You know, with the 1-year anniversary of me opening p-a-t-r-e-o-n so I wanted to do something exciting for it, that being writing and releasing my very own story. I was and still am going with a comedy/harem deal which will have the smut scenes in it, but while I started writing out the basic plot points that would lead to said smut, I realised that I also had a lot of ideas for jokes and character moments. I'm not angry, quite the opposite as just writing down the ideas seem to be real fun for me and it's only for one girl so far, I haven't even touched what would happen with the rest. And while it would be something that's mainly for my 'early readers', that first chapter will be posted here and on Ao3.

As promised last week, the second part of Reunion, with this being close to done thanks to the chapter running far too long for my taste, it suited me just fun as it meant that I had more time to focus on that second chapter of Songbird, which should be up by Thursday and before you start suspecting, it's not nearly as long as this debut…I don't think I'll ever write fan fiction with a chapter that long again.

Chapter 22: Reunion Part 2

(Previously)

Bakugo bounced with the impact, air leaving his lungs from the effects, but Pyre wasn't done, as he still had a grip on him, which he used to pull him around before throwing him forward. Instinctively, he rolled his body, setting off a small blast to right himself. Still, when he looked up, he was met with a rising kick from Pyre, which made him bite his own tongue hard enough to draw blood while still supporting himself on a single leg; Pyre's other leg shifted like a dancer to drive his heel into his left cheek, knocking to the side where he rolled and got up as fast as he could, his eyes looking at his foe in disbelief as Pyre lowered his leg.

The villain knew that his old friend might have known he was a dangerous villain but never thought he would know how to fight with his hands like that. He cracked his knuckles, still a little peeved about the lost haori. "Ever since we were little, I saw how you always start with a big right swing. I've watched so many heroes fighting, but I've seen you the best out of all of them." He reminded him of all the times they hung out and how those shifted to him following after him like a lost pup. He might have been just the annoying one then, but he never stopped watching or learning.

Setting off a heat pulse, he made his declaration. "You can keep calling me pyro, but that's not what I am. I'll show you what Pyre can do!"

Hearing that statement, tasting his own blood and feeling the bruise forming just set Bakugo off as he blasted himself right for Pyre, using another explosion to shift his body mid-air and launch a kid at Pyre, who raised his hand to catch the strike, but Bakugo learned from last time and quickly countered with a blast aimed for Pyre's face, forcing him to lean back, supporting himself with a hand. At the same time, he let go of Bakugo, who blasted himself to safety from a straight 90-degree kick that Pyre tried to use.

Falling back, Bakugo rushed back into the offensive with a double blast to increase his speed. Pyre tried to punch at him, but Bakugo used a blast to jump out of the way, flying over Pyre to strike at his back, but where the smoke of the explosion obscured him from Pyre, Koharu's eyes were on him, alerting Pyre to this as leaned forward, he foot heel swinging upwards and hitting Bakugo's wrist, screwing with his aim, Pyre followed through with this and jumped forward, landing in a handstand, using the chance to fire a fireball at Bakugo before his arms lowered before releasing like a spring, tucking into a spin mid-air, he landed on his feet, facing Bakugo.

Bakugo, on his end, cursed as his blast was deflected and narrowly avoided the fireball to the face by hitting it with an explosion, which sent him backwards. Still, he recovered and went at him again, swinging his right, which Pyre moved to counter, but that proved to be a feint as he quickly switched gears and hit him with a left. Still, it didn't have the desired effect as while he was stronger than most their age, Pyre trained with Chimera, a man with strength that dwarfed most strength enhancement style quirks. Because of this, Pyre's counter came from his attacked right side, a palm strike to Bakugo's chest, which knocked him off balance, which he followed up with a brutal shin to his other right side, knocking back again.

Koharu alerted him again, so Pyre backed off him and continued the offensive when Bakugo blasted where he easily could have been. Getting up, Bakugo's rage hadn't lessened in any way, not when he was the only one getting tagged as he roared out and went at it again, the two trading blows as the ground started to shake from the clash between the Nomu and All Might. Pyre saw vines and that frog girl jumping in the distance, no doubt fighting Slice. Still, he kept his attention on Bakugo, though truthfully, it was more out of habit than any real threat.

