, wheezing, “Hawks! Where’ve you been these — I’ve been trying — couldn’t find you! You – you need to leave now!”

“Hold on,” Keigo said, raising his hands with a patient smile, though internally, alarm bells went off in his head. “Calm down, Twice. I’ve only been gone a couple days.”

“No! No time! Go away! Run!” The frantic tone made Hawks realise what Jin was trying to tell him. He was being targeted. 

It happened that fast? Guess I wasn’t as good as I thought. At least that means Plan B will work. 

“Alright, jeez. I just gotta give you something first.” Hawks reached for the specialised earpiece in his back pocket. His feathers picked up movement. 

Three people, 12 o clock, running. Sako, Iguchi, Toga. Probably have two minutes before they reach us. 

Don’t hear Dabi or Apocrypha. They may be waiting somewhere. As for Shigaraki, I can assume he’s with the doctor. 

Chikazoku, Hanabata, and Yotsubashi are dead. In other words, I’ve got an opening. And I only need a few minutes to finish this before I bail forever. 

“What? No, Hawks, just go!” As Jin spoke, Hawks used his feathers to shove the device into his right ear. On cue, Hawks went limp, with Shinso cutting off communication with Twice’s muscles and brain. 

The three minutes start now. Keigo started a timer on his wristwatch. 

As Hawks picked him up with a few feathers, he heard Himiko Toga scream. 

“HAWKS! I’LL KILL YOU!” 

He spared a second to look at the trio running towards them. Sako had made the right call to not use his quirk to launch the other two, since he could easily knock the pearls away, but that negated all possibilities of them reaching him in time. 

And then between the two, the familiar green slime appeared. Shit. 

Keigo wasn’t going to wait for whoever that was, though he harboured a sinking suspicion. He commanded his feathers to lift the unconscious Twice into the air, and blasted into the sky. 

A second sonic boom made him look back. “What the fuck?” He whispered. 

His eyesight was never wrong. Lo and behold, it was Shigaraki, fleshy grey wings extending from his spine, resembling a gargoyle. His colourless irises were gleaming with delight, his mouth curved upwards like a crescent blade. 

And he was getting closer, every flap of his wings increasing his velocity.

Dammit, I can’t fly at my max speed with some of my feathers carrying Twice. Hasn’t even been a minute yet. 

The look on Shigaraki’s face unnerved Keigo more than he liked. 

Could I wear him down with altitude sickness? 

He took the chance and made a sudden stop, breaking the sound barrier again as his trajectory rapidly shifted. Meanwhile, he kept moving Twice in the original direction.

Shit. He’s not aiming to rescue Twice. His feathers sensed as much. Shigaraki was coming for him. 

Better get this to her.

------

“Keep watch on him,” The President ordered her deputies. In front of them, Kineka Shinsou was sitting on a chair, his hands on his temples. His forehead was slick with sweat, energy demanded by his quirk usage. 

She exited the operation room and returned to her office. Before she even entered, she could hear Hawks’ quill scribbling furiously. Her pulse rate spiked. 

What’s happening? 

She barged inside to read his message. Her eyes widened.

------

“Shigaraki on my tail. Looks very different. Has wings and heightened strength. Probably some other quirks. Keeping you posted.” 

Hawks chanced a look back, and he was glad he did, because that was when Shigaraki thrust his arms, which then elongated like Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow, speeding towards him. 

He dodged and returned fire with some of his feathers. They sliced in segments, but with every ligament or muscle he punctured or tore, Shigaraki seemed to repair them with near instantaneous speed. It was slowing him down, but not enough. 

A barrage of feathers went for his wings, ripping through the flesh, shredding them like paper. He heard Shigaraki’s yell of agony through the rushing wind in his ears. 

That seemed to do it. The gap between the two widened as Shigaraki had to recover. Hawks kept on the ascent, while checking his watch. A minute so far. 

And he breached the troposphere. The land below faded into obscurity below low-flying clouds. Above him, the sun pricked his skin, but he was still below the ozone layer. 

Looking down, he saw the dark figure of Shigaraki closing in with renewed ferocity. Is the altitude even affecting him? 

Clip his wings. Hawks sent another fusillade to slice up his opponent’s wings, but he felt the temperature spike up. Wait — MOVE! 

Keigo shot forward whilst retreating his feathers, but not before Shigaraki unleashed a stream of fire from his mouth, incinerating a few feathers. Hawks flinched in pain. 

Evasion then. Can’t risk more of them being burnt up. He recollected the survivors, additionally taking some off Twice, and picked up the pace. Yet Shigaraki was able to match it. 

“He can breathe fire. Superhuman regeneration too, possibly on a cellular level. Doesn’t seem to be bothered by high altitudes.” He wrote. 

“Forced quirk activation tendrils, same as his old man.” Hawks weaved through the black-red wiring that protruded from Shigaraki’s back. He’d seen how those things could keep All Might at bay. Lucky for me, I’m faster than he was. 

Keigo looked back and saw how his injuries were already repaired, but there was some frustration evident on Shigaraki’s face. It’s probably his first time using these new quirks. If I can mess up his concentration, I can make a getaway. 

He checked his watch. Nearly time. He began to lower Twice to the ground, recalling the feathers from far below. ETA, twenty seconds or so. 

Definitely can’t fight him. I doubt I can outrace him even at maximum speeds, but I can spare about half of my feathers to slow him down as best as possible.

Detach. Feathers began to shed from his wings, floating in the air like mines. At his direction, they all trained their razor tips onto Shigaraki like a swarm of piranhas. 

They flew, whizzing around to dodge his grasps and steering clear of his mouth. They pierced through his wings repeatedly like sewing needles. Keigo felt blood spurt onto the frenzied feathers, accompanied by Shigaraki’s snarl. 

Ten seconds before the cavalry's here, and I’m out of here. GAH! 

A burst of pain came from one of his feathers, but it faded almost instantly, as if he’d lost control of it. Did it get burnt up? No, fire would feel different. 

A weird sensation began at his feet. He felt his body lightening, losing mass. 

He looked down, and saw his right foot slowly turn to dust. Oh. Oh, god. 

Turning around, he saw Shigaraki wearing a grin, waving his tendrils that activated quirks forcefully. 

“Nice knowing you, Hawks.” 

How long do I have? Hawks fashioned a blade and immediately sliced off his leg at the calf. Fuck! The blinding pain made spots dance in his eyes, but he forced himself to stay awake. He had three of his feathers rip off strips of his jeans to form a tourniquet. 

Then a second explosion of pain came at his ribs, the black tendrils sinking into his chest. Keigo gasped, spitting out blood. 

His feathers darted around him from behind and chopped off the tendrils, sending Hawks into a free fall. Keigo adjusted, recalling the feathers and speeding off, the few sticks still impaled in his chest. 

His vision darkened at the edges. Yeah, that got my vitals. Maybe if I could get to a hospital…No, can’t bring him into civilian territory. Given how his decay works now…oh yeah, I forgot to update. Need to…update. 

Hawks twisted his body to face the sky to reduce blood loss. He had some of his feathers keep the tendrils in place. 

In the distance, Keigo spotted Shigaraki stare at him for a few seconds. Then he chuckled and dove in after him. 

Finish the letter. 

At his will, the remaining feathers loosened and fired off in a salvo, all aimed at his assailant. Keigo gave up controlling each one of them. It was too much effort, and thinking…thinking was hard with spikes stuck in his lungs and heart. 

Instead, he only focused on the one feather, thousands of kilometres away, that was his last way of warning everyone. 

He felt his body lighten as Shigaraki grabbed his stump of a right leg. Takami Keigo decided to look up at the afternoon sun. It was blinding.

------

Take maximum caution, make sure he never enters any populated area. He’s not the same. Decay can be indirectly transferred, and doesn’t require Shigaraki to primarily lay his hand on the object. I think that’s how Deika City was destroyed to that extent. And he can control the rate of decay. My guess is that he started a slow decay on one of my feathers that I recalled without realising, so it made contact with the rest of 

Think this is it, chief. Tell Shinsou  

Midway through writing, the feather straightened, and just as suddenly, it wilted and lay motionless on the paper.

The president stared at it for a few seconds, hoping it would start twitching again. Her breath was sucked right of her lungs as each second passed, painfully slowly. 

But it never moved again. She placed her hands on the table to steady her trembling form. She closed her eyes. Ave, Takami. 

When she opened them, they were hardened iron. She strode out of the door and back to the room, her heels clacking against the floor, mustering stoicism with every step. The second she walked inside, she was bombarded with reports. 

“Connection’s cut off Ma’am. The device was probably destroyed.” 

“We got as much as we could from the subject.”

“And Shinso went to take a rest. We have medical personnel attending to him.” Good, she thought. She didn’t want Kineka to be here for this. 

She held up her hands to stem the flow. When silence reigned, she shattered it. “Hawks is dead.”

She allowed the room to digest the statement, as bitter and queasy the news made them. Some collapsed onto their seats, faces ashen. Some burst into tears. But she, the leader of the hero commission, forced herself to remain steadfast. 

“He gave his life for this last mission, to stop Shigaraki. We will finish it,” She said. 

She enunciated her next few words with utmost clarity, knowing they would herald doomsday, or salvation. Perhaps both, she thought. 

“Begin the Icarus Initiative.”

------

Chapter 30: Change Of Plans

In the first few centuries of quirk genesis, only a handful today have lived long enough to remember the chaos, and history books are insufficient in carrying the weight of the subsequent conflicts. When the human race was confronted with a global phenomena completely alien to them, they were petrified. When reality underwent an upheaval, it created opportunities to rewrite history. 

Hero Commissions were stated to be government agencies from the get go, but governments then were but men in suits. Political power was a bygone artefact when any motivated member of the public could teleport into meeting rooms and eliminate all decisions with a gun, or simply burn the place down from afar. 

No, power then was the quirks themselves, and clandestine agencies were the first to utilise them to regain control. Comprised of street vigilantes, government officials desperate to survive and the power-hungry, they took a stand against the chaos, and won. 

They did not use their soldiers as public figures or showmen. They were not heroes, but agents. And their employers realised something. The real difference-makers would never be those that paraded around town, winning the hearts of the people. It would instead be those operating covertly, with quirks powerful enough to collapse societies. 

Endeavour? All Might? They were number one because the ranking system the Commission made up put them there. If they truly were the strongest hero, they wouldn’t be on the system. They wouldn’t be a hero. 

That had been the original plan for Takami Keigo, but given his marketable appearance and his personal desires to be a hero, he was slotted into the system. But his colleague of the Commission’s secret program, Kineka Shinsou, was kept in the shadows. 

A quirk that can manipulate mind and body like the Fiber Hero strings his victims, with the precision of a surgeon’s hand, the fruit of a lifetime of gruelling training and psychological regimentation. That was the quirk of a boy fit for shaping society. 

A blessing for the country, and a curse upon the teenager. 

It was almost fitting that Kineka Shinsou was not considered a hero, as he had told the commission over and over when they requested his talents. 

They, of course, did not listen.

------

“I was wondering about this since yesterday. What do I call you?” Geten said. 

“Hmm, I did not think it through.” Dabi drummed his fingers on the table. “Just Dabi is fine, but…I guess my actual name is okay too. When we’re alone.”

“Does no one else know your real name?” 

“No.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I…I see. Thank you.”

“And you? You’re okay with being called Apocrypha?” 

“I’ve nothing else to call myself, have I?”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t choose a new name for yourself. I did.” 

“I wouldn’t know what it would be.” 

Dabi tapped his chin. “Give it some thought. Just make sure it’s not as dumb as Vengeance.” 

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

It was then that the two heard the explosions. 

“What the hell?” Dabi stood up and walked to the window. Geten followed suit. 

Squinting, she spotted two dots in the sky, travelling at astounding speeds. In another second, they had disappeared above the clouds.

“It’s Hawks. Something’s up.” Dabi said. 

“Is he chasing someone, or…?” She didn't want to finish that question. Who was fast enough to do so? There seemed to be only one answer, and if it really was…him – No, she refused to entertain that possibility. 

But Dabi did it for her. “It’s Shigaraki. I think he’s hunting Hawks. But he said tomorrow…” His voice trailed off, as if in question. 

“Hunting? What’s going on?” She demanded. 

“We have to move.” He placed his communicator in his ear and fiddled with the channel. 

“Compress, where are you guys? We heard the sonic booms.” 

Geten heard Sako’s intelligible voice buzz. 

“We’re on our way.” Looking back at her, he said, “Mansion. Courtyard.” 

She nodded. They made their way to the window where Geten formed a platform underneath the two, propelling them towards the mansion’s courtyard. When they reached there, she spotted five figures, Shigaraki and the other lieutenants, standing around. A feeling crept upon her skin, telling her that whatever had occurred had passed. 

Where’s Hawks?

Shigaraki’s appearance took her aback. His clothes were shredded, his white hair caked with a layer of grey ash, matty and unkempt. Two large wings seemingly made from his own flesh sprouted from his back. As he turned his cold, lacklustre gaze upon her for a second, she was reminded of a demon. 

Her gaze drifted lower, and an invisible hand squeezed her heart as she saw one of Hawks’ wings in Shigaraki’s grasp, the end dripping blood. No.

“What did you do?” She breathed. All eyes turned on her, suddenly reminding her that she was the only surviving member of a cult. 

Shigaraki tossed the wing behind him. “Twice, what did they do to you?” 

“You…killed Hawks?” Bubaigawara Jin’s petrified expression still lay upon the severed wing. 

“Twice.” Shigaraki’s wings spread, casting a pale shadow on the man. Like a gravitational pull, Jin was drawn to meet his leader’s eyes. 

“What,” He repeated, “did the people on the earpiece do to you?” 

“I don’t…I don’t know. I can’t remember. The last thing I saw was Hawks putting it in my ear.” He gulped. 

