"You're too slow, aren't you, hero?"

His lips struggle to withhold the full-on grin threatening to break from his face as he continues to twist his blade into the back of the pro hero, Ingenium who could only flail as a fish caught on a sailers line. A gurgling cry rises from his throat as Stain finally yanks the blade out of his back, inspecting the way the warm crimson coloring slid down the weapon.

"You're nothing," the crimson-clad man hisses, "You weren't even a challenge! Who made you a hero in the first place, Ingenium? Why do you even have this title," the blade is then shoved back into the man's back, "when you're as pathetic as you are?!"

He can hear how the man wheezes, an empty breath that he's become all so familiar with at this point. The hero's fingers claw away at the pavement, searching for some edge to hang onto, and pull him away from the terror that stood on top of him.

But all Ingenium finds was the slickness from his pooling blood, his literal life slipping away in his fingers. He hisses again, slowly shifting his head to look up at the figure.

"Y-You think this changes anything, S-Stain? Picking on l-lower level heroes in back alleys? H-Hunting for people like me? Heroes will always stand against m-m-monsters like y-you!"

Stain's eyes widened at the comment, his fingers trembling on the handle of his blade. "Hunt? You were never written down in the Book, I just happened to find you on this night. All I know now is that another rat is dead by my hand."

The hero was an imposter. An idiot dressed up in a suit of armor taking over the family business. What good does helping an old lady cross the street do when you can't even beat a single man with a sword? He now knew that they were all fakes. Men and women pretended to be gods when they were nothing more than low-level trash that needed to be thrown out for good. None of these pretenders were anything close to the only real hero he had seen in his life.

He would continue to kill all that he pleased until he found someone else that was worthy to be the one to stop him for good. At this point, it wasn't Stain's fault for killing heroes.

It was the hero's fault for not being able to stop him.

"I'm the manifestation of your unworthiness."

The blade cuts up, slicing through the torso of the hero, the man emitting a wail that dies in his chest after the metal rips through his throat. Another fake slain by his hand.

Stain slowly brings his head up to the two standing to the left of him. One wears a bulky gas mask, pale hands holding a camcorder, light flashing red. Behind him stands a girl in an oversized varsity jacket, with brown bangs that obscure the eye patch covering her left eye.

Flicking the blade, to remove the excess blood, Stain slowly advances to the camera, arms extended and a twisted smirk wrapping itself on his face.

"This is what society has become, don't you see? These are the heroes that pledge to keep you safe at night. And look what's happened!" He turns and kicks the dead body, "Another fake who can't live up to the titles he chose to bestow onto himself. What a failure!"

He wraps his grimy fingers around the recording device when he's a step away, ripping it from the grasp of the younger man. Shakily, he brings it closer to his face while his mouth stretches to a wide grin.

"This culling won't stop until all of the filth in this world is washed away by my hands! I swear on my soul that I'll extinguish every rat that dares to try to stop me! I have been given this purpose by All Might, to slay all those who tarnish his name! All who are unworthy of the title they foolishly wear! I'LL KILL THEM ALL, I SWEAR THAT-"

A loud crack causes him to freeze, and he then lowers his hands to reveal that the camcorder had been split into two pieces. Bits of hardware rain on the pavement before Stain takes the device in one hand and smashes it into the ground with a roar.

"It was being uploaded in real-time s-sir," the boy in the gas mask stutters, "It was live."

Stain pays no attention to the words as he remains slouched, his eyes still staring at the broken device on the ground. The filming was never part of his original plan. But the man wasn't dumb, and after seeing the attention he received from his public execution of Native, he made it a point to have the rest of his kills shot on video. The chaos it stirred, the public being in the palm of his hand was becoming intoxicating. Having his words cut across the internet in a matter of minutes gave him a reach that he didn't think was possible when he started as Stain.

After a matter of months, Japan was now listening. And what a story he would plan to tell.

His head raises slowly, looking up at the moon that hangs above them, "Let's go."

The three scamper off, the narrow and dark alleys of Hosu making a getaway rather easy, even with heroes starting to rush in from the left and right, trying to find Ingenium before it was too late.

But he was dead. They failed again.

A raspy cackle flutters in his chest as his feet continue to pound the pavement. He truly was going to change the world! His blade would cut through the rot that lingered in this post All Might Age! A purge the world-

"S-Shit!" The curse snaps the killer out of his thoughts, his boots scraping to a stop in the alley they found themselves. He turns to find the boy on his hands and knees, taking deep gasps for breath, his mask now ripped off his face.

