Monochromatic Ideals

by Writer's Domino

They were brothers, the both of them. And they wanted very little outside of what they already had in their lives. So why ever would they walk down the paths they chose?

26. Chapter 26

Monochromatic Ideals

Arc Final- Silver is forever

Episode 26- The Vengeful Bomber

---

The week after the failed capture of Bakugo had not been kind for the League of Villains.

Where to even begin?

Shigaraki had not at all been pleased with their failure. That was a given. All For One through his TV had nothing to say to them, and all he had said to Shigaraki was words of encouragement about growing from failure. To Hikari he made it sound like he'd almost expected the operation to fail, but if Shigaraki caught on or not, he didn't show it. The man practically revered every single word that came out of that TV.

They'd taken some losses in the failed mission, too. Moonfish was a given, and even if the cops hadn't found him, Kyomu had ruined his Quirk forever by tearing all of his teeth out, roots and all. So effectively useless. Mustard and Muscular had been taken, too, having been defeated by other students. So their already small numbers were even smaller now. Not ideal. The magician whose arm Kyomu had cut off was fine, at least. Down an arm, but still able. His biggest complaint was that it was harder to pull off sleight of hand with only one hand, but it was a challenge he openly welcomed. So there was that.

But that all paled in comparison to the fact that their HQ, the bar, had been raided. By heroes. About a day after the failed mission. Nobody in the group even know how they found them; maybe a neighbor reported something suspicious going on in the bar or one of them had a tail that followed them. They would have all been captured if it weren't for the time intervention of All For One, whose Quirk was... interesting, if not gross. He seemed to have a warping power, like Kurogiri, only his was more direct and transported them all to his own personal base of operations, which had been a big tower a city over. It'd been the first time Hikari had ever seen the man up close, and he'd had to do a double take when he saw him. Neck down he seemed like a normal enough man. Wore a business suit of all things. Neck up his face was a featureless mass of scarred, blank flesh with the exception of a mouth connected to life support tubes. Though, Hikari only got a glance- they were all ushered out from the room quickly afterwards by a doctor-looking person so All For One and Shigaraki could talk in private.

During that whole ordeal Hikari couldn't help but feel a bit of familiarity with that doctor.

Eventually, Shigaraki had reconnected with them to tell them the situation. Bar was compromised and could never be set foot in again. A warehouse All For One had been using to produce Nomu and had been holding one of those cat heroes back at the camp for reasons only known to All For One had also been raided, so production of those were going to be going slowly for the time being. The usual trio, Hikari, Kurogiri, and Shigaraki, relocated to an apartment building in the same city as All For One's tower, most likely, as Hikari suspected, so that the older villain could keep a closer eye on his disciple. Everybody else went back to their own homes to lay low from the law and await orders from Shigaraki.

That had been the extent of those events. A week passed with them keeping their heads down. Meet-ups were occasionally scheduled. Shigaraki assured them he had plans in the work, but that remained to be seen. For now the members were to look around and scout for new members to swell their numbers once more.

But believe it or not they, being Hikari, Kurogiri, and Shigaraki, were all still humans, so they needed to eat. Which meant that they had a rotating schedule to choose who would go out to get food each week, as well as any other items anybody requested. Which meant that Shigaraki and Hikari kept switching, as Kurogiri was too conspicuous with his appearance.

This week was Hikari's turn.

"You'd think they'd get some kind of delivery system up and running so we wouldn't be taking a big risk every time we go out for food," Hikari thought to himself as he walked down a mostly empty sidewalk. It was the afternoon on a weekday, so not too many people. Unfortunately, "not too many people" still left dozens along every single corner, and even more driving by in cars. Not a very good environment for a teen with a wanted face to be walking in, and carrying bags of groceries wasn't exactly the most inconspicuous thing. "Feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack every time I step outside ever since the bar got raided. For all I know there's a battalion of heroes in the next building over just watching me. Planning." He shook his head. "Nah, Hikari, you're being paranoid. Probably.

"What am I even doing anymore?" He found his feet stopping in front of a store window and him dropping the bags. He couldn't help but turn to the window just to see his own reflection. A pale, haggard teen stared right back at him. "It feels like every step forwards is two steps back with Shigaraki. Every single big move of his has been a failure. He either bounces back on his own or All For One bails him out, and he tries again only to fail even harder next time. Yeah, sure. He's 'learning' and he's 'new at the whole thing', but that excuse can only go so far when he barely have any results. And what's his plan now? Recruit more members to gain more strength and make another attack. Like that's worked the last two times he tried. Three if I count Stain." He sighed out loud and felt his forehead thunk on the window. "Why am I even here? Kill All Might? Wasn't that the goal I set for myself so long ago? The goal I let Shigaraki sweet talk me into? Change society for the better and all that so my situation never happens again? Pfft, yeah. Right. We're no closer to that goal than when we started all the way back when I was recruited right before USJ. Am I wasting my time?"

A question that had been plaguing him since the camp attack. He honestly couldn't say if he was or not. At least his brother was doing something with his life, in his own... special way. He didn't know if he was still running around dishing out his own special brand of vigilantism, but ignoring that, he was on the fast track to getting a hero license and making an actual life. Meanwhile he was a wanted criminal squatting with a bunch of psychopaths doing... who knew what at this point. And Hikari was finding that he had to remind himself of his original goal more and more each day.

Oh, of course he'd voiced his concerns to Shigaraki. Of course destroying All Might and the hero society was still in the plan. But Hikari found himself questioning if Shigaraki, with his lack of any progress, could pull something like that off. Then there was All For One, who Hikari barely knew anything about. He only seemed interested in teaching Shigaraki how to be a real villain. Seeing as he didn't even know who the man was, he was starting to become skeptical of those credentials. But he had that big building and the Nomus, so that had to count for something.

So what was Hikari to do? Cut his losses and just leave? That option didn't seem very viable, as he had nowhere to go and didn't even know if Shigaraki would let him leave. He knew too much, after all. Go to the heroes? Yeah, right. He wasn't looking for a one-way trip back to prison. Go kill All Might by himself? Not likely; he was confident in his skills and powers, but not that confident. Would be a different story if his power was as lethal as Kyomu's, but it wasn't. Keep putting his faith into Shigaraki and hope he would pull off a win eventually? Honestly, staying the course was probably his only feasible option given the situation.

"Man. What a mess I'm in."

"Shinka...?"

Hikari's head snapped right off the window when he heard that. A male voice he didn't recognize saying his name. A passing cop or hero? Someone that had been tailing him? All of these were worrying, really, and causing Hikari's heart rate to skyrocket.

"Um... no?" He slowly began to turn around to address the man who had said his name. At the same time, he held his right hand behind his back and began channeling light in his fingers. "I'm sorry, sir, but I think you have me confused with somebody else? Shinka? Who's... huh?"

He fully turned to the person who said his name. He was standing right behind him, and was staring right at him. And he was, without a doubt, the most innocuous man Hikari could imagine. A standard, run-of-the-mill Japanese business man, with a cheap suit, clean haircut, and everything. Wasn't even that fit, now that Hikari looked at him. The only thing that was off was the fact his eyes were glowing a deep teal, but even that was probably just a Quirk.

"Hi...?" The white-hair teen arched a brow, and waved a hand in front of the man's face. He didn't show any sign of reacting at all, and kept his glowing eyes transfixed right on Hikari's face. "Are you okay, sir? Sir?"

"Shinka..." The man's features tightened, and his teal irises began to glow brighter. "Shinka...!"

"That... may or may not be my name depending on who you are," the teen said. "What's this guy's deal? Is he just some random guy that wandered past me and recognized my face? And why are his eyes glowing brighter and brighter?" He felt the light in his fingers harden into a solid shape, and readied the sword behind his back. "Is he... gonna attack? This random civilian?"

By this point, the man's eyes were glowing a blinding teal, and Hikari was too conflicted at what he was watching to do anything. It was only when the man roared "SHINKA!" at the top of his lungs did he decide to try and lunge away from him.

But by that point the man had already exploded.

---

"Shinka? Err, Shinka?"

"Huh- wha-?" Kyomu's eyes fluttered open as he picked his head up. He turned his head to the left, but when his cheek met glass he remembered precisely where he was: right next to the windows in Class 1-A's classroom. Specifically, leaning on the wall where the windows were and then falling asleep on them. He'd only awakened when somebody had shaken him awake, and when he looked at the other side he saw Asui shaking his shoulder.

How long had he been out? Couldn't have been that long since the teacher wasn't back yet. So why did his classmate look so concerned?

"Ah, man. Tsu. Hey." Letting out a yawn, the teen shifted shoulders and the wall and crossed his arms as he looked down at the girl. "What's up?" he asked.

"Nothing. Are you alright, Shinka?"

He blinked. "I'm... pretty sure?" he answered. The uncertainty in his voice said enough for his confusion. "Why, do I look unwell?"

Asui nodded, and then placed her finger on her chin. "Ever since we've come back from the training camp you've been kind of listing off in class," she said with a croak. "It's not like you to be tired all the time. I'm just making sure you're not sick or something."

Ah. Right. Of course she would notice something like that. Among most of the 1-A students she was unusually observative. Of course she'd notice something like him being tired more often. He was actually surprised more of his peers didn't keep a concerned eye on him, considering the events of that camp attack. But he supposed that the week between then and now did something to help them adjust and cope.

"Nah, I'm not sick." He shook his head. "I'm just busy at night, you know? I... used to have this hobby I did at night, but I've been kind of... putting it off. As in I haven't really done it since the whole camp thing. A bit before that, really. Been taking a break from that. Thinking." He cleared his throat. "Nowadays I'm just kind of helping around at the orphanage. Lady who runs it, Mizo, she's kinda getting up there in age, and I'm one of the most able-bodied people in that place. I'm always needing to fix something or other there."

It wasn't even a lie. Killing villains, ever since his conversation with Hikari shortly before their trip to the camp, had, in a word, stayed his hand and caused him to think. Then the actual attack happened, and he found that the doubt that had been building in him and that his brother fanned was extinguished. Camp was cancelled, some went to the hospital, and everyone else went home for the rest of the break. For Kyomu, that meant continuing his nightly prowl. Or it would have been if it weren't for the fact that pesky doubt began to resurface shortly after.

Eventually, those doubts increased. He found himself looking online for tangible statistics. Number of robberies per areas in Japan on monthly time scales, hero villain fights, robberies, ect. Numbers were as low as always. Numbers were always low since there were so many heroes around.

But that was just it. Always low. It didn't help any of the doubts that had been stirring in him for so long, so he'd simply stopped. Stopped going out at night, stopped killing villains. Time went by. He didn't notice any difference at all, and by this point he was really starting to question whether or not all he'd been doing for so long was actually having tangible results. Stain's words and Hikari's advice was weighing heavily in him at this point. A week of no results wasn't much, but years of taking action with no tangible results was damning.

So yes. He'd been taking a break up to this point since then. And he was finding himself questioning if he should even go back to doing it or not, and every single day he was leaning more and more into the "no" area. Unfortunately, at the same time Mizo had found out that Kyomu suddenly had all this free time on his hands. So he got roped into about a million chores all revolving around maintaining the orphanage.

"You still live at an orphanage?" Kyomu's head turned to the side at the new voice, and he saw Midoriya step up besides Asui. "Did... nobody ever adopt you?" he asked.

"Apparently not, despite my sunny disposition," Kyomu dryly remarked. "Real surprising, too, since a lot of couples aren't capable of conception because of issues with their anatomy that more of the freaky Mutation-type Quirks give them. Guess I'm just way too old." He shrugged. "It's whatever."

Midoriya nodded and gave him a sympathetic look. "I suppose so," he agreed, "but won't you have to leave at a certain age? You can't live there forever."

"True. But UA's setting up that whole dorm thing," Kyomu reminded. "My current plan is to just bunk down with the rest of you all once they get them up and running. By the time we graduate I'll already be a legal adult, so I'll just be able to get my own place. Might take out a loan for an apartment or something. I'll deal with it in a couple years." He shrugged. "'Til then I'm under the thumb of a tyrannical old lady."

Evidently, the fact that their class had been attacked by villains multiple times was not only shaking the people's faith in the school's ability to protect them, but getting the school to begin worrying about them strangely enough. So, using what at this point Kyomu assumed to be infinite funds, because he had yet to see any evidence to the contrary, they were making a building within the school's property to house dorms for them to live in. There wasn't that big a rush to construct them; seeing as that forest attack went so well with only a few students wounded, the work, while expedient, was still a bit off from being complete.

