A/N: Trigger warning for violence. Nothing extremely graphic, but it's there. If you want to skip, you can.
Night drew in quickly around the building specified by the address. On the outside, all looked normal enough - an office building by some company neither villain had ever heard of, a high-rise with rows upon rows of windows on every side, most with blinds concealing the work being done within.
"Not bad," Dabi mused as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "I'd almost think this was a legit operation."
"She's got to be in there," Tomura murmured in reply, adjusting the collar of his longcoat and taking a step down the sidewalk.
The two men made their way to the alley between the office and another business, and as soon as they were hidden in the shadows they came across a dumpster, next to it being an off-looking panel on the wall.
The same as before, Tomura observed with narrowed eyes as he raised a hand to knock.
After two brisk raps on the door, he stepped back - and not more than a second later, the panel creaked open, revealing a squinty-eyed man with long, greasy orange hair and a long, jagged scar down the side of his left cheek.
"Name and business," he spoke gruffly.
"Shigaraki Tomura," the white-haired villain greeted with a wry smirk, pointing a thumb at his companion. "And Dabi. We're here to get a look at the goods before Friday."
As soon as his name was mentioned, the slimy little man's eyes opened wider and he swallowed.
"S- Shigaraki," his voice wavered and went higher in pitch as he opened the door wider. "I wasn't- we weren't expecting you to take an interest. Come in, come in."
The two stepped into the side entrance, and as soon as the door was shut, both got a good look around at the small room they had entered.
It seemed to be a bit of an afterthought in construction, perhaps an abandoned storage room that the company housed in the building didn't bother to use. People hurried this way and that, from men with teeth missing to bald-headed ruffians to those that seemed to completely blend into normal society - and nobody gave them a second glance.
"I understand you must have heard of the auction from one of our salesmen," the man said, rubbing his hands together. "Is the master still looking for recruits? Because I happen to know one or two who might-"
"Girls first, business later," Dabi interrupted, narrowing his eyes at one of the men who gave him a strange glance before hurrying on.
"Ah, right, right," the orange-haired man nodded emphatically, though his brow furrowed in frustration as he beckoned for them to follow, nodding to another two workers to come along. "We've got a fine selection of women to choose from this time - even those with weak and rare Quirks. One of my guys said he was even able to get ahold of a girl with wings and a halo!"
"Wow, impressive," he hummed as he looked up and down the corridor they were led through. Doors upon doors lined the two walls, and though it was large enough for three people to walk through, it still managed to feel claustrophobic even as they walked down a long flight of stairs to a lower level.
Finally, when they reached the bottom they were greeted to a darker hall, one with doors made of iron on each wall. There were grates on each one so that someone could look in, and as they walked, they peeked into each room to see who was there.
There were girls with horns, girls with sharp teeth, girls with stretchy limbs; girls with blue skin, girls with snow-white skin, even girls with skin like the midnight skies.
But none of them were Inko.
"I heard that you got a special girl in a few days ago," Dabi made small talk, catching both men's attention. "What was her name… that kid's mom? Midoriya?"
"Midoriya…" one of the other thugs murmured. Then his eyes lit up. "Ah yes, Midoriya!"
He chuckled, and Tomura glanced over at Dabi, who winked.
"Yeah, she's special all right," another continued, his face taking on a perverse expression. "Since that kid seems real close to her, it's no doubt that he'll come rushing in to save her with some of those Yuuei brats - and the moment he does, we can snatch 'em up too. I've had my eyes set on the Yaoyorozu girl, myself."
Dabi's face twisted into a disgusted leer for a split-second before he schooled himself into a neutral expression and nodded. "We had the same exact idea, what do you know? We were hoping to get her for ourselves so we can lure that hero brat out."
"Is that right?" The first one turned around, grinning at the two villains. "Well, unfortunately for you she's such a high-priority sell that we're keeping her in a restricted area."
"Is there any chance we could get in to see her?" Tomura asked bluntly. "I'm sure All For One would be displeased if we were unable to."
"That is a problem," the orange-haired man agreed. "I do wanna let you in to see her, but sorry Shigaraki, rules are rules. I can't just go around bendin' them for every A-rank villain that wanders in here, y'know?"
Gritting his teeth, the young man wanted to step forward and retort - but at the last second, Dabi raised an arm and stopped him by tapping him in the chest.
"Wouldn't you bend the rules for us this one time?" He asked, his icy eyes glinting with hidden mischief. "I'm sure the boss would pay you handsomely."
"Hey pal, he said no." One of the taller thugs snapped, stepping towards them. "You've been lucky enough to see our wider selection first. Wait until Friday, then you can come pick her up."