Shigaraki sighed, rubbing his neck. Geten braced, the hairs on her skin static. The tension was one hand movement from being sliced.

“Doc, you got anything?” Shigaraki abruptly spun around. After some faint buzzing in reply, Shigaraki said, “Get the machine ready. I’ll grab the catalyst now. Teleport me nearby the lab.” 

He walked a distance away from the group. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere, the heroes are coming for us now.” 

As he finished his sentence, the dark sludge enveloped him, and the Grand Commander was gone. 

Dabi turned to the other League members. “Okay, someone explain what the fuck happened.”

------

The motion sensors picked up the unknown individual approaching the gate of the Saitama Research Laboratory, secluded in a deep forest, far away from the city. 

Guards were immediately dispatched and one of them obtained a visual of the trespasser a hundred metres out. But he could not relay this information in time. 

Within the security control room, the officer in charge asked for a reply and received only static. 

Cameras swivelled to lock onto this threat, who was now speeding towards the entrance, flying on wings that were attached to its back. 

The officer, to his credit, immediately ordered the use of the concealed turrets. They were confidentially approved by the government to guard the work crucial to quirk factors and their strengthening. 

It was, after all, the fruits of labour by one Daruma Ujiko, before the doctor disappeared off the face of the earth after his research was confiscated by the government. The front that the laboratory was working on medical treatments was that, just a front. 

And the doctor had returned to reclaim what was rightfully his. 

The turrets, loaded with tungsten bullets, took aim at the figure. At the helm, a guard with a velocity-multiplication quirk received the go ahead. 

Tungsten was one of the densest metals. Conventionally, firearm rounds were tipped with this metal to provide additional impact force against stronger opponents, a much needed weapon against a quirk-filled society. 

However, these were pure tungsten bullets, since the guard’s quirk made gunpowder redundant, along with the rest of the cartridge. Weighing over a kilogram each, these would pierce through even Crust’s strongest shields. 

The target should not have been able to see the incoming bullets, much less hear them, but he dodged them with stupefying ease. 

A suspension quirk was simultaneously authorised onto the subject, and it worked. The figure suddenly stiffened and was rooted on the spot, and the next salvo of bullets would be sufficient to neutralise this threat. 

Yet there was a subtle motion of the trespasser’s fingers, undetected by the cameras and those observing its feed. 

Before it was rendered immobile, it had tapped the ground. 

The next fusillade of shots came silently, but as they reached the target, they turned to dust, along with the rest of the laboratory. 

The figure flew towards the only remaining room left standing, its occupants mere particles floating in the wind. Tomura Shigaraki grabbed the last piece required to finalise his transformation. 

“No time to waste…” Muttered in the wind, as Shigaraki was transported back in less than three minutes from when he arrived.

------

“What’s the cause of this?” The Commissioner’s eyes narrowed at the sorry state Kineka Shinsou was in. His temperature had been hovering dangerously close to 41 degrees Celsius for the past few hours. Every so often, his eyes would snap wide open and shut, like a faulty camera. Condensation formed on the glass the two were looking through. 

“Maintaining a connection over such a long distance, using a digital voice projection…the radio waves interfered with his quirk.” A doctor shook his head. “Scrambled his mind.”

The two stood in the adjacent room, a tinted window separating them from the subject. 

“He’ll recover, but if the Initiative requires him to control multiple villains from here — even if he could achieve this, it’ll be the last time he uses his quirk.” 

“Recovery time?” 

“This high fever will go down by tomorrow. Give him enough rest before you start putting him through hell again.”

“I don’t understand. We conducted preliminary experiments with similar circumstances. Why did this affect him so strongly?” Her face went slack as she answered her own question. “Bubaigawara Jin.” 

The doctor nodded. “He needed drastically more effort to obtain information from a schizophrenic person.”

She sighed. “I should have foreseen something like this. Thank you, you may go.” 

The President stared at the shuddering form of Shinsou, tended to by two nurses, as the doctor departed. She swallowed a lump in her throat. 

I’m sorry, you two.

------

Compress had just finished filling Dabi and Geten in when Shigaraki reappeared, his face grey with ash and impatience. He was holding a glass tube filled with some liquid. Sako quietened as Shigaraki walked towards them. 

“I’m not sure how much they know now. I guess they hacked into your brain, so they probably know about our plans. Doesn’t matter, now that I’ve taken three of those objectives off the list.” Shigaraki addressed both Twice and the group. 

Shigaraki fiddled with the tube in his hand, staring at the ground, while the members of the League and Geten watched him. 

“Your schedules are all cleared for tomorrow. We’re still proceeding with the plan to attack, so you have to lead your regiments. The main goal now is to buy time for me. I need 24 hours. Once I’m perfected,” Shigaraki looked up at them, a strange sorrowful look on his face. 

“That’s when you guys abandon the army and get away from here and Jakku, ASAP.” 

His words were a bow screeching across a violin of tension, instilling the same gnawing dread in the group. 

“Shigaraki?” Compress said. “What are you going to do?” 

After some silence, he said,

“I don’t remember a lot now, but I haven’t forgotten how nice you guys are. I’ll make it up to you guys. Just stay away from the heroes. And…you’ll know when I’m ready.” He tapped his earpiece. “Doc. Let’s do this.” 

As the sludge wrapped itself around Shigaraki, Geten had a sinking feeling Shigaraki was going to lay waste to the whole country.

------

“Strap me in.” Shigaraki marched up to the lightless tunnel and called out. “I got the thing.” 

Kyudai Garaki, in his chair, emerged from the darkness brimming with joy. From Shigaraki’s hand, he took the catalyst.

“Yes…yes! Thank you for retrieving this, Shigaraki. I can now fulfil your destiny to utmost perfection. But…I’m afraid Nine’s procedure must be halted for a sufficient electricity supply.”

“The guy in that tube back there?” Shigaraki jerked a thumb towards the cloud of dust. “I took care of it. He wasn’t useful anymore. Plan’s changed, I’m sure you heard.”

“I…see. A bit of a waste of an experiment, but no matter. Come.” The doctor gestured for Shigaraki to follow him. Into the darkness they went. 

“I notice you’ve exerted yourself physically. The fight against Hawks, I assume?” He gave a sweeping inspection of Tomura’s form from head to toe. When he nodded in reply, Garaki clicked his tongue. 

“A difficult battle, but if you were able to defeat the number two hero at this strength, I daresay you will be unstoppable once you emerge from that.” Garaki pointed to the glass chamber ahead of the two. 

“That’s why I’m doing this,” Shigaraki said. 

Master and servant reached their destination. While the doctor busied himself behind controls, Shigaraki ran his hand along the dirty glass, careful not to disintegrate it. 

“Y’know, doc, I thought I’d be feeling happier now that I’m finally at this point.” Shigaraki gazed at his faint reflection in the glass. He could make out his silhouette, his skin greyer than it was a few months ago, but he wondered when his eyes were that faded. 

Garaki placed the catalyst into a delivery tube, connected to the chamber. “Perhaps it is your dissatisfaction that you haven’t reached the power you dreamed of acquiring.” He gave a placating smile.

“Doc, come on, you’re a smart guy. Living hundreds of years, and you think the reason is my emotions, or not having any. You’re all...science-y. You know the real reason, don’t you? Isn’t it the things you did to me?”

“P-pardon?” Kyudai looked up, a bead of sweat hanging off his forehead. 

“I know you know. For these new quirks and stat increases, something’s gotta give. My brain. I’m not complaining. I guess…” He shrugged. “Just realising it for real now.” 

“If I had more time, perhaps I could —” 

Shigaraki waved his hand. “Don’t sweat it. I wasn’t asking for anything more. Just saying my thoughts out loud. I knew…” He frowned. “I knew that hole in my heart was always there. But a part of me…” 

Looking back at himself, he finished, “Wished something would change. Guess not.”

Silence filled the air for a few seconds. 

A pair of greyed irises turned to face Garaki. “Is it ready?” 

The doctor flipped a last switch, and the chamber began to fill with gas. Machines around them whirred to life, a resonant hum reverberating throughout the underground lair. “Yes.” 

Shigaraki drew a final breath and climbed into his cocoon. 

------

Chapter 31: May Tomorrow Never Arrive

Once Compress shut the door behind him, he gave a heavy sigh, taking off his hat, mask and coat. Like a sack of rice, he dropped onto the sofa and took a large gulp of beer. 

“Settled?” Dabi asked. He gave a tired nod.

“They’re fortifying the borders, arming themselves, all that.” He waved an arm flaccidly. 

“How’d you explain where the advisors and leaders went?” Spinner said from another couch. 

“No one asked, because everyone saw how Shigaraki looked like. I saw it in their eyes. Everyone wanted to ask what the hell happened, but they just witnessed wings sprout from their commander who then murdered Hawks. Kept them nice and quiet.” 

“They know.” Geten said suddenly, as eyes turned to her. “Maybe.” 

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Dabi muttered. “Shit hit the fan at least three times within 24 hours.” 

“Get ready a fourth load of shit then,” Sako said with no trace of humour in his tone. “It’s either us invading, or them coming to us.” 

“You think they’ll do something that bold?” Geten arched an eyebrow. 

“We just took out the number two hero. You think they’ll risk Shigaraki entering a city?” Dabi snorted.

“Why…” All eyes turned to Twice, who was curled up on the sofa. “Why did he kill him?”

There was silence in the room as everyone looked at each other. Geten didn’t know how to respond either. She was asking the same question, which technically had been answered by Compress earlier, but she still found it hard to believe. The sake helped douse her feelings of grief, but evidently Twice was still in denial too. 

She noticed Dabi was looking right at her, as if he knew what she was thinking. 

“Jin, he was a spy for the heroes,” Sako said. 

“No, he wasn’t! Yes he was!” 

Dabi let out a sigh. “Did you forget that he kidnapped you? If it weren’t for Shigaraki, you wouldn’t be here.” 

“I…but —” Twice struggled to speak. “How? Why?”

“It’s what heroes do, alright?” Dabi said, a fire in his voice. 

Bubaigawara’s chin quivered. 

“But he was so nice to me…”

Me too, Twice, She wanted to say, me too. 

Was it all really an act? Whatever Hawks said or did, did he have some ulterior motive after all? 

When he told her about feeling caged by society, about his past and his training…In hindsight, what he said was so similar to her own experiences that they might have been fabricated so she would connect more with him. Then why did he sound truthful? 

“It doesn’t matter,” Geten suddenly said out loud. “He’s dead.”

Twice looked mournfully at her, while others seemed taken aback, watching her take another drink. 

“Bet you wish you were with your buddies six feet under,” Spinner said, definitely feeling the effects of alcohol, “Instead of having to deal with this shit.” 

“Spinner,” Dabi warned.

Geten waved him off. “It’s fine.” 

She saw Toga’s head flick between her and Dabi, her expression like a watchful cat, but she said nothing. 

“What?” Spinner said indignantly. “Am I missing something?”

“You could say that,” Geten replied, “But long story short, I’m not — I’ve never been on good terms with Yotsubashi and the others.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Sako laughed, “And I’m the magician here.” 

“And I’d rather be alive than specks of dust, thank you very much,” Geten said, “It’s possible my past self would have thought the idea of a glorious death in the name of liberation was beautiful, but I am not that person.” 

Compress whistled. “Look who got some character development.”

Spinner jutted a finger at her. “Well, you’re alive, for now. All of us are.” 

Silence, save for the lizard-man’s chugging. The temperature in the room seemed to plunge. 

“I think you’ve had enough of that.” Dabi swiped the bottle from Iguchi’s hand, as Compress muttered, “Mood-killer.”

“They’re not going to kill us, are they?” Geten asked. 

“Usually, no. But after what Shigaraki’s done,” Compress drew a shaky breath, “Who knows? Maybe they’ll stick to their self-righteous ‘heroism’ and take us alive. Toss us into Tartarus till we die. Let age do the dirty work.”

“They’ll kill us there and then. We killed Hawks. It’s karma,” Iguchi muttered. 

“We’re not going to die, Spinner. Calm the fuck down, would you?” Dabi sighed. 

“Am I wrong?” Iguchi said. “I don’t know when this started, but just a few weeks ago, we were living it up, now we could be fighting against the whole Hero Association? And Shigaraki’s —” 

His voice broke. 

“What happened to Tomura? What happened to him?” He croaked. 

No one had an answer, until Sako spoke up. “There’s…still a chance we can get through this. And that’s if we keep Shigaraki safe till he wakes up. You — We, we all saw how he was like. He’s going to be stronger than that once he emerges.”

Geten imagined the dark form of Shigaraki sweeping across the landscape, his touch disintegrating the earth itself and everything that stood upon it, friend or foe. 

“So we let him do as he pleases?” Geten said. “Is that what we do? He’s going to destroy everything.”

“Never had much of a stake in ‘everything’. We’re villains, Apocrypha,” Compress replied, “Unless you think yourself otherwise.”

“Hero?” She laughed. “I killed too many to be considered one. But…but letting millions of people — people who’ve never heard, seen or talked to me, become this —” She brushed off the dust on her parka. “Doesn’t fill that hole in my heart.” 

“You got a better idea?” Dabi said quietly. “If you think we all like this plan, we don’t. But it’s sure as hell better than surrendering and spending the rest of our lives in Tartarus.”

Geten couldn’t think of a solution. Her shoulders sagged as she slunked back on the sofa. 

“Nyehhhh. Boring, lame. You guys keep blabbing on stupid things.” Toga chimed in from her end. She had been lying upside down on a sofa spinning a knife the whole time. “Only one thing’s important, and no one’s said it yet?”

She pointed her knife at Geten, and then at Dabi. 

“Are you two dating?” 

Dabi sighed. “Seriously?” while Geten tilted her head. A chuckle that released the tension like a balloon deflating spread through the room. 

“We’re close friends, if that’s what you mean. What’s dating?” She addressed Toga. 