The funny part, however, was when their homeroom teacher Mr. Aizawa and All Might himself had to go from house to house to get all of 1-A's parents (or legal guardians, in the case of Kyomu) to agree to their children moving to school grounds. Midoriya had told Kyomu later on that it had been a real struggle for All Might due to the time limit. Kyomu, perhaps, had played a hand in that.

---

Two days ago

"Dorms, huh?" Kyomu looked up from the form in his hand to the great, smiling teacher standing right in front of him. A teacher whose black business suit was practically ripping at the seams with how hard his muscles was pulling on them. "School really that shaken up from all the attacks?" he asked.

"Well, it is irregular. Even by the hero world's standards," All Might admitted. "It's a way for the school to keep a closer eye on all of you in a more secure environment, and to get some of the public pressure off the school's back." He cleared his throat and straightened his back up high. "And so, young Shinka! Are you ready to take the next great step in your hero academics!?" he boomed down at the student.

"You mean with moving?" The teen looked back down at the paper. "Sure, why not? Change of scenery might be nice," he said. Plus it could be fun living with all his friends from class. He'd never quite had an experience such as that.

"Fan-TASTIC." Two mighty thumbs were raised up at Kyomu's question. "Thing is..." His voice lowered to a much more subdued tone, "I technically need your acting guardian's signature to sign you off to us since we'll be officially responsible for you given your... status."

"Oh, Mizo? Sure, no problem. She'll be all for it." Kyomu paused, and then looked back at the small building behind him. "You might have a hard time getting to her though, man," he said with a slight snicker.

All Might's smiling head tilted in confusion. "Huh? What do you mean?" He looked in the direction Kyomu was looking in, and it was only then he found what Kyomu meant. "Oh. Oh no."

He managed to keep the smile up, but Kyomu could have sworn he saw his facial muscles twitch from fear. He knew he saw sweat beginning to bead down his chiseled forehead, and he could have sworn he heard teeth chattering. Because there, pressed up against all the windows that were facing them, were children. Orphans, specifically. More orphans than the two could count, all pressed up against the glass and all focused directly on the muscled hero standing in front of Kyomu.

It was probably the closest the Void user had ever seen to All Might succumbing to fear.

"I..." All Might lowered himself to Kyomu's ear. "Young Shinka, I may need assistance," he whispered. "You're not a full hero yet, so you don't know how rabid kids can be. They can be more brutal than villains if they want to. Always grabbing and pulling and trampling each other to get to me. And that-" he briefly gestured to the orphanage, "is something I don't think I can take on at the moment."

"Man, there is not a thing I can do for you," Kyomu responded. "The second I open that door they're all gonna pour out. And it's too late to sneak in through a window. They already saw you." He shook his head, face going solemn. "Sorry, All Might. You'll have to deal with it."

"Do I have to remind you I have a time limit tied to a very important secret, young Shinka? And I've been driving around with Mr. Aizawa all day to the other students' houses." He clapped his hands together in a pleading gesture. "I beg you. There must be something-!"

"Your fate was sealed the moment you chose to step out of the car instead of Mr. Aizawa." Maybe it was a bit wrong of him to scrape as much amusement out of All Might's suffering as possible, but he could use the laughs. And more than that, the door he broke and fixed back when they first met never did sound quite right afterwards. Revenge on its own was petty. Revenge for the sake of entertainment was just desserts.

So with this in mind, Kyomu's hand grasped the handle to the door. All Might didn't even have time to form one more plea before the door was opened and the number one hero was assaulted by a wall of child flesh.

---

Present

What a fun day that had been.

"Those dorms'll be up in about a week, right?" Kyomu asked. Probably even another reason he would have to stop his nightly activities, now that he thought about it. Sneaking out of the orphanage was one thing. UA dorms, surrounded by more adept heroes-in-training other hidden security features the school was sure to implement, was another. "Man, can't believe All Might actually went to everyone's houses with Mr. Aizawa. You must've fainted on the spot when All Might showed up on your doorstep, Midoriya."

The shorter teen immediately blushed. "I-I did not!" he defended. "I see him here as a teacher every day, so why would I freak out when he comes over to my house, huh!?"

The girl besides him croaked. "Your face says otherwise," she noted.

"That has nothing to do with this! I swear!"

Kyomu chuckled at the blustering teen, then looked out at the window and down at the ground below them. His blue eyes wandered to the wall surrounding UA, but then focused on the front gates. They were shut, and even more strangely there was a huge crowd of people in front of it.

"Another press mob?" he thought with a groan. "Geez, these guys are relentless. Day one of coming back and they were flocking the gates like vultures. Probably here to ask us about the dorms. What, do they plan to ambush us on the way out?" His eyes narrowed. "Well, they're real dedicated coming here in the middle of the day, aren't th-"

BOOM!

The massive explosion at the front gates knocked any thought from Kyomu's mind. In fact, the resulting shockwave from the explosion not only knocked him to the ground, but everyone else in the class as well.

Groaning, Kyomu rolled to his side. There were panicked yells all across the classroom and everyone was asking each other if they were okay. He looked up and saw everyone was picking themselves up, and then managed to stand up on his own feet. While doing so, he looked to the side and saw Midoriya helping Asui up, both looking up at him with bewildered expressions. Kyomu, himself already feeling worry build up in his stomach, once more moved towards the window.

"Can't have one normal month, can we?" he grunted as he pressed against the window and looked down. "They're bombing us now? Seriously?"

From what he saw, the gates were gone. Smithereens and warped, twisted metal was about all that was left, and a majority of the crowd that had been gathered there were laying around the blast area in shredded, charred remains. Kyomu felt anger well up in him at the sight alone, but soon after he, strangely enough, saw the survivors of that explosion begin to run past the open gates and towards the school.

Actually, now that he looked, everyone was running to the school. The ones at the gate, pedestrians from the sidewalks over, onlookers from far away- everyone was running towards the school. And even stranger was that, when he looked closer, he could see a small amount of teal light coming off each and every person. It was only after staring for a second did Kyomu realize that the glow was coming from all of their eyes.

He heard heavy breathing next to him, and turned his head to Midoriya. He was staring wide-eyed at the display below them while his hands were tightly gripping the window. "What's going on?" he whispered.

Kyomu gestured to the window. "Evidently, the civilians outside are attacking us," he dryly stated. "You notice all their eyes are glowing the same color?"

"They are?" Midoriya narrowed his eyes to get a better look. "They are," he realized.

"Well, I doubt everyone outside happens to have the same eye color," Kyomu said, "so what do you think? You're the resident Quirk expert. This a Quirk's doing?"

"M-... maybe." Midoriya stepped back from the window and put his hand to his chin and looked down. By this point the rest of class 1-A had gathered around the window and was looking down, with mixed feelings of shock, horror, and confusion playing across their faces. "If they all have those glowing eyes... they might be clones. They could have put disguises on, or another villain could have used another Quirk to disguise them," he mumbled. "Or even worse, it could be some kind of mind control Quirk, and all those people outside are innocents under control."

"Mind control? You mean like that Shinso guy?" Kyomu asked.

"I don't know, Shinka," he muttered back. "It could be mind control, it could be clones or fake puppets being controlled by a Quirk, or it could even be an illusion. I don't know." He shook his head. "Whatever the case, we should-"

"We should stay put is what we should do." All eyes turned towards Iida, who was at the center of the gathered crowd. He had on a stern if not concerned look, though his muscled arms were crossed and his eyes set straight forwards. "There are procedures the school puts in place for situations like these," he informed. "The school is filled with more than enough able-bodied heroes to deal with whatever is happening outside, including All Might. Even if that isn't enough, our close proximity to the city means that reinforcements from other heroes would be all but guaranteed should further assistance be needed." His head snapped down and his teeth grit. "As class representative, I'll have to ask that all of Class 1-A remains in this classroom so the heroes can take care of the situation."

There were unsure looks all around, along with some whispers passed on between the students. It was Uraraka who broke the silence when she spoke up. "I think Iida is right," she said. "We're... we're just students. We have some experience fighting villains, sure, but... well, we might just get in the way of the professionals if we try and help."

"With those numbers, though?" Kirishima argued. "No way! We can't just sit here and-"

"This isn't USJ or the training camp," Tokoyami reminded. "This isn't a situation where we have to defend ourselves because the heroes aren't there for us. We're safe in here, and the heroes are already out there. Iida's assessment is correct. We should stay back."

Besides the bird-headed teenager, Todoroki gave an approving hum. "The pros have licenses. We don't even have provisionals or permission from a teacher to defend ourselves," he supplied. "If one of those villains breaks in the room, then fine, we'll deal with it. But I'm in agreement that we should hang back."

Even Bakugo decided to give his two cents as he glanced out the window. "If stupid Midoriya is right and they are just mind-controlled people, they can't be that strong," he mumbled. "Yeah. Forget it. Let the teachers handle it."

If anybody was surprised in the blonde using Midoriya's actual name, nobody showed it, as concern was written on everybody's faces. More whispers were passed around, and from what Kyomu heard most were in agreement that they should stay put.

After feeling a tug on his uniform's sleeve, Kyomu turned his head. He saw Sen standing besides him, eyes glancing between him and the window. "What do ya think, Kyomu?" he asked. A few pairs of eyes turned to him. "Stay put like Iida says?"

Kyomu pursed his lips in thought, looked to the window, and then back to Sen. "... Yeah," he said. "There's plenty of heroes here. All Might and Mr. Aizawa. Snipe and Vlad King and Midnight. Tons others. They can do it." He looked up at Iida and gave him an approving nod. "Besides, we gave Iida the class rep title for a reason. I trust him to make these kinds of choices. More than I trust myself, at least."

He'd turned his head too quickly to catch the small smile and appreciative nod from Iida, but he hadn't missed the more relieved whispers all around him after he spoke. Intentionally or not, it seemed his own choice convinced a lot of the other students to agree to stay. In another time he would have been flattered to be so highly regarded by the others, but at the moment he was more focused on the current situation.

He did, of course, agree with Iida. The multiple heroes in the school could surely deal with whatever situation was going on outside. He surely didn't want to deal with it, especially if Midoriya was right and those were just regular people being controlled. The why of the situation, he didn't know, but that could wait. Right now was the time to be worrying about the now. And right now he wanted to stay with everyone else.

"That's all well and good..." Heads turned towards Shoji, who had turned the end of one of his tentacled limbs into an ear and pressed it against the window. "I noticed that all the people out there are screaming something. A single word." A beat passed. "Shinka... they're screaming your name."

Faces all around them went pale, and everyone turned towards Kyomu to gauge his reaction. Kyomu, for his part, stared at Shoji in surprise. "... Nah." He shook his head. "No way. You're mistaken."

"I'm not," Shoji assured. "I'm listening right now."

"Riiiight..." Slowly, Kyomu reached towards the latch to one of the windows. He could have sworn he heard breaths being held behind him. "I think it's great you're tryin' to develop a sense of humor, Shoji, but you got terrible timing with the whole school-under-attack thing." He undid the latch, and cautiously reached towards the window. "I mean, really, why would a bunch of random-"

"SHINKA!" He'd opened the window. Immediately the class was assaulted with a cacophony of screaming voices shouting that one, single name at the top of their lungs. "SHINKA! SHINKA! SHIN-!"

The window was promptly slammed shut, and the latch re-did. Kyomu's eyes had gone wide, and the rest of 1-A were giving him concerned looks. Some, like Kirishima, Bakugo, and Sato, were even looking down at the approaching crowd with disdain. Kyomu himself was just as confused as the rest of them, and had to take a few seconds to process that, yes, the people down below were shouting his name. Which did not bode well.

"Kyomu? Man?" He felt someone, Sen from the sound of their voice, shake his shoulder. "Dude? You alright?"

"... I mean, Shinka's a pretty common name, right?" he weakly asked. "There's... there's no way they're all storming the school just to get to-" He cut himself off, and then snapped his head to the window. In the distance, past some buildings, he could see flashes of bright, white light slowly approaching. The flashes turned into a solid stream that was rapidly approaching the school, at which point Kyomu swore under his breath. "You gotta be kidding- duck!"

Upon him yelling that word, everyone had obliged and had thrown themselves down to the floor. No sooner had they done this, a white blur crashed through the glass window right into the class. Todoroki, to his credit, had quickly waved one of hands to the side to ice over windows. Everybody else turned their eyes to the white form laying on the ground in front of them.

Kyomu almost felt an aneurysm come on when he saw it was his brother lying on the floor.