A fact proved when he spun on his heel to knock a blast off course and extended his first right to Bakugo's face, but just barely short, giving Koharu a chance to lunge at him and bite into his shoulder, which made the blond curse, as she ejected herself as fast as she struck as Pyre hit him with a quick left hook to the face, followed by a right that knocked some teeth loose. Bakugo's day didn't get easier as Pyre drove his left fist into his liver, shooting pain throughout his entire body, which was capped off when Pyre grabbed his head in both hands and brought it down right into a rising knee that broke Bakugo's nose and a spinning kick to the chest that sent him flying, landing on his side where he awkwardly rolled to a stop thanks to those arm braces of his.

"All Might already said it; this isn't a fight you can win," Pyre told him, Koharu slithering back into place as she laughed at the fallen blonde. She was the only one he confided in about his past, his full past, from how Bakugo changed for the worst to All Might's secret. To her, seeing her human friend's former bully get owned must have been amusing.

Pyre didn't share that same amusement. Maybe if he was a more vindictive person, but he wasn't. Instead, he pitied Bakugo because he was a product of the world. He taught the wrong lesson and told him he was special until he believed himself to be above the rest of them. And right now? Right now, that belief was being shattered by the fact he was the only one slowly getting up, covered in bruises, with a broken nose and the taste of his blood on his lip.

Bakugo seemed to take offence to that statement. However, Pyre suspected that he took offence to any statement that didn't immediately praise him, as he had been their entire lives as he looked at him, partly infuriated, partly confused as he asked something. "You rat-ass fucker, aren't you going to use your quirk? Aren't you going to burn me like you love to do? Just like then?!" His voice kept rising with each question.

"You're right that I want to use it, but there's no point. I'm handling you fine without it." Pyre replied, angering Bakugo, but he didn't have many options to deal with him as his attacks had all been blocked. He countered, while the fucking Pyromaniac's counters had been quick and stupidly strong, that liver shot still lingering. He wondered what he'd need to do when his gauntlets flashed red, confusing the nerd but giving him a chance.

Smiling at him, though Bakugo's face was closer to a hungry snarl from a dog, he braced himself as he raised his gauntlet. "Alright, you little shit, you say that you know me and my quirk? Then you should know how it works. If this was made the way I asked them to, they've been gathering my sweat ever since I put them on. The more I fight, the more it collects." His gauntlet's grenade-like handle shot back, revealing the firing pin as he lined up his shot, his bruised, dirty and bloody face making him look like a serial killer.

"Koharu, get behind me!" Midoriya didn't need anymore clues, nor did he dare think that Bakugo would hold back when the only times he ever did was to benefit him. Right now, he was a villain attacking UA, so he knew that what would be considered 'excessive force' was on a whole level.

"I'll prove I'm stronger than you right here and now, you damn pyromaniac!" Bakugo yelled as he pulled the pin, unleashing a devastating explosion that travelled right for Midoriya, who squared his legs and blocked his face the best as he could as the blast swallowed him whole, the attack so large and bright that everyone saw it and paused momentarily, till All Might had to get back to his fight since his bioengineered foe didn't care for such.

Slice's brow furrowed. That was a big attack, comparable to one of Nine, and she knew for certain that it wasn't Pyre. The colour was a dead giveaway, but she had to focus on her fight against three UA students with much less hair than she would have liked.

"What the heck was that?" Sero asked, feeling the place shake and not from the epic clash between All Might and the Nomu. The students atop the stairs had a front-row seat to all the action and had been cheering for their classmates still down there. They wished to jump in and help, especially since the hair villain was on the ropes, but Thirteen advised against it.

"Was that Bakugo?" Mineta asked, as they all saw that blast, which looked just like the ones he used in class, just supersized.

"It had to be. Who else has that much power?" Sato asked as Uraraka, Mina, and Shoji tended to the injured with the little medical knowledge they had.

"Yeah, but who is he fighting? He didn't use that much power during class." Sero asked.

"Someone strong." They turned to Koda, who had his back to the fighting but was shivering as he recalled his encounter with that villain, the sheer difference in their strengths and how easily he had been taken and nearly killed.

"Koda?" Uraraka reached out a hand to him, worried for him as the large boy was close to tears but managed to get himself together.

"He's fighting the guy who beat us." Seeing the way Bakugo looked at him when they left, he said that Bakugo was someone who went after whatever irritated him.

Hearing that, the students looked towards Tokoyami, who they still couldn't believe had been so easily defeated. If Bakugo was up against that. "Crap, no wonder he pulled out the big guns, got that!" Sato as Shoji peaked in the direction of the blast but saw something in the smoke that wasn't right.

