Monochromatic Ideals

Episode 28- White


"I guess we should be thankful for the fact there are so many of these places for us to meet up at. I'd be more thankful if they all weren't so far from where I live." This statement was enunciated by the slamming of a van door, followed by a pale face with patches of dark, dead skin peering around the van towards the backside to see others piling out. "There's gotta be an easier way to do this."

Four bodies piled out of the back of the van, with a fifth, green-scaled person exiting the driver seat that had been next to him. From the four at the back, one, a young man covered in hands, turned towards the patchwork man and let out an annoyed huff as he scratched absentmindedly at his neck.

"This is a necessary precaution, Dabi," he reasoned. "If we don't spread out our meeting points and vary up the times, we'll leave more and more clues for the heroes to stumble upon and find us again. That's how we lost the bar, remember?"

Dabi rolled his eyes. "I guess." He glanced to the side at Spinner, who was standing passively next to him, and then at the group of villains. "Where are Twice, Kurogiri, and Shinka?" he asked. "Thought this was a meeting for the whole team."

"Yeah, I miss Lighty," the youngest of the group complained with a pout on her lips. "Where'd he go?"

Shigaraki rose a hand to silence the teenage girl, and then addressed Dabi. "Kurogiri and Twice had to go on an errand, which is why we had to take the van. And Shinka said he'd just meet us here. He should already be inside, actually."

There was a huff of indignation from Spinner. "What, the pale bastard too good to ride along with us now?" the lizard-man grumbled.

"I'll have to agree with our scaled friend here," the masked one of the group commented. There was the sound of a small whir as he raised his arm to adjust the hat on top of his circular face covering, and then continued as soon as it was righted. "Our young Shinka has been rather... withdrawn from the League as of late. Do you not agree, Shigaraki?"

"No. I don't," he said. "He's just been really pent-up. We haven't really done a lot, and he's eager to get to work on the next job is all. Give him some credit- he's your senior, after all."

"That's saying a lot, seeing as he's barely any older than Toga," Magna muttered under their breath as they readjusted the large, iron bar on their shoulder. "But I can see where you're coming from. Any clue for when Twice and Kurogiri will get here?"

"Should be any second now." As Shigaraki said this, there was a slight warbling in the air, and the empty space next to them was slowly filled with a mass of black and purple mist. "Ah, speak of the devil. Here they are right now."

The dark mist filled out into a large mass nearly as big as the van. From that mass walked out a tall, muscular man dressed from head-to-toe in white and navy spandex. The mass condensed right as he left the portal and shrunk into a suit, where it filled out into a bipedal form. Two solid, shining yellow eyes lit up around the mass where the mist man's head was, and a mist-covered hand went up to adjust the tie on his suit before he stepped forwards. Kurogiri gave Shigaraki a curt nod, and the younger man returned the nod before turning to address the man in spandex.

"So," he began, "Twice, Kurogiri. How'd your little assignment go?"

There was a large sigh from Twice, and he hung his spandex-covered head. "Bad news, boss," he began, before his head picked right up and his hand made a thumbs-up. "Mission super successful!"

Shigaraki elicited a "tsk" sound. "That bad, huh?" he muttered.

"None of the candidates you sent us to review were all too willing to join the League of Villains," Kurogiri supplied. "The League, in its... less than successful ventures, hasn't nearly raised enough credibility to convince anybody to join us. That combined with the overbearing hero society over all of our heads only makes everybody even more hesitant." His eyes glanced towards Twice, and then back to Shigaraki. "And I fear Twice's speech impediment made negotiations more difficult than they needed to be."

Twice's head spun towards Kurogiri in shock. "What speech impediment!? I'm a piping-hot mess!"

Aside from Mr. Compress and Magna, there was not a single person in the League who had enough tact to keep in a loud sigh. This only served to make Twice more confused.

"And that, in essence, explains why we were unsuccessful in recruiting more members for the League," Kurogiri finished off. "I fear your plan of bolstering our ranks is too poor a plan moving forwards considering our results. Perhaps it is time we reevaluated our strategy."

"You might be right," Shigaraki agreed. "That's what this meeting is all about." He nodded towards the warehouse. "C'mon, Shinka's inside. Once we get everybody together we'll talk about what we're gonna do."

At that, the group of eight made their way through the door leading into the warehouse and casually began walking in. The inside was what the group had come to expect from these places whenever they visited one: Quiet, crowded in abandoned boxes, ceiling-high shelves, and containers, and dark. Not so dark, as there was sunlight filtering in from the windows along the walls and roof, but without electric lighting it still made for a rather melancholy setting.

Though, considering the ones that were currently using this warehouse were quite used to this kind of environment, they didn't quite mind.

The group continued walking in silence until they came to the middle of the warehouse, which was largely cleaned out and barren save, strangely enough, a large, mildew-ridden bar counter with two moth-eaten stools in front of it. One stool was empty, while a teenage form with white hair was slumped over in the other stool. That wasn't what caused the group to pause, as they had expected to find one person in here.

What they didn't expect was for that person to be clad completely in black clothing. For as long as every single League member had known Hikari, he had always worn exclusively white, which was why it gave them all pause when they saw the teenage for in black shoes, pants, and a shirt.

The group looked at each other with uncertain eyes, and it was Dabi who decided to take the initiative and clear his throat. "Er, Shinka?" he called over. "You finally taking my advice on wearing darker colors or what?"

In response, the teenage body in the stood stirred and sat straight upwards. Some tense moments of silence passed, and the form turned their upper body to face the group. There were multiple gasps of confusion when they saw that, while it was the same face they all knew, the eyes were a dark blue as opposed to a crimson color. And to even further their bewilderment, a pale hand reached up, grabbed the white hair on their head, and tore the wig away. Locks of pure, black hair fell down to the teen's shoulders as he continued to apathetically glare at the villains through the bangs of his hair.

"So. The League of Villains," said Kyomu. "About time you got here. Let's talk."


Hikari was fairly confident towers weren't supposed to be this foreboding. And by all rights, there shouldn't be anything foreboding around to make him uneasy considering the scenery. A bright, sunny morning in a decent, clean part of the city with bustling cars in the streets behind him. All For One's tower, while admittedly dark and tall compared to the surrounding buildings, didn't really stand out in comparison. And yet, standing right in front of the entrance to that tower, he couldn't help but feel perturbed by the mere sight of it.

But he had a job to do. He had to kill the man who resided at the top of that tower- and maybe pay a visit to that doctor, too. Just to confirm a suspicion he had about that man. But first he would actually have to get inside.

He walked up to the entrance and pushed against the glass door. To his surprise, he found that the door was unlocked and swayed open for him. He cautiously stepped into the main, bare lobby of the building and looked towards the stairs, and then the elevator. He had no idea what the actual layout was, and he didn't feel at all comfortable with taking the elevator. So stairs it was, even if he didn't know where he was going other than up.

It was a good thing that it was early in the morning and that Kyomu was going to ensure that he had all the time in the world to pull this off. So essentially all day was the frame of time he was looking at. Hopefully this wouldn't take more than an hour or two.

None of this knowledge helped with the fact that every single step he took up piled more anxiety on his shoulders, but for the life of him Hikari just couldn't figure out why that was.


He didn't really know what to expect with his little ruse there. Some shouts of surprise, maybe, or perhaps even a few flaring of Quirks. For the most part, the League of Villains were just standing stock still and staring at him in silent shock, though with the mask Mr. Compress had and the hand on Shigaraki's face, as well as the mist covering Kurogiri and Twice's spandex, he couldn't quite tell their expressions. Everybody else just had varying amounts of surprise.

"I won't front with you all. This isn't even a wig." He tossed the white mass that had been on his head away and shook his fingers off. "I just tore that off a mop I found lying around."

The only reason he'd even done that was to lure them in closer before revealing himself, but he'd made the mistake of neglecting the color of his clothes. Not the worst mistake he'd ever made, at any rate.