"... Hey." He blinked his crimson eyes at the class and slowly got to his knees. "I can explain-"

That was as far as he got before a myriad of powers were flashed right in front of him in a threatening manner. He looked ready to retaliate, too, until black tears in space appeared between the students and Hikari, followed by Kyomu standing up on his feet.

"Everybody chill out," he snapped. "And you-" he pointed at Hikari, "- the hell do you think you're doing here?"

Hikari quickly stood to his feet and waved his hands. "Look, I know it looks bad, but you gotta listen to me!"

"What are you doing here!?" Kyomu repeated. The black portals faded, and, though guarded, the rest of 1-A sent concerned looks over to Kyomu as he grabbed tufts of his hair, shook his head, and looked at Hikari in a disbelieving manner. "You- you can't be here! You'll- what the hell gave you the idea of coming here!?"

Smack!

Kyomu's head was whipped to the side following a pale hand slapping his cheek. Considering the slap had come in at speeds enhanced by his brother's Quirk, he couldn't have done much to avoid it. He did, however, slowly tilt his head back to Hikari, who was nervously shifting glances between his brother and his class.

"Look. I came because I was worried about you," he said, slowly. "There're... I don't know. People that blow up looking for us. The people with the teal eyes. Might be a single person with a Quirk, I don't know. But somebody out there is gunning real hard for us." He sighed and stepped back. "I was walking down the street and this random guy just started shouting my name and blew up. I got out in time and then more and more people started running towards me to try and blow me up. I almost got blasted five times getting here." He took a breath, and then rubbed a hand over his forehead. "Then I got here and I saw the same people storming your school, so I came to check on you."

At hearing this, Kyomu pulled back towards the rest of his class. "You're not... this isn't some kind of attack from the League?" he asked, and then gestured to the white-haired teen. "None of this is you? Not Shigaraki pulling some scheme or-"

"No, this isn't Shigaraki!" Hikari shouted. "I know for a fact he hasn't been planning something this crazy, and I live with him! And why would he want to blow me up when I'm practically his right-hand!? I had to cross whole cities to get here- you think I'm gonna put that much effort in on a scheme!?" He quickly inhaled. "I don't know who's doing this, I don't know why they're doing this, and I especially don't know why they're after us of all people. But they are." He turned around and pointed to the door. "So come on, we gotta go."

The dark-haired twin wanted to retort, but found himself at a loss as to what to say to his brother. The look he had in his eyes certainly wasn't helping matters: wide and concerned, almost panicked. And furthermore, his clothes were slightly scorched, too. The fact they were all white made the markings all the easier to see.

And besides, proven liar he may be, he was Hikari's twin. Their intelligence was nearly equal, and Kyomu knew Hikari wouldn't take this kind of risk if he weren't serious about the situation. Coming here over his safety, acting so casual around him in front of the whole class... if they weren't careful, that alone would be enough to rouse suspicion. He was supposed to be a hero, and Hikari was supposed to be a villain. With how they'd interacted thus far, they'd somewhat painted an image of being bitter rivals in front of the class.

"Hold it right there." A muscular arm was chopped in the air between the two. The twins' eyes slowly rose up to the arm's owner, Iida, who was staring down harshly at Hikari. Hikari, for his part, was looking up at him in confusion while Kyomu looked up in worry. "You're not going anywhere, and you are especially not taking our classmate with you."

"... Yeah I am," Hikari said.

"No. You're not."

"... Uh..." The white-haired teen blinked, and then looked to Kyomu for help. His response was a mere shrug, causing Hikari to roll his eyes and look back up at Iida. "You know that there's not a single person in here that can physically stop me, right?"

And this is where he had to step in before Hikari made things any worse. "Okay, okay, calm down. Everyone." He held his arms out and caused both teens to back up. "Look, he's right. I can't be here."

Following these words were an explosion of protests from everyone in the class. Kyomu had actually winced and had tried holding up a finger to try and calm everyone, but all that had done was seemingly make the situation worse and make everyone yell louder. They only finally calmed down when Bakugo let out a small explosion in his palm and stomped forwards.

"You can't be serious!" he shouted as he pointed at the white-haired twin. "You're seriously gonna take the words of a villain at face value? When we're under attack by villains right now!?"

"I mean, yeah?" Kyomu rubbed the back of his neck and coughed to the side at the bewildered looked he was given. "Whaddya want me to say? He's my brother."

"Your villain brother?" he reminded. "The one who killed your parents?"

Kyomu winced. He had a point, even if the facts were wrong. But that couldn't be helped. "Be that is it may..." he mumbled, "I don't see a reason for him to be lying to me, especially if the... possessed or whatever people out there are after him, too."

Midoriya's eyes hardened. "That's what he says, at least."

"Look, Mido, I seriously think-"

The door handle on the door leading into the room began to turn. Everybody became quiet at that, and looked towards the door as it swung wide open. There were sighs of relief all around when the dark-suited form of Aizawa was standing on the other side. He slowly turned his head up to face the whole class, and the relief started to rapidly taper away when his eyes weren't their normal dark color, or even the red of his Quirk. It was glowing a teal color.

"Shinka..." The capture scarf he kept wrapped around him flowed freely before two strips shot out from his body and wrapped not only around Kyomu, but Hikari as well. He began shouting their last name as they were both dragged forwards, but, before anybody else could do anything, Kyomu had snapped his fingers and a Void portal had filled the doorway separating them and Aizawa while also cutting the scarf pieces.

The scarf fell slack, and the twins threw the remnants off as quickly as possible. "You didn't tell me the possessed people could spread the Quirk to others," Kyomu quipped as he kicked the scarf away.

"Dude. This is all new to me. Give me a break." Hikari brushed his own scarf fragments off his shoulder. "And either they can spread it to others, or the person behind this Quirk is nearby. Either way, it's all the more reason for us to leave." He turned to Kyomu's class. "So you believe me now, or do we gotta wait for a possessed All Might to smash his way in here? I don't know if the possessed have a collective consciousness or not, but with or without it they're gonna check here eventually. Doubly so if they do."

"You don't know that!" Midoriya argued. "If-"

"Midoriya." The shorter teen closed his mouth and snapped his eyes to Kyomu, who was shaking his head. "Those people outside the gate. They exploded." He turned to Hikari to address him. "Do they survive the explosion?"

"From what I saw?" Hikari shook his head. "No. Explosion kills 'em. Whoever is trying to kill us is making puppets to try and suicide bomb us."

That revelation was enough to get everyone to quiet down and think. Soon enough, grim looks came across some faces, followed by anger. The amount of raw negative emotion was so palpable that the two twins could feel it radiating off of the class, and Kyomu had even taken a step back.

"Then... then that means..." A hand came up to Ashido's mouth as the pink girl backed into a desk. "All those people out the gate... our teachers and classmates..." she gasped out, her oddly colored eyes widened and shaking.

"H-hey, Ashido, it's okay." Jiro had slid over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, though her eyes were focused solely on Hikari. "If our friends or teachers die just because some crazy asshole wants to kill you-"

"From what I've seen they've only exploded when near my. That likely goes for Kyomu, too," Hikari supplied. "They probably only blew the gate to get in here. As long as we two keep our distance we should be fine."

"We... haven't heard any explosions since the gate," Tokoyami agreed. "In fact... I don't even hear any sounds of fighting. Do you, Shoji?"

The masked student shook his head. "No. Nothing. There was some yelling and fighting in the beginning, but... it cut out a bit ago."

The implication was clear enough, and only served to set the class more on edge. If there was one thing victorious heroes were not, it was quiet. There would have been yells of safety once the fighting was over, or even an announcement over the PA system. Something to let them know everything was okay. Silence was not what they should have been hearing right now if there were still victorious heroes. And the fact Aizawa was possessed didn't set a good precedent for the situation outside.

"So what are we going to do?" Mineta asked.

"I told you. Me and my brother have to leave," Hikari said. "We're just putting people in danger by being near them. Not only the unaffected people, but the people who will explode to try and kill us if we get too close. So we need to leave, let the heroes sort this out."

"Then we'll go to the police station." Both brothers' eyes widened at the proclamation, and they looked down at Midoriya. The teen face was set in a worried grimace, but his green eyes were focused and his body steady as he slowly nodded his head.

There was a disbelieving scoff in the student crowd. "You can't be serious-" Bakugo began, but then stopped when Midoriya shot him a glare.

"They're right," he said. "They're putting people in danger by being near. The likeliest place to not be affected by this Quirk would be hero agencies and the police station. If the situation really is this bad, then the heroes would be out to try and contain the situation. The police station should still be manned by the police force, though, even if we're assuming they're stretched thin and out there helping the heroes. If the two go there, not only will they be safe, but they'll be isolated from any of the affected civilians." He looked up at Hikari. "And it gets him in a jail cell."

Hikari grimaced. "Yeesh, harsh." He sighed, slumped his shoulders, and looked at Kyomu. "I don't really like the whole go-to-the-cops plan, but... his logic's sound. There's not really anywhere safer to go I can think of that's close by. And..." He looked at the iced windows and sighed again. "I don't want more people dying just to get at us. Especially if they're your teachers and friends. So... yeah, sure. I'll go to the police station if you're with me, Kyomu."

Blue eyes widened in surprise. Behind him, Kyomu could even sense a shift in his classmates' demeanor when they heard Hikari's words. Him, a villain, caring about the wellbeing of others. Someone who had murdered his own parents as far as they knew. Who-

"Just don't expect me to stay," Hikari added. "I'm breaking out once this whole mess is over with."

And there it was. Everybody went back to sending him judgmental and harsh stares, and Kyomu had to roll his eyes at his brother's words. He even had to wonder how much of that was him trying to keep up his villain facade and how much of it was him just not wanting to get locked in a jail cell for an extended period of time. But that was his brother's problem; Kyomu himself was just anxious to leave.

"Alright," the black-haired twin called out, "so me and my murderous brother-" Hikari clicked his tongue besides him, "- are gonna go to the police station so people don't explode trying to kill us. Any objections?" There were none. "Okay. So you all are going to stay here and weather this all out?"

"Actually, if I could add something." Yaoyorozu rose a hand to gain the class's attention. "Should we not send one or two people with them to make sure they get to the station?"

"Not being passive aggressive at all..." Hikari grumbled. "But fine, whatever."

Kyomu jabbed his elbow into his twin's side, and then looked to Iida. "Is this all good with you, class rep? Us leaving you behind like this? I know I sided with you on the whole 'staying put' thing, but..." He nodded his head at the villain besides him. "Well, you know."

"I'm not really good with any of this, Shinka. But desperate times." He gave a nod. "We'll send two along with you to make sure your brother actually makes it to the station with you."

"Great, fine, good. Now how are we getting out of here?" Hikari asked. "The windows are still iced over and I don't really think you letting Void off the front door is safe, Kyomu. So where're we going?"

"Hm..." Kyomu glanced around the room, and hummed in thought until his head swiveled down at the floor. "There's a class right below us, right?" he asked. "Think, uh... think I can just, y'know, cut through the floor?"

---

"This is the greatest plan, bro. Really. Flawless in its design. I'm shocked your League of Villains hasn't made any headway with such a brilliant mind like you at the front."

"Hey. It's working, isn't it?"

"Yeah, 'til we bump into something and a school full of exploding zombies pounce on us." A large sigh. "We already dealt with this zombie nonsense. Why do we gotta deal with it again?"

"... What do you mean you've dealt with zombies before?"

"Ah, there was this guy during training one time and he had a literal zombie Quirk. You remember that guy, right, Bakugo? The zombie guy? Fun day, huh?"

"Will. You both. Quit. Talking?"

"It's fine, man. My hardlight bubble's soundproof. They can't hear us."

The sound of small explosions. "Great, then they won't hear me blast one of your arms off if you don't shut up!"

"Your classmate's a real soggy guy, Kyomu." Another explosion. "Shutting up."

The plan was really simple. Objective: get Kyomu and Hikari to the police station without alerting the possessed students and staff of UA, as well as anybody else they found along the way affected by the mystery Quirk. It was a plan the class had agreed on, and Bakugo and Midoriya had been selected to escort them to make sure that Kyomu got there safely and that Hikari wouldn't run off.

The method? A bubble. Specifically, a bubble made from hardlight via Hikari's Light Quirk.