At this, the girl gasped. Spinner gave a side glance to Dabi, Sako guffawed and Twice’s head swung between the couple like a pendulum. 

“It’s when…” Toga said, jumping off the couch as Dabi attempted to grab her. “It’s when two people fall in love with each other, and they spend time together!”

“Oh.” Geten’s face flushed, realising that definition checked all the boxes. “Well, then, I suppose we are.”

“Aww!” Toga squealed. 

“Shut up,” Dabi said, the venom in his voice ineffective in stopping Himiko’s stupor. 

“So cute! I could die!” 

“Please do,” He retorted.

“I wouldn’t have guessed you two would become a couple,” Sako interjected. “Although with the amount of time spent in each other’s company, it makes sense.” 

“Oh don’t get me started on you, Compress.” Dabi turned on the entertainer. 

Geten cracked a smile at Compress’ comment. She found Dabi’s defensiveness rather endearing, understanding why he would rather not disclose their relationship to the rest. There was an intimacy that he wanted to stay private about, and usually she would agree, but given that the mood was uplifted, she did not mind as much. 

“Hey, Apocrypha —” Toga began again.

“Can you not call me that? It’s not a name I relish.” 

“Well, what should I call you?” 

The room was silent, all eyes watching her. It was probably the alcohol, but she was unable to think of an answer. Maybe if she had more time to mull it over, she would have a satisfactory one for everyone and herself. 

“Well…” Her expression must have revealed her distraught state of mind; Toga jumped to devise a nickname for her.

“What about big sis?” Toga’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

“Eh?” She blinked. “I guess that’s also fine with me.”

“Ok, big sis! Have you and Dabi kissed yet?”

At this, Dabi choked on his drink. Sako burst into laughter and Spinner coughed to hide his mirth. 

“Huh?” She had the shame to blush at the reaction from the rest, but… was kissing something people did? 

“Okay, that’s enough out of you, crazy girl.” Dabi snarled, raising an ember in his hand. Toga only stuck her tongue out. 

“Fine. C’mon, Jin, let’s go play cards.” Toga crossed her arms. 

“Over my dead bodies! Sure thing!” 

The giddy laughter slowly died as the two left the room. 

“So that’s a yes?” Compress wiggled his eyebrows at Dabi. 

“No.” Dabi slapped Sako’s back. “That damn kid…”

“Alright, alright.” Spinner raised a hand. “We’ll shut up now.”

The four relaxed in the silence of the mansion that was more emptier than ever. Geten didn’t want to leave this room. If she did, she would remember that the outside world was flipped on its head. She had no idea what would happen tomorrow, and luckily, the alcohol helped to keep her imagination tame, for now.

She heard light snoring. The three of them looked at Spinner who was lying on one of the couches, sleeping. 

Compress checked his watch. “It’s nine now.”

“I’m gonna go get more drinks.” Dabi rose from his seat.

She frowned. “Haven’t you had enough?”

“Not until I’m blackout drunk from this nightmare.” He answered, walking out the door with a seemingly steady gait. He’ll be fine. 

“You’ve changed him,” Compress observed, when Dabi was out of earshot. “For the better, I mean. He’s not as much of an arrogant prick that he was when we first met him.”

“I don’t see it. I just assumed he was holding less animosity towards me.” Geten looked at Sako, who was swirling his glass of wine. 

“Can’t blame you for that. You both started as crazed rivals, and look where you two are…” He sighed. “Poetic, is it not? But yes, you really have transformed him.”

“Compress —” 

“Please, call me Sako, or Atsuhiro, if you’d prefer,” He said.

“Sako,” She corrected, “how did you all meet?”

“We?” The magician sipped his drink. “It’s not as dramatic as I would have envisioned it. We were recruited for a job, and our employer was Shigaraki. Slowly, our numbers dwindled, most were arrested and sent to Tartarus, and one of us —” He gave a heavy sigh. “Didn’t make it. At any rate, here we are, what’s left of us.”

“What about you?” He inquired. “Your origins.”

She shrugged. “I never knew, only that I was trained since I was young to become who I was.”

“Is that so?” Atsuhiro said, “Have you not thought of searching through archives for your personal information?”

“My past self thought identity redundant. Now, I don’t have the access to those files.”

“And if I were to pull those files for you? Would you want to know?”

Huh? She stared blankly at him. “You…?”

“I still have permissions from Skeptic who never revoked them. He’s gone now, but I still retain the database. It’s your choice.”

My true identity? 

“Have you…looked me up?”

He met her eyes, and he sounded truthful when he answered, “The idea never left my mind. It seemed harmless enough to search it; I even thought you yourself knew, but after some observing, and making assumptions, it came to me that perhaps you didn’t know your own identity. Rather, you held onto the one given by Yotsubashi, whether or not out of your own volition.”

He put down his wine glass. “It reminded me a bit of myself when I was younger. I struggled with my own personas. Who I was, who I wanted to be, as well as who others wanted me to be. I daresay, you’ve went through or are going through those same questions.” 

A quiet chuckle. “I apologise for rambling. An old man’s tale. Long story short, I don’t know who you are anymore than you do.” 

“Don’t pressure her, Sako.” Dabi’s voice came from the door. He strode in, carrying a few more bottles of cold sake and soju. 

“Eavesdropping now, are we?” Compress said slyly. “I wasn’t, it’s entirely her decision.” 

“I’m fine,” She said. “But I think I need time to think it over.”

Atsuhiro did some typing into his laptop, and from it he produced a small metallic chip, which he passed to her. 

“When you’re ready, if at all, just insert this into your phone or any device. It’s your call.” He stood up and stretched. “I’m going to give you two some privacy. You young couples…”

He shook his head and departed. 

Touya snorted and sat down. “He makes himself out to be some sage of the past. I think he’s barely 40. Old guy my ass…” 

She smiled, taking a bottle that he offered, but as she examined the thin object that Sako had given her, it faded. 

“I don’t know why I’m so…hesitant,” She said quietly. “I thought I wanted this ever since I awakened from this nightmare of a cult. But now that I’m here…”

“You’re afraid of something?”

“It’s just my name. Why am I acting out over this?”

“Don’t have a good answer to that, to be honest,” He said, “But maybe it’s not important. Your name can be anything, but it doesn’t change who you are.” 

“But you changed. Dabi, Touya…even Vengeance. All these names you’ve taken. It has to matter, right?” 

“It…it wasn’t the name that changed me. It was you.” 

She blinked. Was it me? 

Submerged in her memories, albeit blurry, she remembered how she and Touya initially treated each other, spitting invective after invective, greeting each other with death threats. Yet gradually, they grew to respect each other, and when the Takame incident occurred, they put their lives on the line for the other. 

Then maybe he changed me too. 

Slowly, she pocketed the chip. Dabi said nothing. 

“Call me Apocrypha.”

“Apocrypha it is,” He said with solemnity, raising his bottle. They gave a silent cheers, and drank. 

Her eyes were drawn to Spinner, who was still fast asleep. 

“Don’t think too much about what he said.” Dabi followed her gaze. “He can’t hold his alcohol worth a shit.” 

“I didn’t take offence. But I wonder…what he said about me joining them in death, maybe he wasn’t wrong.” 

“Huh?”

“What do you think comes after death, Touya?”

“You’re getting religious on me now, are you?” 

“Destro, Chikara Yotsubashi, he committed suicide in prison, as you might know. In his autobiography, he didn’t preach about an afterlife in a theistic manner, neither did he proclaim that it existed. He only explained it away as another way of liberation: freedom of self, and becoming a martyr for others.”

“Sounds like he smeared his diary with his shit using it as toilet paper.” Dabi snorted. “What’s your point?”

“Even if we win this war, which I’ll accept may be possible — I’ve seen Shigaraki’s power, do you think we’ll have freedom?” 

“Obviously. No more heroes, no more stupid ideals holding this fragile society together. Letting it all collapse, it’s awesome.” 

She paused, and then said what she didn’t want to think about. “And if we lose this, we’ll be thrown into the worst prison in the country, won’t we?”

“If.” Dabi emphasised, but there was a crack in his voice. “If, if, if. Why’re you still talking about this and not just drinking in silence?”

“So we just get drunk until we’re unconscious?”

“Yep.” Dabi tossed her another bottle. “How else do I escape these thoughts?”

Geten thought about an answer, and found that thinking was the problem. So she drank. 

Himiko Toga and Bubaigawara Jin were a few rooms down playing cards. They tried to stay energetic and upbeat, but despite bouncing in their seats and grinning, eventually their eyes weighed them down, and the thoughts crawled upon them like spiders. Twice slept first after putting down his final card. They hadn’t said a word to each other the entire time. 

Atsuhiro Sako was resting on the rooftop, his favourite private spot. He watched the night go on without him, watching the lights in apartment buildings and shophouses slowly die. He reenacted his past performances, performing some tricks for an audience of one. But the thoughts made his brow crease and his mind stumble. When he pulled the wrong card out of the deck, he stared at it for a second. Crushing it, he threw it off the roof. 

Shuichi Iguchi dreamed of fighting a boss battle with Shigaraki and the gang. They won. 

“Heh. Hahaha. Hahaha…” Geten had not the slightest idea why she was laughing. 

She kept laughing when there was nothing to laugh at and everything to cry about. As her voice died and her laughs subsided into ephemeral chuckles, and she stopped trembling, she had to concede defeat. 

The two let painful silence sweep through the room, the emptiness of it all encroaching on them, the nightmarish visions of death and oblivion. Neither said anything about what would happen tomorrow, yet they thought of the same thing. They only had alcohol and each other to forget the situation, and they had run out of alcohol. 

Dabi stared at the floor. “I don’t want to lose you.” 

She leaned on his shoulder. “Neither do I, you…perfect angel. Flawless, beautiful angel.” 

“You’re drunk,” He whispered, leaning on her head. His face was the colour of maple leaves. Hers felt like it was submerged in lava. No doubt it was as red as his.

“Good. I can only think of you, and that’s…that’s nice.” 

She could feel the warmth of his hands as they held hers and the burning alcohol running down her throat. It was a fuzzy feeling that enveloped her. She wanted it to stay forever. 

“Should we…what was it? Kiss?” 

Touya gave a chuckle and kissed her forehead. “There’s your kiss. Happy?” 

“That’s what Toga was excited about? Underwhelming,” She slurred. 

“She was…Never mind. Maybe when you’re sober.” 

“What? Tell me,” She whined. “This is all we have, Touya. C’mon.” 

“Toga was talking about kissing on…the lips.” 

“Eh?” She frowned, staring at Touya’s. “Well, if she says so.” 

“Huh?” Was all he could get out before she planted her lips on his. 

She tasted the alcohol on his breath, the sweetness of peach-flavoured soju and the bitterness of sake. It was as if Touya had poisoned her with giddiness and an inability to think rationally. She could only indulge in the feeling of her mouth on his, as every other part of her body ceased function. 

It felt good. She couldn’t explain why. But it did. 

Finally, Touya pulled back, gasping hoarsely. “Wow.” 

“That was…nice,” She weakly said.

“Yeah.”

The two drifted off into silence, holding each other for what Geten thought could be eternity. She suddenly wished she had a quirk to extend this moment into infinity. Touya did too. He would have burned the world for a quirk like that, would have mangled his arms till they were barely recognizable, if he could stop time and never resume. 

But Touya gave up that illusion first when he spoke. 

“We need to sleep now,” He whispered into her ear.

She trembled. No, no, don’t let me go. 

“If we sleep, we’ll wake up.”

“We can’t stay awake forever.” 

Geten blinked. And blinked again. Her vision darkened like a vignette frame. Her head felt light. 

“Promise me that I’ll be free, Touya…please.” 

She fell asleep before she heard his answer, if he even did. 

------

Chapter 32: The Icarus Initiative

The emergency meeting took place just hours after Hawks was reported, in secrecy, as KIA, as well as the attack by Shigaraki on the Saitama Quirk Research Centre. The audience included the top brass of the Hero Public Safety Commission.

“Dear god…”

As the council members watched the footage, their expressions slowly morphed from curiosity to worry, and then into abject horror. The room was silent at the end of the clip save the static from the recording. 

“Here are the satellite images of the laboratory’s current state. We are currently initiating a containment field to prevent any stray particles affected by Shigaraki’s quirk from reaching civilian areas. It’s a low probability given the isolated location, but better safe than sorry. As for search and rescue…we’ve confirmed that there were zero survivors, including any salvageable piece of research.” 

The presenter, a middle-aged woman, took a deep, shaky breath. Adjusting her glasses, she continued.

“Regarding the operation itself, through Bubaigawara Jin, we’ve managed to extract crucial information about Shigaraki’s schemes. He will undergo a drastic physical upgrade of sorts, duration unknown. Once complete, he will use his quirk, Decay, to annihilate cities. We could be looking at a nation-wide level of destruction.”

“He had given orders for his army to attack neighbouring cities in the Aichi prefecture as a distraction, buying him time. He had also tasked other members of the League during this time with various objectives. But we have sufficient evidence to believe these were all meant to distract us from the main threat, Shigaraki’s transformation.”

“Thank you.” The president of the HSPC dismissed the presenter. Turning to her fellow colleagues, she said, “I believe we have enough reason to push forward with the highest level of the Icarus Initiative.”

She noted the scepticism and concern on their faces, so she continued.

“Shigaraki’s quirks and physical capabilities lines up with what Hawks stated about him in their final fight. Every moment Shigaraki walks freely poses an existential threat to Japan, and possibly the rest of the world. He cannot be allowed to enact his plans. If we are to go against him and the Paranormal Liberation Front, we must allow the heroes to act decisively and with maximum prejudice.” 

“If we agree to this, we return to the dark ages. It’s unprecedented. We are blurring the line between hero and villain. There will be questioning. There will be controversy unparalleled, President. One of the finest hero societies on the planet, letting its heroes act without jurisdiction.” A councillor warned.