It was Shigaraki who made the first move by stepping ahead of the pack and raising his hands up in a calm manner, as if to tell everybody he would handle this. Shortly after, he lowered his hands and faced Kyomu directly. He could just barely make out the crimson eyes past the blue-grey hair waving in his face and through the gaps of that hand, but what little he could see were narrowed in thought.

"Shinka Kyomu," he said at last in a quiet, subdued voice. "You're Hikari's brother."

Kyomu flinched. He wasn't so sure he felt comfortable hearing his brother's first name come out of that high, ragged voice Shigaraki had, but he ignored it in lieu of the current situation. "That I am," he confirmed. "You're Shigaraki. We've never spoken or even interacted with one another before. In fact, the only other time I've ever seen you in person was all the way back at the USJ when you stepped out of that warp gate." He leaned back on the decayed bar and propped his elbows on the counter. "We've some things to discuss. Get over here; your flunkies can just stay over there."

If he had any reaction to the flunky remark, he didn't show it, though he did see Dabi in the back roll his eyes. That was the one with the Cremation Quirk, if he remembered correctly. Hikari had went through the trouble of scribbling some details about each of them on the paper he'd given with the address to the warehouse, and he'd made some effort to memorize it. They were all powers he could deal with for the most part, except for Kurogiri. That warp power of his might prove troublesome if things turned violent, and he strongly envisioned things turning violent. He couldn't let him warp them all away, especially to All For One. He'd have to be careful.

Shigaraki took a tentative step forwards, and when Kyomu remained in his stationary position, his footsteps became more confident until he made it to the second stool right next to him. He slowly sat down, body straight and facing Kyomu, who turned his head to look at the other. He didn't say anything at first, perhaps in an effort to think of the right words to say, before he took in a breath and began speaking.

"I guess it would be too good to assume you're here to join the League," he stated.

"You got that right." Kyomu gave a nod.

Shigaraki hummed, took a look around the warehouse, and then back looked back to Kyomu. "Hikari's not here," he added.

"That is also correct."

"What exactly is going on here, Shinka Kyomu? Why are you approaching us when you've made it clear not only now, but in the past, that you have no intention of joining us? And where is your brother?"

"Good questions. Let me return them with one of my own."

"You shouldn't answer questions with a question, you-"

"Hey. Shigaraki." Kyomu interrupted him and held up his index finger, which silenced the other. He craned his neck to the side in irritation, but otherwise he allowed the younger teen to speak. "Just humor me here, alright?" He lowered his hand to the bar. "Hikari told me you killed your whole family because of your Quirk. Because you were so young and it was so destructive. Is that right?"

The older male tilted his head to the side, almost in confusion, but nodded his head nonetheless. "For the most part that's true."

A pale finger tapped the bar. "Partly, huh?"

"It was something in my past I tried to forget, and eventually I did forget. Hikari... helped me remember," Shigaraki confessed. "Him being there. Talking to me. The pieces I had forgotten had slowly begun to come back to me until we had that talk. It was at the mall, if you remember that day."

"Right before the camp, yeah."

"Mh." The pale-haired man gave a confirmatory nod. "We talked about his concerns, debated a bit. Everything had slowly come back to me, and, because I so dearly wanted to know why it was he murdered your parents, I told him my story. Of how I almost accidentally killed my whole family because I didn't understand my own power. And in return, he described to me his own circumstances, and I was astounded with how similar they were to my own. It's almost like we were meant to be brought together by a common purpose. It really is wonderful how this society made the villains that are going to destroy it."

That was about the gist of what Hikari had told him of Shigaraki's past. Of why it was he was here, and in truth, Kyomu could see the similarities. And he couldn't deny that at least one of the brothers had ended up a villain just because of that situation that was so much similar to Shigaraki's. But there was something scratching at the back of his mind that he wanted to clear up. "Almost accidentally?" he repeated. "How do you almost accidentally kill your family?"

Shigaraki paused, as if just realizing he'd been caught in a contradiction within his story, but he merely let off an airy laugh. "It was almost completely an accident," he confessed. "I truly didn't know what my power did until it was too late. By the time I realized my touch disintegrated everything, almost everybody was dead except my father." He paused, and he ran two fingers along the hand gripping his face. "I killed him on purpose right after."

Kyomu's fingers drummed against the counter once, and he let out a slow breath. "So you killed him," he said. "And lied to Hikari about it."

"I'm not even sure if it was on purpose," Shigaraki admitted with a shrug. "That man... I didn't like him. All those negative feelings I had and all the shock and terror I was experiencing in that moment, all those feelings mixing together... it was almost instinctual when I pressed my hand against his face. I didn't even think about it. It's because of that I didn't tell him. It seemed too inconsequential."

"Mm." Kyomu nodded and clicked his teeth. A bit of anger boiled within him, but was quickly simmered by the disappointment he felt by just looking at Shigaraki and the hands clamped to his form. "Well, I had a little sympathy for you. I lost it just now." He silently turned his head away from both him and the group silently watching them. "You have more in common with my brother than you think. You're both liars." He paused to wait for a response, but when none came, he continued. "The reason my brother isn't here is because he's killing All For One right now." His eyes shifted to the group. "Kurogiri, if you so much as twitch I'll use Void to cut you in half and kill you. I mean it."

He wasn't joking at all; the monotone in his voice was reason enough for them to take it seriously. The temperature in the room had certainly lowered a few degrees from his threat. Ironic, considering that he'd seen blue flames briefly lick Dabi's fingers. He along with everybody else had grown tense at his proclamation.

Shigaraki,for his part, had grown stiff. When he turned his head back to the man, he could actually see confusion running rampant through his eyes, and his fingers twitched erratically for a few moments. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and in a barely-level voice, asked, "Why in the world would your brother betray the League and do something like that?"

"Because All For One killed our parents."

That certainly gave Shigaraki pause. He stiffened immediately, and his eyes grew even wider as he processed the words Kyomu spoke. He seemed so jarred that he actually sputtered in an attempt to form a response, and only managed to make a quiet "What?" in regards to what he had said. "What... are you talking about...?"

"We only just found out. Our mother had a Quirk that All For One was interested in. He sent somebody to our house to wound and send her to the hospital so his doctor friend could help him steal it. We saw that man he sent stab our parents, and, like you, my Quirk awoke and went haywire," Kyomu calmly explained. "Void killed both that man and our parents. Hikari lied and said he did it to save me from going to prison, and I went along with it. I'm the real villain."

Silence. He supposed he couldn't he so surprised, and as he watched the people in front of him digest the information he saw looks of realization flash across their faces. That yes, Hikari had betrayed them. And from the conflicted looks he saw in some of their eyes, he could see that in some sense, they understood the why of it. He couldn't see Shigaraki's expression, as he'd lowered his head, but he could see him visibly begin to shake at the revelation.

"So..." Began Dabi, who remained in his spot next to the other villains. His voice had gone noticeably quieter. "If he's there, why are you here?"

"I'm just here to give you his resignation," Kyomu explained. "And also to stop you all from going to try and help All For One. He quite understandably has an intense hatred for the man that ruined our lives, and he doesn't want to associate himself with the League of Villains anymore since he's at the back of you all."

Even more unsettling silence. It went unsaid that the threat he'd given Kurogiri applied to the rest of them as well. Some had looks of disbelief, while others had cast nervous glances at the prosthetic arm Mr. Compress wore and realized that, at some level, he was serious with his threat and would at the very least mutilate them with his Quirk.

It was a bluff, of course. At Hikari's request, no less. He'd technically only stated he wanted Shigaraki spared, but he didn't know how his brother would react if he killed everyone else. He already had a problem with him killing, and Kyomu hadn't had the forethought at the time to ask him if he could or not. So if they resisted, he'd incapacitate them. Maybe remove some limbs if he was given trouble. But they'd live. Mostly.

"You really hate us villains, don't you, Shinka Kyomu?" Shigaraki's voice had gone course and quiet, as if in a stupor. He'd lifted his head up, and out of the corner of his eyes Kyomu could see one crimson eye looking at him from the side between the fingers clamped on his head. There was a certain glossy sheen to that eye that made the teen confused, but otherwise he listened. "Hating villains for ruining your life. I can understand that. And I can understand Hikari's reason for wanting to join us and change society even more if they threw an innocent child away in prison for over a decade. Which is why I find it so confusing to believe he would betray us. He has no reason to betray us."