Getting up, he created more eyes and a couple ears and focused on it. When he spotted it again, this time clearer, he couldn't believe his eyes. "Hold on? That, that's impossible."

Bakugo, despite the bruises and the pain from his earlier beating, couldn't help but laugh as he witnessed the power of his quirk; he had known that it would be significant; he did the math himself, but there was a satisfaction in seeing in with happen in glorious reality. The blast had been his biggest one, tearing up the concrete as it travelled, leaving nothing but destruction.

"There…how's that for beyond me, All Might?" He asked as that was proof that he was the strongest student and that he would become the strongest hero. Now, Auntie could rest easy knowing that her useless son was down and soon to be thrown in jail like the villain he was.

"Dammit…" His heart froze over when he heard that voice. No, he couldn't be. He was bluffing; he had to be! "That was…way too strong to be safe against people." As the smoke cleared enough for him to see, his eyes flew as wide as saucers, his heart dropped to his stomach, and he stumbled back in shock and fear.

Midoriya wasn't down for the count, though he looked like he should have been.

He remained standing, his head held low and his arms crossed to defend himself. However, that did little as his clothing was blown to bits, his shirt gone, and most of his left leg's pant leg was gone, leaving just enough fabric to reach above the middle of his thigh. In contrast, the right pant leg was blown off from the knee. All that exposed skin was red and black from the blast, horribly charred and deformed from the heat. His outer hand was gone; it was just gone while he was missing 3 fingers from his other hand.

"Am I…not a person to you, Kacchan?" The boy raised his head, revealing that most of his hair had been burned off, leaving a bald, bleeding scarp while he had his right eye closed, though if that was because of injury or loss, Bakugo didn't want to know. Despite looking like a zombie subjected to an incinerator, he still spoke usually, as if he wasn't in massive pain.

"How the hell…how are you still standing?!" Bakugo yelled back, his rage replaced with fear as Pyre stumbled forward like a dead man, his eye never losing focus on his increasingly terrified old friend.

"It did hurt. Not the flames and the heat but the feeling of my skin, muscles and bones being blown off. That hurt, Kacchan. That hurt a lot." Pyre was honest with him, which only made the situation more demented. As it was unknown to them, the students at the top also saw this and felt like they were watching a horror movie. In this type, the evil didn't stop no matter what you did or how many times you hit it, the evil didn't stop.

"But I've been put to the torch and come out stronger. Losing a few pieces here and there, that's fine." Pyre's temperature shot up as steam burst from his grievously wounded body, followed by smoke as that body burned away, replaced with fire and stone. "But what I can't forgive is that you nearly killed Koharu with that." The snake had hung off his neck and laid on his back, and now it also shifted as the flames took her.

Pyre didn't take another step but slithered closer like a demon, Koharu following suit in a scene which made Koda turn and cover his eyes to not witness it again as Pyre scowled at Bakugo, his fiery pits restraining the boy in place. "You wanted my flames?" Flames built up in his gut, racing up his throat. "Then bathe in them!" His stone jaw fell open, letting Bakugo see the bright emerald flames. They didn't just sprout but crashed out, like Koharu and the two massive streams of fire quickly matched his attack.

He didn't move, his mind unable to comprehend this even as his classmates yelled for him to do so, but before the flames could take him, a massive shockwave hit them both, sending Bakugo rolling while Pyre stumbled, his flames blown away like candlelight by the airwave. At that same moment, they heard the roof of the USJ shudder and break.

"They dissipated?!" Pyre starred, as wide-eyed as he could be in this form as he had never witnessed such, the only thing that could-All Might. Turning to where the number one had been battling, he saw that he was alone, holding a pose as if he had just given something the mother of all uppercuts; following his fist's trajectory, he saw the hole in the roof of the USJ.

"He won…" Pyre whispered, out of awe at the raw power of All Might to not only defeat a monster built to fight him but to do so with an attack so powerful that it could blow out his flames. Looking around further, he saw that the place had been wrecked by their fight and that Slice had pulled back from her battle, her hair looking like she had a mess, then a 4th left.

Turning back to Bakugo, he could try to end this fight and put him out for a couple of weeks, but All Might could stop that in a heartbeat. His fact that he wasn't was most likely letting them take the smart option. Reforming his legs, he turned to leave. "Looks like this is where it ends." He didn't say anything more as he jumped away, the fight between them far from over.