"What is it?" Stain grunts, looking to the roofs to see if they had any unwanted visitors.

His eyes flick to the girl, who stands with her hands on her knees, also taking shaky breaths.

"H-He fell, I think." She croaks, her good eye slowly lifting to lock with his own.

The boy tenses at the words while still on the ground, his eyes locked onto the pavement beneath him, "Just gi-give me a second, Stain. Please, sir."

The former vigilante's fingers twitch at the words, his hand slowly moving to the blade that was attached to his hip.

"Can't keep up, can you?"

Both now flinch at the words, the girl suddenly taking a step toward him, "I can keep going! We can just leave him, Stain!"

Her pale skin and the sheen of sweat that coats her body tells him a different truth.

His lips twist into a snarl, shoulders twitching at the two followers, "It hasn't even been two miles and you two can't even move anymore?! Pathetic."

He turns his back to the two while taking a slow breath. Killing them would feel good now, but would cost him in the future. With these goals he had in mind, he would need bodies to execute his orders. His current group had been diminished recently, his own blade silencing a few who dared to speak poorly of the now-deceased All Might. Idiots who had no idea what true power was. Or what a true legend was.

He curses under his breath, his hand slowly rolling out his taped-up wrist. If anything was going to stop him, it was going to be his idiots getting in his way. He needed better.

"Fine," he hisses, slowly turning back to the two, "We can wait here for a moment."

The two look to be on the brink of tears, their jubilation only being held back by their shaky breaths. Stain's eyes bounce between the two for a moment, before looking up to the sky. He observed the moon in an almost full state, surrounded by millions of smaller stars. "I want you both to start recruiting once we get back. If the size of our army hasn't been doubled by the end of the month, I'll cut you both down and find someone else competent to take over, understand?"

His words are sharp, ripping through the relief the two showed just moments ago. His eyes lift to the girl first, amused at the way her lips fight to suppress the budding frown on her face, "Hachisuka, I want you to look to the North." His eyes then flock to the boy, "Mustard, I want you to look to the South."

The girl straightens at the words, "I promise I won't let you down, Stain! I'll begin my search tomorrow!"

The boy looks at her for a moment before shakily pulling himself to his feet, gas mask in his left hand. Pale blue eyes lock onto Stain, "I'll carry out your wishes, Sir!"

He turns away from the two faces, unreadable. His thoughts drift to another past follower, her manic yellow eyes twitching as canines ripped through the sliced flesh he brought back for her. She could've been a true follower. But then she turned out to be just another weakling.

He shifts slightly back to the followers, now seeing both standing upright, with their breathing now calmed.

"Don't fail me."

And then his boots take off again, slapping against the pavement of Hosu while sirens begin to blare in the distance with horrifying screams piercing the air. The sounds of another successful night in his mission.

The sounds of the world that is slowly being twisted into his vision.

~ Revelations ~

His feet drag against the pavement, with vision swimming slightly. Maybe the fifth glass of sake had been one too many.

It was empty and cool outside, not another soul walking the streets at this time of night. He preferred it this way, being alone was always when he was least annoyed, the silence of the world being a calming presence against the storm that raged in his skull. The fire under his skin pulsed again, bringing forth fresh anger that grounded him from his intoxication.

His father was still out there, and what was he doing? Slumming it up with some idiots in the back of a run-down bar? What was the point of being with them? They were nothing but kids with dumb dreams, people who think that they could do the impossible.

Become revolutionaries? His ideals were nothing like that of Shigaraki Tomura. All that mattered to Dabi was exposing the fraudulent number-one hero for the world to see, and then killing him once and for all. Whatever happened after that was of no concern to him. The world could be turned to ash for all he cared for.

He sprouted bullshit to Shigaraki when they first met to ensure that they'd let them into their little group and that he wasn't just buying his time until the perfect moment to strike. He could use them to force the heroes to crawl out of their holes, letting them think that he was rallying them for a true cause when he was just moving pieces across a game board. When it was over they would hate him like everyone else but it wouldn't matter to Dabi.