Kyomu blinked, and confusion blossomed on his face. "Did you not hear a single word I just said?"

"I don't believe you." Confusion turned into full-blown bewilderment. "I don't believe Hikari would do something like this. He wouldn't be so foolish as to try and kill Sensei. He wouldn't throw away his chance to change society for the better. He hates All Might almost as much as I do for maintaining a broken status quo." He shook his head. "You know what I think? I think his whiny brother who would rather blame every villain in the world and not himself for taking his parents away is lashing out blindly at every villain he can get to. I think you tricked all of us into this meeting to kill us just to feel better about yourself, and poor Hikari is back at the apartment all confused and wondering where we are. You're lying."

He felt his jaw drop open, and he almost couldn't believe his ears. Even some of the other villains were looking at their leader in quiet disbelief, as if they couldn't believe he would spout something so profound. And Kyomu could believe it, because he couldn't believe Shigaraki would say something like that. That he would actually believe Kyomu would have the means of pulling something so elaborate like this without his brother knowing, or why he would even bother talking with all of them if his goal was just to kill them.

But then he saw it. The one, single tear that escaped his visible eyelid only to be absorbed into the material covering the hand on his face. He was completely serious. He really, truly didn't believe Hikari would do something like this. It took all he had not to bark out a cynical laugh at the sight.

"You're a moron," Kyomu realized in wonder. "I don't even mean that as a scathing insult. You're legitimately stupid. You actually..." This time he did laugh, though it came out as a low, bitter chuckle. "Shigaraki. I couldn't be more serious. Hikari has betrayed the League of Villains to kill the man responsible for the death of our parents. If you don't believe me-" He reached into his pocket, took out Hikari's note, and slid it across the musty bar counter, "- then how come I have that? A note written by Hikari instructing me how to infiltrate this meeting and detailing all your powers?"


Navigating the building wasn't all that hard. The lower floors were mainly empty space, and the middle floors were being used to store various pieces of equipment, medical or otherwise. But he recognized some of the rooms, having seen them on his first time through here, and as he ascended the floors and passed the rooms of the otherwise silent tower, he managed to keep moving forwards.

Though, even if he was finding it easier to get through this tower, it didn't help the ever-increasing amount of dread being piled on him. He powered through it, however, and kept going. He kept going until he stumbled through a door into a room unlike any of the other ones he'd been into, and immediately stopped to take stock of his surroundings.

It was dark, for one. Most of the building was dark, but this place was especially dark. There was no lighting save for the acid green lights coming out of large tubes lining the walls of the room, and in each tube was a misshapen, human monster with an exposed brain, various shades of dark or light skin, and disjointed limbs suspended in a clear liquid. Nomu, he realized, as he looked around at the dozens all around the room. Outside of the tubes, the room itself was completely cluttered in pieces of equipment and computers, to the point that, in order to get to the center of the room, Hikari had to sidestep around the piles of equipment just to make headway.

And he would make it to the center of the room. Because in the center of the room was the second man he was looking for. A doctor, sitting in a chair and typing feverishly at a computer screen that glowed green back into his face. He seemed so absorbed in his work that he didn't even notice Hikari stop right behind him. Hikari waited for the doctor to finally turn around and address him, but when it became clear he didn't even register his presence Hikari grew frustrated, grabbed the back of his chair, and whirled him around so the two could face one another.

The face that was staring up at him from his chair in muted shock was completely unremarkable. A seemingly middle-aged, round face with a bald head, a wide, brown mustache, and beady eyes concealed behind thick spectacles. But it was a face Hikari remembered, even after all these years, and he was surprised to admit that the man didn't seem to have aged a day.

"You were the one that saw to me the day I broke that kid's arm, and who diagnosed what my mother's Quirk had done to my body," Hikari mumbled as he eyed the doctor up and down. "Your name was... Garaki Kyudai, if I am not mistaken."

"Shinka." The older man below him in the chair sputtered, look left and right, and then back to Hikari. "What- what are you doing here?" he asked. "I don't see Shigaraki anywhere. Did you just let yourself in my... what are you even doing here?"

Hikari gave a casual shrug. "Oh, you know. Went rogue," he explained. "Here to kill All For One. Thought I'd drop by since I was here already."

"You what?" Garaki shook his head and blinked his eyes. "I must've misheard. You couldn't possibly be-"

The small, almost inaudible whirring noise followed by a glowing source of light cut him off. He snapped his eyes up to the teen's hand, and visibly blanched when he saw the white orb of light slowing growing in the palm of the hand the teen was pointing directly at him. As for Hikari, his own face was completely straight and stared down unblinkingly at the doctor.

"... I see," he mumbled, voice resigned. "So that's why you've come."

"You don't look that surprised anymore," Hikari noted.

At that, a low chuckle left Garaki. "I ceased receiving surprises ever since I began associating myself with that man," he confessed. "He doesn't need a Quirk to see every possible future path and plan for it in advance. Though, I'm sure if we looked hard enough, we could have found something to help him along with that."

Hikari pursed his lips. He didn't like the implications made by those words. He also didn't like being so unsettled by how blase the doctor's tone was, but managed to maintain the light at his palm.

"You're here to kill me, then?" the doctor continued.

"... I thought about it," he admitted. "I don't really know what your whole deal is or why you're All For One's personal doctor. I don't know why you helped him steal so many Quirks or what you have to do with all this Nomu nonsense. But I do know you did it all." His gaze sharpened, and the light intensified. "And you were the one who recommended the attempted theft of my mother's Quirk, weren't you? Since you were there that day at the hospital."

"It was a very unique Quirk that presented all sorts of possibilities for my research." He admitted it so casually that Hikari almost faltered, and the light at his palm briefly flickered he was so shocked. The doctor wasn't even smiling or was talking in a tone that implied he was gloating. He was talking in a way that made it sound like he was having a normal conversation. "I wanted to see how well her Quirk would bond with the Nomu. He wanted her Quirk for his own personal use. Ah, alas, she died that day. A waste of a perfectly good Quirk."

"You're really not helping your case here," Hikari intoned. He tried to appear calm, but hints of anger managed to leak out into his voice, and the light intensified. "That said, I'd like to avoid needless killing. As far as I'm concerned, it's all his fault, and you're just an accessory." He tore his arm to the side and aimed the light at the tanks lining the room. "I really don't like you, though, so I'm getting rid of these just to spite you."

A beam of light was emitted from his palm, and the continuous stream of photons impacted the first tube holding the unfinished Nomu. The tube burst on impact, and the liquid inside instantly vaporized as the unfinished Nomu, horribly twisted, burnt, bleeding, and dead from the light beam, flopped out onto the floor. Undeterred, Hikari dragged his arm and the beam of light in a slow circle across the room, catching both the Nomu tubes and any medical devices in his way in its path and simultaneously destroying them. By the time he was finished, every tube and the Nomu inside were destroyed, most of the equipment was burned and ruined, and multiple fires began to grow were his light had touched the room.

After finishing his small tantrum, Hikari turned back to Garaki. The doctor was slumped in his chair and an annoyed grimace was on his face, but otherwise he seemed no worse for wear. Considering the burning lab around him, he actually looked great, which only added to Hikari's confusion.

"This wasn't my main lab, but much of my work was here nonetheless," he said. "I hope you feel better about yourself."

"I regret to inform you I don't, much to my frustration." Most of that frustration stemmed from the comment he made about this not being his main lab. He'd really only done this to make the man mad, and he hadn't even done that. It didn't even relieve any of the stress that had begun to accumulate within him, nor did he glean any satisfaction from seeing the dead Nomu fall to the ground. If anything, the impassive face the doctor wore only served to anger him further. "Alright. I'm out of here. Hope I never see you again, Garaki."

He turned his back to the older man and began to stomp his way out of the lab. He didn't even make it halfway before the doctor started speaking to his back.