"This is ridiculous," Tomura angrily muttered under his breath as he side-stepped Dabi's arm and grabbed the nearest one around the throat, raising him off of the floor.
The other three exclaimed in alarm as Dabi raised his hands. "Hey, calm down, alright? You run, and I burn you to a crisp."
"I will kill each and every last one of you myself if you don't take us to her," Tomura snarled, tightening his four-fingered grip around the thug for emphasis.
The man he held up gasped and choked desperately, trying his hardest to kick his legs and scratch through the black sleeves of the longcoat. His face was beginning to pale from lack of air and the reflexive tears forming in his eyes threatened to spill down his cheeks.
"What the hell, man?!" The orange-haired man yelled, eyes darting from the villains to the exits and back again. "What's the big idea? Put him down!"
"If you insist." Tomura's lips stretched into a wicked, toothy grin as he slowly lowered his pinky towards the man's neck.
"Nuh- no, ple- ase…" the man choked out, shaking his head wildly. "Stoh- stah- stop!"
"Take us to Midoriya's room," Tomura repeated, eyes narrowed as his pinky hovered just scant centimeters above the man's sweaty neck, "or he dies."
"They haven't come out for a long time now," Compress commented as he took a pocket watch out to see the time.
"The young master promised to contact us if there was any trouble," Kurogiri sighed. "Unfortunately, though, his idea of 'trouble' is vastly different than ours."
Toga bounced in her spot, looking from face to face as the winter wind tousled her hair and flushed her cheeks. "So are we gonna get to go in yet? Huh?"
"Not yet," Kurogiri replied. He continued to stare at the building from across the street, eyelights narrowing. Tomura… what's taking you so long?
"Alright!" One of them finally broke, raising their hands in surrender. "Alright alright alright… we'll take you. Just- just put him down, please."
"Are you sure about that?" Tomura glowered at the trembling men.
"Yes!" The terrified thug exclaimed. He lowered his hands to fold behind his back, and then he pointed shakily at the door at the end of the hall. "She's down that way… final door at the end! You can't miss it!"
"Y yeah," another gave a fearful grin. "And- and I am here to guide you there!"
Dabi immediately raised his hand towards the man. "No thanks," he hissed.
In a flash, bright blue flames erupted from his hand and caught the man's jacket - and screams filled the chamber.
The man desperately flung his arm up and down, trying to extinguish the flames, even as his sleeve began to melt and fuse into his arm, yelling all the while. "I'm burning! I'M BURNING!"
"Holy shit, Taka!" Another exclaimed, before turning to the villains and pulling out a knife. "I knew it was too good to be true. I knew you were here to get the drop on us!"
"Try anything, and your other friend gets turned to ashes," Tomura barked.
The thug looked up at the choking man.
Weakly, he shook his head, tears staining his cheeks as he grasped weakly at Tomura's wrist.
Gritting his teeth, the thug with the knife began to advance on Dabi.
"Ooh, now there's some action!" Compress exclaimed as he stared through the binoculars. "I wonder where they're coming from."
One by one, the members of the League made their way to the edge of the building.
Dozens of men were flooding to the alleyway, and a commotion was beginning to build among them as a muffled bang was heard on the other end of Kurogiri's walkie-talkie.
"Come in, Kurogiri," Tomura's scraggly voice sounded from his free hand.
"Tomura, what happened?" He questioned as soon as he'd held the device up to his face. "Are you in trouble?"
"Just had some piece of shit call for backup," he grunted, and there were faint yells and laughter on the other end of the line. "We've decided to go all out."
"Tomura," the nomu's voice grew serious.
"Calm down, Kurogiri, we got this." He could almost see Tomura's eyes rolling as he spoke. "We're freeing the rest of the women too. Consider it an apology to Sensei for blowing our cover."
"Do you need backup?"
"If you wanna make it an unfair fight, go right ahead."
The line clicked silent, and the rest of the group looked his way as he pocketed the device.
"Well?" Twice piped up.
"Stay back," the weary teleporter waved off. "For a couple of minutes, at least."
Flames licked and danced in the corridors, doors kicked in and melted and turned to ashes, and two men walked through the chaos of it all.
Women screamed and ran, men yelled and fell, and the two villains had manic grins on their faces as they faced the onslaught with malevolent glee. One sweep from the fire villain's hand and they crumbled to ashes and smoldering clothes.
Tomura slammed his hand against another door, and in seconds it was reduced to ash - revealing more terrified young girls huddled together inside yet another room.