But Pyre would take the first round.

Pyre landed just in time to hear All Might speak, chucking how, in his hey-day, he could have done that with just 5 strikes, but how it needed more than 300 this time around, a terrifying prospect for Shigaraki and Kurogiri, who had been watching the fight as All Might had landed all those hits in less than a minute. As Shigaraki started to lose over the loss of their Nomu, Koharu noticed that there was steam coming off All Might, a sign that he had reached his limit or seconds away from him. A fact All Might must have known since he wasn't moving out of the smoke cloud, else he would expose that.

Knowing that he wouldn't pursue them, Pyre returned to normal, leaving him torn and missing clothes. Now, villains, I'm sure we'd all like to end this as soon as possible." All Might started as Shigaraki shook, though Pyre didn't know if that was fear, rage, or some fusion of the two.

"Weaker, like hell. We've been completely overwhelmed." Shigaraki, much like Bakugo earlier, seemed unable to comprehend that they lost. Did he have that much faith in Nomu? It certainly wasn't his plan. If that was the case, Pyre would make the case to Nine later that no amount of money was worth spending time with this fool. "He sent Nomu God knows where…he used a cheat!" Koharu, back around Pyre's shoulders, rolled her eyes at Shigaraki's juvenile outburst.

"What's wrong?" All Might asked, fear shooting through them just from that alone as they looked at him, at the man at the top of the hero world. A near demi-god among mortals. "Why aren't you attacking? Isn't that why you came?" He asked as Shigaraki backed up, thoroughly scared of the man, as they all were, including Pyre. He was the only one who knew All Might was bluffing, but that didn't mean that what little power time All Might had left couldn't take them all out in less than a second as he had done with the grunts.

Would that mean his students saw his weakened form? Yes, but there wasn't a doubt in Pyre's mind that a man like All Might wouldn't sacrifice his secret if it meant protecting the innocent. That was why, even as he feared his wrath like any other villain, he still respected the man, holding him head and shoulders above all others, even Nine.

"Well? What's wrong?!" All Might asked, the man internally sweating as he couldn't move without releasing his muscle form. Nomu was too strong, and he burned through all he had. Now, he had to pray that the villains fell for his bluff and retreated. Shigaraki seemed to be buying it, shaking in his red sneakers, with Slice being the same, though she was better at hiding it. It was a smart move on her head, as she didn't have much hair to fight with. Kurogiri narrowed his eyes but didn't move.

The only issue was young Midoriya, who looked scared but saw it in his eyes; he knew he couldn't fight them without consequence. His allies might not have picked up on it, but that explained why he returned to normal; he was calling his bluff. Attention shifted back to Shigaraki, who was aggressively scratching at his neck. "Dammit, if only I still had Nomu, he would have been able to go up against him!"

Pyre cut him off from whatever delusions he was holding. "No, he wouldn't. Else, he wouldn't have been flying. That thing could be in low orbit by now."

"Then you fight him? Torch that bastard!" Shigaraki yelled at the two, All Might biting back a curse as young Midoriya glanced at him, his emerald eyes giving nothing away before he turned to Shigaraki, his mind made up.

"I won't. I wouldn't be able to land a hit even if I choose to kill for you, and we didn't sign up to march to arrest for you." Pyre told him, reminding him of their earlier agreement at the same time to help make this look legit as Shigaraki was a wild dog, chomping at whatever was in front of him, but he wasn't blind. If he suspected that there was more…

Kurogiri leaned in to add to the conversation. "He's weakened, Pyre. I can see it; he did take damage from Nomu. This is our chance."

That was true, though he doubted that Kurogiri understood how weakened he was. "Also, the kids seem frozen in fear and weakened from facing Slice and yourself. We still have underlings we can use. We might have a few minutes before the rest of the staff arrive."

"If we work together, we could," Pyre cut him off.

"We couldn't. Sure, All Might took damage from Nomu, but you think that's enough? He's still standing and could easily be baiting us to act." This was a plausible statement, though unlikely for All Might, but he doubted that the two would consider All Might's personality in this instance.

"Those kids might be tired and weakened, but others are still here. Kids you said would be tied down fighting the grunts, and yet, here they are, and there are others up by the stairs who could jump in." He turned it on them, putting them on the back foot as Shigaraki glared at him, but he and Koharu met that gaze evenly. He could be mad at all he liked; it wasn't a lie.