"I would wish you luck, but it would be a waste of words," he said. "You have no hope of beating that man, even with an enhanced body and Quirk."

The words passed right over the teen's head, and he slammed the door to the destroyed lab right behind him.


Shigaraki looked down at the note, and his breath hitched at the sight. A shaking hand reached out to pick up the note, and his eyes scanned the words on the paper for only a brief time before he shuddered and dropped the note in shock.

"... Okay. I understand," Shigaraki said. "It's... an extremely unfortunate coincidence. I get it." He paused, and his hand slowly reached up to his neck. "You know, I don't think UA will appreciate one of their model students scheming and confronting villains behind their backs. You don't even have a provisional license, which makes this little bust of yours illegal. So-"

"I'm leaving UA," Kyomu interrupted, and the moment he said that Shigaraki's fingers had practically stabbed into his neck. "We're both leaving the country. We're sick of this place and the laws, the history, the everything. So we're gonna leave and start over."

"Well, if you're already committed to leaving UA, all the better!" The villain's voice began to grow high, and there was a hint of desperation to it. His fingers began to aggressively scratch at his neck, and flakes of skin could be seen falling right off. "You both just wanna be together again, right? Just... just stay with us! You both have extraordinarily strong Quirks; you can both help make a difference for this country! And how far do you really think you two will get if you try and leave!?"

"Yeah, that doesn't really erase the whole 'All For One killed our parents' dilemma."

"We'll... we-we'll make it up to you! And he'll, he'll forgive all of this if we just explain! We can... you don't- Hikari can just-!"

"Shigaraki." Kyomu shook his head, and the older male froze. "Our minds are made up. There's nothing you can say that will change our minds." A flat, black, spherical hole opened on the bar counter right next to him. "And this conversation's done."

His hand darted into the black portal, and through a second one that appeared over Shigaraki's head the hand emerged, grabbing the back of the villain's head and slamming him right into the bar. The aged wood shattered on impact, and his body slumped to the ground right after. All the other villains could do was look on in shock as Kyomu smoothly pulled his hand back and spun around to meet the gaze of the villains fully.

"Alright," he said, "let's get this over with."


The anger that was slowly coursing through his body was certainly an effective buffer to the earlier dread, fueled solely by the doctor's words. How that man could be so flippant about the death and planned experimentation of his own mother. How he sounded like he didn't care, and would much rather get back to his own research.

They knew. Oh, maybe not Shigaraki, but All For One and that doctor knew all along they were at fault for her death and never said a thing. He didn't know if they knew the truth with Kyomu, but at the very least they knew they killed his parents and let him join the League directly affiliated with them. Why? Because he had a strong Quirk and wanted to join willingly? Because it was too much of a hassle to do anything about it? Did they even care? Did they even spend a single thought at the matter, or did they wave it away as a strange coincidence?

No matter the answer, he would be livid. So naturally, he was angry. Angry enough that, as he stalked through the halls and climbed up to the highest room, his room, he barely even registered an electronic screech that sounded through the ceiling signaling the activation of a PA system.

"Shinka Hikari." There was that voice. That deep, menacing voice with a playful lilt at its back. All For One's voice. "So glad you decided to join us this morning. And right before breakfast, too."

He didn't even sound angry or surprised. He sounded normal, almost expectant. But, as he rounded a corner, Hikari decided to play along for lack of anything better to do, and to calm his own rising nerves.

"All For One," he called back, his voice raised. "I spared your pet doctor. You're not getting the same treatment."

"And for that I thank you, truly. Garaki Kyudai is a remarkable doctor unlike any other." There was a pause at the other end of the system. "I have to admit, I'm surprised that you would hold such a... blunt assault, young Shinka. Though, I suppose direct is your personal style."

"Oh, I gave up on stealth word go," Hikari said as he turned a corner. He saw a security camera staring at him from the ceiling, causing him to sneer and fire a beam of light at it. The camera exploded with a small pop! and Hikari continued forwards. "I saw your messed up face, and I know your power. No telling how many extrasensory Quirks you got in that gross body of yours to compensate for your lack of face. You probably saw me the moment I stepped into this building." He kicked a door off its hinges and stalked through the hole. "Besides. I'm not in the mood to sneak around."

"True enough, true enough." Another flight of stairs came into view, and Hikari quickly ascended it. "Shigaraki will be greatly disappointed in this betrayal," All For One noted without a hint of remorse to his voice. If anything, he sounded like he was having fun with the whole situation. "Did my words of trust all those months ago go unheeded, Shinka Hikari? However could you betray your own comrades, the ones who sheltered you from a society of heroes hunting you down like a dog? How could you betray me, the man who had confided in you on the rare occasion? That was a privilege I gave nobody aside from Shigaraki."

"You killed my parents." On his way up the stairs, Hikari blasted another camera. "That's reason enough."

All For One chuckled, actually chuckled, at that answer, and the absurdity of the action almost made the teen's blood boil in anger. "Is that what this is about?" he asked. "I expected this to come up one day, but I had no idea you would react so strongly. Can we not simply talk about this like adults?"

Hikari didn't respond, and instead just pushed his way through the next door, damaging the whole door frame in the process, and stomped down an unusually narrow corridor towards the single door at the end. He could see light bleeding in from the cracks in that doors, both greens and blues. It was a glow he was familiar with.

That was the room, right there. Which meant he was behind that door.

He wasted no time and used Light to zip right up to the door and practically flung it off from the hinges when he ripped it open with his hand. It was the same room as he remembered, when the whole League had been teleported here using that strange warping power. A room not unlike the doctor's own small lab. It was chock full of medical equipment, monitors, tubes leading every which way, and there was a large chair in the middle facing all those monitors. And behind that chair, standing upright and facing Hikari, was All For One.

There wasn't much different about the man now compared to when Hikari first saw him. Average build, average height, average unassuming business suit. What was different was that thing on his head. A large, black mask that encapsulated his entire head and had tubes at the bottom running into his neck and jaw. The face of the mask was glossy, though Hikari seriously doubted it was glass, and tinted black as to obscure the fact behind that mask. And if he squinted and tilted his head just enough, he could almost believe that he could see a skull in that glass, though that could have been a trick of the light playing with the material.

But he couldn't care enough to try and pay attention to that detail. Not because he was so angry, though he was as he looked at that man, but because of the intense pressure that had assaulted his body the second he locked his eyes onto the man's body. He couldn't quite describe it other than it felt like his body had grown heavier than it ought to have, and he could feel his heart rate begin to spike. As if the feeling of apprehension that had been growing ever since he stepped into the building was all crashing down on him at this very moment.

"What is this feeling?" He managed to maintain a straight face and keep his posture rigid, but there was nothing he could do about the fact his breathing had increased, as well as the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. "It feel like my body wants to collapse. What's going on? Is it... is it fear? Am I afraid?" His teeth made a sharp clack inside his mouth and he shook his head. "No, no way. Get it together, Hikari. This is the guy responsible for everything. You can't be afraid right now. If not for your sake, than for Kyomu's. You promised him that you'd deal with this guy."

He took a deep breath, flexed his hands, and narrowed his eyes. Now wasn't the time to be afraid. It would all be over once this man was dead. One last fight, and it would all be over.

"And here you are," All For One stated, voice more or less the same despite being filtered through that mask. "All this trouble over a single hero and a lowly accountant."

Hikari sharply exhaled, but otherwise said nothing. At the same time, he relaxed the finger on his right hand and cupped his palm around seemingly nothing.

"And to think," he continued, "that you're suffering through all of this even though you didn't kill a single person."

He wasn't even that surprised. "So you know," he blankly stated. "Yeah, I guess that guy was right. Most open secret in the world and somehow we're the only ones that know it."

"Indeed," All For One agreed. "Though, I have to ask how it is you came to the conclusion that I was the one that sent Hirose Kenji to your house that night. I envisioned you finding the truth one day, but certainly not so soon."

"You know that weird villain situation with the memory loss from a few days ago?" Hikari asked. "Yeah, that was Kenji's brother, Akame. He told us everything. Then we killed him."