“If my name goes down in history as a tyrant who allowed this, then so be it. At least by doing this, there may be a human race that will remember me.” 

“And what of Kineka Shinso’s current condition? He’s in no state to be involved in this proposed assault on Deika City.”

“Which is why he will be at Jakku Hospital to eliminate Shigaraki instead. He can still use his quirk, just not on crowds of people.”

“It sounds like you arranged this not to seek our approval, but to inform us of your decision.” Another said coldly. 

Her gaze did not waver. “That’s correct. All in favour?”

After a beat of silence, the hands were raised.

------

“Master, there’s a letter for you.” 

Shinya Kamihara, hero name Edgeshot, opened his eyes from his meditation. One of his students held an envelope in her outstretched palm, bearing the seal of the Hero Safety Public Commission.

“Thank you, Monotama.” He took it. She bowed and left his chambers. 

The contents turned out to be a note as well as a holotape device. 

“Play only in complete privacy.”

Edgeshot set the device down and hit the green button. The hologram flared to life, an image of the Hero Commission’s president. 

“Edgeshot, we’re recruiting you for an operation of the highest level of secrecy. Do not tell anyone of this…”

“You will not speak to me directly, or any employee from the commission about this. It is unlikely they will be aware of this anyway.” Said the hologram playing in the U.A staff room, as Shota Aizawa, Snipe and Midnight watched. 

“You are to pretend as if nothing is happening, until the day of the operation. You will not inform anyone where you are going.” Best Jeanist’s brow creased. What was going on?

------

“I assume you have an excellent reason for this meeting?” 

The President turned around to see Enji Todoroki standing by her desk. 

“Why else would I interrupt your work? It’s about what’s happening soon, and the only reason you’re hearing about it is because of your standing.”

Endeavour’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“You’re aware of the League of Villains’ whereabouts?”

“Deika city, no? Last we’ve seen them was in Aichi, and suddenly Deika was attacked by 20 villains whose faces were never seen once in the papers. I assume Deika is fully assimilated under them.”

“Majority of the city belongs to the cult under Yotsubashi, the CEO of Deterenat. Now they worship Shigaraki who the former named as the successor, following his defeat by the League.” 

She continued, “We’ve been keeping tabs on them, but recently we’ve decided to take action and eliminate Shigaraki. It’s happening tomorrow.”

“And we haven’t heard word of this because…”

“At his current stage, he’s too dangerous to send an armada of heroes. We’re only sending in a specialised squad, less than ten.”

Endeavour raised his eyebrows expectantly. Clearly the president knew better than to be willingly outnumbered by the enemy. 

“We’re giving them full permission for lethal, uncontrolled force against any adversary. No rules of engagement. A quiet strike force to incapacitate the city and stop Shigaraki.” 

“What?” Endeavour’s flames shone multiple hues brighter. “This is —“

“Necessary.” She cut in with a cold swiftness. “We’re briefing them in half an hour. You’re welcome to join us.” 

“I assume Hawks will be there?” 

“Hawks is dead.” 

The temperature of the room spiked as Enji’s fire roared with emotion. 

“Excuse me?” His voice was dangerously low.

“He was killed in action by Shigaraki. I thought it would be prudent to inform you first, and then the squad, and when this all blows over, the general public.” 

Endeavour’s form trembled. 

“When did it happen?” 

“Yesterday.” 

There was a cold silence. He spoke again. “How? Was it on your orders?” 

She met his eyes with a steely gaze. “Yes. We decided on a course of action, but didn’t anticipate Shigaraki’s strength.” 

“Then your decision was wrong.” 

“It was uninformed.” 

“You took a risk and cost a boy his life!” He shouted. “And you haven’t the shred of remorse —“

“I’m running an organisation that is dealing with a national crisis, so please excuse me if I save my emotions for the state funeral,” She said, clasping her trembling hands together. 

“Did you —” Enji’s voice broke. “Did you even manage to recover the body?”

“Shigaraki killed him.” 

Silence. The answer was obvious. 

“I’ll see you at the meeting, president.” The door slammed shut soon after.

------

“Kineka, is everything okay?” Takami Keigo bent over the bunk bed to look at Shinso under him. 

“I think I did something wrong to that man. He killed himself today.” Shinso said, his voice strained with emotion, his face wet with tears.

“Huh?” 

“I don’t know if it’s because of what I did, or if I hurt him in his brain. I don’t —” He rubbed the tears from his cheeks. 

“It’s not your fault. Prisoners do that all the time. What was your task?”

“Just to read his memories.”

“Was there anything traumatic in there that could have made him do it?”

“Um…He was a leader of a cult. I saw him standing in front of a whole army. He was talking about liberation…or something. But he got captured, and the last thing I managed to see was him writing in a book.”

“Wow…” 

“So, I don’t know if it was me that made him do it.”

“It sucks, but…maybe he did it because he was done with being in prison. It happens —” Keigo flinched at that remark. “I mean, I just don’t think it was your fault. Don’t beat yourself up, Kineka.”

“Thanks, Keigo.” Shinso managed a tiny smile seeing his friend’s head poke out of the bedframe’s silhouette in the darkness. Keigo gave a thumbs up in reply and receded. 

“Was today’s training alright for you?” Shinso asked.

“Same as always, I guess.”

“Tough?”

Keigo sighed. “Yeah, but, y’know, it’s what I have to do, if I wanna be a hero when I’m older. So, I’ll tough it out.”

“Me too,” Shinso said with renewed confidence.

“I bet you’ll be able to control a hundred people at one time! That’ll be awesome!” Takami laughed. 

“Hey! That’s too many!”

------

It wasn’t too many. At his peak, Shinso manipulated two hundred people in a pool of a five hundred, picking people that matched the criteria given. He knocked them unconscious and pulled thoughts from their heads like a sucking water through a straw. He made them relive memories many had forgotten about. He caused one to dance and another to cry. He gave five immense glee; ten, uncontrollable despair. Kineka Shinso held the greatest human organ like a violin and played it like Vivaldi. 

But after grasping the mind of Bubaigawara Jin, it was too much. It crippled Shinso. If things were normal, the Hero association would have him temporarily decommissioned. Unfortunately, his quirk was desperately needed. And so, the cripple had to learn to walk again.

“Whenever you’re ready, Shinso.” The doctor’s voice came from behind him. Shinso switched on the microphone and began to hum into it.  

Searching…

His humming reverberated from a small speaker embedded into a copper bullet, which was in turn buried in four-metre thick concrete, five kilometres from him. And as the electrical signals in the air was turned back into soundwaves and broadcasted through the room, he felt a connection being established with his target. A hazy one for sure, but strong enough for him to make contact with Probe, his quirk. 

Like strings stretched across a guitar, he plucked on the neurons in his target’s brain , finding a name. 

“Satoshi Hanzo,” He said out loud, and heard the stroke of a pencil. 

“Very good. Are you feeling ill?” The other person present in the room, the doctor, asked with concern. 

Shinso shook his head. “I can keep going.” 

“Does anything feel amiss with your quirk? When you were establishing a connection with Hanzo?”

He paused. “I felt some disturbance. Like there was a frayed string in our connection.”

“The similar phenomenon you experienced in the earlier experiment with a non-digital subject?”

Shinso nodded. 

The doctor scribbled some more notes, then looked back up smiling at Shinso. 

“We’re done for today. Go get some rest, Shinso.” 

The teenager dutifully thanked him and exited the room. The doctor watched him go, wearing a calm facade hiding sadness. He still remembered when Shinso was no taller than the door handle. How far he has come.

Sitting down on the chair, the doctor exhaled. 

“Is there no greater tragedy,” He spoke to an empty room, “Than forcing a child to bear the weight of the world?”

------

“Is that all you have to say?” Shota Aizawa spoke out. 

All eyes fell upon the hero, whose arms were crossed as he glared daggers at the president of the HPSC. Her lips curled, but she said nothing, waiting for him to speak. Enji Todoroki, seated at the far end of the table, watched the exchange with narrowed eyes.

“You recruit us into what is basically a death squad and expect us to follow along? As if we’re willing to take lives because you said so?”

“You do not need to take lives. We are telling you that you need not follow the rules of engagement,” She replied. 

Aizawa picked up his briefing report. “You are allowed to act in any manner which would render any hostile threats incapable of action that would endanger the lives and property of you, your teammates or civilians.” 

His tone laced with poison, he continued,

“However, due to the urgency and risk the League Of Villains and their respective accomplices poses to the nation, it is advised to act swiftly and decisively to fulfil the objective of the mission.” 

He tossed the report onto the president’s side of the table. “My students can come up with better euphemisms for not doing their homework.” 

“Desperate times, desperate measures,” She countered.

“Ma’am, with all due respect, but half a year ago, Japan held its breath whether we were about to return to the age of darkness when All For One showed himself. Even then, when All Might faced him down, when Best Jeanist faced him down, not once in either hero’s minds did they consider killing him. What does that say about this plan of yours?”

“The threat Shigaraki poses is not that of All For One. The latter was a self-obsessed mastermind that wanted to enslave the country. The former is a crazed, self-destructive manchild that wishes to destroy it. I am not saying All For One wasn’t a national threat and his motives weren’t horrible, but at the very least, he was somewhat predictable. Shigaraki is not.”

“You won’t find a single decent hero that is willing to kill.”

I have, The president kept that thought to herself. 

“I ask you, Eraserhead, do you truly find this logical?” 

“I do. Because it’s not just whether or not we protect the peace, but how we do it. You ask us to commit atrocities and teach our students what it means to be a hero. I find this hypocritical. I find it villainous.” 

The president drew a breath. “If you’re not willing to cooperate, then the door is right there. Although for security reasons, we will have to remove this meeting from your memory.”

Aizawa went rigid, his glare more venomous than ever. 

“How much of this will be disclosed to the public?” Midnight suddenly asked, diffusing the building tension. 

“Depends how much noise is made. We can guarantee that no member of public, besides those in Deika, will breach the perimeter around the city.”

“Kayama?” Aizawa stared at his colleague and senior. 

Her voice was uncharacteristically soft when she replied, “None of us like this, Aizawa, but I want a school to teach at and a home to come back to. If even Hawks was…” She cleared her throat. “We’ll minimise the casualties as much as possible, all right?” 

Eraserhead stared at the table and clenched his fists. “Fine.” 

The president surveyed the room for any further inquiry. “I know this is difficult to ask. For your sakes, we’ll keep this on the quiet as best as we can. When the situation deescalates, I’ll take responsibility for what I’ve authorised. Meeting adjourned.”

------

They were ready. 

On the streets, lined up orderly, facing the gate. Cars and vans and trucks were boarding soldiers. If Destro were here, he would shed a tear at the spectacle, seeing an army more than double what he had. 

Atsuhiro Sako watched from a rooftop, ready to give orders for them to march off. He spied the outskirts of the city. The evening was quiet. All day he was expecting a surprise attack by the heroes, but there were no reports of suspicious movement along the perimeter. 

The League, including the honorary member of Apocrypha, were stationed here and there, keeping a watchful eye over the army. 

Sako took a deep breath. Was this stage fright? It was a performance unlike any other. At best, it would be a successful “Resurrection Festival”. At worst, a bloodbath. Whatever happened, he was going to make it out alive, one way or another, and his friends with him. 

He checked his watch. It was seven thirty, Monday. 24 hours, Shigaraki, you better hold up your end of the deal. 

He pressed his earpiece, opening his mouth, when he saw a glint in the trees, the light from the setting sun shining into his eyes. The bushes rustled. 

Compress. 

His quirk activated on himself, his form shrinking into a pearl the size of a coin. As he felt his head being squashed onto himself, he felt the wind whoosh past where his face had been. A fraction of a second too late, and that bullet would have killed him. 

The heroes had arrived. 

------

--------

Chapter 25: A Brief Respite

It was Saturday night, and Dabi hated that everything on his mind up to now has been about this moment. 

“Hey.” Dabi spoke to the door. “We’re leaving soon.”

“A minute.” A brief silence had passed before Geten gave the reply, as if she was skeptical about his intentions. Dabi was, at least. For the past few days, he felt like a stranger to himself. 

When he made that deal last Monday with her, it was to ensure that she could recover. He had no real obligation to follow up on it.

All because I promised I would? I said I would distance myself, damn it.  

Her face appeared in his mind. An unknown sensation crept into his system, warming him from the inside, and it was bothering him. 

Have I felt this before? I swear I know what this is. The answer lurked just below the forefront of his knowledge. 

Security? No, that’s not it. A sense of security was being able to sleep and know that he would wake up unharmed. He had enjoyed that privilege in the last few weeks. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt safe with the League.

And the time before that, his mentor protected him, until protecting him was too big a risk. Dabi let out a sigh as the memory from the previous night continued.

------

The park was, not to my surprise, empty. The man’s brown coat was nowhere to be seen. Nothing in my sight gave any indication that he was even here. 

He ran off, a part of me cried, to get rid of you, you clingy child. 

A quieter voice in me spoke, What if he wanted to kill you here? What if he’s a serial killer, and you just walked to your grave? 

My instincts screamed to run, but the fear in me pulsed like an alien growth, pushing against my skull. And I snapped. 

“Come out!” I screamed into the darkness. I was done being the toy of others. If this stranger meant to lure me into my death, then I would either fight him or die trying. I was sick of this place anyway. “Come out or I’ll burn the whole park down!” 

Nothing. I stepped closer to a tree, and let me hand wreath itself in crimson flames. They whipped in the gales, but I kept them burning, consuming the same oxygen I needed to breathe in. Slowly, I let my hand rest on the closest tree. 

“Hey!” I jumped back. In front of me, the dirt rose in a tendril-like fashion, surrounding the tree.They wrapped themselves around it and held it steady, until the fire was devoured. 

From the ground next to it, the man seemed to ascend to an upright position from lying down, beneath the soil. He was wearing a scowl, visible with my flickering flames still present on my right hand. I brandished the fire, shooting back a glare. 

