Tomura ate the plate of pancakes in front of him slowly. Taking his time to savour the taste and texture of each bite. To see if the buzz they created in the back of his head could bring back anything he lost.

Unfortunately that was a moot point as nothing came back to him save for the echo of sensations that confused him. Still they were delightful and he had half a mind to ask for seconds. Yet that became even more harrowing then the fact of what his past was, not that it was hard to see what that would get him. He knew he could have another, but that wasn't the point when he was staring at a woman who called herself his mother and who was the actual mother of the one who helped him look beyond the screen put over his eyes.

Her smile was so sincere that it hurt. Strangely this felt...natural to him, like his body was back in a place it knew and he supposed it was, but his mind was stuck in between then and now. Unable to fully accept the facts while trying desperately to move forward like he knew he should.

"How was it Sweetie? Did I overcook it or maybe you'd like a little more sugar in the mix?"

He stared back at the woman, unable to figure out what to do.

"It's fine, thank you."

She smiled back at him with a weariness only years of stress can make and took the plate away to be cleaned.

"You know you can always ask for more if you want."

Reluctantly he tapped his fingers on the table as a mix between embarrassment and anxiety swarmed him.

"I do, it's just...I don't want the food to go to waste."

He continued to tap neurotically on the hardwood.

"I'm also planning on heading out to walk around the mall a bit if possible."

The sound of running water answered him as Inko set about washing the meager dishes she had. Her voice sounded too...casual, he thought. As if she was already used to him being here.

"Alright, but please try to be back before eight if you can. Oh, before I forget, do you need a little spending money before you go?"

He lowered his head a bit, feeling sheepish at her generosity.

"No, I have enough, thank you though."

She shut the water off and stared at him with a gaze a little harder then what she usually treated him with.

"You have your phone, right?"

"Yes and my key and my wallet."

"What about your gloves?"

He pursed his lips slightly at that.

"I can manage without them, besides I need to get used to handling stuff with my quirk again."

Inko sighed at him, her short frame dwarfed by his lean body as she closed the distance and hugged him, causing the villain to cringe inwardly.

"I know, but I worry about you. Be safe while you're out and just please stay out of trouble if you can."

He felt very uncertain at that moment, but the words found him anyway.

"I'll try."

She hugged him a bit tighter.

"That's all I ask. I love you Sweetie."

That made it even worse.

"I...will be back when I can."

She held him a little longer and let him go with an understanding that also was painful to see. Tomura left out the front door in his usual attire of a blackened hoodie and jeans and made his way to his destination. It was like being drugged when he realised how he shambled around the massive shopping complex in a crowd of other people who were as brain dead as him. He wasn't sure if he hated them, why would he? He pondered. They all may as well have been blank images for the importance they held over him and what he likewise held over them. He was a ghost surrounded by other laughing and annoying spirits that never noticed him.

In the end he figured he simply didn't care and that was good enough for now. All he was really doing was just window shopping and loitering because he had nothing better to do at the moment. That wasn't true, but he realised that it would take him a while to even start with this new quest of his, only without the League or Sensei to back him up and he felt both fear and excitement at the idea.

He was free to prove himself, to cradle his power and become someone more then what he currently was. He was going to level up.

Then as Tomura had begun to smile in earnest, there was something directly in his path that made it all the better. Sitting on a bench a few feet away was a head of spikey blond hair which he knew exactly who belonged to.

His arm reached out to grab the hero once he got close enough, then he understood what he was doing and saw the fallout from this. The smile faded as he remembered how stranded he was, how no one was around to help him if it went wrong.

"Think ahead dumb ass, don't just leap in like an idiot."

He mentally said to himself as he retracted his hand, but it was too late. The blond turned his head towards the motion and two pairs of red eyes stared at each other in shock. Seeing as what would happen if he didn't act first, Tomura lunged forward, placing his hand around the hero's neck with a single finger raised while looking as if he had just forced his way next to the other man.

"Easy Kacchan, I'm just in the mood to ask you some questions. Don't think about-"

The cleansing villain never got the chance to finish his threat as the Explosion Hero threw a punch that landed on his face with a loud snap. The blow made him slacken his grip on the blond and in the few seconds before he could recover, he felt his hand being crushed in a powerful grip to where he couldn't close his palm and was pushed towards the hero who had put his free hand against the villain's torso.

Looking down Tomura could see that Katsuki had raised his feet slightly off the ground and was staring at him with a hate so vicious and burning that even he felt a little intimidated in spite of his years of death dealing.

"I don't know where the fuck you crawled out of, but you're going to talk and I mean right now."

The villain grinned smugly at him.