The echo of worn sneakers rips him out of his thoughts, a slight glance backward revealing a hunched figure slowly gaining on him from behind. He lets out a slight 'tsk' before abruptly turning a corner into the nearest alley, slipping behind a lip in the wall. It only takes a few seconds before he hears the same footsteps enter the alley, and in a flash, his hand wraps around the figure's throat while he throws him against the damp brick exterior of the building to their left.

The hood that obscured the top of the follower's head slips off revealing a mop of blonde hair that falls just above dull blue eyes. Dabi struggles to not roll his own once he can see that it's just a kid.

"P-Please don't kill me! I just wanted to talk, I s-swear!" The figure mumbles desperately.

His fingers dig more into this kid's throat, "Talk? Why the fuck would I need to talk to you?"

The figure's eyes widened slightly at the comment, "Y-You don't remember m-me? A-Are you serious?!"

Dabi smirks slightly at the horror blooming on the boy's face, "I've never met a brat like you in my life."

The figure lets out a strangled gurgle, beginning to claw at the hand that is still wrapped around his neck, "I'm M-Mustard, remember?! W-We met at that bar in Hosu a f-few months back! We talked for like hours, man!"

"Mustard?" Dabi drawls slowly, his mind trying to find the kid's face amongst the bars he had spent nights at from the past months. "Doesn't ring a bell."

Mustard lets out a frightened 'eep' before renewing his desperate clawing at the fingers that were slowly closing around his windpipe. "Now give me one reason why I don't turn you to ash right here and now, Mustard."

Mustard's knees begin to shake, his vision slowly closing in. The boy grits his teeth before he utters a single word.

"S-Stain!"

In an instant, the hand is released and the boy stumbles to the ground, spittle flying as he wheezes for fresh oxygen. He can feel Dabi take a half step backward, giving him more room to climb back to his feet. Once standing, he meets the burning turquoise eyes head-on, doing his best to avoid any further flinching.

"Stain?" Dabi hisses, "What does this have to do with Stain?"

Hesitantly, Mustard raises a hand to his chest, "I work for him; he sent me out to recruit!"

Dabi continues to eye the kid with apathy, "You're looking to recruit me then, is that it?"

"Y-Yes!," Mustard exclaims, practically jumping forward with energy, "You'd be perfect for our group! And you've got that crazy fire quirk, right? So you should have no trouble killing heroes with us."

The burned man takes a long breath, the fingernails on his left hand picking at the dead skin in his palm. He had heard the name on the news, spewing ideals of a rotten hero society that needed to be torn apart. He had even seen the recent video featuring Ingenium, morbidly curious as he watched Stain rip apart the body of his most well-known kill to date.

It all seemed to line up so perfectly, a new group on the rise led by a man that had the single goal of killing as many heroes as he could before he was eventually stopped. Stain was someone that could get him on the most direct path for a confrontation with his father, and the brat in front of him was extending a golden ticket to get on that ride.

But would it be more efficient than pulling the strings of his current group? He'd undoubtedly be an underling for Stain which was lacking compared to the leadership role he could easily seek out from Shigaraki.

"You're not even running with a group right now, right?" The brat voices, clearly trying to break the silence that lingered between them, "We've got a hideout and everything man, you won't regret it!"

Dabi remains silent, his right hand slowly coming up to rub his fingers through his greasy scalp in thought. Mustard, for better or worse, took that as an invitation to keep talking, "Oh wait, was it you that joined that no-name group run by the loner kid? I mean we could crush them any way you know, so if you are with them, I'd recommend jumping ship before everything falls apart."

"Fall apart?" Dabi mumbles absently, hands still picking at his hair, "Why will it fall apart?"

"Well, you guys haven't done anything, right? Do you have any goals? Any plans of action? With Stain, he's got a plan for everything! He writes down the names of his targets in a Book, and then we all read through it and help him see his dream come true!"

Dabi suppresses the urge to burn the brat on the spot for talking to him like this; trying to speak down at him like he was some kind of idiot. He damn well knew that they hadn't done anything. Shigaraki hadn't done shit. They hadn't even done a team mission since that fuck up with the Kaiju dog a few weeks back.

He can feel his palms begin to burn and he takes a half-step back from the kid. He had enough of the stupid conversation. He needed to think.

Mustard's eyes widened at the movement, "Y-You're really leaving?! To go back to those no names?! C'mon man, I mean-"

"Shut the fuck up." His words aren't loud but cut through any final thought Mustard was trying to throw at him like a knife through butter. The boy swallowed in a frantic means to collect his thoughts before shoving his left hand into his front jacket pocket. The moment was long enough for a heavy blue fire to crackle from Dabi's wrist, the man lunging at the Stain follower, only to be stopped by another shrill yell.

