Toshinori had a gun pointed directly at his head and he smiled. His body was still muscled like a greek statue and somehow his quirk was with him. However that didn't make the prospect of facing down these villains any less terrifying. He may be able to outrun bullets, but he was still vulnerable to them if the bastards got lucky.

Thankfully it was over in moments as he rushed in with his catch phrase, shouting like some divine figure. A few punches were all that was needed and they had been subdued and he was left to stand in the crowd of onlookers who cheered out his name. "Just relax Yagi, better days are ahead now." He mentally said to himself to stop the flood of doubt. Young Midoriya is back safe and sound, the Symbol of Evil was defeated and Nedzu had managed to "say the right things" to get him to cooperate with the authorities.

Now all that was left was a week's time before his student would be allowed back home. So with that in mind, he allowed a genuine smile to replace his usual grin. Then he heard a crackle of ozone and the air behind him shuddered. He only had enough time to see the darkness of the portal before everything went black.

Tomura felt his teeth threaten to crack under the strain of his jaw as he stared at the marble in Compress' hand. It had been stupidly easy to grab the golden fucker right off the street no less, but they needed to proceed very carefully. He looked up to the oversized table lined with things that glistened under the low lighting, Moonfish stood to one side of the room, his hands touching each implement softly while Kurogiri viewed everything like some emotionless ghost from behind the neurotic young villain.

If he was younger the very thought would have made him overjoyed to finally have the Symbol of Peace at his mercy, but looking at it realistically, right now was the single most dangerous risk he or any of them had ever made. Dabi had argued the point that they all should be there when this happened, yet it wouldn't be safe, it wouldn't be right. This was his fault, as such he owed it to them to be the only one with their head near the chopping block, though Moonfish wasn't taking no for an answer and Toga nearly castrated him when he told her off. Thank god for Magne, otherwise this would be even worse.

He stole a glimpse at Kurogiri who was so silent that it unnerved him. The man was usually of few words, but as of these last two months...it was like someone had ripped out his vocal cords. He didn't lament what happened to them, he didn't cast blame to him or even Toga. No, it was like he...didn't care.

Damn that wasn't right either. Kurogiri did care, more than anyone else, but he was so collected about it that...that it pissed him off. In a strange way Tomura...enjoyed? Felt Glad? Needed?, his followers to call him out. It made him know he was right to do what he did.

It didn't matter at the moment, they all had bigger things to worry about.

"Is it ready? This bastard is fighting and it's getting harder to keep him down."

The three other criminals looked at Compress, the two older men remaining stoic while Tomura couldn't help but notice how the marble vibrated like there was a rumble feature installed. The question was directed towards Kurogiri and after a quick nod from Moonfish as he double checked the mechanisms on the table, the mist villain spoke.

"Do it."

With a toss the marble contacted a secondary rack bolted to the floor by the table and disappeared with a quick snap of air. All Might's towering form appeared split seconds later, but before the hero could move a muscle, restraints turned to life and clasped his limbs and fingers. Moonfish moved in just as fast to slip a syringe filled with the quirk suppressant into the man, cancelling out most of the blue light buzzing around him. Still the Symbol of Peace struggled, fighting like a caged animal to get free.

He was so in depth with his effort that he didn't notice Kurogiri approaching him. The ghost stared at the hero, his face unreadable while their captive thrashed around. It only ended when he slapped him with such force that it made Tomura flinch.

All Might looked at the specter with an unhidden disdain that was at odds with his public persona, but Tomura couldn't blame him. However the crime fighter didn't get the first word in, that honor belonged to Kurogiri who stared him down in turn.

"Mr. Toshinori I will make this very simple. We would like to know where our comrade is being held. Inform us as to his location and I give you my word that this will end without any sort of...incivility. If you choose to do otherwise, which I assuredly believe you will, our resident Razortooth will be forced to...use his ungentlemanly skillset to gain the information. Now rest assured that you will not die from this, even those such as us have standards, but as I'm sure you're aware-"

He leaned in closer to the hero with his "mouth" being pressed up to his ear.

