There was acrid smoke in the air, carried on the breeze and so foul it threatened to catch in the throat. Somewhere, someone's home was on fire and unattended to, and yet nobody made any moves to find out where, or find some help. It was not the first home that had been set ablaze in the chaos of the last few days, and it would not be the last. Help would not come to those living underneath that roof, not the way things had gone recently.

The street on the city outskirts was normally quite lively, bustling because of the open-air market which took place every morning and drew people in on their way to work in the centre. Stalls were usually set out, brimming with all kinds of foods to make the mouth water and the eyes widen. Now, the remnants of the shattered stalls were stacked against shop fronts and shop doors, dismantled either to be used as weaponry by those running riot, or as barricades to protect shops which had run in families for generations. Not that many had benefited from such protection, in reality.

Now, the street was a shadow of its former self. It would have been hard to demonstrate a difference between the debris-strewn road and the Ruins Zone at UA's fabled Unforeseen Simulation Joint, glass smashed out of windows and cars abandoned in the street. Whether they had been destroyed out of malice or in a panic, they remained, a stark reminder of a neighbourhood in the midst of disaster, or in the middle of a war. That was what had happened, wasn't it? War?

The few people who remained outside kept their heads down as they walked, brisk and refusing to make contact with one another, and if one person coughed because of the smoke, not one hand reached out to them in sympathy. They all kept going, back to whatever ruin they themselves had emerged from, hoping not to run into any trouble. The only common ground was each person's priority; themselves.

Only one part of the street appeared to have survived intact, untouched by the ravages of the mod. That was the wall at the end, the wall which separated the school playground from the rest of the street. On that wall, a mural was emblazoned, some unknown artist's tapestry to the face of injustice. The supposed embodiment of all that was wrong, the tipping point in the war. That face, those distinctive burn scars; somehow the artist had captured the manic gleam in his eyes as well as they had caught the glimmer of the staples holding the patchwork man together. The only pristine thing, in the world of ruin.

Into the world of ruin, the Hero Killer walked.

Stain had not been able to collect the majority of his personal effects, when the Demon Lord had broken his chains, when his apprentice had torn down the walls of the prison and released the dregs of society back onto the streets. It had been a free-for-all, enough mania to force a man to prioritise his own survival, and prioritise he had done. He had gotten free, free through the hole opened up by a malevolent power unlike any other, and crossed the Hundred Hand Bridge at the head of a pack of furious villains, but there the paths had split. As those behind him headed past the Bronze Gate and straight towards the nearby city, he had headed away to lay low in the countryside, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the barren pit they had called Tartarus. Only now, now that there had been enough time for the baying mob to depart, did he return to the city.

The people he had found himself sharing a space with… they made his skin crawl and his blood boil. Almost as much as the fact that those in charge equated him with the monsters had made his blood boil. He had not wanted to be associated with any of them, and so he had fled. Only when he thought he had enough distance, did he stop to change, discarding the hateful uniform of Tartarus and taking what he could from a house abandoned due to an approaching mob. He had fashioned a cloak and hood, of sorts, and was lucky enough to find a scarf even if it wasn't his own. It was enough to hide his distinctive face and go unnoticed in a crowd, and that was all that mattered. It was said that his face was the face of death; that sort of attention was not what he needed.

He had kept the boots given to him by the guards, as much as it had angered him to not discard it all. Only until he could find ones that fitted him.

Rubble from a collapsed roof had fallen into the street, and it crunched underneath his feet as he walked, his hands in his pockets. Nobody was paying him any attention, but it didn't mean a damn thing to him, constantly on his guard. The bony fingertips of one hand brushed against the scrap of paper in his pocket, comforting him that it was safe. His heart and soul, what he had been working on the entire time he had been left to rot in the pit of hell with the filth of Japan's underworld. The key to all of it. He would keep it safe..

There were no Heroes, anywhere. That wasn't a surprise. The fakes had finally been exposed for what they really were, and the people were in no frame of mind to show any trace of forgiveness. The war had already begun to cull some of them, and more would follow, judging by the enemies he knew to be out there. Tomura Shigaraki, decay incarnate, the Symbol of Hatred. The walking giant who could level a mountain, Deika's Oblivion. The killers attached to the League of Villains, no longer the joke he had been led to believe. And him. The Scourge of Kamino, the bogeyman of old myth and legend, the Demon Lord who could take a person's Quirk, their soul… against All For One, the Heroes stood no chance.

Against themselves, they stood no chance. Stain came to a halt at the mural, pausing for a second under the gaze of the painted Touya Todoroki. His message had been broadcast to every corner of the nation, even the dark room where he had been kept in isolation, and now his message adorned this wall, as it probably did many others across the country. "The past… never dies."

Endeavor… the mere thought of the man made his blood boil. All Might's retirement had hit Stain in the gut, like a sucker-punch. The man was the only worthy Hero they had, except him, the boy, the future hope for all of them. Kamino had been the end of All Might's career, and while cheers had rung out from several of the other cells, Stain was one of the few who hung his head, in mourning and in shame. His replacement… was unworthy. The already-poisoned Hero society… it was no surprise it had deteriorated further. The resentment was already there before Dabi had made his announcement, so his words hadn't lit a spark; they had ignited an inferno.