"But the other teachers," Slice cut off the warp gate user.

"It will appear any second now. U.A.'s all about going overboard." She said as she had heard Pyre talking about it in passing. The fact that there weren't more pros yet was a miracle in itself, but they were on borrowed time. "Let's get out of here before we're swarmed."

"I'll trust him. He's a hero nut. If he thinks we don't have a chance, we don't. We attacked with how many grunts and that Nomu thing, yet we lost. Trying again while we're in a weakened state is pointless." She told them, nodding towards her teammate as All Might remained silent, as he didn't want to put attention on himself and make the clearly bratty and temperamental Shigaraki throw caution to the win and test his bluff. No, he'll have to trust that young Midoriya could get them out.

"Kurogiri…get us out of here." Shigaraki thankfully agreed, though reluctantly, as his second didn't question him and obeyed, a portal opening for the group to escape. Shigaraki was the first through, followed by Slice, who eyed the students she had been fighting, all worse for wear and on edge even as she walked through, which just left Pyre as he eyed All Might, and then Bakugo, who wobbled over.

He didn't say anything, letting the silence linger between the three before he left, the portal closing behind him just as a bullet smashed into the concrete where his arm had been. Help had arrived, but they were long gone.

With the arrival of the teachers, the assault was effectively over, as within minutes, the remaining villains were defeated and rounded up, with the police on sight within minutes to transport them all away. But with the police came ambulances, who were only there because, despite fending off the attack, victory was not the word of the day as the attack's ringleaders had managed to escape, and from what the students told them, they got out with two wanted villains.

Said villains were why several students needed to be taken to the hospital. Lucky to be alive as Slice and Pyre were not threats that mere first years could have expected to face and defeated, only living because of a self-imposed 'no kill' rule that two had, if Koda was to be believed but as he was a nervous wreck, they'll need to wait till he calmed down and had time to process what happened before they could confirm that.

Walking up to Midnight and Nezu, Snipe asked a question. "Is Todoroki going to be all right?" Out of all the students, his wounds were the most peculiar, mainly for the fact that most of it was self-inflicted.

"The medics seem to think so, but why he didn't solve the issue himself is beyond me." Midnight frowned. The boy had a fire like his father, the perfect solution to his ice issue, yet he didn't use it. She knew that he didn't use it in classes, nor did he use it in the recommendation exam, but this was just stupid. If Eraser didn't sit that boy down and clarify this, she would.

"A student who held back, and a student who had a terrible match-up. It pains me to say it, but the only win we have is that there weren't any deaths, though you wouldn't have known it looking at Eraser." Snipe replied, adjusting his hat with a sigh. Nezu remained silent, thinking over what had transpired, who was involved, and how and what happened.

Outside, the students were a mess of nerves and fear. While most had come out unscathed, that didn't help much, as Sero and Uraraka were still comforting a shivering Koda who, when Yaoyorozu offered a blanket, had a new panic attack at something to bring him warmth. This might have been alarming to some, but to those who saw it, that saw a monster made of rock with blood of lava, they understood it all too well.

Koda might have been the worst, but he wasn't the worst. Mineta, Sato, and Mina were terrified after they witnessed not one but all 3 of their class's heavy hitters taken down like they were nothing more than children. Todoroki looked like they pulled him from the arctic waters during winter, only for him to be attacked by a hairy porcupine. Todoroki was knocked out cold and covered in burns, needing an oxygen tank since the medics said something about smoke inhalation.

With those two, they didn't see their defeat, but they saw it in the aftermath. Then there was Bakugo, who they watched be overwhelmed by his foe in every way. Even when he managed to hit him with his strongest attack, something they didn't even know he had, it didn't matter as his opponent, a dangerous flame quirk user, just stood there, burnt and heavily injured like it was nothing before he returned the attack in kind.

Bakugo might have looked just like his foe

if not for All Might.

The three that fought were still on campus; they were all uneasy about the situation, with Asui and Shiozaki having taken minor damage, but despite that, they hadn't won, merely lasted against a villainess that was too fast, too quick on the draw, that caught on too fast. Even with a tank like Kirishima, they couldn't make any headway; even as they watched her hair count decrease, she compensated for that by getting close, which was where they suffered most of their injuries as those claws of hers weren't for show.