The black mask on the man's head nodded. "Ah. It all becomes clear." He looked to the side. "That man always was more trouble to deal with than he was worth. Even in death he continues inconvenience me." He looked back to Hikari. "You blame me for the death of your family, and for good reason. But was it not this society of ours that failed to deliver proper justice, Shinka Hik-"

"Do not even try to flip this to the 'society is broken' argument," Hikari interrupted. "I'm not going back to the League. We're leaving. You're dying, because evidently the heroes are too incompetent to do it themselves."

"I can't argue that," All For One said with a small, sardonic laugh. "It really is a shame, though. Young Tomura will be heartbroken. You don't realize just how truly he valued you. And you would have made a fantastic villain."

Hikari sighed. "Probably, yeah." He rose a hand so that his empty palm was facing All For One. "But I got better things to do."

"And what-"

There was a flash that muted any further words from the man.


Hikari's Quirk, Light, was special in that it granted its user the intrinsic ability to manipulate photons within the environment. The only limits to this ability were those granted by the user's body, their imagination, and how much light they had stored before using any abilities, so naturally a well-lit environment played a large factor into how strong the ability was.

Over time, Hikari had developed the Quirk so intensely that it could be confused for multiple Quirks. This was due to how broad the power's description was, as well as the teen's own imagination of how to use it. Abilities ranging from firing beams of light to making shapes using condensed hardlight to modifying speed to bending light to create invisibility. Any single one of those things could have been a Quirk on its own, and yet all were at the display of Light.

This was, of course, known by the entire League, and by extension, Hikari assumed, All For One. Considering the man's age and experience with Quirks, he had little hope that he would be able to surprise All For One in their fight with his abilities as the man could likely predict anything he could prepare.

So what was he to do in the face of a grueling fight? He decided to cheat.

First, it was broad daylight, which proved ideal for him. Walking towards the building, he'd absorbed and stored more light into his body than he ever had before, to the point he'd felt like he was liable to explode from the amount of photons rattling around in his body. Second was for him to charge up the biggest and most powerful beam he could, something even bigger than the beam he'd used to escape prison. He began charging said beam in his hand right after he faced All For One in person and they began conversing. And finally, third, he decided to bend light around the charging beam to make it invisible and hide the fact he was charging said ability.

All this culminated in an attack that Hikari was confident could kill anything, and he made sure it would hit All For One. That attack had come without warning and he'd pushed extra power into it to ensure the beam would hit him before his brain could even process the information of the light approaching him.

The result was that a great, thick cylinder of pure, white light exploded out of the side of the tower, near the top. The beam was thicker than a subway bus and stretched throughout the whole city, and only began dissipating right at the edge of the city's border. Citizens walking to work or heroes patrolling could only gape up at the large, white beam cutting through the sky with such intensity that nearby roofs began to melt and the air around it shimmered and waved aggressively. Of course, they soon had to look away, as the beam was too bright to actually stare at for long without risking damage.

Altogether, the beam had maintained itself for a solid minute before it disappeared abruptly. Back at the topmost room in the tower, Hikari stood alone, panting heavily as he held out a right arm that was entirely red due to the heat exuded from the beam. There was no longer a roof to the tower, as the force from the initial firing had been so intense that it had been blown away entirely, flooding the roofless room with sunlight. The wall he was facing also ceased to be, as well as any objects that had been vaguely within that area. All that was left was smoking ashes and a halfway-melted floor.

"Hah... hah... ah, man." Groaning, Hikari lowered his burnt arm to his side and marveled at the view of the city he'd created from that single attack. "It's a good thing that guy loved the sound of his own voice. Thought it would never finish building up."

The entirety of his first arm was covered in first-degree burns and there would no doubt be heroes flooding here before long, but he'd done it. Now all that was left was to find Kyomu and-"

"You astutely observed that I use extrasensory Quirks to compensate for my loss of sight, which is why it baffles me as to how you thought you were successfully concealing that attack from me. My Infrared Ray Quirk almost had me believe you were holding the sun itself in your hand."

Hikari froze. That voice, that oh-so-terrifyingly-familiar voice sounded directly behind him, completely clear and without strain. It was such a shock that he couldn't even find it within himself to move.

"I'll congratulate you for the magnificent attack, though, Shinka Hikari." He felt a finger press against the back of his left shoulder, and this time he did manage to turn his head. He just managed to catch sight of that terrible black mask, and not only did he see it was completely unscathed, but now he could have sworn he saw that skull within the glass-like material. "Rest assured I will return the favor."

In an instant, compressed air shot from All For One's finger and rocketed right through Hikari. He let out a high-pitched gasp when a fist-sized hole appeared in his left shoulder, and had no time to contemplate the new wound as the force from that attack pushed him forwards so far that he rolled off the edge of the room and fell down the tower.

Multiple grunts escaped Hikari as he rolled down the side of the tower, his grievous shoulder wound leaving a trail of blood every time he bounced against the glass. The pain he felt in his arm was so great that he couldn't move it, though while the right one was burnt, he managed to form a white sword and stab it into a solid part of the building before he'd even fall a quarter of the way down. He hung there, feet dangling towards the ground and held aloft by that one sword, but alive.

"Agh..." He grit his teeth and tilted his head down to his left shoulder. He almost wished that he hadn't looked, as the wound was even more gruesome than it felt. He could see right through the wound, and he was fairly confident enough muscle had been blown out to inhibit his use of the arm, as he could barely move it. The fact he could see bits of white under all that obliterated meat only confirmed how bad off the arm was. "What happened? That beam... he actually managed to dodge it? No, he saw me charge it, and managed to react before I let it out. Infrared Ray... could he see the heat it was giving off? Stupid mistake. And my should- OH!"

He let out a strangled sound when his eyes wandered to a nearby window, and he saw the vague reflection of a floating man in a black business suit behind him. He turned his head around and confirmed that, yes, All For One was a couple meters behind him, and yes, he was just casually floating in the air behind him. And then he rose his left arm, and Hikari saw the limb twist and inflate. He remembered the force that hard torn his shoulder apart, and just barely managed to react before it was too late.

All For One's arm decompressed to normal size, and the resulting decompression caused a cone of incredibly condensed air to slam into Hikari. The sword of light shattered instantly, and his body tumbled through all the glass, concrete, and metal all the way through the other side of the building. He'd flown back from the hole his body had made ten meters before he slammed into a square platform made of hardlight, made from his quick thinking. He slid down the square and softly landed on a second, near-invisible square that had materialized under his feet. A heavy breath left him, and his body, which faintly flickered with an outline of hardlight, collapsed against the hardlight platform at his back as he stared into the hole he made.

"I barely managed to cover myself from that," he thought. "It's impossible to know how many Quirks he has or what they are, so I couldn't plan around it. But just the couple he displayed so far... Infrared Ray probably makes my invisibility useless. And he keeps firing those air blast things at me. And there's still the fact he'd dodged that beam! Does he have some kind of speed Quirk? A strength enhancement Quirk? Is he just naturally that fast!? No, he can't be. Not with a body that needs life support. It's a Quirk. Gotta be." He groaned and shakily rose to his feet. He could already see the vague outline of All For One floating towards him through that hole. "Hardlight can mitigate the damage, but what about the rest of his powers?" He shook his head. "Just deal with them as they come, Hikari. You can't plan, so improvise. Use all this light."

"I remember first hearing from Tomura how he'd recruited the boy whose life my actions had ruined, on how he wanted revenge on a society that had done him an injustice, and I laughed. I laughed harder than I'd laughed in decades," All For One told him as he slowly floated ever closer. "When I gleaned together the truth that your brother was the one who committed the deed, I grew unbelievably delighted. And your brother, Kyomu... UA's standards really must have fallen if he has so much free time on his hands that he can kill villains wantonly the way he does. Or did Stain, whose convictions rival even my own, really lose his fire after one bad fight and give up his goal up?" Hikari's silence was all the confirmation the villain needed. "A false villain trying in vain to change society alongside the very people who ruined his life. A false hero who turned his whole reason into being a sham because he couldn't get over his own grief. I must say, the comedy of watching the Shinka twins' story unfold so disastrously has been nothing short of exquisite, and for that, you have my eternal thanks." He raised up his left arm, and once more it begin to twist and inflate. "But unfortunately, Shinka Hikari, every show must have an end."