Assuming they would automatically lock onto the two brothers and detonate once they determined they were close enough, the four students couldn't risk alerting any of the affected as they made their way through the school. The problem was that the school was positively filled with them. Virtually every single student, teacher, and hero was walking aimless through the halls, dead-eyed with their irises glowing that same bright teal color. Midoriya himself had been disheartened at the sight, while Bakugo had huffed out in anger upon seeing everybody. The twins had more or less been indifferent, though the grim looks on their faces was enough to set the mood for the whole group.

Fortunately, Hikari had an extremely acute control over light with his Quirk. So he'd formed a bubble of hardlight around them, and then made it so that any light that impacted the bubble perfectly refracted around them. In layman's terms? He'd made an invisibility field. And evidently it was, in fact, soundproof as none of the possessed people had noticed Bakugo's shouting. So, assuming nothing went wrong, they could just walk their way to the police station without the worse happening.

They'd managed to creep past half the school before the twins became bored and began talking. Hikari had quieted down after Bakugo's threats, but the two brothers were still conversing quietly among themselves.

It was something Midoriya found odd the further they went, and even odder was Shinka Kyomu's expression. Over the months he'd known him, Midoriya had always known Kyomu's default personality to be a bored, somewhat neutral one. Sometimes he'd grow slightly warmer when conversing or training with classmates. On rare occasions he'd display a sort of... cold fury, usually in the event of fighting villains. The Stain incident, for instance. Bakugo had also made an offhand comment on how he'd been uncharacteristically brutal on one of the villains that had attacked them at the camp.

So when his brother, who was not only a villain but was the one who was responsible for making him an orphan, he'd expected the worst. He'd expected the darker-haired teen to be shooting dirty glares and insults at the lighter-haired one. Worst case it would come to violence. It was part of the reason Midoriya had volunteered to be one of the ones to escort the two to the police station: one because he was one of the only people strong enough to restrain him should the need arise, and because he was one of the few people whose opinion Kyomu respected and would probably listen to.

But none of that was happening. The two were just talking like two normal people, much to Bakugo's chagrin. They kept going back and forth in a friendly manner, and he could have sworn he saw the two smiling from time to time. Smiling. Kyomu. Not that he never smiled, but eighty-five percent of the time it was just because he was either teasing or mocking somebody while the other fifteen percent was genuine. But what he was seeing here flew in the face of all of that.

He stepped closer to Bakugo and elbowed his side. The taller teen growled and looked down at him, but said nothing and waited for Midoriya to speak. "Doesn't this seem... odd to you?" he whispered to him. "They're acting so friendly towards one another."

"Yeah. You'd think they hate each other with how much the idiots stab each other," he whispered back. "Couldn't say why they're acting so chummy. Especially why Shinka of all people is acting that way with a villain. A parent-killing villain."

"This parent-killing villain has really good ears," Hikari called back, causing the two to flinch. "What? We almost never get a chance to hang out anymore. Why is it so surprising we enjoy this time together?"

"Maybe because you're a villain? And Void Boy over there hates villains' guts with a passion?" Bakugo looked over to Kyomu, who was doing his best to keep his head forwards. "Shinka, you can't honestly be calm right now with somebody you should hate."

Kyomu coughed. "Ah, yeah man, it's, you, y-you know how it is, man. Y'know?" He clicked his tongue. "It is what it is."

Hikari snorted. "Smooth."

"Hey, I thought you were shutting up?" Kyomu snapped before turning his head to face Bakugo. "And what about you, huh? You used to hate Midoriya-"

"I still hate him."

"And yet you don't call him Deku anymore. And every time he opens his mouth around you your mouth doesn't start frothing like you're about to bite him."

At hearing this, Midoriya glanced up at Bakugo. He saw the blonde giving him the same glance before he scoffed and turned away. "You said we should get along," Midoriya explained. "Ever since the Sports Festival you've been trying to ease some of the friction between us so we could work together in a professional sense." He paused, and then shook his head. "No, even before that. Even more than a decade ago, at that stream."

"Oh, yeah." Hikari snapped his fingers and pointed up as the realization hit him. "That was back when I decked that one kid in the face, right? I remember."

"Yeah, our parents died the same night," Kyomu reminded him.

"... Oh. Yeah."

The four continued to walk in silence after that. Midoriya would continue to stare at Hikari's back, even as the four finally passed through the front doors and made their way to the destroyed security gate. It was only when they finally passed the gates and made it to the sidewalk did he finally decide to speak once again.

"Shinka Hikari." The addressed made a hum of acknowledgement, but otherwise kept his back to Midoriya as they walked. "Why did you do what you did?"

"How many times do I have to explain to you I didn't want my brother to explode?" he asked.

The teen's green eyes hardened. "You know what I mean."

"Ah." Hikari exhaled slowly. "You wouldn't understand," he said, "and even if you did, regardless, I'm not telling."

"Just like that? That's all you have to say to?" The short teen shook his head. "You don't think your brother deserves to know why you-"

"Midoriya." This came from Kyomu, who had turned his head so that their eyes could meet. He was sent such a harsh glare that Midoriya actually found himself shrinking back. "Drop it."

He blinked. "Drop it?" he repeated, barely above a whisper before he found his confidence and straightened his back. "Drop it? You... Shinka, it's your parents! And the villain that killed them-!"

"I know why he did it." Kyomu's head went back forwards, and at the same time the four crossed a corner. "He's right. You wouldn't understand."

---

"He's right. You wouldn't understand."

This was one of the reasons he really didn't want people to see him and his brother together. Questions start getting asked. Questions like "why aren't you as violent with him as any other villain' or 'why did he do what he did, and why do you seem so indifferent about it?' and other questions along those lines. The problem was that he'd never made up any good excused for these questions because he never foresaw this kind of event happening. He'd always been so careful meeting his brother because of this kind of thing.

And over to the left he could see that Hikari wasn't faring any better. His walk and gait seemed confident, but his face seemed concerned and he was chewing on his lower lip as his red eyes occasionally flicked over to Kyomu as he spoke to Midoriya. He was concerned, and while Kyomu was doing a much better job at hiding it, so was he. It was a precarious lie to begin with that was only so successful because nobody bothered to look too closely at a case where a villain confessed. That lie could only be maintained as long as they never drew attention to it.

These kinds of questions drew a lot of attention.

"Were your parents really that bad?" Bakugo asked. He sounded unsure, like he was trying to guess the answer to all these questions. "Is that it? They abuse you till you get a shiny new Quirk and find out you could just blast them to kingdom come? Huh?"

"No, there's no way." Midoriya shook his head and refuted the claim. "Their mother was a hero. There's no way she could have been an abusive... was she?" he questioned them. "Shinka, were-?"

"How 'bout we change the subject?" Kyomu suggested. "You think we made the right move leaving the rest of the class in that room? I had to drop the Void portal since we're going so far away, and a locked door won't hold them off for long if they decide to bust in. The fact I used Void to cut a big hole in the floor doesn't really help much, either."

It got them to quiet down about Hikari's reasoning, at least. At the very least he was hoping this moment of silence they were taking was on of thought and not one where they were wondering why he was so quick to deflect questions.

"Who am I kidding? They're two of the smartest people in the class, right next to Iida, Todoroki, and Yaoyorozu. And me, of course," Kyomu thought. "They're suspicious as hell and this isn't gonna go away. No amount of avoiding is gonna change that now. Egh. I'll deal with it as it comes. Can't do much else otherwise because I didn't plan for this."

"Iida really didn't want to move the whole class," Midoriya provided. "He had a hard time just letting us go. And besides, I... don't think it really matters all that much. Just look around."

He had a point. As they made their way down the streets, they didn't see even one single person who wasn't affected by the strange Quirk. From building to building street street to street, there were people everywhere. Men, women, children, and even some heroes just standing or wandering aimlessly, and all of them had that eerie teal glow to their eyes. And even more eerie was the noise, or lack thereof. It seemed when they didn't lock onto one of the brothers, they were completely idle.

"Yeah, this Quirk spread to multiple cities," Hikari said. "Thousands, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands... makes sense if the possessed people can spread it to others. Like a virus."

"Even then, it couldn't have spread so fast so quickly. In a single afternoon," Midoriya muttered. "There would have been warnings, heroes to take care of the problem, police checkpoints and evacuations... it couldn't have gone out of hand so quickly."

"They only ever freak out when they see a Shinka," the white-haired teen added. "Maybe it's like this: person with this Quirk touched one person, and they, for the most part, acted completely normal as they inconspicuously went to other people, touched them, and spread it. Meanwhile the root of the problem, the one with the Quirk, hops onto a train, goes to another city, touches someone at the station, then keeps going from station to station through multiple cities. Even with a couple of hours, one infected touches one normal person to make two infected, two makes four, four to eight, etcetera... and that's just with one city. By the point people noticed the problem it would have been way too late."

A terrifying prospect, really. Moreso considering whoever it was behind this was after the Shinkas, and even moreso that this same person was willing to let people affected by this Quirk self-destruct in an effort to try and kill them. Frankly speaking, this was a devastating attack, and Kyomu had no idea how large the repercussions would be after this was over. Especially considering this person was gunning for them. That was going to open up all sorts of uncomfortable questions, and he didn't even have the answers to them.

Why the two brothers? Why them specifically? And who even was it? Somebody who knew one of the villains that Kyomu had killed? No possible way; he didn't leave traces. Nobody but Hikari knew, and know way he had told anybody. Somebody who had a grudge against the League and was trying to get at Hikari, one of their arguably most powerful members? Not likely, otherwise they wouldn't be going for Hikari, too. A friend of their parents who wanted to avenge them by killing the villainous son who murdered them? Again, not likely, otherwise they wouldn't be going for Kyomu as well. So why? What did they do? And to who?

He honestly didn't know. And when he looked to Hikari, who only shook his head, he knew that Hikari didn't know, either.

"The police station should be around this corner, right, Midoriya?" Kyomu asked as he raised a hand and pointed at an approaching turn. "I'm not really all that familiar with the area."

Midoriya looked forwards and, after examining the area for a moment, gave an affirmative hum. "Yeah, it's just ahead," he said with a nod. "Hopefully they'll already be at work with the heroes to contain the situation and figure out what to do. I just- hm?"

There was a buzzing sound. The four teenagers stopped and looked towards the source, which was coming from Midoriya's pocket. His mobile phone. The two Shinkas looked at him in curiosity while Bakugo's eyebrows creased in anger as he scowled at the smaller student. Midoriya, just as confused as the two brothers, slowly reached into his pocket and dug for his phone.

"Who in the world is calling me right now?" he wondered as he brought the device out. "It can't be my mother, could it? Calling to see if I'm okay? No, that-" He cut himself off and stared wide-eyed at the phone's screen. Bakugo craned his neck over his shoulder to get a look at the screen, and he, too, seized up in shock when he saw the image. The two brothers blinked at each other before they stepped behind Midoriya to look at the screen.

Upon seeing it, Hikari hissed through his teeth while Kyomu began to feel seething rage.

It was a picture of the remainder of Class 1-A, all lined up singe-file. Besides them were their teachers: Aizawa, Midnight, Present Mic, and Ectoplasm to name a few. All Might was there, too, though in his true, underpowered form. And all of them, from the students to the teachers, had blank, empty looks and eyes that glowed a bright teal.

And right at the bottom of the screen was a simple text. It was labeled as Uraraka's text, which Kyomu assumed meant they used her phone. The text read as such: "Bring the two Shinka boys to the school, and I will release everybody who has been touched by my Quirk. If this is not done within one hour, they die."

"Oh, you gotta be kidding," Bakugo seethed as he rubbed a hand viciously through his hair. "This psycho is holding our whole class hostage now just to get to them!?"

"This guy..." Kyomu had to take a deep breath just to calm himself. "Okay. This doesn't change anything. We're gonna keep going to the police station." He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. "'They'... the hell does 'they' mean? Just the class, or... he wouldn't seriously threaten to kill all these people just to get to us, would he? Would he!? That's... what did Hikari or I do to make this person so desperate!?"

Hikari widened his eyes in surprise. "You sure?" he asked. "Thought they were your pals. You don't want to-"

"He's right," Midoriya breathed out. His whole body was shuddering, and Bakugo, who stood besides him, wasn't faring much better, but they both kept their composure as they faced the Light user. "If you two go there, that just puts them in danger. We can't trust the words of a villain, no matter how good it sounds." He shook his head. "Besides. We have an hour. That's more than enough time for the heroes to fix this."