"-There are wounds which run far deeper than simple physical pain."

All Might glared at the ghost as he pulled away, allowing the hero to fully take in the situation. His eyes traveled to the four villains, then back to the apparent ringleader of the group.

"Why go to such lengths when your master is dead? The boy is spent, he has nothing left to give any of you. His mind is shattered, he barely can speak at times and all he sees at night are terrors. You have nothing to gain from this, just leave him be."

There was obvious restraint in his voice from speaking, though that went uncared for by Kurogiri.

"We seek to gain nothing, sir. This is simply a formality for someone which we consider to be of...personal value to us. We all have a debt to pay and as such, we act to repay it with or without our benefactor's orders. To put it in layman's terms, he would do the same for us, so we're doing the same for him."

Again the hero glared at them, his gaze resting solely on the spirit. Nothing was said for a long, long time. Then to the surprise of everyone watching him, the Symbol of Peace answered.

"He's located in the Hades Detention Center near northern Honshu and about four miles under the earth."

All of the criminals stood momentarily shell shocked, but Kurogiri regained his senses and motioned for Moonfish.

"Thank you sir, your cooperation is...duly noted."

A cloth was slammed into the man's face by the gimp and robbed him of his consciousness. A portal opened up behind him as Compress turned him into a marble once again and was thrown into it, leaving the remaining villains to deal with what was ahead.

Izuku couldn't wait, he was set to finally leave this place tomorrow. Nedzu had told him how he managed to pull a few strings and shorten the transfer time by six days. He'd be able to start again and put the past behind him...yet that was easier said than done.

He knew he still had a lot to answer for and once again, he had gotten very, very lucky. If the circumstances were just the tiniest bit different than he'd likely be killed. Odd how that works, one second he couldn't care if he lived or died and the next he never wanted to live as badly.

All he could do at the moment until the clock struck seven AM was to lay back and count the minutes. He was content to do just that, but as if the very universe itself had decided to throw a wrench in his plan, the exact time when Izuku planted his head on his pillow, the entire room began to shake and alarms began to blaze, screaming out their warnings until even that too was slain.

Instinctively he knew something was beyond wrong, it wasn't simply due to his previous occupation as a killer, no, this was more primal. It was a deep, ancient sense that told him danger was near. Looking around his cell, he found nothing he could have used as a weapon and his quirk was being suppressed by another dose that Nedzu told him to take until he transferred back. The feeling grew worse as the clock ticked on, mimicking his heartbeat like some sick joke and he soon found the reason when the elevator dinged open. Inside were a pack of people that he once would have been overjoyed to see again. Now, he had to suppress a surge of fear.

Tomura was the first to exit the lift, his expression seeming almost happy to see him again. He was followed by Dabi, Himiko, Mustard, Moonfish and Compress, who all, baring Himiko shared a certain melancholy about seeing him.

Izuku first thought to step back, but he learned early on to never show weakness in situations such as this. He stared back at the group with as much indifference as he could summon. Keeping his eyes even and his posture slightly slouched he managed to raise an eyebrow at the cleansing villain, figuring that the cameras had also been cut off, judging by the red emergency lights.

"What the hell are you all doing here?"

Tomura's smile widened a bit as he placed a hand to the plexiglass and reduced it to dust in seconds.

"What the hell else would be breaking into a prison for dumb ass? Quit standing around, we have to get going before the heroes get here."

Izuku said nothing, scanning the others for any show of intent. Moonfish was, as usual, unreadable in his suit. Mustard and Compress were likewise and Himiko looked to be on the verge of tears, but if it was due to joy or sorrow he couldn't tell. Dabi, for once, was without his perpetual scowl and stared right back at him with something akin to resolve.

So he assumed they weren't here to kill him, lucky him.

"Fine."

He stepped out of the corpse of his cage and approached Tomura, allowing his emotions to show as he grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him close until they were nearly touching noses.

"When we get back, I need to have a conversation with you."

He pushed the older villain away and glared at the others.

"With all of you, about how things are going to be."