His arm shrank back down as the compressed air blast left his arm and headed straight for Hikari. It met resistance on its way towards him, however, in the shape of a square wall of hardlight. Though it shattered right through the wall, the area of air that was heavily distorted and was moving towards Hikari slowed down a significant amount, and only proceeded to slow down more and more as it smashed through wall after wall of hardlight behind the next. By the time it reached Hikari, it had dissipated to nothing once it reached the last wall, leaving a cracked square of hardlight right in front of his face.

Hikari moved right afterwards. Body glowing with a thin film of white light over his form, he dashed to the left using small, disk-shaped pieces of floating hardlight as platforms. All For One slowly spun in the air to keep his arm aimed right at him, though every time he fired compressed air at him, Hikari would zip up or down and dodge the air mass entirely.

While sprinting, six points of light began to float above Hikari's head. From each of these six lights a thin, concentrated beam would fire sporadically out of them and cut right towards All For One. To the teen's increasing shock, the man didn't dodge any of the beams. He merely floated in place and let them his his torso, legs, and arms, though when the smoke of his burnt clothes disappeared, Hikari could see through the holes he had made that his beams of lights hadn't so much as scratched the skin underneath.

"That's not good," he thought as the six points of light above him disappeared. "Okay, well, he's evidently durable, but he can't be invincible. He wouldn't have dodged my first attack like he did otherwise. So I just gotta use something stronger." He used a plate of hardlight to brake himself, and then sprinted in the opposite direction to avoid another blast of compressed air. "The bigger, more powerful beams need a charge-up time, though, and he's already displayed the ability to read their telegraphs and dodge them accordingly. So how would... get close?" He stopped on a hardlight platform and faced All For One. "Hey, there's an idea."

White light began to build and coalesce in his right hand. At the same time, his irises began to glow an intense red, and light began to flow around his body in such a way that his white hair was being swished back and forth from the force it provided. All For One, who had lowered his arm in order to watch, chuckled at the sight while shaking his head.

"What is this? Trying to prepare another one of those laser attacks?" he asked the teen. "What do you hope to accomplish when you're all the way over there, Shinka Hikari?"

"You only managed to dodge the first one 'cause you saw it." While it was a response to the villain's statement, he'd muttered it in such a low voice that he doubted he'd heard him. Unless, of course, he had a Quirk to help with hearing, but whether he did or not was a fact the teen didn't particularly care about. "So watch this."

The white light was practically roaring around his body until he was little more than a solid, white pillar of light. This state of being was only maintained for a few seconds before it began to slowly spread outwards. All For One floated a few centimeters back in preparation, but was halted with the slow growth exploded outwards in such a way that the light pillar encompassed the entire area for a hundred meters out.

Staying silent, All For One tilted his masked head to the side as if he were trying to avert his nonexistent eyes from the light. The whiteness surrounding him faded after a few seconds, however, and what was left was the clear, morning air they had been fighting in previously. Morning air, he noted, that was intensely more hot than it ought to be. So hot the air was vaguely shimmering.

"Trying to blind Infrared Ray by heating the air around us to mask your body temperature and the temperature of your attack." There was movement that he sensed directly behind him, causing him to whirl around and grab the throat of the invisible figure poised right behind him. "But neither that nor decoys-" he spun around with the figure in his hand and held him between himself and another invisible figure, who was aiming their right hand at him, "- will be enough to fool me so long as I have the Scan Quirk."

Invisibility faded on both figures, revealing a Hikari-shaped mass of light in All For One's hand and the true Hikari right in front of them with his attack prepared. Hikari, gritting his teeth in frustration, willed the light clone he'd made to disappear from All For One's grasp before firing the beam. This proved to take too much time, unfortunately, as All For One took the disappearance of the clone as his cue to dodge. And dodge he did, moving as a blur to the side just as the beam passed him only to reappear at Hikari's side and grab his right wrist with his own right hand. This halted the beam immediately and caused the heated teen to look up into the villain's mask.

"As fun as this has been, Shinka, I think it's about time we... hm?" A confused sound left the villain's throat, and his mask tilted downwards at the wrist he was grabbing. "For some reason I cannot- oh, I see."

Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that he wasn't grabbing the teen's wrist, but was in fact grabbing a small sleeve of hardlight that was surrounding the wrist. The same sleeve that was part of the entire layer of hardlight covering the teen's body.

"So you need physical skin-to-skin contact to take somebody's Quirk," Hikari observed. His eyes were wide, and there was small shake to his voice, but otherwise he managed to remain calm and stare directly into the skull-like mask that his risen to meet his gaze. "You can't steal my Quirk as long as I have this shield on me." He twisted the wrist in All For One's grasp so that his palm was facing the villain. Light began to rapidly gather at the center of his palm, and Hikari was prepared to fire off the hastily-charged attack when the villain's deep voice rang out in a chilling calm despite the situation.

"Forced Quirk Activation."

Black, rod-like tentacles that bent at perfect angles and had red, circuit-like veins running along their length spread out from his left hand, one for each finger. The five tentacles passed right through Hikari's hardlight barrier and rammed right into his chest. Blood spurted out from the five points his chest had been penetrated, and Hikari was forced to release a pained gasp as a searing pain shot through him. His eyes snapped down the the five shapes piercing him, and then began to widen as his irises began to uncontrollably glow a bright red.

"What the...!?" Light began leaking out from his body. On random parts of his body, from his shoulders, hips, ankles, and waist, white, vapor-like clouds of photons were slowly leaving him, and a feeling of being drained was rapidly overcoming him. But try as he might to reel the light back into himself, he couldn't. And at the rate it was draining, he couldn't absorb the ambient light around him to replenish his reserves. "My Quirk... it's not obeying me... don't tell me this power is-"

"Since this pesky shield of yours is in the way, I decided to wrench control of your power with one of my own," All For One stated, confirming Hikari's fears. "I'll use one of my own Quirks to force you to release all that light faster than you can absorb it. Eventually, that shield of yours will give out, and this farce will be at an end."

He could believe it, too, seeing as he could feel his own reserves drain more and more by the second. Already Hikari could see the hardlight shield around himself began to flicker, and if it failed and All For One grabbed a hold of him, the fight would be over and he would die. He tried wrenching his wrist away from All For One, but his grip was harder than a vice's, and he couldn't even budge the wrist anymore. The tentacles stabbing into his chest weren't helping matters, either, as he could feel his movements become inhibited from them.

A frustrated growl escaped him. In his frustration, a light beam shot out from his palm and hit All For One, though it predictably did no damage. It did give Hikari and idea, though. "He can force the light out of me, but I can control what little I have left." He snapped his head down and forced himself to focus. The fingers on his left hand began to flex, and though that single movement caused great pain to rocket up his body, it was working. "Alright. Don't have enough to make anything big, so let's try this."

Light coalesced around his dangling limb, and he willed the light to solidify around his joints and lift the arm up. Every minute movement sent white-hot heat up his arm as well as pushed more blood he couldn't afford to lose at this rate, but it got the arm moving. He had the light fully clench his fingers, and a shimmering, white sword appeared in his grasp right as his fingers clenched around the handle. It was only after he felt his arm hold a secure grip on that sword did he will the light around his arm to swing it forwards at All For One.

The white sword dragged across All For One's midsection, and for the first time since the beginning of the fight Hikari felt some relief when he saw a small, red, angry line be left in the blade's wake along his torso. It must have been jarring enough that All For One lost his focus, as he had released his grip on Hikari's wrist. Unfortunately, he was still held aloft by the black and red tentacles in his chest, and before he could even attempt to cut them, he felt his body lurch backwards. All For One had moved his hand and the tentacles attaching Hikari to him behind him, as if readying a throw, and once his arm was fully wound back he thrust it downwards. This had the effect of the tentacles whipping Hikari forwards, and while the force had been enough to jar him from their grasp, he was sent tumbling through the air, still powerless from the light that had been bled from him, and only came to a halt when he crashed back into the broken tower through a destroyed window.