With his hand mere centimeters from the boy's face, Dabi finally looks down to see that instead of a gun in his hand, it was a thin plastic card.

"H-Here, i-it's just a c-card, I swear!" He thinks he can see thin tears in the boy's eyes as he continues to ramble, "Please just come by sometime, it's got our address on it, okay?! Just tell whoever is there that you're looking for me, and everyone will understand!"

The boy suddenly wraps his other hand around the tattered trench coat Dabi wears, pulling the man closer, "P-Please come b-by, Dabi! I need this, and I bet you do too! There's no way you'll amount to anything with those losers! It doesn't matter what people say about Shigaraki, he's still nothing! He's still done nothing! And he'll never be a match to Stain, who cuts through this country with his blade and will shape-"

A shaking fist hits Mustard hard enough to drive his skull against the brick wall he had been leaning on, causing him to slowly slide down the jagged surface with a rising bruise on his cheekbone.

His vision swims as he feels the older man lean down, his head adjacent to his own. He can make out the next words even with the buzzing in his ears, "I said, shut the fuck up."

The next moment, the head's gone, carried away by the sound of footsteps that leave Mustard behind in the alley, the boy now cradling his woozy skull in his hands.

It would be left to the future to see if the recruitment was a success.

~ Revelations ~

"It's good stuff," Shigaraki Tomura mutters, reading through the sheets that were spread across the bar. He only hears a slight hum to his left, as Nagant inspects one printed page particularly closely. His eyes gaze up to her face, watching as she scrunches her nose slightly in concentration while working through the last few lines of the report.

"It's still not enough though." She grumbles, dropping the sheet back on the counter after marking it up with a red-inked pen.

He snorted as a reply, "We've got connections to almost all of the large corporations including stuff like Sonoco and Detnerat to the HPSC. We'll need to know their allies if we ever expect to take them on."

She frowns slightly, "Yeah but we could've already guessed that they work with Sonoco and Detnerat before we had this stuff; everyone knows that you know?"

Shigaraki shrugs, "That decrypter was bought in a back alley, Takasugi. To expect it to be pulling out state secrets is crazy. This stuff is good work, stop being hard on yourself."

He can feel her turn to look back at him, her eyes scanning over his features while he fidgets awkwardly, not meeting her gaze. Tomura can feel her shoulder lean slightly against his own and he swallows in an attempt to make his throat less dry.

"Do you not want me to keep searching, Tomura?"

He looks back down at the sheets again. It had been months since Nagant had started helping them by copying any documents she could get her hands on, and so far it hadn't yielded any strong results outside of confirming suspicions they already had.

Over time he could sense Nagant's bubbling frustration at their results. The woman was practically putting it all on the line to bring them these documents weekly and they had almost nothing to show for it. But he consistently found himself not minding their struggles. It's not like he ever expected much high confidentiality information to be at a security level that his decrypter could easily bypass. He knew that the Kratos findings were a once-in-a-lifetime pull.

"I guess," he rasps, throat feeling scratchy, "I'm trying to say you don't need to keep doing it anymore. It seems this is as far as the decrypter can take us for now."

She tenses slightly beside him, "You're saying you don't want my help anymore?"

"No!" He says frantically, as her eyes bare down on him again, "I-I just think that.." His voice tapers off quietly and he can feel heat rise on his neck. He curls his fingers in on his palms while taking a slow breath. Nagant, for her part, remains quiet knowing that he just needed more time to regain his lost composure.

"I want you to leave the HPSC, Takasugi."

Nagant's eyes widened at his words, an unknown feeling fluttering lightly in her chest. But before she can get a word in, Shigaraki continues, opting to utilize his momentum to finish his thought, "You should stay here with us. We've got enough on the HPSC for now; you've paid off your debt from the Hong Kong trip."

The woman says nothing at first, leaning down slightly so a shadow from the hat she wears obscures her features from him, "You want me to stay with you?"

Shigaraki pulls one hand out of his pocket, pushing loose strands of hair from his eyes, "You staying with them isn't worth the risk. They could catch on at any point and you'd be screwed. And you're too valuable to lose on a stupid loot request, you know? You should just be here full-time."