"What heroes?" Hikari asked. Midoriya ignored him and pocketed his phone, and the four went from walking to sprinting towards the police station. "Seriously, Midoriya, I haven't seen a single hero around helping, so what do you think-"

"I don't want to hear it from you!" Midoriya yelled at him as the four ran. "Kyomu agrees with me, and Bakugo hasn't raised any objections! That's more than enough for me to go on! I don't need to hear it from a villain, and especially from a villain that killed me friend's parents and almost killed All Might!"

Kyomu, running besides the pair, heard this and opened his mouth to argue, but at that point the four rounded the final corner to the police station. After doing so, he saw something that made his eyes widen in panic. "Whoa, guys, stop! Stop-stop-stop-STOP!" He held his arms out to the side to the slow them down, and the abrupt halt in movement caused the soles of their shoes to slide along the pavement as they ground to ta halt.

They did, thankfully, halt. Bakugo personally shot Kyomu a hostile glare, but when he caught Midoriya and Hikari staring ahead with wide eyes, he followed their glares to the point of interest. It was only then did his jaw drop.

They'd arrived at the police station, alright. It wasn't in one piece, though- in fact, it was on fire. None of the officers seemed seriously hurt, at the very least. Half of them were turned into teal-eyed puppets and were attacking the remaining half, but otherwise they were alright. Otherwise it was complete chaos.

"How did we not hear... oh." Hikari's eyes blinked in realization as his eyes tilted up. "I made the bubble soundproof. I guess that goes both ways. Whoops."

Kyomu suspect that, were the situation not so dire, Midoriya would have actually slapped his brother judging by the look he was giving him. Which in itself was amazing, as, other than smashing in villains, Midoriya was one of the most mild-mannered people Kyomu knew. He really must not like him that much.

"They're attacking the police station." Kyomu's eyes focused in on one of the officers who was sprawled out on the ground. One of the teal-eyed officers was running towards him, and the floored officer tried to crawl away. He was too slow, and the possessed officer hopped right above him and grabbed his right hand. There was a flash of teal energy where the two hands made contact, and the officer on the ground spasmed briefly before his brown eyes began to grow teal. He slowly stood up off the ground, and afterwards the two possessed officers sprinted off. "And the possessed people can infect others through contact," he noted. "Looks like your theory's panning out, Hikari."

Before anybody could respond, there was a bright flash of light as an explosion went off in the station. A part of it collapsed into a heap of rubble, which had no time to settle before whatever was buried beneath it began to move around and shift the rubble. Midoriya was about ready to jump out of the bubble before a large, muscled arm with pitch-black skin burst out from the rubble. Upon seeing that arm, he, along with Bakugo, froze.

"Oi, oi, oi, oi... what the hell is this?" A large, nervous grin began to spread over Bakugo's face as the body attached to the arm began to dig out. "What the hell is that thing doing here!?"

"Eh?" Hikari squinted and leaned his head forwards. He saw the upper body of the thing digging out of the rubble. His red eyes immediately locked onto the exposed brain on its head and the beak in place of a mouth, at which point he made an "ah" sound of realization. "It's Nomu. Now I remember; thing got captured after USJ. Shigaraki stressed over it for weeks. Thought it got carted off to Tartarus?"

"They... couldn't legally put it in a maximum-security prison since it didn't display signs of sapience. It was considered inhumane..." Midoriya slowly answered. "The surviving Nomu from the Stain incident were kept somewhere else, but this Nomu was considered so dangerous they left it in the care of the police. All this fighting must have freed it!"

Humming, Kyomu gave a nod. "Ah, that's, that's real great. So what are-"

This was when Midoriya did jump out of the bubble, right when the Nomu was barreling towards an officer who was blindly firing at it. This had two effects: one was that Bakugo began swearing up a storm and launched after Midoriya with his Quirk. The second thing to happen was that all of the possessed people swiveled their heads towards the two teens. The bubble, thankfully, hadn't shattered upon their leaving and instead just wavered slightly before it steadied itself.

"Oh, you're kiddng." The two teens shot each other concerned glares as the Nomu snapped its head from the panicking officer to the two teens flying towards it. Kyomu had to suppress an annoyed growl as a black portal opened in front of him. "Now I gotta go deal with this."

Hikari started and reached towards his brother. "Kyomu, they'll see you-!"

It was too late. Kyomu had slipped through the portal before Hikari could stop him, and jumped out of a second portal right in front of Bakugo and Midoriya. He grabbed Midoriya's wrist and twisted midair, and then released to throw him out of the way. Right as he did so, an onyx fist punched the space that Midoriya had previously occupied and displaced the air with enough force that Bakugo, who had been trailing right behind Midoriya, was flung away.

"This thing matched All Might blow-for-blow. You're not strong enough, you guys!" Kyomu twisted once more and landed on his feet, facing the Nomu, who stared down at him. "Void can do it, though. All I gotta do is drop him in... wait, what?"

The Nomu wasn't making any moves at him. It definetely was acknowledging his existence, as it was staring blankly at him, but otherwise it wasn't moving. Confused, Kyomu leaned to the left. Its eyes followed him, but the rest of its body stayed still.

"... You're not attacking me...?" Kyomu muttered to himself. "What's the deal with that?" He scrunched his face in puzzled confusion, but then dropped it and shrugged. "Weird, but whatever. I'm still wasting you."

He snapped his fingers. A hole opened up under the creature, and it dropped into Void. The portal closed right after. And then the air displaced all around him, and he found a panting Hikari next to him, his body hunched over and his hands on his knees.

"You reckless idiot," he breathed out. "I managed get the invisibility bubble back around you before any of them saw you, but don't make me do that again. Almost gave me a heart attack."

"Needed to make sure the bird monster didn't splatter my friends. But sure, if you promise not to tell Shigaraki I dropped his pet monster into another dimension." Kyomu cast his eyes down to the ground and nodded his head down. "What was up with that? I thought that thing was a mindless killing machine?"

"Don't know, don't care." He sighed and straightened his body out. "More importantly... we have a problem." He pointed in the direction behind him. "Look. You tossed Midoriya right onto one of them."

Kyomu's breath hitched in his throat. His head spun in the direction his brother was pointing, and then he hissed out when he saw the small teen's body lying right on top of one of the possessed. He seemed to realize the position he was in, and he grew panicked and began to struggle, but was too late as the possessed police officer's hand reached up and touched his elbow. Midoriya spasmed, and his green eyes began to glow teal.

Unfortunately, Bakugo hadn't fared much better at all. His displacement due to the Nomu's punch had thrust him right into the middle of a large group of possessed officers. He'd tried fighting back and protecting himself, but he had enough sense to know he couldn't use too much excessive force on them. That combined with their numbers allowed the officers to literally dogpile him and bury him under their bodied. Seconds later they all slipped off of him and a teal-eyed Bakugo rose up off the ground.

By the end of it, besides from the two Shinka teens, there wasn't anybody left in the vicinity of the crumbling station that wasn't possessed. The twins' faces were set in a grim tone, Kyomu's moreso as he looked forlornly at the two possessed UA students. Hikari glanced at his brother's face before sighing and turning around.

"Across the street is a building," he said. "We gotta leave. Use Void to get to the roof over there. I'll be with you in a second."

Face sullen, Kyomu gave a nod. A flash of black later he was standing on top of the rooftop, and two seconds later he perceived a flash of white light followed by his brother stepping up besides them. A few seconds of silence passed before Kyomu's composure came out and he began yelling.

"Aw, that's great! That's just great!" In his rage he kicked at the roof and sent some loose stone flying away. Hikari watched the spectacle silently with his arms crossed as Kyomu stomped back and forth in front of him. "Some creep's trying to kill us and my whole class, no, my whole school is under control a Quirk that's gonna blow them all up if we don't give ourselves up!" He groaned out loudly, grabbed at his hair, and faced Hikari. "What did you do, man!? Who did you and your group of villain flunkies piss off so much that some wacko is trying to kill us!?"

"Pretty sure if that were the case they'd be after the whole League instead of us," Hikari demurred. "What about you? You're out there killing villains at night. How do you know you didn't kill somebody that was important to whoever is doing this?"

Kyomu rounded on his brother and held up one finger. "One, I didn't ever leave witnesses." He held up a second finger. "Two, I stopped doing that." Hikari raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Kyomu sighed out and slumped his shoulders. "Alright, yelling isn't gonna get us anywhere. We gotta figure out where this guy is and get him."

"Get him?" Hikari repeated. "You mean kill him?"

"Kill the psycho, Quirk'll probably deactivate automatically. It's our best chance at freeing everybody," Kyomu explained. "Yeah, sure, there's gonna be problems later. Problems like people asking me why they were after me and how the situation got solved. There's witnesses who heard them shouting my name. My class heard." He ran a hand over his face. "But I'd rather deal with all those problems than having my friends explode. And there's nobody else that can help us on this. So we're killing them."

Hikari cupped his chin and dipped his head down. Humming in thought, his eyes flicked to Kyomu. "I could bring the League in on this," he suggested. "Shigaraki might help since my life's on the line here, too."

Kyomu shook his head. Violently. "Hell no. A villain is responsible for all this and you wanna bring more in?"

"Y'know, technically, I'm a villain. So that argument is kind of weak."

"Yeah, and technically so am I, so shut up."

"... Fair point," Hikari conceded. "Alright. Find the villain, kill the villain, save everyone. Fine. I can get behind that." The white-haired teen walked over to a nearby venting unit and leaned a shoulder on it. "So step one is finding him. Step two is make the rest up afterwards. That about the gist of your plan?"

The other twin nodded. "About so."

"Yeah, thought so. Ugh." He shook his head. "I can't think of anything better, so fine, we'll go with it. Step one: find the villain." He looked at Kyomu. "Villain would be at the school, right? Since he sent that message to Midoriya?"

"... Not necessarily." Brows furrowed, Kyomu leaned on the venting unit besides Hikari and began to tap his foot in thought. "What do we know about the Quirk?" he asked.

"The user can possess people. Possessed people can spread the Quirk to others via direct contact. There doesn't seem to be a limit to the amount of people that can be possessed. Proximity to the user doesn't seem to matter, either." Hikari slowly recited the details off his fingers while Kyomu watched. "The possessed people can self-destruct. They seem to be following the instruction of finding and blowing us up while possessing everybody they see. Whether these instructions were made beforehand or if they have a mental connection to the Quirk user is unclear. That's it."

Nodding along, Kyomu slowly breathed out and extended two fingers. "Okay. So, based on all this information, there's two places this guy is at. He's either at the school or he's on a train." He turned to Hikari. "I'm banking on him being on the train."

A beat passed between the two. Hikari cocked an eye at his brother, but Kyomu's face remained still. The black-haired twin had a sure look in his eyes, though, even though Hikari had no idea how he had come to that conclusion. So he couldn't help but ask. "And how'd you come to that conclusion, detective?"

"A lot of it depends on your 'the Quirk user used the public train' theory," Kyomu explained. "If this guy is so desperate to kill us, then he would want to evade capture as long as possible. And an attack like this, well, heroes could track the source easily." He scoffed and waved a hand to the streets below. "It'd be like tracking a disease. You just compile all the infected together and work backwards towards the origin point. Take a hour, hour and half tops for the pros. Hell, they teach it in school." He pointed his index finger up. "The guy stays mobile, though? And makes multiple source points on top of that? Lot harder to pin him down. Best way to do that would be through car or train, and train would have stations full of people to help spread the infection. By the time the heroes would catch on it'd be too late. Already spread too far."

"That's a lot of speculation and theory," Hikari noted. "We don't have any actual proof he used the trains. Or that, if he did, that he's still on one."

"Yeah, but the only other place would be the school," the other twin continued. "Big building, compact, full of possessed pro heroes and students nobody would want to risk getting hurt. Plus he'd be waiting for us there. Makes sense that would be where he is." He sighed out loud. "The problem, is that we don't know if he personally sent that message or if he just instructed one of those affected by the Quirk to do it for him, nor do we know if his power is even capable of that or not. So we also don't know for a fact if he's there, either."

Hikari hummed. "Both seem plausible," he agreed. "Problem is we don't have any solid proof for either or."

"Not only that, but we don't have time to check both. UA, sure, but if he's on a train he could be anywhere. We'd need as much time as possible to search, and checking UA would eat into that."

It truly was a problematic situation. It was an unspoken agreement between the two that giving themselves up was off the table- they weren't too keen on dying. By what to do when they didn't know where the one responsible was? Part of Kyomu wanted to go and check UA anyways on the off chance that he was there. And even if he wasn't there, they were fast. Fast enough to check all the rail lines in this city and the surrounding cities, though? He wasn't too sure of their chance of success doing that.