He saw how both Tomura and Himiko cringed at his words. Though the facts were bare to him now, it still hurt to see that. A warpgate materialized near the entrance of the elevator after Tomura contacted Kurogiri and strangely Izuku felt calm as he entered it. A walk in total darkness later, they appeared in some place with concrete walls that had the particular stink of old gasoline.

Twice, Magne and Spinner warped in half a second after they did and Kurogiri himself was standing off to one side of the room with his face somehow...tighter then it should be. There were things on a table, things that struck a chord with him. His mask, his pipe and his revolver sat waiting.

All eyes were on him, everyone was silent, save for Tomura who walked right past him and threw his mask to him. Izuku caught it and as he studied the thing which had been his face for so long, the man who brought him into this life spoke up.

"Sorry it took us so long, but with Sensei gone we needed to get situated. You know how that goes."

Izuku continued to study his mask before meeting Tomura's eyes and then everyone else. He walked back to the table, placing his former identity down with what else defined him for so long. It hurt to think about what he was going to do next, a part of him truly wished to take the mantle up once again and keep his life of crime going, but another, wiser part of himself directed him that day.

"I'm quitting. I appreciate the effort you all took to get me back, but as of right now, I am no longer a part of this."

The words came out even and far calmer then he thought they would, maybe that was due to the tide of anger building inside him, or maybe it was more because of how everyone didn't look utterly enraged by what he said.

Himiko tried to say something, but caught her own voice when she looked down in shame. Spinner and Dabi shared a similar sort of expression, though Dabi looked almost...proud when he heard that. Magne pursed her lips at that, but said nothing as she nervously began to play with her nails. Compress, Twice and Moonfish were practically brick walls with their masks concealing their features, while Kurogiri remained stoically stagnant. But as Izuku predicted from the moment this situation began, Tomura was the only one who decided to vocalize his opinion on the idea. Though that only happened after the two met the other's eye and the older man had to visibly suppress the urge to scratch at himself.

"So...you figured it out, didn't you?"

Izuku popped his knuckles when he heard that.

"Yeah...I…"

He inhaled as deeply as his lungs would allow to temper his emotions. It was so surreal to be standing here and saying these things and not having an ounce of fear or...regret. For the first time in a long while Izuku began to see things differently from how he forced himself to, or thought he did. He wasn't murderously angry or earth endingly sa...ok, he was more than a little upset, but still, he was before these people who treated him like family and just felt...bored. He knew it would devolve into either somebody(Himiko) sobbing hysterically or something else that would hurt emotionally and then his business would be finished. His life could start anew so he decided to rip it off quickly before the real agony set in.

"I don't need to state what we all know now, that would be a waste of even more of the time we have, but I'm going to make this clear, as of today, I'm a free agent. There'll be no blood spilled, or anything like that over what happened, what's done is done."

Tomura pursed his lips as he had the habit to do, looking somewhere between relieved and embarrassed.

"That's fair...given how long I kept this going. You know where you're heading?"

Izuku rolled his shoulders to ease out the inborn tension of having everyone stare at him.

"Yeah, I've had more than enough time to plan out things. As to what that is, that's my concern."

Everyone turned their heads to one side when Mustard approached the pair, bypassing Tomura and walking right up to Izuku with his helmet strapped to his belt and a rifle on his back.

"I'm in. Whatever the hell you're doing, I wanna be a part of it."

The young blond said with more meaning and conviction then any of them had ever heard. He seemed so driven, like he fully believed in the person in front of him. Then it was that his idea wasn't a singular thought as Dabi marched forward, grinning in the smug, dangerous way only he could.

"Don't think for a second of counting me out. I'm not staying another fucking minute in this place and I know for a fact you'll both be dead without me, besides you actually get shit done."

Izuku nearly stepped back from the surge of support? Adoration? Whatever this was when another person joined in. Spinner tightened the strap of the sword along his back and joined the crowd.

"I don't feel the need to state the obvious. You follow Stain's example more than anyone else here, it would be foolish of me not to go."