"Do you really want to endanger all these people Kacchan? I could turn them all to dust in seconds and-"

A piercing heat gathered on his side and crushed hand that made him stop from the pain it brought. The hero glared at him like a killer.

"That won't be an issue if I splatter you all over the walls."

Again Tomura smirked.

"So you're saying you plan to kill me even though you made an oath to hold up the law?"

A bit of steam now came from the criminal's skin with a popping sound from the hero's hands, pulling him closer to the crackling of the explosions.

"Don't bullshit me. I've been planning on killing you since day one when all this started, and you're a wanted criminal who tried to attack me, no one will bat an eye if I blast you into paste. Besides plenty of laws let me do just that if the bastard is as sick as you are."

Tomura frowned at that. Something told him that he was the one in danger now and he didn't particularly like that, but he didn't panic either. He leaned back into the bench as best he could while making a point to avoid the glare Katsuki was fixing him with.

"What do you want to know?"

"Where is Deku?"

He shrugged at the question, starting to feel numb again.

"I have no idea myself, he left six months ago and nobody has seen anything about him and too many randoms are taking up his calling card, so that makes it even harder to figure stuff out. Honestly I came over hoping you knew something, but I guess we're both going to be disappointed today."

The heat built up as Katsuki ground his teeth at him.

"You mean to tell me that he…"

The hero inhaled and mentally counted to ten so as to not let his anger boil over.

"Then where do you think he is? I know you messed up his head so you're bound to know something."

Tomura shrugged again, not caring about anything at the moment.

"I know he was lied to. By me, by Toga, by a lot of people and I'm no different. I was tricked all my life by that stupid corpse in a chair."

There was an edge to his voice that grew with each second as his fingers scrapped along the wood of the bench and tried to curl in his captured hand.

"I did everything that old man wanted, I killed, I stole, I ruined lives without a second thought, just to find out I was getting played by the same person, the only person, who I thought cared about me. I wasted so much time and now, the only person who actually did give a shit about me is out there and I plan on getting him back so I can tell him the truth."

Katsuki glared at the murderer with contempt.

"And what truth is that? That you got lied to by a villain and started to fucking bitch about it like a baby? Well boo-fucking-hoo, you're still a piece of shit who deserves what's coming to you."

There was a quality to Tomura's answer that was chilling to hear, not from any overt emotion in the speech, but it was due to the lack of it that made the hero sweat more.

"No, I'm going to tell him that he is my brother and gather up whatever force we can muster, burn down everything wrong with this little society and then make Sensei confess to what he's done to the both of us. Once that gets done, we'll move on from Japan and strike out into China and then Korea and then the larger Asia continent, until we can start sparking war and revolution all across the world until things are right."

A smile played out on Tomura's face, which Katsuki had to suppress a shudder at.

"That's the plan of course, but with him, I expect things to go a little beyond that."

A spark lit up on his now bare skin as the hero twisted his arm. The disgust playing out blatantly on his face.

"That won't fucking happen because I'll find him and bring him back, fix whatever the hell you losers did to him and make things the way they were again."

Tomura looked at him like he had suggested the sky was green.

"Like the way things were? You mean when you got to beat him with impunity? When he cried himself to sleep at night because he felt like a failure because of you and all your flunkies even after he got accepted? Where he had to break every bone in his body just to feel worthy of being loved?"

He leaned towards the hero, his head getting within an inch of him while a sliver of fear shined in Katsuki's eyes.

"That won't be happening. Because he's too much for you now, nobody will ever hit him again and get away with it. I promise you Kacchan, that even if by some miracle you do find him, you won't be alive for much longer. After all, look at what he did to your arms when he was holding back, I guarantee he won't the second time around."

At that Tomura returned to his original position on the bench, feeling strangely cathartic about the conversation. Not quite enjoying it, but finding some value in the encounter. Katsuki's grip slackened a bit as he shook his head in frustration.

"Fucking why? Why fuck do you villains do any of this shit? Why do you and all those losers have a bone to pick with everything? Most of these people haven't done a single damn thing to anyone and yet I see villain after villain making a mess of things when there's nothing wrong."

Tomura thought to roll his eyes but didn't.

"You said it yourself, we're the losers of society. There's no happy rainbow for us to sail on, no UA to give us all better lives. The only thing people who have been disenfranchised by the way of things have to look forward to is a life of suffering and hardship while people like you act as a puppet show to distract them from how badly they're getting screwed."

He rolled his free hand a bit as he went on.

"Think back to how Izuku was treated when he didn't manifest a quirk, everyone down to his mother thought he would amount to nothing and he was kicked in the teeth since he turned four. Do you honestly think he would have been happy living like that? His back was against the wall and no one was there to help until he got that quirk and then, only then did people start to give a shit."