He knew more than enough about resenting the Heroes. Hating them. He had called for their destruction long before the airwaves were filled with confirmation, living proof of all of Enji Todoroki's sins. That was why they had kept him in isolation, after all; countless days bound, staring at a white wall, nothing but his own thoughts and desires for company. Perhaps they had feared what he would do in Tartarus to those who, clearly, deserved to be culled, those who lacked any conviction and saw beauty only in destruction. Perhaps they had feared that those with some intelligence might have been swayed by his logic, and come to the same bitter realisations about the world that he had.

Whatever the case might have been, he had been alone, and he had resisted change. He had refused to bow, because he knew the truth, and that would not dampen the flames of his convictions. They could attempt to crush him through solitude for however long they wanted, but his will was ironclad, resilient, unbreakable. His mission remained the same; the fakes needed to be purged.

Now, he was free. And the world had decided one thing. The world had decided that it did not need the Heroes.

"So many fakes…" His voice, hoarse from a lack of drinking over the past few days, cracked more than he was used to as he stared at the mural. His eyes, still sharp despite the lack of sleep, drilled through the painting's empty stare. "It's all… broken."

There had been riots. Carnage in the streets. That was even before Shigaraki had arrived at the gates of hell and liberated the worst of the worst. In this place, and in many other cities across Japan, the villains now ruled territories unlike they had ever had. Pro Heroes faced the ire of the public, whether they stayed and stood up in defiance, or bowed their heads in shame and ran from the problems they had created. With villains emboldened by their successes and willing to take fights they never would have before, and Heroes afraid to do anything… there were no winners. And only one loser.

The people.

Stain looked up at the mural of Dabi again, and bared his teeth behind the scarf. On the one hand, the broken man that was the oldest Todoroki son was the evidence he needed. His whole existence was vindication of what Stain had said, how much damage the fakes could hide from the people, how much they hurt even the ones they love. On the other hand, Dabi's convictions were weak; he had spent a lifetime lashing out at others, murdering indiscriminately and not targeting Endeavor until he had the safety of the League of Villains to hide within. Endeavor had made him that way… but Dabi was wrong, too.

Underneath the gaze of the painted martyr, Stain stood defiant. "Lies… a world built on lies. A world that breeds more lies. The better society… is even further away than I thought."

There was a noise like shattered glass, and the sound of an alarm filled the air. It was remarkable how much it cut through the heavy atmosphere, and for a second Stain was reminded of the blaring sirens at Tartarus, as the student tore it all down in search of his master. The siren… was close. "An attack…"

There was then a high-pitched scream, a woman's voice. Nobody would come for her, not in a world like this. Stain had seen no sign of Heroes on his way into the city, and the police station he had passed had been hit by arsonists or somebody's Quirk; either way, it was a charred husk, and the officers were nowhere to be found. "That's near… near to me."

Stain's bony hand went underneath his cloak, to the impromptu strap he had made on his back, and from the makeshift holster he had crafted, he pulled the blade. It wasn't his sword, by any stretch of the imagination, and it was nowhere near the size; it was a butcher's knife, something he had scavenged from a ransacked shop the day before. Even if the blade was shorter than he would have liked, it was sharp, well-maintained by its previous owner, and not too heavy in his hand. At that moment, it felt as good a sword for a crusader as anything he had used before.

Stain looked down at the knife in his hand, the way the low evening sunlight gleamed on the blade and cast a strange shadow on the wall. They were foolish, the thoughts in his head. Before Tartarus, he might have described them as delusional. But there was nobody else, and as yelling and loud banging came from the same direction as the scream, his mind was made up. "Nobody will come to save her."

Stain took one final look at the mural, and shook his head, eyes narrowing. "No fakes. No criminals. Not after the purge."

The world didn't need Heroes, right now.

"... Just me."

It needed him.

The sound of another scream came from the distance, and the Hero Killer marched towards it, blade in hand.

(***)

A/N: This? This is new. I'm testing the waters.

This is what happens when several writers start complaining about the manga after season 5 finished. Several people complained that My Villain Academia is one of the highlights of the series (and probably deserved more episodes), and yet when the War Arc ended with such high pace, we immediately launched into the Escapees Arc with nothing to change things up or keep it fresh.

Think of this as my way of creating something… different. A new arc, and a new direction, if you will. In a broken world, a world where the people have given up on Heroes, who better to focus on than the man who gave up on them first? The hero they need… or the hero they deserve?

This was born from the Ignite to the Call Discord server, where my main fic Incident Zero has a channel; please come and join using the link code xw9wK6BT. Please come and join if you liked this. And equally since I mentioned Incident Zero, if you haven't yet checked out my pride and joy please do so; if you've left a review on there from last chapter, I will get to you soon.

Finally, my thanks go out to AntiqueOwl and Downix, both of whom have shaped the idea and what is to come if more people like it. Check out Owl on AO3, and Downix on FF and AO3, if you'd be so kind.

Any reviews and favourites/follows graciously accepted- just don't flame, yo.