Moonfish was suddenly to Izuku's immediate right as he somehow blended in with the shadows of the walls, not saying a word while his presence spoke just the same. Himiko hesitated for the longest time, not daring to meet Izuku's gaze, but there was a certain unyieldingness to her that he knew all too well when she snuck to the rim of the group.

He could swear his heart had stopped beating as the silence mounted. Just say it, say it and be free. You don't need to stay here, you can move forward. All it needs is-

Izuku ceased his inner monologue when a laugh erupted from behind them. Tomura was clutching his sides in an uproarious laughter that sounded like malice incarnate to Izuku. This went on for three, four minutes until at last the cleansing villain managed to catch his breath. When it was over red, bloodshot eyes met much saner green in an unspoken conflict.

"You're actually going back to those heroes, aren't you?"

The room instantly fell silent, every eye now turning to examine the younger man, watching for his reaction to the claim. Izuku remained as he was, though he had just noticed how his gaze dropped for just a mere moment. If he said the wrong thing he was likely to get murdered where he stood, but at the same time this was an issue he would have to face one way or another. God, how he hated thinking in these situations when every dignified part of him screamed to act without forethought of the consequences. To behave as if he were invincible.

So he strode with purpose to the man who lied to him, not an ounce of fear residing in his resolve to keep his pride even in death while Tomura was grinning like he had when this whole arrangement started, back when they were at each other's throats.

"Yeah, you have a problem with it? I gave more than my fair share of sacrifice for this group, I washed my hands in blood, did things to people so horrible that most would vomit, and not once did I think of stopping because of one fact I believed in. I thought that we could trust each other, that no matter what we had a shared vision of a less fucked up world where people could have a chance we didn't."

He came within striking distance of the villain, standing as if he could punch a hole through the concrete if he so chose.

"But I only agreed because I had no choice. It was either sink or swim and I had no way out. You're right about me being a neurotic, emotionally repressed mess, but if it weren't for me, you'd be dead six times over and this whole operation would have failed before it even got off the ground. I pulled my weight and held everyone's hand when they needed it, now that I have a choice to get back what I lost, I have the right to say no."

Tomura didn't react too negatively to what he heard, if anything it only made him smile more. Yet their duel of words was cut short by a shout from behind them. Mustard shoved his way to the greenete with a fire in his soul, not caring in the slightest about anything other than getting to them.

"What the hell!? You're giving up just like that because of some deal those idiots offered!? What about all the things you said about us changing the world, about us doing something that mattered and would prove to them that we're not what they say we are!? Izuku, are you really going to let all that go over some copout!?"

The teen stared at his former comrade with a strong willed sympathy. He pursed his lips in discomfort with his mind trying to find the most gentle way to put it.

"Mustard...I'm not giving up my ideals for a better world, I'm saying "fuck this" to a situation I no longer want to be a part of. I'm tired of running and fighting and scheming and killing. You got to choose this path, it was forced onto me and I'm freely walking down where I want without hesitation."

A fist was sent flying towards his face by the blond criminal that connected with Izuku's face, but the pain didn't even make him flinch.

"Bullshit! I know for a fact you're better than any of us at this! You managed to wipe out entire gangs by yourself, you made pro heroes scared of the fucking dark. Hell, you managed to make other villains scared of going out at night! I saw you kill a man twice your size with a toothbrush and make the others watching completely give up by taunting them!"

He grabbed Izuku by the collar and pulled him close with tears starting to form under his eyelids.

"You managed to make a fuck up like me worth something, you pushed me to be better as a person until I could stand on my own and you're just going to tell me and everyone else here who had fought with you for years that you quit!? What about us and all the greatness we'd have as a group? You said we were family, that to betray that was worse than anything, that no matter what we would still have each other to lean on even in hell!"

A hand was put to Mustard's wrist as he began to shed a single tear as Izuku couldn't help but to smile in that reassuring way he always did.

"Musta...Ginji, I didn't do anything that you couldn't have done by yourself. Everything you did to grow, every good thing you made, all that came from within you and it'll still be there if I'm gone. I won't lie, I enjoyed being a bastard, but now...now I have to do something for me because I need to. I have to be selfish, just this once because otherwise I'll go insane."