"Valuable?" She mumbles, her side brushing more against his frame. They sit like that for a long moment, Tomura struggling to understand why his neck was still burning with no itch this time in the heavy silence. After a second longer, he feels her shoulders twitch lightly in amusement, and she then turns to face him abruptly, her breath hot while she leans more into his body, "You want me by your side, hmm?"

The world stills as his eyes finally lock onto hers, a daring violet color that he had never noticed so clearly before as she inches closer to his face, him still frozen in his seat. Her cheek brushes against his, Haruno's lips hovering near his ear when she finally utters two single words.

"Got you." And then she pulls back, a borderline sadistic smile that snaps him back to reality.

Shigaraki nearly falls off his stool at the words, arms flailing at his sides to desperately keep his balance. Nagant does nothing but laughs in his face to the left.

"Y-You're screwing with me?!" He asks incredulously while his gloved hands slam down on the counter to finally stabilize him. His face feels hot from the words and he bites his tongue to suppress any rising emotion. After another moment, he turns back to her with a sharp glare, "Don't do weird shit like that, idiot."

He gets no answer from her as she continues to chuckle to herself, obviously proud of the reaction she stirred.

The two rarely had time to themselves since Tomura added Toga and Dabi to the group; their desire of keeping her identity anonymous heavily limited the things Nagant could do around the bar. Oftentimes she would be found sitting near him simply reading, her presence serving as a calming force amongst the chaos that the others could raise. He had been wanting to float the idea of her leaving for weeks now. It seemed that today was when he finally ran out of patience.

"What do you think?" He asks hesitantly, his eyes scanning for any readable reaction to the question.

She takes another moment to fully compose herself before slowly turning back to face him fully, "You know what'll happen if I leave right? My face will be on every channel from nine in the morning to ten in the evening. Since I'm stationed close to here, the commission will be breathing down your neck in no time. And as much as you believe in your guys, you have to know that you won't stand a chance, right?"

"And what if that doesn't happen?" Shigaraki counters, his hand now resting on the counter, "When was the last time you were featured in any news story, huh? It's not a coincidence that most of the public has forgotten the hero known as Lady Nagant. All you are to the commission nowadays is a wet ops specialist, and the less the country knows about you and your actual role, the better for them. I bet they'd try to sweep everything under the rug if you were to walk away."

Takasugi slumps over on the counter, head resting on top of her crossed arms, "I just think it's too much of a risk right now. And what if some other groups were to try to take you out when the heroes are knocking on your door?"

Shigaraki frowns at the thought, "Why would someone else come after us if we're already dealing with that kind of public heat?"

"You might not realize it, but you and this group are a threat to anyone that wants complete control of the Underworld. Someone will be coming to take you out eventually, right?"

Tomura eyes her wearily, "Using that train of thought, why even bother with the commission at all then if we haven't done anything in the underworld?"

"Huh," Nagant pauses for a moment, tilting her head to maintain eye contact with Shigaraki, "So you're saying to not even fight the heroes right now?"

The young man shrugs, "You're right about the underworld being cutthroat; I guess I was so focused on planning an initial move against the HPSC that I forgot that someone will stab us in the back the moment our attention is gone. Maybe the underworld was actually the starting point for the quest line and I just didn't realize it before."

Haruno stares at the teen for a moment longer before finally pulling herself back up again, "And if the HPSC goes public against me then you're right back between a rock and hard place. I can't leave just yet."

"I still don't agree with you on that." Shigaraki argues, while brushing aside some of the disoriented sheets in front of them, "But if you do stay, I had something that I wanted to see if you could look into."

Another smirk creeps onto Nagant's face at his words, "And what could I do for the great Shigaraki Tomura?"

Tomura resists the urge to fight sarcasm with sarcasm as he pulls a newspaper out from the stack of sheets before flipping it to an interior page and then sliding the item closer to the sniper, allowing her to see what he was referring to.

Nagant fails to hide her surprise when looking at the article in front of her.

HAS THE PRESSURE GROWN TOO MUCH FOR SHIMURA NANA?

"Shimura?" She asks, looking back at Tomura, whose eyes seem locked on a still shot of the girl halfway down the page, "Why do you want to know about her?"

"I just…" Tomura pauses hesitantly, his hand rising slightly, finger fiddling with the fresh medical tape on his neck, "I just want to know what's going on with her, that's all."