He couldn't help but notice how frustrating the whole situation was, and had to wonder if normal heroes had to deal with this whenever they dealt with crafty villains. He couldn't fathom how they got up in the morning expecting this kind of headache.

"Hey, isn't there a train station, like, right next to UA? In fact, don't you take it?" Hikari's sudden question caused Kyomu's head to pick up and his jaw to slowly drop open. "You do take a train from your orphanage to school, right?"

"... No. No way. It couldn't be that easy." He couldn't resist smacking himself on the forehead. "Is it that easy?"

"I mean... close to UA. Train. Affected could tell him we showed up and they could just keep us captive as he strolls right off the train and walks to UA. Until then he could just hide there." It was such stupidly simply logic his brother was reciting that Kyomu felt like kicking himself for not thinking of it first. "It makes sense. And I don't have any better ideas about where he could be."

Kyomu's head thumped onto the back of the metal unit they were leaning on, followed by an exasperated breath leaving him. "I really don't believe he'd be so stupid to do something so simple, but I can't think of anywhere better to search. So sure. Let's go check the train."

---

"Goddammit, he was that stupid."

Going back to UA at their speeds had practically taken no time at all. They'd found the train station with Kyomu's directions and had hid on a nearby rooftop to observe the raised station right next to the raised tracks. Sure enough, there was a large concentration of affected individuals clustered around the bullet train and standing all around it. Like sentries, or guards. More dark forms and teal lights could be seen inside the train, indicating that more were in there.

By far the most damning piece of evidence that they found the right place was the extremely suspicious individual they could see at the conductor's car at the front, through the wide window. He was sitting on chair right next to the motionless, possessed conductor next to him. He had glowing teal eyes like everyone else, but he seemed much more animated compared to the rest. Shifting in his seat constantly, tapping his foot, a phone in his hand that he was periodically checking. It was behavior they had yet to see anybody else with those eyes display. So, in all likelihood, that was the root of the problem. The owner of the Quirk.

The relief Kyomu felt was overshadowed by the fact his brother had thought of this before he did.

"Oh baby, Occam's Razor wins again." Kyomu didn't even need to turn his head. He could feel the smug grin on his twin's face as he was leaning over him and leering down at the train. "Is this what you hero people do all the time? 'Cause this is easy. Maybe I should hang up my villain cloak and take up a cape."

The darker-haired twin inhaled sharply. "The guy at the driver's car seems like the one. Not acting like the rest of them. What do you think the chances are it's him?"

"Oh, I'd say a solid ninety-five percent." The lighter-haired brother crouched down next to his twin to get a better view of the window. "Look at it. That train's guarded. That combined with the fact we predicted he'd be on a train-"

"I predicted he was on a train."

"- I still win, so whatever-" He shot a cheeky grin at Kyomu, who scoffed and rolled his eyes, "- combined with the fact that he's the only one that displays any real intelligence compared to the rest? There's almost no way it's not him. So what's the plan?"

"Plan, huh?" Kyomu intoned. "We really need a plan? I can see him. I can make a Void portal between his head and shoulders and cut right through his whole neck."

Hikari shook his head. "I'd like to at least talk to him before he dies. Find out the specifics of his Quirk. If he did this alone or if there're others. Things like that."

Kyomu nodded, and then hopped up to his feet from his prone position on the roof. "Fair enough. Tell you what: I'll go ask."

And without further words, he hopped right through a black portal, emerged from a second right above the train, fell down, and landed right on the window of the driver's car. If that wasn't enough to gain the attention of the man in the conductor's cabin, he knocked loudly on the glass, which immediately earned the man's attention.

"Hey!" Kyomu called through the glass. "You the guy responsible for all this?"

The man, dark-haired, light-skinned, and otherwise unremarkable aside from the eyes, was startled in his seat and actually dropped his phone. The startled face soon turned into a rage-filled glare that was directed right at Kyomu, who largely unaffected and just stared curiously at the man. He shouted something to the possessed conductor besides him, and the older man's hands started to fly over the train's controls.

And then it jostled.

"Seriously?" Kyomu muttered to himself. The glass itself was already slick, but when the train began to move forwards he felt himself begin to slide down it. He clicked his tongue as he fell off the glass and fell right into a Void portal, only to pop out of a second one right above the train. He silently landed on top of the moving train, and had to lower himself slightly to improve his balance as the train began to pick up in speed. A flash of light besides him signaled his brother appearing next to him.

"So, he have anything to say?" Hikari asked. The train continued to accelerate, and he stumbled slightly at the sudden loss of balance.

"Ah. Not really." He could already feel annoyance begin to bubble up inside of him as the train continued to accelerate. The fact he wasn't able to stop the train in time only increased said annoyance. "This is one of those mag-lev trains, Hikari. You know how fast they go?"

He scratched the side of his head. "Somewhere around the region of three-hundred kilometers, right?"

"Yeah, sure, three-hundred!" By now the brothers were forced to fully crouch down and brace themselves as much as possible due to the train's speed. "We're pretty strong physically speaking, but we have literally nothing to grab onto up here!" Kyomu was forced to yell this due to the wind roaring past their bodies, and even doing that he was barely able to hear himself. "We gotta stop this thing before we get flung off and this guy gets away!"

"Just cut the roof of the car with Void and let us in the train!" Hikari yelled back.

"Into the train car full of people that will explode if we go in there!?"

"Oh! Then I'm open to suggestions!"

"I was hoping you had ideas!" Kyomu thought. "Alright, alright. I'm smart. I can figure this out." He really hoped he could figure this out, at the very least. Especially considering potentially everybody he knew and loads of civilians and heroes were depending on the two brothers to stop this madman. What was stopping one little train compared to that? "Okay. Bullet trains. How do they work? Magnets. What can our Quirks do to magnets?" He bit his tongue. "Practically nothing! Maybe if I use Void to cut out the bottom. The magnets that propel this thing are down there, right? Except I can't see them! Maybe Hikari could... no, we're already moving too fast! No way he could position himself in a way he could use Light to shoot near the bottom and melt the bottom!"

His hair was whipping wildly around his fact, and for every second this continued it grew harder and harder to hold onto their positions. Their fingers were already starting to dig into the train's roof, and even so they could see themselves sliding backwards. They'd fall off entirely at this rate if they didn't hurry.

"Really wish Midoriya didn't get taken. Could use a hand right about now... Wait. Hand. Hands... hands!" His eyes lit up as a thought came to him. "Could it... maybe! Let's go for it!"

"Hikari!" he called out. "You remember months ago when you broke out of prison and fought Endeavor!? That hand thing you did!?"

Though his eyes were squinting due to the wind rushing past his face, Hikari managed to face his brother and give the best nod he could despite the wind pushing his head back. "Yeah!" he yelled. "What about it!?"

"Could you make a bunch and have them stop the train!? You could have the hands grab the train and halt it! Could you do that!?"

The Light user shook his head. "That technique doesn't have that good a range! I'd need a lot more free movement to pull something like that off!"

"Range, huh!?" Gritting his teeth, Kyomu slowly lifted up his left hand. "I'll give you all the range you need if that's the problem!"

He snapped his fingers, though due to the wind it was inaudible.

Twenty Void portals appeared in a circle all around Hikari. At the same time, twenty Void portal appeared alongside the entirety of the train, with ten at each side. Hikari didn't even need instruction from Kyomu to realize what his plan was, and the second he saw all those black portals, a grin came to his face. His red irises began to glow bright, and along with them a great, white light began to emanate from Hikari's back. Almost explosively, twenty prehensile, white arms made from pure light burst out from his back. Each hand shot through one of the Void portals and appeared through their respective portals alongside the train. The hands grew in size, and then zoomed forwards. Five hands from each side grabbed onto the train, while the remaining half of the hands grabbed onto the train tracks.

The train jolted, and a horrible grinding noise could be heard. Hikari's face was scrunched up from exertion, and there were even some times when he almost slipped off of the train, but Kyomu could feel it. The wind dragging against him was slowly becoming easier to resist, and the buildings flying past them were slowing down. But he could see Hikari was having a hard time of it, and when he looked back, he saw that his brother actually did slip and lose his grip.

Hikari gasped out, but he had only slipped back a few centimeters before another portal opened in front of him and a hand reached out to grab his wrist. His glowing, red eyes flicked over to Kyomu, who was only able to hold onto the train with one hand while using the other to hold his brother. Seeing this, Hikari's eyes glowed even bright and more light flared off of the arms coming from his back. The area around them began to darken as white wisps flowing in from the air all around them and into Hikari's body. The train slowed more and more, and it was only after thirty seconds of this did the train slow down sufficiently enough for the twins to stand on their feet.

"Kyomu! Get to the conductor!" Hikari screamed at him. "I can't keep this up forever so go and make him stop the train!"

He didn't need to be told twice. The hand released itself from gripping Hikari as Kyomu spun around and sprinted up the length of the train. When he reached the end, he jumped up through a portal that opened up in his path. He went through, and his momentum carried him through a second portal and straight towards the train's front window which, after it was washed over it a wave of black, ceased to exist. Kyomu flew into the cabin and right into the man who they had presumed was the owner of the Quirk, who was promptly slammed into the wall. Not giving him a moment of reprieve, Kyomu covered his hand in Void and pointed it right at the man's head, who groaned and slowly looked down at the teen glaring up at him.

"I'm willing to bet if you die the Quirk'll wear off," Kyomu hissed, "so turn the Quirk off and release everybody before I erase your head."

If it were any other time he would have acknowledged the pure fury the man's eyes were radiating at him. As it was, Kyomu's own anger was vastly overshadowing it, and after a brie stare-down between the two, the man reluctantly held his head. The glow left his teal eyes, and besides him the possessed conductor fell down onto his back. A quick glance from Kyomu revealed he was still breathing.

"Every single person is free?" When the man gave a confirmatory nod, Kyomu slammed his head into the floor and walked over to the train's control panel. He found the train's throttle and tore it down, and he breathed out a sigh of relief when he felt the train shut down.

That done, Kyomu turned around. The man had picked himself up off the ground and was in a sitting position and leaning against the back wall of the car. He was glowering up at Kyomu, but was otherwise silent. Kyomu just silently stared back and only moved when he heard a soft thump land besides him, and briefly turned to see Hikari standing next to him.

They both glanced at each other, and then both turned their eyes to the man. He continued to sit against the wall and looked back at them, but was otherwise still. More silence passed before Hikari decided to break it.

"So... this is the guy," he stated. "Doesn't look like much."

"They almost never do," Kyomu said. "A lot of people died just because you were trying to kill us. Mind explaining to us why?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "You're one to talk," he muttered in a bitter tone. "You're a murderer yourself."

"Pretty sure I never blew up random civilians or threatened to kill a class of teenagers. I'm not that jaded." Shaking his head, Kyomu rolled his eyes and leaned back onto the control console. "You don't even know how much trouble you've caused us. I don't even know how we're gonna explain to the police and heroes why you were gunning for us so hard."

At that, the man scoffed. "It doesn't matter. They won't remember a thing." His eyes briefly glowed teal as he held up a hand that briefly glowed a teal color. "My Quirk, Drill Sergeant, is the ability to directly control others. Like a queen ant controlling drone ants. It works by hijacking people's bodies and forcing them to produce pheromones that shut down most of their mental faculties and slaves them to my will. The explosions they're able to perform is a simple chemical reaction from said pheromones that can be triggered at will." He sighed and slumped back against the wall. "Because of the shock the pheromones take to my victims' systems, their memory gets damaged. About thirty to forty hours after they become affected. Nobody will remember a single thing."

"Pfft. Well, that's convenient," Kyomu noted. At the very least it saved the two brothers a world of trouble following the aftermath of this mess. Worst case they could feign ignorance to the event and pretend to be as clueless as everybody else would be. "And let me guess. You named your Quirk after a song?"

"What if I did?"

"I just know somebody who did the same thing. Everybody in my class teases him about it." Kyomu cleared his throat. "How about we start with names? I'm Shinka Kyomu. The guy glaring rather heatedly at you besides me is my brother, Shinka Hikari. What's your name?"

"... Hirose Akame."

The name hit the twins' ears. It meant nothing to them at first, but for Kyomu a ring of familiarity grew in him. He frowned and closed his eyes as he thought about the name, and after some seconds of searching his eyes flew open in realization, followed by a small shock to his system.

Besides him, Hikari had a similar reaction. "Hirose..." he said slowly. "The man who killed our parents was named Hirose. Wasn't that what you told me, Kyomu?"