The two men stared at each other for a long, long time as Ginji balanced the words in his skull. Eventually, he let go of Izuku's shirt and stomped back to his selected sect of the League. Teeth grinded against each other in the green haired youth's skull as he fought to not say something to diswaye the looks he received, but even that was halted by an all together worse thing when Tomura cut back in.

"You can say all the pretty stuff you want, that won't change who you are."

The conversation refocused on the original leader of the League who seemed to emanate some evil aura about himself while Izuku glared dangerously at him.

"You can pretend you're just like those cape sporting mobs, hell, you'll even pull it off for a while. But then after...one month, two months, maybe four or even five if you try, you'll get bored. Bored of the inaction, of the repression, of the laws they live by and how empty they all are, until at last, you act like you naturally do and raze the place to the ground."

Tomura lifted both his arms up wide in a sweeping gesture, almost as if he made to embrace the other man and grinned with self satisfaction.

"And when you do, we'll be here to welcome you back with open arms."

The glare continued to show from Izuku when another figure moved from the older crowd of villains on the other side of the room. Compress moved with his cane in a knotted grip of his fist and spoke in that strangely calming yet deathly serious tone he rarely took.

"Tomura, shut your mouth before I make you shut it."

His primary mask was lifted, revealing his eyes and mouth while covering the rest of his face was concealed by his secondary mask. His features (or what little they could see) were tired in a spiritual way as if his soul was done with the corruption around him, yet he seemed almost relieved to hear this.

"You have dragged this boy through seven layers of hell and back all for your own petty gains while you never did anything other than listen to that monster you considered a father, despite Izuku pulling your rear out of the fire time and again."

He turned to stare at Moonfish with a particular amount of contempt.

"And you twisted him and used Toga's broken mind to cause further harm while he did nothing but protect you. The both of you are disgusting and had I not fought beside you both for so long, I'd murder you where you stand. This game is over, let him go and be done with it, because I swear on my grandfather's soul that if he is forced to remain, I will make good on my promise, am I understood?"

The gimp moved forward towards the magic villain with his boots stomping against the concrete. Moonfish said nothing, did nothing and that alone was more horrifying than any act of violence because you never knew when he was about to move. Yet instead he shifted his view to Tomura and said something none of them thought he would.

"I agree with him, if he no longer wishes to be here, we have no right to prevent him from leaving."

Now Izuku had to blink at that, he honestly believed a trap was about to be sprung. Then to further his surprise Tomura laughed again.

"Fine, if he wants to go then so be it. Besides it won't be longer than a little while anyways. Kurogiri, give Izuku a way back if you would?"

The ghost did nothing for a brief second as his glowing eyes rested on the boy before a warpgate appeared out of thin air. Izuku froze, unsure of what to do until he felt the urge to move. Suddenly however, he was stopped when something clamped around his torso, pulling him close. He didn't fight when he felt it, this a sensation he knew very well.

"I'm sorry Izu-kun. I…"

The sentence never finished as something wet began to gather on his back and the hold became death like. Izuku was unsure of what to do, of what he wanted to do. Deep down he knew for a fact he was angry, that in some sick way he wanted to just slap her hands away. Still, there was another part that made him gently pull Himiko's arms from him and move forward.

"I know."

With that he managed to get free, but he knew he couldn't look back or he wouldn't leave, he had to block out the voice lamenting him for making her cry, for ruining the only grand thing he had. He was at the threshold of the vortex and before he entered he said one last thing.

"I truly wish you all the best, really I do."

As Izuku stepped into darkness, something followed him like a spirit set on chasing him.

"We know, see you in a few months."

Sunlight attacked him without mercy, assaulting his vision in the cold evening air. The majesty of UA was in front of him and by the gates stood a guardian of sorts, one that was inhumanly short and smells slightly of cheese.

"You're about two hours earily than I expected Mr. Midoriya, though I suppose we can discuss your living arrangements until All Might returns from his search. Would you mind some tea and crackers while we wait?"

For the first time in a long time, Izuku felt all the pent up stress he was holding leave him and smiled.

"I'd like that very much."