"Keep struggling, Shinka Hikari," All For One rumbled as the tentacles retracted back into his hand. "The conclusion of this fight is a foregone conclusion, but not even some of the earlier users of that infernal Quirk One For All gave me this much of a fight. So keep struggling, and prolong my amusement as much as possible. It's the least you owe me for destroying my favorite tower and wounding Tomura so."


The proclamation Kyomu had made right after Shigaraki's body hit the ground forced all of the villains into action, though he had already prepared for this. Still in his seated position, Kyomu flicked his right index finger and guided it into a small, black portal. It exited an equally-sized portal right behind Twice's feet. The finger, wreathed in black, moved right through Twice's achilles's tendon on his right foot, causing him to cry out in pain and fall forwards. Right as he was falling, another portal opened right above his head, and from Kyomu's end a portal was right beneath his foot when he kicked downwards. The foot when through the portals and cracked against the older villain's head, causing his head to slam straight into the concrete and for his body to go still.

"Clone guy first. Warp guy second." Not missing a beat, Kyomu jumped off the chair, spun around, grabbed the chair with his right hand, and turned around once more in a full three-sixty to meet the villains. He used the momentum of his spin to swing the chair in front of him, and at the apex of the swing's speed, Kyomu released the chair into a black portal. In the next instant, a black portal opened next to Kurogiri, and the chair flew right through and smashed to pieces against his side. He grunted lowly and stumbled forwards, but the momentary stun was enough for Kyomu to use an application of Dark Drift to appear in front of him and reach through the mist at the top of his body.

"Huh. There is a human body in here." He was fairly certain the thing he was gripping was a human throat. He'd seen and grabbed enough to know the feeling, even if there was something... off about the way it felt. It couldn't place what, but pushed it out of his mind as he dragged Kurogiri forwards, balled his other hand into a fist, and punched into the mist and at his face three times, though Kurogiri's body had grown limp at the first punch. He quickly tossed the unconscious body to the side, and then stepped to the side to narrowly avoid a knife that was about to cut him.

"Knife girl. Appearance-changing Quirk. Useless in this scenario." Toga, yellow eyes wide and mouth set in an uncertain, uneasy smile, tried stabbing forwards at Kyomu. His response was to form a black sword in his hand and swipe at the blade. His Void sword managed to cut right through the knife, causing half of the blade to fly off, and all Toga could do was stare as Kyomu reached through portals, grabbed the blade fragment, and then stabbed it forwards through more portals until it ended up being embedded in Toga's back. She screamed out in pain and stumbled forwards right into Kyomu, who grabbed the back of her head with both hands and roughly pressed her downwards. Her face crashed into the knee he slammed up towards her, the impact of which caused her to lose consciousness and her body to slump to the side.

The girl's body had barely hit the cold ground before Kyomu saw tinges of blue at the corner of his vision. He tilted his head to the side ever-so-slightly and instinctively opened a Void portal in front of the pillar of blue flame rushing towards him. Dabi, at the other end of those flames, made a "tsk" sound and stepped backwards when he saw his flames be harmlessly avoided. Upon the third step back he was startled to find that he lost his footing, and hissed in pain when he looked down and saw that his foot had fallen into a hole made by Void. He pulled his foot out from the portal, and he released a strangled gasp when he saw his foot frozen over. He ceased his forwards attack and brought his hands to his foot, and right as he managed to get blue flames on the ice, a foot stomped on the side of his temple and caused him to flop to the floor.

Right after knocking down Dabi, Kyomu saw a shadow moving just in front of him and ducked down. The moment he did, an outstretched hand shot out right above where his head had been, and Kyomu whirled around from his crouched position to see Mr. Compress right behind him. He stood up, clamped down on the arm with his own left, and with the right he grabbed the artificial arm at the older man's side. A quick slice of Void cut the fake limb off at the shoulder, and Mr. Compress couldn't even let out a cry of surprise fast enough before Kyomu cracked the fake arm over his face, smashing his mask to pieces, and then brought the arm down once again on top of his head. This proved sufficient to knock him out, and his body crumpled to the ground beneath him.

There was a loud war-cry to his right, and Kyomu turned towards the sound. He saw the one with the lizard-like Quirk, Spinner, run towards him with... something. "What in the world is that abomination?" he muttered to himself as he dodged the thing that was swung at him. The best he could use to describe it was a sword with dozens of various other sword blades strapped to the main sword blade. Nevertheless, he'd sidestepped the sorry excuse for a sword, spun around Spinner to his backside, and cracked the prosthetic limb in his hand at the back of his head. He, too, fell down to the ground.

It was after Spinner went down did Kyomu feel his body begin to pull forwards. He looked up from the lizard's body at the last member of the League, whose weapon was held behind their head and readied as Kyomu slid towards them. "Right. Magna. Something about a magnet Quirk."

As Kyomu's body was pulled towards the last standing villain, a Void portal appeared above their weapon and slid down its length, causing the weapon to disappear, and then vanished right before it made it to their hands. It was right after Kyomu was dragged right in front of Magna from the invisible force of their Quirk did they swing the large, iron bar at them, though it whiffed him entirely due to it being cut down to ten percent of its length. Magna noticed the severe shortening of their weapon and made a vague, confused sound, which was all the time they had before Kyomu swung the metal arm in his hand across their face. Weakened from the abuse, the arm fell to pieces in his grasp, and the muscled League member went still, swayed on their feet, and then finally lost consciousness and fell down.

His work done, Kyomu let out a loud sigh as he slowly turned from side-to-side to observe his handiwork. Eight unconscious villains were laid out before him, and he didn't even have to seriously maim any of them. With any luck they would be out for too long to help All For One fight his brother off, and by the time they awoke the twins would be long gone.

And to think he wasn't even out of breath from the small scuffle. Hopefully Hikari was having just as easy of a time as he was if this was the best the League of Villains could throw at him.

"That should do it for me," Kyomu mumbled to himself. "Chumps. All of ya." He lifted his right hand to his face, flexed it, and scoffed. "After all this time you all barely made it past two-bit thugs. Nothin' but a buncha three-bit losers," he decided before turning around.

He'd only made it four steps before pain-wracked cough stopped him.

"Where the hell do you thin-think you're going?" Only one person had such a distinct voice as that, and when Kyomu turned around to address that voice, he was none too surprised to see it was Shigaraki. He couldn't lift himself off his knees and had to lean up on what was left of the bar to support himself, but he managed to lift his head enough to face Kyomu. The teen noted that the hand he kept on his face had fallen off, likely when he bashed his head against the bar, and a pained, anguished face with chapped features stared up at him. "You're just... gonna knock us all out and leave after all that?"

"I already told you. I'm just here to incapacitate you." He turned his back to Shigaraki. "If I had it my way, I would have saved myself the trouble and killed all of you. But Hikari asked me to spare you for whatever reason. I honestly don't think he would have if you'd told him the whole truth, but whatever." Kyomu started walking forwards. "It's his final gift to you. Don't waste it."

"Hey... hey, wait!" Shigaraki had released his grip on the bar and attempted to crawl towards Kyomu. "You can't... Hikari can't just-!"

A black portal opened next to his head, and a fist sailed through. It hit the side of Shigaraki's head, and his words were cut off immediately to silence as he slumped to the ground. Kyomu afforded him one last glance over his shoulder, and then wordlessly turned back forwards and proceeded out of the warehouse.


"Well, Kyomu... looks like your twin brother messed up."

He couldn't really precisely pin down the moment during the fight that he realized he wasn't going to win. Hikari theorized that it was perhaps after he'd been thrown through that tower the second time, but his thoughts were in such a blur at the moment and his body practically numb from the pummeling that he couldn't mind the processing power necessary to think about it. But, while he did try his hardest to fight the monster in front of him, a base part of him knew it was a futile effort.