Her eyes narrow slightly at his response, "I didn't take you as a fan of the golden girl, Shigaraki."

"I'm not a fan!" He snaps suddenly, fingers slightly tearing through the thin tape around his throat with his posture tightening.

He hid from Nana since her initial debut in the press all those years ago, opting for Kurogiri to keep an eye on things while he tried his best to ignore her existence entirely. He knew it was wrong, but every time he saw her a twisted pain would seep out from his stomach leaving his world spinning with questions that would seem to constantly scrape against his skull.

What did Nana think happened that day to his family?

How much would she hate him if she knew the truth?

Is that what Hana would look like if she was still alive?

From what Kurogiri had told him, things seemed to be going well with the dubbed 'Golden Girl' of Japan, and he was happy as it meant he could continue to live as far from her as possible. He even remembered the caretaker asking once what would happen if they had ever met on opposite sides of the battlefield and Tomura remembered shrugging and saying that it wouldn't matter. He wasn't a Shimura anymore.

He had been sure at the time that Tenko had died that day in the yard when his world caved in on itself suddenly, wiping away everything he loved in an instant. Tomura was all that should have been left.

However, as his caretaker began to inform him of Nana's recent issues, locked-away memories began clawing away at this consciousness, reminding him of times of laughter and joy with the girl when he was still Shimura. And as much as he tried to push the past away, it seemed that the past would keep coming back, with each new damning article that was being released about the former hero prodigy. At the moment, he didn't know exactly what to do about the situation.

He just knew he needed to do something to relieve the rising guilt he would feel every time he saw a new photograph of Nana in pain.

His fingers finally tear at the fresh bandaging and he exhales slowly when he can feel his nails scratch against his ragged skin, "Can you help or not? That's all I want to know."

Takasugi, who at first seemed frustrated by his lack of honesty, now frowned at the display to the side of her, "Tomura stop scratching, it'll only make the healing slower."

Shigaraki, now staring closer at a section of the article, the subheader being 'Trouble at Home?', seemed to only be scratching harder, scabbed skin slowly opening once again.

"Hey," Nagant hums, her hand slowly wrapping around his and pulling away from his throat, "If you can't tell me everything now, that's alright. I think she's still training in Fukuoka, so I can try to get down there soon and have a look around, okay?"

It takes a moment to snap him back to reality, Shigaraki's eyes suddenly flicking up from the article to her face, before landing on their hands, hers still gently holding his.

"Messing with me again?"

Nagant says nothing, only answering by slowly brushing her thumb against the palm of his gloved hand, seemingly inspecting the fabric with her fingerpad. Neither can tell how long the moment lasts, and the silence only brings more comfort as they bask in each other's company. He can feel her shift her head slightly after some time, both eyes now locked on his face.

"Tomura, I'm worried ab-"

A loud scraping causes both to jump in their stools, with heads snapping back at the entrance to reveal Midoriya poking his head into the bar for the first time that day. The kid's movement stutters when he locks eyes with the two, his mouth opening slightly as his gaze shifts to their hands that remain together.

Nagant is the first one to finally react, instantly sliding her hand away and slipping off the stool in a single motion. She brought her hat further down to obscure as much of her features as she could from Izuku before turning slightly to Shigaraki.

"I should get going. I'll text you later." The woman then turns and quickly makes her way out of the bar with Izuku watching carefully, wondering why the lighting made it look like she was sporting a faint blush. Midoriya then turned back to the bar, with Shigaraki still seated and eyes remaining on the spot where their hand had been a moment ago.

"Was I interrupting something?" Midoriya asks, slowly strolling over to the seat on the other side of the older boy.

Tomura finally blinks, quickly dropping his hand and turning back to Izuku, "I don't think so." He then works to sort the pile of sheets that were still laid out in front of him, "What finally dragged you out of your room?"

Izuku shrugs, sliding onto the stool, stealing a few glances at the notes Tomura had gathered, "Needed a change." Shigaraki gives a slight nod of acknowledgment, then turns back to continue stacking his notes. He failed to notice the way Midoriya's hands were awkwardly curled into fists in his pockets or the thin layer of dried sweat on his skin. For some time all remains quiet in the bar.

"What do you think of him?"

"Huh?" Tomura looks back to the greenette, whose eyes were locked on the TV. It had been playing the news on mute in the background for the last few hours. News that seemed to be focusing on one man more and more as the days went by.