His glare hardened as he stared ahead at nothing, the words coming from deep within at what he saw in his mind.

"And the sad thing is you've born into the idea that quirks make someone powerful. That's propaganda made by people in power to keep you from seeing that it's money, not quirks that move things in this world. Why do you think the idea of heroes and villains were so heavily pushed in the golden age? It was to stop the shift in power from those that had the power in the old world to those that had the potential to change things. That's why All For One was so successful back then, he had people funding him to become a villain once he made a name for himself so they could stay in power, but to the old man's credit he did murder them all before anything too messed up could happen."

He squinted a bit at the last part.

"At least that's what he told me."

Katsuki reaffirmed his hold on the villain, not disbelieving what he heard, but not buying into it either.

"So what? That doesn't give you the right to go around killing people. You deal with the hand you're dealt, like an adult. If Deku threw a hissyfit because he was too weak to become a hero then that's his problem. Nobody should suffer because you had a shit life."

Now Tomura rolled his eyes.

"But look at yourself Kacchan, you had everything. A wealthy family who loved you, a powerful, flashy quirk that everyone adored and a straight shot into one of the best educational institutions in the world because you got lucky. While people like Izuku and me were treated like garbage and you sit there and say we have to take it? Why? Because you say so?"

A pop came from his knuckles as he restrained himself from moving out of discomfort.

"Why do you get to be the only one who benefits from the way things are while the majority of us have to die in the mud without a single person even caring? With or without us, this society will fall. Maybe not in our life times, but within a hundred years or less, I swear you'll see people rise up because they have nothing left to lose. You think life is a fucking game because you're seen as valuble but it isn't. It sucks, people have to worry endlessly about just staying alive because they didn't have your luck."

Katsuki stared at the villain, unsure of what to say when the man turned to look back at him. A puzzled mask came over Tomura that made the situation stranger when he started to talk again.

"If you actually found Izuku, what would you do?"

The blond grunted at the question.

"I'd make sure he was in a position to get better."

"And if he refused?"

"Then I'd keep talking until he saw reason."

Tomura held his gaze, studying the emotion of the hero as best he could while another idea came to him.

"I know for a fact that won't happen. He will never go back, if you need proof look at how many bodies he caught. A man who does that isn't ever going back into polite society. However, he may actually listen to you."

A pit was growing in Katsuki's stomach and he didn't know why. He watched how a bit of joy showed on the villain's face, as if he had a brilliant thought.

"And I happen to know exactly how he'll behave in such a situation and if I were to show up as well, with you then he might be more inclined to go with the plan."

Fiery red eyes bulged out of his skull as Katsuki realised what was happening.

"You want me to help you...no, a thousand fucking times no. I'm not going to help you try to find him, all you'll get is either a life stay in Tartarus or die here and now."

The smugness returned to the older man that showed as he retorted.

"But think about it Kacchan, I know things you don't. I know how he thinks now, I made him like that, so I know what to look for, what patterns to search for. Plus I can work around the law without a care and I have information sources that you lack. While you have the full might of the hero system behind you. Individually we may find him, but we'll die if we do. Together however, we can pool our resources and appeal to his common interest since we won't be representing our groups, just ourselves if we both show up at the same time."

Katsuki was about to simply let his quirk activate when he recalled something which had haunted him for over a year at this point. He could still see the soullessness in Deku's eyes as he killed those three people. As much as it pained him to agree with this subhuman monster, the Deku he knew was gone and he didn't know how he'd react to him arriving to save the day. Slowly he loosened his grip on Tomura.

"I'm might be listening, but-"

The conversation halted abruptly when someone else approached the two men. It was a person both knew well and her brown eyes stared at the scene in concern. With a yank that targeted Katsuki's thumbs and forced him to let go, Tomura stood up from the bench and turned around.

"My offer is always open you know."

Unfortunately he didn't get two feet before he was grabbed by this enemy. Who slipped something into his hoodie pocket when Katsuki forced his ear to his mouth with a jerk of the head.

"I wanna make something very clear right now. I don't trust you, I don't like and I have half a mind to just arrest you where you fucking stand, but for Deku's sake I'll hear you out."

The whispering grew harsh as Katsuki said the last thing he meant to say.

"But if you ever think about hurting him or dragging any of us into your stupid games, I swear on my mother that I'll kill you with my bare hands."

He let go and turned back to Uraraka, who stared at the back of the villain in utter horror. Yet Tomura couldn't help but chuckle before he left.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you Kacchan."

That night as he returned home, Tomura went to bed happy or what he thought may have been happiness, he wasn't completely sure. He had made a lead in his search and a contact who would help him (Though he'd likely have to crumble the bastard once they were done) and he was getting better at acting on his own.

He was one step closer to winning.