“The hell was that? You wanted to attract attention?” The man snapped his fingers, and the dirt fell back onto the flat land and seeped through the grass, until it was as if nothing had happened. 

So his quirk involved controlling the earth?

“Found you. I won.” A smirk slid across my face, which he definitely noticed. His scowl deepened, but after a few seconds, it warped into a smile and a chuckle. 

“You...you’re one crazy kid. I’m kind of impressed.” He crossed his arms. “Well, a promise is a promise. If you’re really serious about running away and living like a homeless person, I’ll watch your back.”

Before I could respond, he held out a finger to silence me. “If you watch mine. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you what this old dog picked up in his time.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. The cool air speeding through my lungs felt light. I felt, for the first time ever, free.

------

Promises, promises, promises. A fragile, cheap thing that could be bought off the shelves. All these promises made to Dabi, only to be broken. Perhaps that was why he was fulfilling his promise to Geten. 

The thought made him take a step back. He swallowed and forced down the notion that he was being, for once in his life, empathetic. No, no, I just want to get out of this place. That’s all. 

The click of the door brought his attention to the person standing in front of him. Geten shuffled out with her hood drawn over her head. 

“Come on.” Dabi spun on his heel, avoiding eye contact as he did so. Still, the feeling returned as he pictured her face in his mind, along with the accompanying frustration that he could not burn this feeling.

------

“You’re really serious about this.” Geten said as she stared out of the car window.

“You’re welcome to turn around. It would save me the money for your meal.” Likewise, Dabi was looking at the flood of cars speeding past him. It was boring, but between the driver’s headrest where a PLF soldier was acting as their chauffeur, the outside view or her, the window was his best option. 

“Your money is Yotsubashi’s money. All of you were penniless before the Festival.” She frowned, switching her focus to him. It took all of his willpower to keep his eyes trained on the whizzing headlights, but he noticed her expression via the faint reflection. 

“Well, we’re filthy rich now, so what’s your point?” 

She dropped the subject, but continued speaking.

“I have my suspicions, and you can tell me if I’m mistaken, that you have other motives for taking me to Tokyo just to eat soba,” She said. 

“It’s just to repay you for your help. Don’t overthink it.” Dabi said, as if trying to convince himself that the real reason wasn’t that he wanted to spend time with her. 

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Alright then.” 

The car entered the same silence as it did on the plane ride to Tokyo. She hadn’t spoken to him up till now. Should I have kept the conversation going? 

It occurred to him at that moment that Geten wasn’t one for small talk, likely due to her keeping to herself for most of her life. Compared to him, who had experience in keeping company because of the work he did, her conversations were always direct and with purpose. 

Dabi looked out of the car window. He recognized the street signs and shops. “We’re reaching.” 

“This is risky,” Geten murmured, noticing the hundreds of people out and about on a weekend night. She pulled her hood over her face, even though it was already on. “There are heroes on patrol. They’ll recognise you.” 

“That’s why I’m taking a page out of your book.” 

“Huh?” Geten turned to look at his own black hoodie, then snorted. “If you think that will hide all of you, you’re mistaken.” 

“Have you ever been to Tokyo?” 

“No.” 

“Then trust me when I say that this place is crawling with people like us, and no one notices.” 

Geten’s forehead creased. “Alright then.” 

The car stopped. To his left was a plain building compressed between two other buildings just as unremarkable, the former only distinguishable by a sign hanging above the door. Cafe, it read. 

“We’re here,” Their chauffeur announced. “Should I wait?” 

“We’ll call you when we’re done.” Geten replied. 

“Very well. Good night, Lieutenants.” He bowed his head. 

Geten nodded in return. Dabi blinked. It was his first look at this changed Geten, and he was still in disbelief. When she had thanked the pilot earlier, he did a double take. Never had he imagined the Geten he knew turning a full one eighty and being polite to people. 

It’s not as if you know her to begin with. That taunt came from nowhere, bittering his expression. Forcing it down, he exited the car, along with Geten, walking towards the door. 

“You’re sure this is safe? We could be being followed,” Geten said. 

Dabi only waved dismissively and beckoned her inside as the door swung open. They were met with a guard glaring at them. Dabi pulled down his hood to match the man’s stare. He led the pair through another door and three flights of stairs. 

The dining area was more crowded than Dabi remembered. The rise in villainy since All Might’s retirement had clearly made its mark. There was still an empty table by the window, so they took their seats. 

On the table was a buzzer. “I ordered ahead.” Dabi said, “Cold soba, right?” 

“Yes, thank you.” Geten sat down, as did Dabi. 

Dabi saw Geten shoot furtive glances at the other patrons. “You know we’re all on the same side, right?”

“I’m not a villain,” She responded, looking back at him. 

“You don’t really have a choice in deciding what people call you.” 

“I’m aware of that.” She sighed. “When did you realise you were considered a villain?” 

He thought about it. The blurry memory focused. 

“My first gang fight, I guess. I used my quirk to injure them. I was…fourteen. Heroes showed up after the two of us bolted. It was then that it occurred to me that I would’ve been arrested if I had stayed.”

“Fourteen? I was still training then, still a lowly soldier, but favoured by him.” She said ‘him’ not with vitriol but with distaste, as if he were a crushed beetle under her boot. 

“You mentioned the two of us, did you not? Did you operate with a partner?” She said. 

“My mentor…” Dabi stopped himself from speaking any further, cursing himself for his slip up. I’ve said too much. 

“I’ve never heard you talk about him. Who is he?” 

“No one important,” He said, attempting to brush the topic off. Geten seemed to notice his evasiveness. 

“Is that too private?” She asked with some hesitance. “I’m sorry for prying.”

An awkward silence followed her apology. Idiot, Dabi scolded himself. Why can’t I tell her about him? 

It’s too private, was the only answer his mind could provide. 

“How’s your training been going?” Her question came out of the blue. 

“I haven’t done any training since we got back from Tokugawa,” He said. 

It took another beat of silence before it occurred to him that she was trying to make small talk with what few topics she was familiar with. Dabi mentally kicked himself and scrambled to continue the conversation. 

“Um, what about you?” He added lamely. 

“I…practised this afternoon,” She said. “I have to regain my strength before the festival.”

“But you said you weren’t joining.”

“Regardless, we’re entering a conflict with the heroes, aren’t we? I have to fight them.”

She added as an afterthought, “I guess that does make me a villain after all. Maybe I do belong here.”

Dabi snorted. “What did you call yourself then?”

Geten shrugged. “Liberator, soldier, positively connotated terms. It lent to the illusion that what I did was justified.”

He stared at her. The nonchalance with the way she talked about her actions concerned him. There was pain behind her words; She was furious about how she was manipulated into doing the MLA’s bidding, yet she spoke about it with so much indifference, Dabi had to ask.

“Are you alright? It’s only been a few days and you’re acting like all of this is behind you.”

She sipped her beer. “Maybe. Probably not. I’m still working it out. It’s like I’ve bisected myself and all the sins are in Apocrypha. Whereas I am — someone else. It helps with…with the guilt.” She forced out the last word. 

Two people…Touya and I. Vengeance and I. 

Vengeance, Nine had called him. Dabi told the world to call him that, but he still called himself Touya then. That name clung to him, a hook onto his skin until he burnt it off, and became Dabi. 

For a while, he had been both Vengeance and Touya. Am I now both Dabi and Touya? Is there any difference? 

“That someone else...is the person you were before you were Apocrypha?”

“Yes, if she had existed. I can’t remember who I was before I donned those monikers, nor do I remember my name,” She said, “Only Shigaraki and Yotsubashi, I presume, know it, but…”

Her expression soured. It was clear to Dabi that she wished to approach neither of the two. He drummed his fingers on the table. “I could ask for you.” 

The crease on her forehead disappeared as she stared in surprise. “It’s not important! I don’t want to trouble you.” 

Dabi waved his hand. “It’s the least I could do.” 

He froze up as he registered what he was saying. Without thinking, he spoke honestly. He offered his help with no self-regard. The selflessness he displayed scared him stiff because he never once believed he was capable of that. 

It made him dizzy. Memories of flames, ashes, and a hero made of sand — they flooded his mind, as if in response to this foreign notion, as if to remind him about what he had done to others. 

He felt no guilt for them, but rather anger as he pieced together the fact that he was unable to be good. Touya could not be a human because Dabi was bound in hell. Though separate, they were one. 

------

Chapter 26: Dance On The Ice

“Thank you.” Geten said, looking as if a load had been lifted off her shoulders. “Actually, that reminds me.”

“I’m not sure if this is the right time, but I’ve been wanting to…” Her voice trailed off as she realised she’d been rambling. She cleared her throat and from her coat pockets, she produced a familiar book that made Dabi’s breath catch in his throat. 

She placed her journal on the table. 

Dabi tried to formulate a sentence, but to no avail, leaving his mouth gaping like a fish. 

“I don’t mean this as a confrontation. Rather, I want to clear things between us. I saw how guilty you felt last night about this, and I felt horrible once I realised what it was about.” 

“I know you read this when I went to find Skeptic, and that it’s been eating at you for a long time. You don’t have to feel that way. I’m not angry. I can’t feel angry about this, even though I know I’m supposed to.” 

“What?” Dabi spluttered, struggling to find words to say how he felt, but this outpouring of guilt and anger muddled his brain. 

Of all the reactions Geten could have had to this…betrayal of trust, being unable to feel hatred towards Dabi was not one of them. 

“You seem to hold identity and trust in high regard, but I don’t. The MLA never cared about who I was as a person, and taught me similarly. Therefore…this book had lost its value and purpose, so why would I care if you had read it? How could I feel anything towards concepts I was told to disown?” 

He sat there in stunned silence. There was so much he had to say about it, about how horrible Re-destro and the MLA treated her, to disregard her own identity. He wanted to apologise for…what? It wasn’t as if she had trusted him then. They were still enemies when he had read her journal. 

Why did it hurt him so much then? Why did it still hurt him now, discovering how little of an impact it actually had on Geten? 

His inability to reply was a reply in itself. Geten looked down. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to bring it up.” 

“No, you shouldn’t — why are you apologising, when it should be me?” Dabi wasn’t even sure whether to be angry at her or himself. His hands threatened to ignite. He wanted to burn these thoughts and emotions that were going through his head. 

But it all evaporated upon seeing her downcast expression, and in that void of emotions, something akin to grief sprouted like a sour fruit. It hurt him to see her like this. 

A shrill ringing from the buzzer interrupted the silence. “I’ll get it,” He said, after a pause.

She looked at the counter top where two bowls of soba sat. “You said quirks aren’t restricted here, right?”

“Well, no one’s here to restrict it.” 

Geten waved her hand. Ice from the nearby bucket reshaped into disks and flew across the room to collect their meals. They gently laid the two bowls on their table before returning back to the bucket. 

“Well, thanks.” He said, rather awkwardly. 

“Eat up,” She said, and the silence followed. If there was one thing positive about this, it was the time it gave Dabi to recollect himself. 

He kept coming back to this central thought, an idea that incessantly poked him, that asked him, Why not trust her? 

Trust her? Just a few weeks ago you were at each other’s throats. Why should you trust her? A part of himself demanded. 

In answer to that, flashes of the Takame battle appeared in his mind. She saved me. What more could he ask for? 

He wished that trust was simple, that he could tell her everything about him, in the hopes that he could have someone to rely on. But his pool of trust had dried up. It had been that way ever since he became Dabi. 

That was until Giran showed up and offered him a spot in the “Vanguard Action Squad”. He accepted it for multiple reasons. Mainly, at that time he reasoned that it would be the fastest way to gain some national notoriety, whilst remaining safe if he threw others under the bus. But the reason that he would not admit then, was that he was lonely.

The League was a successful experiment. He found people that never pried into his life nor attempted to, so he showed the same respect to them. Ironically, he felt that he could trust them because of this anonymity. They had his back too, especially during the Kamino Raid where he was knocked unconscious. 

And Geten proved that she had his back. So why couldn’t he trust her? 

She tried to kill me when we first met, even after the Army’s surrender, he instinctively argued, but it was with weak conviction. They had made peace long ago. 

Perhaps he could trust her, but to the extent of revealing his past self? Even the League were kept in the dark about this. 

Then who are you waiting for, to fill the void that Sensei and others have left? 

Who said that it had to be filled, anyway? Who said I needed to have someone where I could — could…

Be Touya again? 

His left hand under the table clenched up. Tell her, idiot. You clearly want to. 

“Hey,” He said. She looked up. 

“I’ll tell you about my mentor, and…whatever you want to know.” He swallowed. “I want to trust you, too.” 

His heart seemed to become ten times lighter as he spoke, and it fluttered when he caught a tiny smile on her face. 

“Thank you,” She said. 

“Uh, I mean later, once we’re done here.” 

She chuckled. “Relax, I understand. Whenever you’re ready.”

------

“So...what did you want to say?” Geten asked, the cold wind whipping her hair. 

The two were on the rooftop of the restaurant, leaning against the metal railings. It was the only place Dabi felt comfortable revealing what he was about to say. Everywhere else invited eavesdroppers. 

“Where to even begin?” He said. 

“Well, if we were to continue our conversation from earlier, your mentor?” 

Dabi held the railings and stared up at the blank night sky. “I met him when I ran away from home. His name was, well, Dabi.” 

“You took his name?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And your name before that?” 

“Vengeance. A name I gave myself.” Dabi gave a chuckle. “It’s alright, you can laugh.” 

She gave a polite smile. “Vengeance. Enacted upon who?”

“Endeavour. I dreamt of burning him with my flames, whether or not it consumed me. To burn, and burn, until he was nothing more than me.” He looked down at his scarred arms, stitched together like a cheap puppet. 

“What did he do to you? Did he inflict these injuries?” 

“No, I did that to myself. As for what he did, he was my father. I…I am Touya Todoroki.”