"Hirose Kenji," he confirmed. "So you're related to him, then."

"I am. I was his brother." The man nodded. "And you are the one that killed him, Shinka Kyomu."

"You're not wrong. What I'm wondering is why you're pointing the finger at me and not my brother." He nodded to Hikari. "Officially he killed him. That's what we said."

At this, the man scoffed. He scoffed and let out an unsettling chuckle while mumbling incoherently to himself under his breath. "Oh, please. I know what the reports said." His head snapped up and the angry glare on his face was formed once more. "It doesn't take an idiot to figure out that your brother's Light Quirk doesn't cause absolute destruction like your Void does. Do you know there's pictures of that crater your power made when you destroyed your house? You can't tell me your brother, even with his screwed-up breeding, could have used Light like that." Frustrated, he balled his hand into a fist and hit the door besides him. "Everybody is so blind. Anybody with the wherewithal could dig far enough into those reports and find the truth if they really, truly wanted to. But why would anybody bother? The villain was caught, right? Why look any deeper? It would take somebody with a vested interest in the case to actually scrutinize the faults in all the facts and come to the true conclusion." He pointed at Kyomu. "You killed my brother." His finger shifted to Hikari. "You lied and covered it up, and in doing so ensured my brother never got true justice for his murder. You went behind bars while his murderer roamed free!"

Kyomu's eyes narrowed. "I don't think you get to preach about justice when you held I don't even know how many people hostage before blowing some up." He clicked his tongue. "And you'll have to forgive me for not feeling pity for the guy who stabbed our parents."

He sounded confident on the outside, and at the very least he could take comfort in that. What he couldn't take comfort in was the fact that some random man had managed to find the minuscule holes in their story and correctly concluded it to be false. This man, and nobody else. It made him wonder why it was that nobody else had discovered the truth if it really was this easy. Was it truly just because nobody was interested enough to look closely at it? After all these years? It was fairly likely, since they both corroborated the stories and nobody else was involved. There would have been no reason for anybody to dig any deeper. Anybody except this man in front of them who was directly involved just because of that villain.

From the way Hikari's posture shifted besides him, he could see that the thought was troubling to him as well. But Kyomu managed to tell himself that it was fine. They'd made it this far without anybody noticing, after all, even after Hikari's climb to a famous villain. The truth would likely remain buried forever as long as they kept up appearances. Because once Akame was dead, there really would be nobody left connected to that event besides them.

"You wouldn't get it," Akame mumbled to himself as his head lowered. "It's everybody's fault. Your fault. Your brother's fault. The man who sent Kenji on that damn mission."

Kyomu's eyebrow rose in interest. "It was my assumption that he invaded our home and stabbed our parents just because he wanted to rob us," he said. "That's what he had a history of doing. Was I incorrect?"

Akame shook his lowered head. "That was just a cover made for him by the man he worked under. The excuse he fell back on whenever he failed in his mission and was caught. There was no way he could have ever told anybody the real truth, so he just said he robbed heroes for their valuables. It was a more believable story, anyways."

"You keep mentioning a man," Hikari interrupted. "We thought that Kenji was acting on his own. You're saying that somebody told him to hit our home and hurt our parents?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

The eyes of both twins narrowed, and the temperature in the cabin seemed to drop some. "Tell us who he is," Kyomu demanded. "Who is he? Why did he do what he did? What did he have Kenji do to heroes if not rob them?"

At that, Akame laughed. It was a low, unsettling laugh that put the two brothers off and cause them to briefly glance at one another. "What? You wanna go after him? You'd die," Akame spat. "That thing isn't a man. It's a force of nature. It was a being so ridiculously powerful that it took another force of nature just to stop him, and even then only temporarily. If All Might couldn't defeat him for good, the hell chance do you two think you have?"

"A villain All Might couldn't defeat?" Kyomu questioned. "Since when?"

"Not surprised you don't know. He was a villain so dangerous his very existence was never revealed to the public. The strongest and smartest villain the world has ever seen. A man shrouded in so much mystery that nobody even knows his name, since he shares one with his Quirk." He looked up at the two boys' eyes, and they were shocked to see a twinge of fear in them. "This man's name is All For One."

To Kyomu, the name meant nothing, and he had even scoffed at how silly the name sounded. Hikari had the exact opposite reaction: his body froze completely, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped open as he stared down at Akame in disbelief. Kyomu seemed to notice the change in his brother's demeanor, though Hikari soon shook it off before it could be questioned.

"What... do you know about All For One?" Hikari asked, slowly.

"A bit more than most others as deep as could be in the underworld, since my brother was so close to him," Akame answered. "He isn't... naturally so skilled and intelligent at being the most dangerous villain, you see. The reason everybody who knows about him fears him besides his power and resources? It's his raw experience. He's been in the game longer than any other villain in the world- literally. And because of that, he has more skill than any other villain. Bar none."

Kyomu snorted. "Oh, come on. Guy sounds like a geezer. He can't be that tough."

"You're not getting what I'm saying." Akame shook his head at the teen's statement. "All For One has been around since near the beginning of the first emergence of Quirks. He may have even been in the first generation of Quirk holders. If he wasn't, he was certainly close to that."

"He's... immortal?" Hikari asked. "That... no, that can't be right." His white brows furrowed in confusion. "He has a warping Quirk. I've seen it. Useful, sure, but it couldn't possibly be that dangerous. Or make him immortal for that matter."

The darker-haired teen glanced at his twin. "Why do you know that?"

"That's because that warping ability you saw isn't his ability." Kyomu's question was completely ignored as the two twins focused on Akame as he continued to speak. "His Quirk, All For One, is the ability to steal others' Quirks." The brothers stilled at that. "That's right. And I do mean steal- his victims lose their Quirks completely to him. Some don't even survive, or they go comatose since the process of ripping their powers out is so traumatic. I've heard he can even transmit those Quirks to others if he chooses. That's how he got so powerful, you see. He stole useful abilities to make himself more powerful than any hero or villain who dared opposed him. At some point he stole a Quirk that granted him immortality so that he would never age and die; as such, he's centuries old. In exchange for their loyalty he gave allies and underlings powerful abilities he had no personal interest in. It was an ability that allowed him to create an untouchable empire. Nobody in the underworld could have hoped to oppose him." He sighed and turned his head to the side. "Then All Might came onto the scene. Around five years ago he finished tearing down All For One's whole empire. They had this big fight. Dunno about All Might, but All For One was gravely wounded. He survived, though. And afterwards he scraped together what little resources he had left to pursue other ventures. I don't know the specifics, but I do know he is the one responsible for creating those Nomu creatures."

"Nomu," Kyomu repeated. "The same Nomu monsters that the League of Villains use. The same League you're in, Hikari." His head turned to his brother. "You know him, don't you?"

Hikari didn't speak at first. He did lock eyes with his twin, and after a few intense moments of staring, he exhaled and slowly nodded his head. "He's Shigaraki's master," he confirmed. "He's also the League's benefactor. He maintains contact with us through a TV, though usually he just talks with Shigaraki. I've had very few conversations with the man myself, and I've only ever seen him in person once. I didn't know anything besides that." His arms tensed and his eyes hardened. "Kyomu, believe me. I did not know he had anything to do with Kenji."

"I know. I believe you." His words brought great relief to Hikari, though this was largely ignored by Kyomu as he turned back to Akame. "Alright. So where does Kenji and our parents factor into all this?"

"You've seen the Nomus. Abominations chock-full of Quirks he's stolen. He had to get those Quirks from somewhere," Akame explained. "He had multiple methods. Kenji was one of them. Kenji's Quirk, you see, was perfect for causing serious wounds that, if taken care of in a hospital, are generally treatable. All For One has plants in the hospital, with one doctor in particular."

Hikari nodded. "Yeah, I've seen him."

"Kenji's job was to break into the homes of heroes who had Quirks All For One was interested in. Wasn't really hard for him to find those Quirks since they can find them all in those hero catalogs, y'know? Kenji would break into a hero's house under the guise of a thief, stab them, rob them, and allow them to be taken to a hospital. Afterwards? Well, it's easy to slip a patient out when the doctor works for you. Patient goes under, is extracted so that All For One can take their Quirk, and then taken back to the hospital. The explanation always changed: their Quirk was lost due to the stress of the situation, or the blood loss caused them to go into a medically-induced coma, or they just couldn't save them in time and the patient died. All the while Kenji managed to slip away. The few times he did get caught he was eventually released. Usually wouldn't have happened since assaulting heroes is a grave crime, but All For One's influence runs deep. They never managed to keep him for long, and outside of those few slip-ups, nobody could ever have traced him to any of the other crimes he committed, so nobody could ever draw a pattern between them all and become suspicious. That was just one of the ways All For One collected Quirks as he hid in the shadows and nursed the wounds All Might gave him."

"... And our parents?" Kyomu mumbled.

"All For One was interested in your mother's Quirk, Genetic Hardening, and wanted to apply it to his Nomu project. That's what Kenji told me, at least. It was supposed to be a simple job, something he'd done a hundred times before." His glare directed at the brothers turned downright venomous. "But then you killed him."

And it was there that all pieces fit together. How the League of Villains was so powerful despite the current hero society absolutely curbing any villain activity otherwise: the most powerful villain in the world was backing them up. The existence of the Nomu: it wasn't some secret government experiment or the League making superweapons like Midoriya predicted, it was that villain's power making them. Their parents hadn't been targeted due to random chance, but because that same exact villain ordered an underling to do so, only for Kyomu to have killed him by pure chance.

None of it was an accident. All of it was connected.

All of it was connected by a single man.

And the two brothers realized it instantly. The revelation was so shocking to them that their Quirks began to fluctuate around their bodies as they shook still with rage. Wisps of Void was whipping wildly around Kyomu's body while beams of Light would shine randomly off of Hikari's. Both of their eyes were wide and quivering, Hikari's red shining brightly while Kyomu's blue shined equally bright. If Akame noticed any of this, which was unlikely due to how noticeable the display was, he didn't show it. He continued talking.

"I pieced together what happened to him on the day of his death. Spent years coming to terms with it until you escaped from prison and you started to go to a hoity-toity hero school." Akame held a shuddering hand to his head. "I got curious and looked at it closer at your case. I realized the mistake the authorities made, the lies you told. I didn't want either of you to be free. I wanted justice for my brother." He began to shake in his own rage as the glow returned to his own teal eyes. "For months I planned-!"

Shlick!

Akame stopped cold, and slowly turned his head down. A bright, gleaming white sword had run right through his chest. His breathing became choked as his head lifted to see the brothers staring coldly down at him.

"We heard what we needed. We don't care about the rest," Hikari intoned. Two more white sword appeared by his sides and shot forwards, embedding themselves in Akame's body. He stared in silence at the swords piercing through his body before he went limped and slumped over. No sooner had that happened then a black portal had opened up under him, and his body dropped into Void.

The black portal closed with a snap, and Kyomu looked over to his twin. "That was the first time you ever killed somebody, right?" he asked. "Are you-?"

"I'm beyond caring at this point," Hikari gruffly replied. "Besides. You were gonna kill him anyways."

He didn't argue the point, and the two brothers turned around and stepped out of the train. They jumped down onto the train tracks, with Kyomu briefly looking back at the train and the large hand-sized dents Hikari's hands had made along its sides, before the two looked ahead.

Afterwards, the energy seemed to leave both of their bodies and their forms went lax.

"He was responsible for everything," Kyomu whispered. "I always wondered why it was the prison system let Kenji off so easy despite his crimes. It wasn't because the hero system treats villains too leniently. It was because All For One was pulling strings behind the scenes. I should have realized something was off when you told me that death row was still a thing." He reached up and grabbed a tuft of his black hair in frustration. "The reason the crime rate was never moving despite my killings was because the heroes really were on top of things the whole time. I never made a difference. It was just because of that one man." He tore his hand away and loudly exhaled. "There's no supervillains or anybody dangerous because the hero system actually works! The only reason All For One is an exception is because he's so old!" He stomped his foot down on the steel railing under him, and it dented easily under his foot. "It's all his fault! Everything! Our parents, all this League nonsense...! It was him all along...!"

Every single thing that had ever gone wrong in their lives was just because of one single villain. All For One. A man so influential that he'd inadvertently ruined their lives. He'd targeted their mothers, and by happenstance they'd been her sons. Kyomu was caught up with his Nomus because of the League, and the only reason Kyomu was even mixed in all of that was because he happened to be in Class 1-A! And for so long he thought that the system was too forgiving, case in point Hirose Kenji. But it wasn't the system. It was All For One. It was always All For One.