"I'm sorry. I tried. I really did. He was just too strong. Foolish of me to think I could take him on when All Might could barely do it, huh? But I thought, since he was weakened, that I could do it." Hikari's body tumbled through the air, and his burnt arm reached out and grabbed a square piece of hardlight to keep him from falling down to the streets a couple hundred meters below him. "Maybe you could have done it with Void. Doubt even his freakishly tough body and all his Quirks could have defended against your power. But I had to go and saddle you with Shigaraki."

The battered, bloodied teen pulled himself up to his knees on the platform, and barely had enough time to register the dark-suited form flying towards him. He attempted to materialize dozens of sheets of hardlight between them, but All For One had almost effortless punched through each and every one.

"You should have been here to beat him. I should have been the one to deal with Shigaraki. He was my friend. My responsibility. But I was too scared. Too scared of seeing Shigaraki's reaction. Too scared of you fighting this guy." Four white swords flashed to life at Hikari's sides and shot towards All For One. The villain shattered each and every one with his forearms like they were nothing, and then in a single, inhumanly fast and fluid motion, flew in a curve right towards Hikari's side and kicked him. He felt ribs completely break under the kick and could only managed a subdued groan as he was once again sent sailing towards the broken tower.

"And I wasn't just scared. I was hateful. I wanted to be the one to kill him. Selfish, yeah, but it's the truth." He could barely sit up amidst the rubble he'd landed on. He felt blood begin to flow freely out of his mouth, and the mere act of breathing became a struggle to him. "He took our parents, but he took over a decade of my life. I was angry, and I wanted... I just wanted all that time back. Knowing that I could point all that grief to a single man as opposed to some intangible concept of society gave me something to be angry at. Something I could just blast away with lasers to make myself feel better. It didn't work out too well."

In a blur of misplaced air, All For One appeared standing above him. It was all Hikari could do to try and raise his hand up to him, and he even managed to charge a tiny amount of light in his hand, but before he could do anything a long, spear-like spike of bone had shot out from All For One's elbow and impaled itself right through Hikari's right knee. The teen let out a strangled scream and attempted to reach for the bone impaling his leg, but All For One had pivoted his arm and flung Hikari to the side. The violent motion tore the spike out from his knee, and the leg it was connected to began to flop freely in the air as Hikari's body smashed through a wall.

A pained moan left him every time he hit and rolled on the ground, and he'd just barely came to a stop before he felt five objects stab into his back. He managed to make out those black and red tendrils from earlier, but that was all he could perceive before the tentacles lifted him a meters off the ground. The tentacles detached themselves from his back, and directly in the path he was falling was All For One. The aged villain, in response to Hikari falling, reared his leg back and kicked upwards once Hikari's body became level with his waste. The villain's shin impacted Hikari's midsection, and all the air in his lungs as well as another mouthful of blood was spat from his mouth before the force of the kick sent him rocketing upwards into the sky.

"Above all that, though, I felt... I felt guilty." Hikari's body tumbled up and down uncontrollably as the momentum of the kick carried him up into the sky above the tower. "I was the first one to be born. Four minutes wasn't much of a difference, but it technically made me older. I was the first one to get a Quirk. I had power that night. It should have been my responsibility to stop Kenji from wounding our parents. I could have if I reacted better. If I had, you wouldn't have seen all of that and accidentally awaken your Quirk. That's why I lied and for you. I never was able to forgive myself. Forgive myself for failing my family. Forgive myself for leaving you alone all those years. Forgive myself for the way you turned out. I thought if I worked with Shigaraki and changed society I could maybe redeem myself. Then I thought if I killed All For One, I could make it all up to you."

His body came to an abrupt halt when, up in the clouds, a hand gripped around his throat, and the sudden jolt from the stop intensely rattled what little bones he had left that weren't broken and caused those that were broken to shift around and make pain spike through his body. Through his bleary vision, blurred by both tears of pain and blood, Hikari could just barely make out the black, blobbed shape that was All For One's mask.

A gag formed in the back of his throat, but due to the hand constricting it, he couldn't let it out nor even breath. He couldn't even feel his body anymore, and the edges of his vision were growing dark. He was fairly certain All For One said something, too, as he could have sworn he heard something, but even his hearing was almost gone by this point. But, defiant to the end and cognizant of the light around them, Hikari had mustered the will to make one last sword of light at his side and, instead of flinging it, had the floating sword swing at All For One. Unfortunately, due to his rapidly-decreasing mental fortitude, the sword was extremely weak and broke apart to nothing on impact. It was not for naught, though, as even through his failing vision he could see a long, white scratch running through the center of the black mask.

In spite of it all, Hikari had managed a small, bloodied grin when he saw the scratch. He'd have that much at the very least.

All For One wasn't nearly as amused, though, as he'd let go if Hikari, pointed his palm at him as he fell, and fired another burst of air from his own palm. His body was in such a state that Hikari didn't even feel the large hole that had been blown completely through his chest and out his back, nor could he perceive his falling speed be dramatically increased. All he could see was the wind rushing past his face until he fell back to the tower once again and fell through three floors before finally stopping.

"I'm really, really, really sorry, Kyomu. I just wanted you to forgive me." Hikari's vision began to darken. Breathing was slowing, and his exhaustion was to the point that he couldn't move if he tried. "I just... wanted to see you smile again like before..."

His head listed to the side, and with a final, rattling breath, the light left Hikari's eyes.


Expensive, leather shoes softly touched down on the rubble that had formerly comprised the upper part of his tower. Brushing some dust off of what was left of his suit, All For One slowly walked forwards and ducked through a few hanging pieces of metal and concrete until he found what he was looking for.

Shinka Hikari's body was a sight for sore eyes, so much that he didn't even need eyes to see how bad the damage was. His final fall into the tower had landed him on a bed of rebar pointed up like spikes, which were now running through his torso and limbs as he laid on him. Between that, the hole in his chest, and the myriad of other wounds he had inflicted upon him, it was no wonder that he detected no signs of life coming from the still body.

"So. You've finally expired, have you?" All For One muttered as he stared down at the body. "A befitting fate for a traitor. I had hoped you would put this all behind you, Shinka Hikari, but Tomura does not need comrades who let emotions come before their goals."

The corpse below him remained silent, and in annoyance, the villain kicked at the side of his head. There was a sickening crunch as the neck snapped, and the head bent at an awkward angle. Finally, All For One let out a steady breath and allowed his shoulders to relax. No sooner had he done this did he hear footsteps quietly approach him.

He could see his doctor approach before he'd even entered the same floor, and made no reaction as he gazed at the body below their feet. The look on his face was entirely impassive. "That took longer than I expected," he blithely commented. "I didn't imagine he would give you that much trouble."

"He was a formidable opponent," All For One admitted, "though, considering his genetic upbringing and Quirk, it's none too surprising. And he had even more fire in his eyes than previous users of that Quirk. I shudder to think what he would have become if he had been the inheritor of One For All."

Garaki hummed, but otherwise said nothing in response.

"I'm afraid this home of ours had been compromised," All For One continued as he turned away from the body. "Heroes will no doubt be swarming the premises before long. We will have to retreat to your personal lab for a time." He pointed to the body behind him. "And bring that with us."

Another hum, this one more interested than the last. "You wish to extract the Quirk?" he asked.

"Perhaps in time, but I've something else in mind," All For One answered. "I already have a line of vengeful successors hounding me to the grave. I don't need another, so I will be disposing of the brother before he becomes an issue. But I feel Tomura will need some retribution carried out on my behalf, and I wish to see the young one's resolve crumble right before me for all the trouble they have caused us. So bring the traitor's corpse. I have just the thing in mind for it."


Hours passed, but there was no sign of Hikari. Thoughts of searching for him had briefly passed his mind, but without a clue as to where he was, Kyomu didn't know where he would even begin. So he decided to just go somewhere Hikari could easily find him and wait for him there.

This took him back to the orphanage, where he waited patiently on the roof. By now enough time had passed that the sun was beginning to set, though he still patiently watched the gate leading to the orphanage's courtyard from the roof, expecting his brother to walk through any moment.

"I wonder," Kyomu thought, feet kicking over the edge of the roof, "when Hikari will come to pick me up?"