Her eyes widened and her arms fell to her sides like limp vines on a tree. She took a step back.

“You — son of him? What happened?”

Dabi sighed, and began to speak. He relayed his childhood to her, his father’s ambitions for him that turned into disappointment, and his motivation to please him nonetheless. But when the training turned torturous, and the damage irreparable, he escaped in a fire that he started. 

He told her about how he met his mentor, Dabi, how he earned a spot at the excommunicated agent’s side, how he learnt to hone his quirk as well as other fighting tactics, but despite all that, “he never told me about himself,” Dabi said, “other than that he was dishonourably discharged from the Special Forces, but he made it sound like it was their wrongdoing. I...I believed him at first.”

“But then we met one of his old colleagues, the man you saw the previous night, Nine. He gave me a warning.” He swallowed, the old pain worming its way into his stomach. “He told me that Dabi was loyal to no one, and he always saved his own skin first. I didn’t believe it at first, I didn’t want to. I trusted my sensei.” 

“Still, I confronted him over it after that encounter with Nine, and he told me that his squad was sent into a suicide mission, and he wasn’t having it, so he deserted. I thought that was reasonable, and, y’know…” He gripped the railing tighter. “I trusted him.”

“Until…” He looked up at the night sky. It was similar to “that night, when he abandoned me after a job went wrong.”

The memory scarring his mind reemerged, and it was as fresh as a stab wound.

------

“So, you brought the cash?” A rough-looking figure in a tank-top spoke, crossing his muscular arms. On his right arm was a symbol, which the few henchmen surrounding him also wore. One of the leading gangs in the district, the Greycoats ironically did not wear coats, which disappointed me when I found out. 

Facing them was another group, more a cabal than a gang, but these cultists seemed perfectly comfortable making deals with organised crime in Shinwa. Sporting white face masks with crooked smiles, it was unnerving to look at, but Dabi had assured me they were more bark than bite. Tonight, our main concern would be the Greycoats. 

“This Unblessed speaks plainly,” The lead cultist observed. “But one is met with your desires. If your false god has delivered on his promise, then so shall one deliver these slips of paper that you devote yourselves to procuring.” 

The spokesman for the Greycoats bristled, but it seemed that he was warned about the idiosyncratic mannerisms of the cultists. I would know, because that’s how Dabi and I discovered this deal. The gang never was too concerned with eavesdroppers, not that I was complaining, as I laid eyes on the thousands of dollars of bills carried in an ornate suitcase, opened for the gang to salivate over. 

It was a risky venture. We never hit prominent targets like them before, but - again, thousands of dollars. With that money, 

“And the treasure belonging forthrightly to the Blessed?” 

Gingerly, a henchman took out another suitcase, and in it, as it was slowly uncovered, was a white, spherical pearl the size of my fist. While it looked ordinary to me, I could tell the cabal was eager to take — or retake, possession of it. 

Someone nudged me. “Ready?” Dabi said. 

I nodded.

My mentor let himself fall from the catwalk. As he was about to splat onto the ground, which would have made me homeless for the second time in my life, he snapped his fingers. 

The ground seemed to turn into liquid in reaction, like a spontaneous mudslide. Tendrils sprang from it, grabbing Dabi and cushioning his fall. One tendril grabbed the briefcase. 

The sudden appearance in the centre of the two groups was so suicidal a strategy that both parties were too stunned to react, giving enough time for me to make my entrance. 

Thrusting my right arm forward, I unleashed a torrent of bright red flames, aimed more at the Greycoats, though the blast radius was large enough to envelope them all. Their shock turned into panic as the fire licked them, while Dabi allowed himself to be submerged beneath the ground, out of danger. It was one of our dual combos: it had worked before, and with a grin, I knew it would work again. 

I heard the screams, as I always did, and winced. The fire roared, but it was still soft enough for me to hear the Greycoats in their last, agonising moments. 

I’ve met death many times, both directly (close calls) and indirectly. Gunshots, stabbings, being ripped apart, they were a common sight in the underbelly of society. But being burned alive was one of the hardest to listen to. I was only thankful that I never had to see them in their death throes. 

Whatever, I thought. These guys are scum anyway. They deserve it. Gah! 

The fire stopped as I clutched my wrist. I’d gone over my limit again. Skin was peeling off my fingers, leaving a raw layer inside. 

Hopefully that’s enough for Sensei to… 

I looked down, and my stomach plummeted down the catwalk. 

The cultists had created a barrier, while standing on top of pristine white ground that they seemed to have created. Was that marble? 

And what was more, I saw Dabi suspended in mid-air, arms outstretched, silent, a living doll. 

In the next instant, I felt myself free falling down, my thoughts chasing after my instincts. My left arm surged with newfound energy. 

“Get away from him!” I screamed. The fireball soared towards the cultists, causing them to scramble back. Yet the one in the front seemed to possess more courage than the rest. He did not move; instead, he held up his other arm as if awaiting an angel’s embrace. 

Reality knocked me in the face, or maybe that was the momentum being reversed. I gasped as my breath was shot out of my lungs. I registered what had happened a second later: the lead cultist held me in the air, along with Dabi. Suspension via his quirk, which we expected. It was the quirk that nullified Dabi’s that we did not. 

“The child and his false teacher,” The leader murmured. “One has anticipated the arrival of these Unblessed, and with the omniscience of our Blessed Opus, one has taken measures to counter your powers.” He tilted his head, whether in pity or amusement, I wasn’t sure. “One is sympathetic to say that the information you were provided with was riddled with deception.”

My eyes widened, and from my peripheral vision, I could tell Dabi was similarly flabbergasted. Was this a set up? 

The three, standing in triangular formation once more, began to chant, and it was that familiar song that jarred me back to action. It was their ritual before they slew their victims. 

I struggled to move any of my limbs, but his quirk, whatever it was, was as strong as iron, and it seemed to surround my whole body. Breathing was difficult enough with what felt like submersion into tar. Speaking was out of the question. 

Panic bubbled in my throat and my brain, but I forced myself to remain calm. 

“Focus on something that diffuses your emotions,” Dabi had told him, on the first day of lessons. “Being in a tight spot is bad, but being in said tight spot and not being able to react calmly will kill you.”

I chose to focus on the motorbike ride on our cross country trip, when I had told Dabi I’d never left the province. The hours of silence, of pointing out cows grazing, the waxing hills and the waning roads. 

Chill, I told myself. Luckily, I could still analyse what was in front of me. Mainly, the fact that the cultist had to raise both his hands to ensnare the both of us. If I could get him to lose his concentration…

I let an ember loose from my right hand, just to test what happened. A small wisp drifted upwards and faded. Excitement built in my chest. 

The trio were nearing the end of the chorus. Now or never. 

My right arm, bathing in flames, yet still held frozen, I coalesced it all and aimed it at their leader. 

It flew, and struck his left arm. As predicted, I heard Dabi hit the ground with a grunt. Yes! 

The leader hissed in pain as his arm was singed. His inferiors scrambled to tend to him, as Dabi stood up straight, popping his neck straight. Without words, he snapped his fingers. 

And nothing happened. Wait, what? 

“It seems,” The leader said, his eloquence thrown off slightly by my attack, “that this Unblessed heard not about their obsolete powers. Your —“

Three gunshots rang out as Dabi whipped out his pistol in an instant. I grinned. Yeah, keep talking...the thought died as I realised the three still stood, unharmed. Between them, Dabi’s bullets hung in the air. The cultist was holding up his injured arm. 

“Give up. Succumb,” The superior ordered, “You hold no power here, Unblessed.” 

For the first time, I saw an unnatural posture in my mentor, as his gun arm lowered to his side. The elation I had felt just a few seconds ago vanished.

Dabi… No, you always have a way out. Think! 

Then, as I witnessed the man stand so still I would have thought he was under the cultist’s control again, a thought crossed my mind. It was a notion so vile and horrific I was ashamed to even have created it. 

But it came to life before my eyes. Dabi took a step back, then another, and then he ran. 

My blood froze. Or maybe it simply disappeared into vapour. There was nothing else that could explain the frost that tore through my body, watching in forced silence as my only hope turned on his heel and abandoned me. 

No, he didn’t! He’s getting help! Keep them distracted! Don’t let them get to him! 

I summoned another burst of flame and let it fly towards them, but it was sluggish and the cultists were ready now. They deftly moved aside, as easy as stepping over a pebble.

Their attention turned to me for a second, and I felt relief. Now Dabi could get the drop on them. 

“One is sympathetic to your plight. This Unblessed has one’s condolences,” The leader said. 

He’s coming back. Get ready to make a break for it. Any second now. 

A second turned into two, then three, then…

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted to scream, but my voice would not leave, and I could not breathe. Everything else in my mind faded except the image of Dabi running away, his pounding footsteps echoing in this abandoned factory.

“Come, bring this Unblessed child a place to sit.” At their leader’s command, one of the subordinates grabbed a chair, and I felt my body being lowered onto it, while my limbs remained tautly held by the cultist. A doll for him to play with, that’s all I was. 

With those lifeless masks, they regarded me like a lost dog. I supposed I was. Once again, I was abandoned and left to die. 

Dabi’s face appeared in my mind, taunting me, disappearing into the earth and jumping out profusely. The clack of his army boots echoed in my throbbing head. Louder and louder they thrummed, accompanied by whispers of his voice. 

“I’ll watch your back. I’ll watch your back. I’ll watch your back.” 

Pain flowed like a freshly opened wound, spreading outwards from my core, and with it a wave of heat, burning, a dying star. 

I heard screaming. My vision went red, then purple, then blue, blinding me. The agony enveloped me like a second layer of skin. 

That’s not me screaming, my one coherent thought said. 

THOOOOM! It was a flood of fire unleashed from me, accompanying the cacophony of pain. 

The flames died. I was on my knees. Surrounding me was scorched concrete ground, a touch of charred marble to my side. On it was a layer of ash. 

I felt the wind pick up. That’s cold, I thought. And then the ground rose up to meet me.

------

“When I woke up, I was different. My flesh, my fire, and all I remembered was a rage that would not diffuse until I hunted Dabi down.” Touya said. 

“So I did. And then I burned him alive. It was one of the few times I remembered his face in the flames...” His voice trailed off. “I can’t remember those I killed, only the flames and their scream, but for Dabi, he was quiet. He died in silence, and that stuck with me.”

“Is that why you took his name?” 

“Maybe. Maybe it was out of respect, honour, whatever. His name’s all I had left of him, besides the memories, memories that I thought I burnt. I hated him, everything about him, but between him and my father, well...at least Dabi cared about me.” Touya exhaled. 

Silence passed. 

“You can leave now, if you want.” He spied the look on her face, as a gnawing, uncomfortably warm feeling welled up inside of him, making his ears heat up. He didn’t know how the first person he spilled his whole life to would react, but he was starting to regret that he did. 

“Why would I?” Was her quiet reply. 

His heart skipped a beat. Was it joy, or shock, or both? 

“I thought you would be…” The word wouldn’t come to him. “Weirded out.” 

“No. Not in the least.” 

“Really?” He said hoarsely. 

She looked him in the eye. “Yes.”

As she said that, his view of her blurred crimson. Her expression turned to shock as the drop of blood flowed down his cheek. 

“Is that…?” 

“My tear ducts were burnt away in that fire.” 

Geten reached up with her hand and gently brushed the bloody tear away. Dabi’s breath hitched in his throat, flinching as he felt her cold, calloused fingertip. “What are you…” 

“Shh.” She tried for a smile, her eyes glassy from her own tears. “We’ve both been through hell. For tonight, let’s forget about the fires above us, and dance on the ice.” 

Slowly, Dabi took her hand, as he gulped down his fears. The bubbling in his stomach seemed to subside, the fire running through his veins cooled, and the part of him that shunned intimacy was silenced. 

“I don’t know what this emotion is,” She whispered, “But I want to stay close to you, so that I can protect you. I want to care for you like no one ever has for me or you.”

Dabi felt his face heat up for three different reasons. One, that she admitted something so intimate. Even by her standards of bluntness, he would never expect such a sincere confession . Two, that she verbalised what he was feeling so succinctly she might as well have been reading his mind. 

And three, the scariest of all, that he knew what that emotion was called. 

It hit him like a lightning bolt striking a rod; He had a name to that blood-heating emotion he had been feeling. 

“Love,” Dabi said, “That’s what it is.” 

Was that the answer, all along? Was that what he felt towards Geten? Or was he so desperate to fill the emptiness within that he would create an emotion to satisfy that desire? 

But when he looked into her eyes, the doubts faded into nothingness. Since yesterday, this outing was all he could think about. She was all he could think about.

“Is it? I’ve never seen the term used in…such a context. I’ve always seen it as an exaggeration of one’s appreciation of something.” 

“You’re not wrong, but it’s more than that. What you described kinda hit the nail on the head — at least, for what I’m feeling…towards you.” 

Her cheeks turned rosy. “I meant what I said. You know, I don’t care about how you look. I never did. I…I hope that by saying this, maybe you won’t too.” 

He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’ll work on it. T-Thank you.” 

For once, the silence that followed was comfortable. The two stared out and past the Tokyo skyline, across the night sky. Dabi blinked and looked down momentarily to see that he was still holding Geten’s hand. 

She noticed this and looked at him. A smile ran across her face. Dabi had never seen her this happy. It, in turn, made him smile. Like a dumbass. 

For now, they could pretend the horrors of the world beneath them and what awaited them back didn’t exist. While they were standing still, the two danced on dark ice as hell burned above them. 

------

Chapter 27: The Devil's Playtime

Hanabata Koukuu’s desk was always in perfect order. His polished name tent aligned with the top right corner, his notebook and pen sitting fifteen centimetres below it, and his cup of tea at the bottom corner. His neatly stacked contracts and negotiation materials were arranged in chronological order, placed on the other side. He knew where everything was. That was how he had left it when he vacated his office for dinner on this fateful Saturday evening. 