Kirishima, however, was thinking of something else. He recalled how Bakugo acted back there as sure. He wasn't the calmest person out there or the most tactful, but he wasn't stupid and didn't just do stuff for no reason. But it seemed like hearing All Might say he was weaker than that villain, he called him Pyromaniac, but he was sure he had seen his face elsewhere. Either way, it was clear that he knew him, and he let whatever beef they had get in the way, and now, well, he was lucky he was still alive.

He couldn't ask him now, but he could when he left the hospital.

Far from the assault site, a purple and black portal appeared out of thin air in a seedy, dimly lit bar. Shigaraki was the first one out, pissed that their attack didn't lead anywhere; following him was Slice, who was fussing over her hair, which was now a little more than a pixie cut. Midoriya was the last, his body clear of any damage, but the same couldn't be said about his clothes as he bemoaned the loss of them, having only for most of that stuff the other day.

Closing the portal, Kurogiri appeared behind the counter as Shigaraki raged. "Goddammit! We could have won, but those useless pieces of shit couldn't even beat some brats!" He seethed as he grabbed a part of the bar, decaying through it before doing the same to a stool.

Pyre took one of the accessible seats and gave a rebuttal, cutting through his temporary boss's fury. "We didn't stand a chance out there. Your plan was just terrible. As a leader, accept that." He told him, meeting his furious, murderous crimson eyes with his calm but burning emerald gaze.

"And you! Don't push your luck, or else I will kill you myself! You knew All Might. That's why we failed, because you chickened out, little hero!" He stomped over and aggressively pocked Midoriya in the chest, with Kurogiri watching, having some interest in the story after they learned that their hired fighter knew the target. Perhaps he didn't contact him beforehand, or else they would have been caught as soon as they arrived, but could it have affected his judgement? That was likely.

Years of dealing with Bakugo and his time with Nine and the rest had given Pyre a thick skin, at least when it counted, but losing his new stylish clothes and nearly losing Koharu because Kacchan couldn't control his aggression made him a bit more agitated than usual.

"One, you're welcome to try; don't complain when I burn off your hands." He got up, and despite being shorter than Shigaraki, he was in much better shape as his eyes burst to light with light and heat. "Two, don't you ever accuse me of turning back on my word. I'm in this all the way, but we told you we wouldn't kill for you." He pocked him back.

"I want to change the world, to make it better than this hell, but I'll sooner freeze myself than let myself become a monster doing it." He snarled. Koharu glared at the man, and Midoriya was more than willing to just take the money and burn this place down if he had to, with Slice giving her silent support.

"It would be best if things were calmer between us, isn't that right, master?" Kurogiri spoke up. He would have had enough trouble cleaning up after Master Shigaraki's tantrum; he didn't need to add fire damage.

"Correct. Though disagreements happen between partners, it's important to let cooler heads prevail. What of the attack? I understand that it didn't go well." The person on the other end replied, which instantly drew their attention. Despite not even being there, all three guests to the League could feel the slumbering might and the careless disregard for life in that one sentence. The voice, the true master of this 'League of Villains', might have been acting polite, but it was like when the man holding the axe acted polite while they held you down.

If the other two felt it, they didn't act like it as Kurogiri board to the TV, making Prye wonder if the place had cameras that were watching them and if they had been there the entire time or if this was merely a force of habit from the warp gate user. "I'm sad to report that is the case. We failed to kill All Might, and the Nomu was sent away, so I was unable to retrieve it."

"What? You lost it?! Do you know how much work goes into making an upper-tier like that? They don't just grow on trees." A second voice spoke up, one that was nothing like the first, with neither the force of will nor the power of body behind it. It just sounded like a grumpy old man.

"Calm yourself, doctor. It was our fault for underestimating the enemy; all Might just proved stronger than he expected." The first, the shadow leader of the League, defended his…Pyre and Slice didn't know what Shigaraki was.

"It wasn't just him," Slice spoke up as if they were here, possibly being watched, might as well say something. "The thugs we brought along were just pathetic, barely higher than chimps with clubs. Several of them managed to escape or defeat their villains. It went to the plaza where the main battle began, complicating things."

"Is that right? Pyre, do you have anything to add?" The shadow lead turned his attention to him, which sent a chill down his back, a truly unfamiliar feeling.