"Get out of here," he instructed, gesturing with his chin, "while you still can."
One of the girls blubbered a thank-you as she pulled her friend up from the ground, and together they ran barefoot out of the cell in just their ripped, tattered street clothes.
"That's almost all of them," Dabi commented as they continued their walk down the eerily silent hall, no ambience to be heard save for the creaking and popping of metal and the hushed dance of his fire against the walls. "She's gotta be in one of these last doors, right?"
"If she's not, we'll just have to torture it out of the boss of this place." The irritated glare on his face didn't waver even as he dusted another door, revealing an empty room. "Damn it! How many rooms do they have to have in this stinkhole?"
"They've been real busy, seems like," Dabi commented with a disgusted glance at the filthy cell. "Wonder how many they've sold off."
"I don't care." Crimson irises faced forward, his fists clenched as he stalked on with purposeful strides. "We just need to find Sensei's wife and then we're out of here."
The men had long since stopped coming - if there were any left, they were no doubt hiding away or contacting more intimidating villains to help them out. Luckily with the yakuza head long since imprisoned, they were less keen on sticking their noses into matters that concerned the League.
There was an odd kind of peace to be found in the burning corridors. The smoke was, thankfully, being vented out into upper floors, and air was still flowing freely - but the sweltering heat of the flames soon subsided and gave way to a kind of chill, as they reached the very last doors of the hall.
"She's in one of these," he stated. "If I had to pick…"
Ignoring the two doors flanking them on either side, Tomura went straight for the final door before them and slammed his palm against the metal.
As the door crumbled, the two were greeted with a pale, sickly-looking Midoriya Inko, lying curled up in a ball in a ripped blue blouse and jeans.
Her cheek was stained with blood, and as she dazedly looked up in fear, the flaking trail led back up to her nostrils.
"Huh…?" She murmured, before her eyelids fluttered shut.
"Grab her and let's go," Tomura instructed.
"Hang on," Dabi retorted, narrowing his eyes at the younger man, "You wanted to come rescue her. You carry her."
"I'm going to be far too busy saving our asses," he snapped. "It's not like she's an elephant. You do it. You've got more muscle."
With a frustrated sigh, Dabi rolled his eyes, stooped down, and curled his arms underneath her knees and supported her back, hoisting her up against his chest.
Inko was floating in between consciousness and unconsciousness, bobbing in what felt like an endless ocean of darkness.
Her entire being was still too achy and weak to move, even though she was brought back to awareness as she felt herself get picked up.
Oh no, she worried, and her brow furrowed. They must be back for me. It can't be Friday yet… right?
Her eyelids cracked open just enough to see what was happening, and as she did so, she noticed the scent of smoke and burning skin overpowering her senses. Looking up, she saw patches of deep purple burns stapled into her rescuer's skin like a grotesque recreation of Frankenstein's Adam, icy eyes facing ahead above.
Faintly, she recognized this man - and though it instilled a chilling feeling of fear, somehow the sight was soothing - this wasn't any of the men who had hurt her.
Her eyes moved away from the man carrying her, and they widened somewhat as she caught sight of Tomura ahead of them.
"To… mura," she weakly rasped.
Dabi looked down at her for a moment before going back to staring ahead, disinterested.
"Hey, what's the big idea here?!" A familiar voice rang in the hall, and she winced away, trying to hide herself in the tall man's chest.
His hand tightened its grip on her arm, and a low voice rumbled, "Is this the piece of shit that took you?"
"Mmm," she hummed, too exhausted to force the words from her throat.
"That's him, Shigaraki," he called.
"Oh, is it?" His voice sounded positively delighted, in a malevolent kind of joy that she had remembered hearing from him before. "Well then, you just made the wrong enemy."
"You son of a bitch, you can't just ruin a good operation we've got going here!" The stocky, middle-aged man yelled, throwing his arms up. "Do you realize how much money you've just screwed me out of?!"
"Is that all you care about?" Tomura questioned. "Not the fact that you stole from the greatest villain to ever walk this earth?"
Inko managed enough strength to turn her head, at the exact moment Tomura seized the man by the neck and slammed him against the wall, his feet dangling pitifully in the air.
As his screaming gave way to choking gasps, she felt herself fall back into unconsciousness.
"Kurogiri? Come in, Kurogiri."
"Young master Tomura. Is it done?"
There was a second of silence.
"We got the sick bastard."
A/N: Obligatory apology for not being adept at narrating standoffs and fight scenes.
So yay, Inko's back! And oh, Shigaraki... he may not admit it, but he cares more than he lets in on.
Please tell me what you thought.