And it was how he instantly spotted the impostor when he returned: a slip of white paper edging outwards amongst his stack of papers. 

He strode forward and removed the note, reading it. 

In the familiar cryptograph that Chikazoku had been utilising these last few weeks, he deciphered the message. 

It’s time. 

Hanabata closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. From a desk drawer, he retrieved a small metallic cube – his quirk-enhancing device. If this plan were to succeed, he had to essentially rewire the minds of the regiment advisors, and bring them back to where they were before the first Resurrection Festival. 

Luckily, he surmised that their loyalties still mostly lied with Re-destro and the Liberation Army, not the PLF. Regiment Black’s Sanctum, for instance, was evidently anti-PLF, often questioning the knowledge of his superior, Bubaigawara Jin. While the advisor was in the dark about what was about to occur, Hanabata was sure that once the house of cards toppled, he would ride that wave to reestablish the old order, without question. 

He kept his composure cool as he left his office and headed to the meeting point, but it was frankly difficult, even for a politician like him, to calm his emotions. 

Hanabata glanced to his left and right as he exited his office building. There would be no one listening or watching him; Chikazoku still maintained total control of the surveillance within Deika. With the programs obtained from Mihara Takame — the only useful thing she had contributed to the Liberation Army, Shigaraki would have no idea about the impending mutiny. 

After all, the boy seemed to be totally indifferent to the movements and actions of all lieutenants. From watching the hooligans, Chikazoku had relayed to him how they were free to roam around the city and do everything short of drawing the attention of the Hero Commission. 

Shigaraki himself seemed to spend more time at Jakku Hospital, if their GPS was anything to go by. Clearly Shigaraki had an ally with a teleportation quirk that Hanabata had not had the pleasure of meeting. Deducing his schedule from constant surveillance, he was due to return to the main council room in the next ten minutes or so. This was ample time to prepare. 

The gates of the mansion swung open at the detection of the politician. Entering the courtyard, Hanabata was greeted with a completed obsidian statue of his most gracious leader, Tomura Shigaraki. The ten metre tall statue swallowed him in its shadow.

Koukuu glanced upwards at the face. It seemed to radiate a coldness that made him shiver, but he brushed it off. It was his jittery nerves, that was all. 

Their plan would work, he told himself. It had been tested before. If the quirk-nullifying bullet could instantly render Apocrypha’s quirk null and void, it would work on Shigaraki. 

The gang that a certain “Mesa” had employed did their job, and they were rewarded handsomely with money that they never got to enjoy. 

He continued into the main building, and headed for one of the meeting rooms. 

Inside, he met eyes with both Skeptic and Re-destro. On the table were Skeptic’s equipment, including Mihara Takame’s briefcase that was shrouding them from all sight, and a pistol.

With stares of iron, the three came to a silent understanding. It was time to begin. 

Chikazoku tapped his earpiece. “Bring them over.” 

Suddenly, the room was filled with a dozen people, the advisors of the various regiments in the Paranormal Liberation Front. 

“Thank you, Warp.” Hanabata’s resonant praise drew all eyes to him. All the advisors and soldier Warp immediately bowed upon the recognition of the elite three, the former leaders of the MLA. 

Hanabata’s quirk took effect like lightning. The glow of pride and beaming expression of this soldier told him that Warp’s next task could be accomplished. To receive his approbation was a feat many in the army would die for. 

The soldier had been an indispensable piece thus far. Not only was his group teleportation quirk critical for their plans, but it was him that notified Chikazoku about Mihara’s methods of shrouding her location from his sight. And it was him that stole her briefcase for Skeptic’s use, leaving Dabi and Apocrypha none the wiser. 

Wearing a smile, Koukuu began his speech.

“My friends, you must be wondering why we’ve assembled you on this fateful night. You see, the three of us,” Hanabata gestured to himself, Skeptic and Re-destro. “Have decided that Tomura Shigaraki, our grand commander, is unable to effectively realise Destro’s vision. While we acknowledge our commander’s liberation of his meta ability, he has not proven a capable leader. As such, tonight, we will be forcing an abdication of his throne, and we will have the rightful heir, Re-destro, returned to it.” 

Hanabata put his hand over his heart and tilted his head downwards. “Of course, we are all reminded of the Pyrrhic victory last festival. While we were all in awe of Shigaraki’s meta ability, many of our fellow soldiers perished because of it. This would pose a threat to us now, but we have a solution.” 

“Behold!” Hanabata grabbed the pistol and held it for all to see. “This is not loaded with ordinary, pathetic bullets, but a special one that will, upon contact, render a person’s meta ability unusable.” 

Immediately, the advisors shrank before the weapon. Koukuu flashed a brilliant smile and placed the firearm on the table. “Fear not, friends. I know this may sound terrifying, our very identity voided in the face of a mere gun. The three of us, as well as the late Miss Curious, agonised over this concept. And we saw fit to keep this secret. No one of us should ever have to be cursed with this knowledge.” 

“You must understand, ordinarily we would never lower ourselves to utilize such a weapon that goes against everything we stand for, but these are no longer normal days we live in. This had to be done. And so I ask for your forgiveness.” 

Bowing his head lower, Hanabata only raised it when the advisors shouted: 

“We forgive you, Trumpet!” 

“We will return Re-destro to the throne!” 

“Leave it to us!” 

A tearful smile, and Hanabata knew they were convinced. 

“Then the plan is this. We will all be teleported into the room where Shigaraki is residing. Our true leader, Re-destro, will take the first shot, removing his meta ability, providing ample time for the rest of us to incapacitate him. After which, he will be executed, along with those lieutenants that do not follow Re-destro.” 

That would include Apocrypha, Hanabata concluded.

Nods followed his explanation. Koukuu checked his watch. Ten seconds more.

A beep on Skeptic’s computer was the signal, indicating Shigaraki’s arrival at the main council room. With a nod towards Warp that would teleport the liberation militia to Shigaraki’s current location, Koukuu gave his final cry. 

“Come, friends! Let us restore the former glory of the Meta Liberation Ar—“ 

------

“We’ve made the arrangements based on the info you gave. Sorry we had to keep this on the down low,” The president said, not meaning it. “Protocol.” 

That word was supposed to explain everything, and after working for her for most of Keigo’s life, it did. It was a risk to inform him of the Commission’s plan in case he was ever “compromised”. 

Another paragraph of a word. Compromised. That is, the situation in which he was caught, interrogated and tortured to the point of giving up confidential information. Euphemisms were the commission’s dictionary. 

“No problem. But let me guess, you called me here because you need more.” 

“Exactly. We can pick off the PLF loyalists in our ranks, but so far, what we know from your intelligence is to expect a large-scale invasion in two days. That’s it, and it’s not enough.” 

“It’s difficult to counter a teleportation quirk. I know there’s a divide between the Liberation Army and the League, and all I can deduce is that two or three meetings have occurred that are League-only. And I can’t follow them.”

“What about Shigaraki himself?” 

“He spends most of his time at Jakku hospital. I haven’t even met him face to face since October.” 

“But the members have seen him. Is there a weak link within the League?” The president, the cunning ex-intelligence agency officer, said sharply. 

“Twice. Bubaigawara Jin.” Hawks answered without a delay. 

“You think you can get him to tell you?” The president crossed her arms in scepticism. 

“Yes, the only issue is how much he knows. He should be more in the know than the former Liberation Army lieutenants, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shigaraki kept his plan only to himself,” Hawks said.

“Can you convince him to dig around on your behalf? Or is that too far?” 

“It’s possible. He trusts me.” Keigo winced internally at the verbalisation of that fact. “But I need a good excuse. And if he enlists another member to help, I’m done for.” 

She paced around the darkened room. All the windows were shuttered with steel. Only the holographic images beside the two, displaying various pictures and notes, allowed Keigo to see the frustrated expression on his superior’s face. 

“If you can bring him here, we could extract information from him. More than Jin’s aware of.”

“No, they’re definitely being tracked by the doctor.” Hawks’ eyes darted towards the picture of Kyudai Garaki, beside one of his mini Nomus. 

“Bait him to make a clone of himself and have it follow you.” 

“It’d never survive interrogation. It’s not durable enough.” An idea occurred to Keigo. “But I could bring Shinso along. Just disguise or hide him and interrogate Jin then and there.” 

“No. Too risky. I’m not having both of you in hostile territory.” 

A valid excuse, but Keigo knew the real reason was that the Commission would never allow him to see his old friend face to face. He kept his composure, though. 

The president continued, “But we may not need to bring him there. We’ve been testing if Probe works digitally. It hasn’t been field tested, though.” 

“Desperate times, ma’am.” Hawks smiled ruefully. “If you need this done, I’ll give it a shot.” 

The president placed her hands on the table with a sigh, shaking her head. “I’ll make the calls. Report back to Shigaraki for now.” 

Hawks saluted her. Once upon a time, he did that out of genuine respect. He rarely gave a thought to the gesture now. Especially after he found out what the Commission did to obtain Kineka Shinsou for their purposes. 

As the door slid shut behind him with a sleek whoosh, Keigo navigated his way out of the building, fatigue weighing his steps down.

As he reached an intersection in the hallways, he spied a glance to his right, where two guards flanked another door identical to the one he exited from. They were there 24/7, guarding Takami’s old friend. If he were to walk up to them, they had the authority to refuse his access. 

It reminded him of the occasion he attempted to enter a room he knew Shigaraki was in, under the pretence of wanting an audience with the Grand Commander. The guards denied him entry then as well. 

A dangerous thought to entertain, but the longer Hawks worked as a double agent, the greater the similarities he was beginning to see between the two organisations. 

An upwards flight via the spiral stairwell later, and he was on the roof of the HPSC building. 

Takami sighed. He had but a few more days left where he could enjoy this illusion of peace, created by the silence of the night. People — heroes, even, often conflated the two. If things were quiet, they assumed there was no conflict. 

He exhaled. Rarely was that the case. It just meant he was doing his job well. 

But he wondered for how long more would he be able to do things quietly. 

------

“Lieutenants, we have arrived back in Deika City. I’ve also received a message from our Grand Commander to report directly to him at meeting room Delta.” 

Geten heard Dabi groan. Her brow furrowed. What does Shigaraki want at this hour? 

“Noted, thank you.” She responded. The pilot gave a bow and the two alighted from the plane. 

“Do you know where Delta is?” He asked. 

“It’s been unused for a long time, a set of underground chambers, but I know the way.” Her stomach began to churn thinking about the possible reasons why Shigaraki would want a meeting at such an isolated area, given the mansion’s vastness. 

“Underground?” Geten heard the concern in Dabi’s voice at the question. 

“Yes.” She opened the door to let both of them in. As the door slammed behind them, flickering lamps overhead lit the corridors. 

He didn’t respond, the echoing of their footsteps in the hallway eating up the short conversation. With every step, the unsettling thoughts occupied more of her brain. 

“Just round the corner…” She found herself whispering. 

A hand pulled her back. She reacted with a brandishing of her ice shards, until she realised it was Dabi who had grabbed her. 

“I’ll go first,” He said, hand igniting. His head turned left and the fire faded out. 

“Was this area...undergoing renovation?” He asked, rooted there. Whether in shock or awe, Geten could not tell. 

“What do you mean? Not that I —“ She turned the corner and her arms went slack. “Know of.”

Where the door would be, it simply wasn’t. Replacing it, and the surrounding walls, was a massive hole, cracks spreading outwards from the impact point, as if a wrecking ball had smashed through. Dust trickled down like black snow, blanketing the bone-coloured tiles. 

“It’s him,” Dabi said with a grim certainty, “Come on.” 

They stepped through the wall. Geten’s eyes widened, and her heart skipped several beats, frozen in fear at the sight before her. Next to her, she heard Dabi draw a breath sharply. 

Tomura Shigaraki was seated casually on the meeting table, swinging his legs with the nonchalance of a child at school. Around him was the dust and dismembered limbs of multiple people. 

Her eyes slowly swept across the room, and rested on a familiar pair of prosthetic legs. She closed her eyes, and drew a shuddering breath. 

“They tried to overthrow me,” Shigaraki said, clicking his tongue. “Almost worked, honestly, if the Doctor hadn’t given me these heightened senses.” 

He sprung off the table, and stood there for a moment, looking at the dust fly around, like a scarecrow with his arms by his sides. 

“What’d you call us here for?” 

“To see how she’d react.” Shigaraki gestured at Geten. She tensed up as those bony fingers pointed towards her. 

“So, you like it? I took care of them for you.” 

With great trepidation, she dared to meet Shigaraki’s eyes. It could have been a lapse in memory, but she remembered them being sanguine in colour. Now, they were more grey and desaturated. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“I killed them. The people you hated. I mean, I’m doing the same thing for myself. Just consider this my reward for your performance so far.” 

Her head adjusted to take in the view fully. The putrid scent of gore and dust was overwhelming. Even Dabi, who stood beside her, seemed to have trouble absorbing the scene before him. Everywhere she looked, she could identify vague features of people she worked with. A pair of glasses there, bits of clothing. 

Her confusion didn’t help with her head. The nonchalance in his tone, combined with his words, rattled her. Was he insinuating something? Was he being honest? 

A hand suddenly grabbed her arm. It was Dabi’s, as if in protection. But why would he need to…

Perhaps it was her fatigue, or her bewilderment about the whole situation, but she was far too slow to connect the dots. 

She was the last member of the higher echelon of the Meta Liberation Army, and she was standing before the man who turned the rest of them to dust and meat.

It was as if Shigaraki held her heart with an ice-cold grip. Fear forced her to speak. 

“Thank you, Grand Commander,” She said, bowing her head. The nausea was making its way down to her stomach, while Shigaraki seemed to be unaffected. He knew about my past with them? Or did he make assumptions when he visited me in the hospital? 