"All For One influenced Shigaraki to create the League of Villains. Shigaraki's his... successor..." Hikari mumbled at his side. "The man's body is failing him, Kyomu. I've seen it. Maybe he's, I dunno, grooming Shigaraki to replace him. Wouldn't surprise me if he was planning on giving that Quirk of his to him down the line, either." He remained silent and looked to the side at the city besides them. "Kyomu, even if All For One... we were still treated unfairly by the system-"

"Don't try to reverse this," Kyomu snapped. "We wouldn't have ever even been put in that situation if it wasn't All For One!"

"Regardless, Japan's hero system-"

"Oh my- who cares about Japan's- WE CAN JUST MOVE!"

The scream caused both twins to pause and stare at each other in shock. Hikari's mouth moved up and down in an attempt to form words, but he failed and simply stared blankly at his twin. Kyomu, Likewise, stared mutely at Hikari before they both sighed and hung their heads.

"What are we even doing with our lives?" Kyomu muttered. "My whole villain-killing crusade was a farce all along. It wasn't helping at all. And you only joined the League out of necessity. And even if you're still caught up on this country running on an outdated Quirk-handling system of laws, you can't seriously tell me you're willing to continue working with the League knowing that the man who ruined our lives is at the back of it all."

To his relief, Hikari shook his head. "No. I'm not. It doesn't sit right with me," he admitted, "and... well, they're the only chance I had at changing things. But with how things have been going recently, I have doubts that'll ever be realized. And if somebody like All For One is responsible for Shigaraki, and if he plans on carrying that man's ideal into the future if he breaks the hero society..." He grimaced and shook his head. "No. I don't want that. That kind of change isn't going to help anybody."

The realization was almost crushing for the both of them. Knowing that everything they had been working for was futile. Knowing one man was responsible for it all. So many lives gone, and other ruined. So much of their time wasted. All because of him.

"... Hey," Kyomu said, gaining Hikari's attention. "I wasn't kidding about that moving thing I said." At that, Hikari turned his head and blinked his red eyes at his twin. "You just... wanna give up?"

Hikari tilted his head in a questioning gesture. When Kyomu didn't react, he blinked in surprise. "You're serious." It wasn't a question.

"What's even left for us here?" Kyomu asked. "We've lost everything. There's nothing left for us. And you can't really restart a life here since all the heroes are after you, and most of the strongest heroes in the world live here, so why not just move?" he suggested. "We can, I dunno, move to South Korea or something. Go to Seoul maybe. Forget about Japan and its issues. Forget about villains. We can just start over and leave it all behind us." He stepped forwards and placed a hand on Hikari's shoulder, while at the same time looking into his eyes. "I... just want to be with my brother again. Like old times," he said. "And knowing what we know now... I just wanna go. So can we go?"

The white-haired teen stared back at Kyomu with his mouth agape. His eyes briefly flicked to the hand on his shoulder, and then back to his twin as he shook his head to try and find the right words. "Maybe I lost everything, but you didn't," he muttered. "You made new friends and connections. That orphanage you live at, your friends in the hero course at UA-"

"One way or another I was gonna have to leave that place," Kyomu countered. "And yeah, everybody in that class is... they are my friends," he confirmed, "but they'll... they'll be fine without me, Hikari. They're strong. Like, stupid strong. Each and every one of them. Even Mineta."

"... That short guy with the sticky hair?"

"Yeah, I barely believe it, too. But it's the truth." Kyomu removed his hand from his shoulder and stepped back as he looked up at the sky. "They'll all make amazing heroes one day, so they can take care of things. And I'll miss them, but... but we just can't stay here if we really do this. The fact that I can trust them to make Japan a better place when we couldn't is part of the reason I'm even entertaining the idea of leaving."

"What about your hero dream?"

"I only wanted to be a hero to have a easier time killing villains. Now that that's off the table, it's kind of a moot point. The dream is dead." His head dropped to his brother. "So? What do you want to do?"

---

Why did he have to make it sound like he was getting the deciding vote here? And why, oh why, did he have to make it all sound so enticing?

Hikari sighed out loud. He wasn't expecting to receive this kind of emotional baggage. He'd went on this little adventure thinking they'd bag the villain and everything would go back to normal afterwards. He didn't expect to be given information so jarring it shook apart everything he ever believed in while also shining light on the fact all his work with the villains had been for nothing.

So where did that all leave him?

"I should never have been imprisoned like that. I wanted to change things so that situations like that never happened again, but I'm a villain. So I thought the only way to even start change was to kill All Might. I only thought of that because Shigaraki convinced me," he thought. "He was probably telling the truth, but... knowing Shigaraki is using the teachings of somebody like All For One? I have grievances with society, but at the very least its a stable, working society. Is change even needed? Surely not the kind of change Shigaraki wants. And who knows? Maybe one day there will be the kind of change I want. Better change done legally." He sighed and ran a hand down his face. "And Kyomu's right. These are issues only present in Japan. Shigaraki was my only shot at fixing things. That's out now, so... so what? I'm not staying with them. No way I can. So escape to another country?" He clicked his tongue in thought. "Neither of us speak Korean, but we could learn. We're broke, but with our powers, we could maybe fix that. Rob a few stores or something, then hitch a ride on a ship to Korea. We'll be illegal aliens and criminals, but... well, people worse than us have made it out of even worse situations. Could we actually make that work?"

He thought so. It wouldn't be easy, but they could definitely make it work with a bit of planning. It was either that or keep running from the heroes in Japan all on his own until he was caught. All things considered, it was really his only option.

And then there was Kyomu. He would be there with him. He wouldn't have to do it alone, and even better he'd finally be reunited his his brother on a permanent basis. It was the only thing he wanted, really. Because running around town and chasing this mind-controlling villain all day with him? It was some of the most fun Hikari had ever had with his brother. Maybe them going on the run together would actually be fun, if not challenging. But no matter what, he wouldn't have to be alone. Kyomu would be there with him.

So, why not? If Kyomu was willing, why not just give up and leave it all behind? The more he thought about it, the more he realized there was little reason to say no.

"Alright, Kyomu." Hikari nodded his head. "Let's leave it all behind. Japan and its heroes. All this villain business. Forget about it. We're done."

His brother looked at him in surprise at first, but a smile did flash across his features. It was a smile that both brothers shared as they realized together that, yes, they were going to leave it all behind and search for a better life away from all of this. Together.

"Great. That's really, truly great, Hikari." The smile slowly faded as a scowl creased across Kyomu's brows. "One little thing, first. I want to tie up one last loose end." He lifted his right hand and clenched his fist. "All For One. I want to kill him before we leave."

Hikari couldn't help bitterly chuckle. He almost expected it. "Seriously? After the whole 'I give up killing villains' speech, man? It's been, like, a minute at best. I didn't realize you picked up an addiction to killing villains."

Kyomu wryly grinned. "You'll have to forgive me for getting hooked so easily, Hikari. It was quite a cathartic hobby of mine. Those kinds of habits die hard. But after him I'll go cold turkey. Promise." He wiped the grin off his face. "In all seriousness, he's responsible for all of this. The only reason we're even having this conversation is because of him. I can't turn away from everything knowing that the man responsible for our parents' deaths is out there. Especially knowing what he is." He bit his lower lip. "He's too powerful for the heroes. And if All Might couldn't take him down... I don't want to leave my hero friends at his mercy. Or Shigaraki's mercy if he really is his successor." He shook his head. "No. We're nipping that problem in the bud right now. We're killing All For One to make sure he doesn't ruin any more lives and to stop his Nomu project. Then we're killing off the League of Villains. We'll leave after."

The reasoning of "I also want to avenge our parents" was left unsaid and hidden behind Kyomu's logic. In truth, the desire to kill him just because he was directly responsible for their parents being killed was readily apparent, as both could see it in each other's eyes. But Kyomu raised a point in that All For One was a unique case of a villain too powerful for heroes just because he'd managed to live so long with such a powerful Quirk. He'd only managed to grow so much because he'd started in an age where heroes weren't nearly as powerful as they were today. The standards were different; supervillains like that simply couldn't be created.

So yes. Hikari had no problem with killing All For One. His problem was with killing Shigaraki.

"I don't want to kill Shigaraki." His statement caused Kyomu to look at him in confusion. "Kyomu, you don't understand. Shigaraki's like us."

His black-haired twin had opened his mouth to exclaim his outrage, but closed it as Hikari's statement. He then breathed deeply and asked, "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"He accidentally killed his family with his Quirk. Told me himself." That certainly caused Kyomu to stay silent and pay attention. "He disintegrates things by touching something with all five of his fingers. Contact is all he needs; he doesn't have conscious control over it. He had to train himself not to touch things with all his fingers so he doesn't turn everything around him to dust. And when he was a kid and his Quirk manifested, he just... accidentally dusted his whole family." He sighed out loud. "He was like you. Didn't know what his power did and accidentally killed his family because of it. Because how is a four-year-old supposed to work out a power like that as his parents and sister and grandparents are disintegrating right in front of him? And just like us, nobody ever helped him. Nobody but All For One when he found him. He's only like this because he was manipulated by that villain, that thing, and I... every time I look at him, Kyomu, I see us."

"Shigaraki's still a villain," Kyomu pointed out.

"So are we," Hikari countered, "and half the reason All For One made it so far is because of that Quirk of his, right? As long as that Quirk dies with him, it's fine. He hasn't passed it on yet, even if he's planning to. Shigaraki won't be an issue to the other heroes if left alive."

Kyomu pursed his lips, and he could see that his brother was mulling it over in his head. After groaning and rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he came to a conclusion. "You know what? Fine. I don't really care about Shigaraki, so how about this: I go kill All For One. You deal with Shigaraki. How's that?"

The white-haired teen shook his head. "No way. I'm killing All For One."

At that, Kyomu rounded on his brother and stepped up to him with anger apparent on his face. "What are you talking about? I'm the one with the Quirk suited for killing! And this isn't some run-of-the-mill garden variety villain we're talking about, either. Oh, no, it's some souped-up mega ultra Evil-with-a-capital-E legitimate supervillain not even All Might could defeat, and you think I'm gonna let you-"

"His body is weakened. And my Quirk's just as good as yours," Hikari countered. "Besides. Even if we both lost parents to him, I lost eleven years of my life in prison because of him. So I'm calling dibs."

"Then we'll just take him together!" Kyomu shouted. "It'll be easier, we both get the satisfaction, and-"

Hikari shook his head. "Nope. Won't work. Somebody needs to deal with Shigaraki while the other deals with All For One. I'm confident in our abilities, but if the League interferes during the fight, it'll get too dicey."

Kyomu held his tongue. The logic was sound, and it was apparent he got that. Based on the conflicted look on his face, he didn't seem to like it, though. "So, what, you want me to deal with him and his League?"

"You'd have an easier time stalling them with Void," Hikari explained. "Just hold them back, would you? And I'd like for you to actually talk with Shigaraki so you can see what I mean. In the meantime I'll deal with All For One." He flashed a cheeky grin. "Also, I'm the only one that actually knows where he is. You don't."

He rolled his eyes, but begrudgingly conceded to his point. "Alright, fine. I'll deal with the League. You deal with All For One. And then we leave. Got any idea when we'll do this?"

"The League's spread out at the moment, but sometimes Shigaraki will gather us all together for meetings. When he announces the next meeting I'll tell you about it. We'll do it then," Hikari answered. "In the meantime, you can... I dunno, say your goodbyes to everyone at your school or something? Try to get some closure before we leave?"

Kyomu nodded. "Yeah. That works. I need time to sort through this, anyways." He turned his back to his brother. "Looks like everyone affected by Akame's Quirk is still unconscious. If he's to be believe, nobody will remember today, so none of this should lead back to us. There'll be confusion, but otherwise it's gonna be fine. I'm gonna head back to the class and pretend to be just as clueless as everyone else. With any luck they'll still be asleep." He turned his head halfway to get a single eye on his brother. "Until next time, Hikari. Keep me posted."

The quick appearance of a black portal that Kyomu had hopped through, and he was gone. All that was left was Hikari standing by his lonesome on the train tracks, with the agreement made by the two brother still playing over in his mind. The agreement to abandon it all and run away together. He could still hardly believe they'd planned it.

And now all they had to do was kill the world's most dangerous villain before starting a new life.

Tired, red eyes lifted up to the sky. "Man. What a day."