Chapter 25: Arson
Arson could have easily avoided the alarms the League had set up around their lair, but he willfully ignored them. He wanted everyone to know he was there - he wanted them to panic.
A handful of them waited in the dingy bar for him. The creepy crusty child stared at him through the fingers of the hand resting on his face. "You're not welcome here, Arson."
"Well, I wouldn't be here if I had gotten paid," Arson said with a facsimile of a cordial smile.
The demented stabby girl barked a laugh. "If you would have taken out the target you were supposed to, then maybe we would have paid you. But instead you hurt my sweet Deku."
Arson felt his eye twitch. "The world has one less hero in it, and that Deku child would have been far more troublesome than Kamui Woods could ever hope to be. I merely cut him down before he became too much to handle."
Shigaraki growled, lunging towards Arson with an outstretched hand that was misdirected at the last moment by a simple telekinetic tug from Arson. He stopped suppressing his smile, letting his mouth slide into a full maniacal grin. "I see that we're not going to come to a peaceful agreement, which is just as well. I've always wanted to let loose with this much alcohol around."
The stabby girl was the first to react, leaping forward with a knife extended. She wasn't quick enough, though. She yelped when he caught one of her buns with telekinesis, yanking on her hair sharply. Arson had to give the girl credit, though, it didn't stop her from throwing the knife with what would have been deadly accuracy if it didn't halt in midair.
Arson chuckled, smoke puffing from his lips as the members present attacked as one - and he could hear the hurried footsteps of more approaching.
At his direction, flames coiled around him while he managed to keep the League of Villains at bay. One or two more came through the door, but they couldn't make it through or counter his fire any better than the others, so it was really inconsequential. One person in particular hung back, not even trying to engage in the situation as he viewed everything with mild disinterest.
"Dabi, help us! You know flames," the idiot in the top hat yelled as he attempted (and failed) to compress Arson's flames.
The scarred man only sighed. "He's clearly more accurate with his fire than I am with mine. What makes you think that I wouldn't just make things worse?"
Arson chuckled deep in his chest. "At least one of you has some sense. Only an idiot would have failed to notice the fact that I have at least a weak capacity for telekinesis on top of breathing fire. Well, I say weak, but I actually mean accurate. The smaller a thing is, the easier it is for me to control. I move the very particles that make up my flames, and nothing is stopping me from doing the same to his."
"And why would you tell us such valuable information?" Facepalm asked in his grating voice.
"So you know that you can't fight against me, at least not since your portal bartender is gone. If I wanted to, I could steal the very air from your lungs, but where's the fun in that? I love watching things burn, crumble to ashes beneath me," Arson said, a line of flames snaking around Facepalm, raging towards the ceiling. "I'm sure that you of all people would understand. The point is, your little pyro is wise not to get involved in the fight. Besides, I always wanted my own villain monologue." Arson's grin grew impossibly and unsettlingly wider. "I only kill heroes, but I wanted to send my regards."
Facepalm growled, angrier than ever trapped in his cage of flames. "So you think that you deserve to be paid for taking out a hero student that you knew nothing about while your actual target is still being a menace."
"I knew more about that student than you think," Arson snapped. "And I actually don't care about the money. It was all just an excuse to come burn your lair to the ground and get a full measure of the child that All For One handpicked to be his successor."
Shigaraki stilled, his body language turning absolutely feral. "Don't speak of Sensei like you know him."
"You're beginning to repeat yourselves, but oh, I did know him. I knew him better than you can even imagine," Arson said, discreetly using his telekinesis to pull a few choice bottles into the air - the ones with the highest alcohol content. "I spent years as his dog, the silent assassin hiding in the shadows. And I wasn't supposed to, but I heard the reports about you, his brat that he only picked to spite All Might."
Shigaraki snarled, a wordless cry of rage, but he still couldn't move from his burning prison. The other members of the League looked on, some still trying to find ways around Arson's flames without success.
"That's right, Shimura Tenko. Sensei never cared about you or your abilities - your quirk was just icing on the cake. You're the same broken child that I meant all those years ago, you never grew up."
"Shut up, just SHUT UP!" Facepalm howled.
"And that's exactly why it's going to be so satisfying to watch your world burn."
With those final words, Arson released his hold on those bottles of alcohol. They came cascading down, shattering on the floor with a delicious sound - even better was the rush of air as the flames first found the alcohol.
There was a trail of shattered bottles leading to where all of the alcohol was stored, and there was less than a minute before the flames would reach the rest of the bottles. Arson stepped through the flames to the front door, relinquishing his control, the flames burning as they would natural.
He paused just before he stepped out. "I would recommend that you all leave while you can."
A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter! In the madness of moving I misplaced my Arson notebook so I was writing solely for Detective Midoriya. Expect a new chapter for that soon. But thank you for all of your comments! I can't tell you how satisfying it was to write the last chapter, or how hard it was to go back to Arson's perspective after the satisfaction of letting people know Izuku was alive. See you next chapter!