Was Shigaraki that observant?

He tilted his head. “Hm.”

“Anything else you got for us? It’s pretty damn late and we all want to sleep,” Dabi said, injecting some forcefulness into his words. He was playing along with Shigaraki’s game, but it seemed that even he was having trouble discerning Shigaraki’s intent of bringing them here. 

“You guys are together now?” Shigaraki’s eyes suddenly narrowed, shifting upwards from her to Dabi. 

What question is that? Is he referring to our relationship? 

“What’s it to you?” Dabi retorted. 

Their leader’s head tilted, as if considering something, but he shook his head and muttered, “Get out of here. You two disgust me.” 

“Wha —“ Dabi began to say, but she yanked him away, walking out of the desecrated room. 

Tomura Shigaraki watched them go. Once his senses told him they had left the building entirely, he sat down. 

I guess that didn’t work. 

He was unsure of when his desensitization began.

Could’ve been days, maybe weeks…what day is it anyway? Oh, right, Saturday. Two more days. 

After sitting on Garaki’s chair for all this time, being perfected and transformed, the amount of pain he had experienced was immeasurable. So much so that feeling anything right now was…

Killing them didn’t do anything…talking to him didn’t do anything…helping her didn’t do anything…

Nothing stirred his heart to palpitate anymore. There was only a faint beat now. 

Perhaps he was far beyond that point now. He was walking down a hill that grew steeper as he descended. Even if he tried, gravity would take over, whether or not he wanted it. 

Am I already in hell? 

Tomura remembered, vaguely, of his goal. It was as if the hill was now shrouded in a rolling fog that thickened by the day. His goal, his dream…to destroy. 

What was it I said? Destroying the heroes, or society, or everything? 

He thought about the couple that just left, so sickeningly in love it disgusted him. He felt the happiness shedding off them, how the two felt calmer around each other. The world was like that, all wrapped up in their joys and comforts that he never experienced. And so the answer came to him. 

Everything. 

…

Wait, not everything, right? The whole world? What about Spinner, and Toga, and Compress, even Dabi…I promised them something. I promised the doctor something. They asked to do their own thing. Live. If I destroy everything… 

An ephemeral wisp of a memory drifted into the remnants of Tenko’s shattered mind, a brain pushed to the brink of malfunction. A small TV screen, and on it were two characters fighting each other. He heard the clicking of buttons and knocking of joysticks, then laughing and cursing. Maybe there was still time. 

Tomura pictured a second scene. He was standing on the edge of an annihilated city, the rising sun pouring through, no more buildings standing in its way, and the horizon was visible from where he stood. The earth itself paved way for him. 

A smile tugged at his cracked lips.

------

Chapter 28: Death In The Family

Geten opened her eyes when she felt the morning glare. She was lying on her hotel bed, with fluffy white pillows and clean sheets. Never felt this comfortable before. 

“Morning.” Dabi’s dry voice made her jump. 

“Gah!” She scrambled backwards against the bed frame. “What are you doing here?” 

“I spent the night here, stupid,” Dabi huffed. That jogged her memory. She recalled an awkward moment between the two where they were about to part ways last night before she suggested he sleep on her couch. She coughed and scrambled to change the topic.

She saw bags of takeout on the table. “What’s that?” 

“Breakfast.” He said with a humph of irritation. Geten deduced that he was not a morning person. 

She checked the clock. “It’s nearly eleven!”

Dabi looked at his wristwatch. “Yes, the clock’s working fine.” 

“Hilarious, I see your usual self has returned. You could’ve woke me up? You’ve clearly been awake for a while.” 

“Wrong. I’ve been conscious for a while. Until I drink my coffee, I’m still half asleep. So would you please go wash up so I can have my breakfast?” 

She slid off her bed, a light smile on her face.

------

“Jin? It’s your turn.” 

“Huh?” Twice stared at the pile before realising he had forgotten to add his card. He quickly tossed one from his hand. “Sorry, Toga. No I’m not!” 

“You haven’t been talking as much these past few days. Everything ok? Need more sushi?” She counted her cards before adding a pair of greens. 

“It’s nothing. It’s everything!” 

“Is it Tomura’s plan that’s bothering you?” 

Glumly, Jin nodded. 

“Don’t worry! Shigaraki’s plenty strong now. Killing Hawks will be super easy!” Himiko grinned. 

Twice cringed at the word ‘killed’, but said nothing in reply, only drawing from the deck. 

“Toga, remember when all of us first met, when Giran brought us together?” 

“Yup!” She said, “That was so long ago, wasn’t it?” 

“Did you trust us?” 

Her smile slipped an inch. “Um, not at first. But yeah! I do now! So that’s good, right?” 

“Then…do you think Hawks could be trusted?” 

Toga’s face instantly scrunched up in disgust. “Jin, why are you still talking about him? He’s not part of us. He’s a hero. We shouldn’t trust him even if he’s spying for us.” 

“He’s not like the heroes! After talking to him, I realised that he’s not bad. He wants what we want,” He said.

“You heard what Tomura said. He’s been snooping around. I don’t think he’s really on our side, Jin.” 

“Shigaraki’s wrong! He’s not bad! He’s really bad!” Twice clenched his fist. 

Toga’s eyes narrowed like a snake’s. “Has he been talking to you, Jin? What has he been telling you?” 

Twice’s hands began to tremble. He’s good. I know he is. 

He put his last card down on the pile. “I need to go, Toga.” 

“Fine!” She harrumphed, crossing her arms. But her anger quickly dissipated as she watched Twice leave, overtaken by concern. She got up and exited the room too.

------

Love, Geten pondered over that word as she washed her hair. 

Love was synonymous with desire. Was that not it? She had assumed so. But it had to be more than that. She didn’t desire Dabi the way one desired to eat, or how her old self desired to be the strongest. She wanted him to be by her side, to share in each other’s sorrow and pain, as if they were one. 

This concept was nowhere to be found in Destro’s manifesto; Instead, it was during the few times she’d been around other soldiers that she inferred a meaning. The first time, it was a Detnerat commercial where the soldier posing as a customer mentioned how much he “loved this umbrella”. The second, during a stakeout hunting rogue soldiers where one of Geten’s comrades was talking about her partner. 

She gave that little thought at the time. If anything, she was disgusted by how poorly that soldier was emulating the MLA’s values. 

And the third…it came from the mouth of her target’s husband. 

“Don’t!” He cried, his body bound hand and foot by icy cuffs, wriggling on the ground in utter helplessness. “Please! I love her!” 

In front of her, Okome Suzami, the rising star within the MLA was propped up against the wall, her side pierced. 

She didn’t listen, and finished her job. 

—

Murderer. 

She blinked, realising she had been staring at her reflection for the past minute while combing her hair aimlessly. 

Why am I suddenly thinking about this? The people I’ve eliminated…coming back to haunt me. 

Dropping the toiletries, she shook off her emotions and opened the door. Her eyes locked with Dabi’s as she stepped out, and it was only then that she registered his new outfit. Instead of his signature black coat, white undershirt and jeans, he’d swapped it out for navy track pants and an ash grey sweater. 

“You look…different,” She said. 

“So do you,” He drawled, his eyes glancing down, and Geten suddenly felt self conscious about her plain white t-shirt. 

“There’s no reason to wear a parka indoors.” She huffed as she sat down, her ears heating up again. Dabi tossed her an onigiri. 

“You’re okay with spicy tuna?” He asked, and she nodded, murmuring thanks. 

She watched him take sips of what she presumed was his coffee, still somewhat in awe over how normal he looked, save for the scarred face. So much so that he noticed, and scowled at her. 

“What?” 

“You look much better now.” Geten took a bite of her rice ball. “Now that you have something in your stomach.” 

“Food truly is the cure to worldly issues,” Dabi remarked. 

“I wish,” She said. 

Dabi paused. “Still thinking about yesterday?” 

Partially. But she had no wish to bring up her sins now, not when she had this to treasure. She forced herself to cast those thoughts aside. 

“He’s usually straightforward, says what he thinks, but yesterday, I couldn’t tell what he meant,” Dabi said. “Couldn’t tell what he was going to do either.”

She recalled something Shigaraki had said in an earlier encounter. “ “. His mannerisms yesterday contradicted his statement. It was as if he was someone else entirely. 

“It felt that way to you, too? I was…stunned. Like I was on a game show where the forfeit was death.” 

“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” Dabi clenched his fist. 

His words gave her some comfort. Geten’s face relaxed. “Thank you. It was…it was a surreal experience, more so than anything I’ve been through.” 

“Are you happy? About — y’know, him killing Yotsubashi.”

She thought about her answer, trying to navigate a coherent train of thought through the fog. A good night’s rest had helped, barely. Finally she said,

“I am glad, I suppose. It feels like karmic retribution, but I envisioned enacting my own revenge. I wanted to be the one to do it. Having… him act on my behalf, and then putting on that display feels strange.” She took a deep breath. 

“There’s a hollowness within me, stemming from the realisation that I had missed my one and only chance to express myself one last time to Yotsubashi and the others. But maybe the emptiness would have remained even if things had gone the way I dreamed of.”

Dabi gave a wistful sigh. “You got that right. It doesn’t go away. And still…we want to get revenge. Isn’t that such a human thing?” 

“You’re thinking about your fa — Endeavour.” 

Dabi nodded, his eyes cast downwards. 

“I don’t know what to do.” He confessed. 

Geten’s hands trembled. Her imagination created an image of Dabi slowly turning to ash, burning up in his own flames, holding Enji Todoroki in his grasp. Like Yotsubashi, from substance to dust. 

“Don’t leave me,” She blurted out. When she registered what had left her mouth, her face flushed. 

“I mean, I shouldn’t tell you — I’m sorry. Do what you — Um, just forget I said anything,” She mumbled at a rapid fire pace, her eyes focusing on her breakfast.

When she looked back up, she saw Dabi staring at her, eyes wide. 

“I won’t, I’ll be here…” His voice trailed off. “I need you.”

A warmness squeezed her chest. “So do I.”

But the feeling turned hollow and cold when she realised that this was how Suzami and her husband felt, before she killed her. 

Murderer.

------

A lot of particles over there… 

Keigo pushed the door open. Evidently, the place had been in this unkempt state for a while, but his feathers were picking up way more dust than normal, to the point that it was choking up the air. 

Shigaraki’s work, probably. But who, or what did he… 

He quietly glided through the tunnel. 

As he rounded the corner, he grimaced at the sight. 

He finally did it. Keigo always knew the top brass of the MLA were always a thought away from their execution, yet seeing the grisly aftermath still disturbed him.

Hawks exhaled, and then he noticed multiple sets of footprints on the light, grey snow. Shigaraki and two others. But who…? Are those boots? 

There was only one person in the PLF that wore boots. This would suggest that the other set belonged to Dabi, and judging from how they led all the way back to the entrance, they made it out alive. Either they discovered it on their own, or Shigaraki let them walk away. Both options disconcerted him. 

He took a moment to consider the ramifications of this massacre. He’ll only tell the League. If the rest of the army found out, I doubt even Shigaraki could quell the outrage. 

Was this premeditated? Or was he forced to kill them? 

Shit, I shouldn’t be spending too long here, or they’ll start wondering why — 

His thoughts came to a sudden halt, eyes widening as he spotted a heap of electronic waste: Bits of metal and wiring sliced up haphazardly, but he recognised Skeptic’s laptop anywhere. 

Chikazoku’s dead. They’re not watching me now. A grin rose to his face. Thanks, Shigaraki. Guess you didn’t plan for this to happen. 

He retrieved the tiny earpiece by making a tiny slice in his jacket where it was hidden between the fabric. “This is Hawks. I’m not compromised anymore. Chikazoku, Hanabata and Yotsubashi are dead.” 

“Plan stays the same for now.” Was the reply he got. “We’ll distribute new equipment when you return.” 

“Roger.”

------

“Congratulations, Ms Tanaka.” The bespectacled doctor gave a wide-brimmed smile as he held up a newborn infant, wailing with its first breaths of life. 

The mother, cheeks stained with tears, returned a smile despite the pain of childbirth. Her husband, holding her trembling hand, was choked with emotion as he gazed upon his son. 

The doctor passed the baby to a nurse, disposed of his gloves and washed his hands thoroughly. Checking the clock on the wall, he said, “Oh dear, I’m running late. Mr and Mrs Tanaka, I have somewhere to be. I’m so sorry.” 

Met with understanding nods and replies, he bowed and bid his farewell, striding out of the door. 

— 

“Oh, Shigaraki.” Kyudai Garaki cooed as he gazed upon his masterpiece, his magnum opus. Beneath him, the boy was in his penultimate stage of completion, a necessary step to prepare him for his transcendence. Suspended in a vat of liquids, hooked up to wires and tubings, a ventilator mask on his face, Tomura Shigaraki looked like a prop in a science-fiction haunted house, except that it was fiction-turned-reality. 

“You perfect, perfect thing.” Garaki flipped a switch. The vat drained of liquid with violent hisses and the machinery detached themselves from the subject. The last to be retracted was the ventilator, after his vitals stabilised on Garaki’s monitors. 

The once crimson irises were now as grey as the metal he stood upon. Shigaraki let out a breath, placing a hand on his heart. 

He never needed to do that to detect a heartbeat. His heightened senses quirk allowed him to detect the flap of a butterfly’s wings, but he needed…confirmation. Proof that he could no longer feel a beating heart. He was kept alive by means beyond his knowledge. 

“I’ll be damned,” He spoke, his voice like an empty cavern. “You did it Doc.” 

“Well, it’s not complete. I still require the catalyst, so as soon as you procure it, you will become a god, Shigaraki.” Garaki adjusted his glasses as he beamed down at his creation. 

“Tomorrow,” Shigaraki promised. 

Garaki nodded, shifting his attention to the trackers on his screen. “Hmm. Bubaigawara is finding Hawks. I do not like his disposition…”