"The plan itself wasn't that impressive either, as it amounted to little more than throw, as my friend put it, 'chimps with clubs' at the issue. You said we have a plant in U.A? Yet the plan didn't make any use of what their quirks were. The fact that I went up against a student who's weak against fire was chance, nothing more." He didn't care that Shigaraki looked like he wanted to murder him for insulting his plan; at this point, he treated it like he did Kacchan, as both seemed to have short tempers and highly fragile egos.

"And what of All Might? As a dedicated All Might fan, at least in the past, you would be a good person to ask this, no?" The shadow leader's question made him sweat even more, as did Slice, as he never told the league about his past. How the hell did this guy know that? Did he look into him? Was his mother in danger? Was this person trying to threaten him via subtext? If he was, he was both a dangerous man and frightening quick with intelligence gathering.

Then there was that question, no, the demand he made of him. He spoke as if he knew about All Might's injury. Even the Nomu seemed to fight like it was programmed to target it. That was a closely guarded secret; he only knew by chance and hoped that All Might didn't make a habit of revealing himself to strangers. Koharu whispered that there was only one way that this unseen force of malice could know about it, and that made Pyre want to get the hell out of there all the more as he wasn't arrogant enough to think he or Slice would get away with just a lost lung and stomach.

Despite his growing concerns and fear, he spoke. "I've studied clips of All Might for years, but I would say that his claim of getting weaker holds some merit. I'm unsure if he could have bested the Nomu in just 5 hits, but it definitely would have been less than 20 based on his power during the Hotel Rhodes incident 8 years back. He does seem to be much weaker than he was then, maybe because he's getting older, but he's still well above us. If we had stayed, we would have been defeated and captured with the rest."

Pyre hoped that was believable. He knew they had a chance because All Might must have been running on fumes; otherwise, he wouldn't have let them go, but he couldn't afford to let that out. Even if this shadow knew it, it would only end badly for him, Slice, and the rest if they realized he knew.

He felt a sweat form on his brow and race down his face as the voice hummed in. However, the lack of a face made it hard to tell if they were truly considering his words or merely putting on a show before they replied.

At last, they answered, "All good points. It was a loss but not an unexpected one. After all, Nomu was merely a prototype; its chances of getting the job done were never that high. We'll just have to ensure its siblings are up to the ask." That…wasn't good. All Might was struggling against Nomu; he only escaped thanks to the incompetence of the rest of the chumps they brought with them.

If the shadow of the underworld not only had more but also a means to make them even stronger, that was bad news for them and the heroes.

"But there is the one issue you know All Might." That statement felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, Koharu not being sparred from this malevolent force as she hissed in fear. He had to resist the urge to burst into flames to escape from this. Here, more than anywhere, he knew he was being tested, and if his answer wasn't found suitable…

"It's not like we're close. He saved me last year from a villain attack and helped me with advice when I was going through a rough patch. But things happened, and he couldn't help me, so I ran." He answered truthfully but omitted key details, praying that he wouldn't be picked as Shigaraki seemed to take joy in watching him slowly be crushed under the force of the shadow he called a master.

"Interesting, and what was this rough patch?" He didn't dare breathe a sigh of relief, but he wouldn't give them all his secrets. If he wanted that, he'd have to dig for them.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about it." Midoriya replied, getting an amused chuckle from the man, who no doubt saw him as a child resisting his vegetables at best or a small disobedient dog at worst.

"A shame, but I suppose we can discuss such things in detail when I meet the rest of your group." When, not if.

Seemingly done giving him nightmare fuel for the next few weeks, the shadow addressed Shigaraki. "My student, you failed this time, but don't be discouraged. You can learn from this, refine your plans and approach, and try again. Gather elites for your cause, and better prepare so the world will learn to see you as the Symbol of Fear."

"Slice, Pyre. I hope that you'll be available for hire again in the future. After all, you more than earned your reward this time around."

Damn, for a chapter that was close to done, I spent a little extra time on it, but it wasn't anything significant. With this, I got a chance to demonstrate more of Midoriya's character as he's not a complete villain; like Stain, he has a goal, but unlike the madman, he's not willing to become a fanatic or cause needless collateral.

I also got to explore the idea that he and Slice are building a reputation, which leaves the studies at some level of terrified, I'm sorry to all the Koda fans who think I'm bullying him. Still, at the same time, he's far from the most significant fish as this is the world where AFO, while crippled, is very much still alive and more than able to make sure you know he still rules. Next chapter will be out May 8th

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