Shrunken red eyes and a noseless face stare back at them, chipped teeth forming a savage grin as Stain continued holding the camera in a video Shigaraki had seen more than a few times now.

The cerulean-haired teen shrugs, "He's got people's attention. I've seen that stupid video at least ten times now on different channels."

Midoriya's expression is unreadable as he continues to stare at the monitor. "I asked what you thought of him, Shigaraki. Not the public."

"I guess I don't really get it." Shigaraki answers, slowly bringing a hand up to scratch his chin in thought, "He just sprouts this idealistic bullshit that everyone keeps eating up for reasons I can't wrap my head around. It's like he stat buffed his charisma to brainwash people into thinking he's some kind of messiah."

He turns back to Izuku, now finally noting the thin sweat stains on the baggy black shirt he wore and faded bags under his eyes, "I don't like it." The kid answers almost too calmly, in a tone that brings back memories when sitting with another figure in the same bar.

"He's wrong," Izuku continues, tone still eerily even, "Sure there are plenty of top heroes that don't deserve to be in that line of work, but killing people like Ingenium doesn't help anything. That family of heroes had been one of the mainstays over the past few decades, and now it seems like his remaining relatives are all moving to the United States to get away from everything that's been going on here. All he's doing is destabilizing an already fragile hero ecosystem. Don't people understand what will happen once it all finally caves in on itself?"

Shigaraki shrugs, "People are dumb. I'm sure you've figured that out by now."

"But," A sliver of actual frustration seeps into the word, Midoriya twisting his face to keep a frown from appearing, "But the publicity he's been getting is just so wrong. We're glorifying a murderer because of what? Conviction?"

He then slowly turned back to Tomura, unblinking viridian eyes locking with his crimson, "Doesn't it bother you, Shigaraki?"

"Sure," the decay user answers, doing his best to not blink under Izuku's gaze, "But what does that have to do with-"

And then pieces begin to fall into place.

'Maybe the underworld was actually the starting point for the quest line and I just didn't realize it before.'

Here he had a rising figure in the underworld that had captured the attention of the country in an instant, while still being new enough that he had yet to solidify a true group to carry out his mission. Which meant that he could be convinced to join their group if they gave him the right pitch. And if not, they could decide to crush Stain and steal his notoriety before he had the chance to do the same to them.

Midoriya was right, the attention that Stain had been getting was nauseating at this point. What made him so much better than everyone else in the underworld who was struggling to achieve their dreams? Stain had no right to become the speaker for the downtrodden when he was just a performer, a man holding a camera while having manic episodes about his holy quest to kill all heroes that still stood for Japan.

It was a perfect first step for their group.

"We're going to find him," Shigaraki mutters, "Giran told me to 'stay away from that psycho' so we'll have to make an introduction through another broker, but that shouldn't be too hard. And then once we have finally get to chat…" Various outcomes all begin to play out in Tomura's mind, the older boy beginning to scribble down notes on a blank note sheet that he had been using earlier with Nagant.

Midoriya remains still next to him throughout his internal breakthrough, slowly watching him with a ghost of a smile flickering briefly on his face.

"I think I'll give you some space to think," Izuku finally voices, his body sliding off the stool and back onto the hardwood floor of the bar, "I'll be upstairs if you need me."

"You're staying?" Shigaraki questions, finally looking up from his freshly written notes.

"For now," the younger boy replies cryptically, already halfway to the door. Tomura then watches curiously as he slowly yanks the entrance door open again, and vanishes from the room almost as suddenly as when he had appeared earlier in the day.

He still didn't understand the kid. But he was sure with time, Midoriya Izuku's true self would be revealed, along with all of the others that currently lived at the bar.

After all, they were a team, right?

And it seemed like the games were finally getting started.

Author's Notes:

Finally wrapped up with the Intro Arc for Act Two! Pieces are all in place and things are finally going to start getting a bit more hectic moving forward.

For those who are wanting more Izuku, we'll be kicking off with him in the next chapter to provide his perspective from that last exchange with Tomura along with what's exactly been going on with him since he started living at the bar.

Thanks again to all those who have read/liked/commented - I hope you've all been enjoying the story and I'll see you all again soon!

Upcoming:

Act Two: Ascension

Arc One: The End of the Beginning

Arc Two: The Crimson Killers