The air atop the half-collapsed skyscraper in Tokyo's Chiyoda district tasted like pulverized concrete and old ozone. Below, the city was a graveyard of twisted rebar and stagnant water, the playground King Fin had carved out for them.
Tomura Shigaraki sat on the very edge of the roof, his legs dangling over a three-hundred-foot drop. He wasn't wearing his father's hand today. His face was bare, his skin parched and mapping out a network of scars that looked like a dried riverbed. In his lap sat a tablet, its screen flickering with the red-and-gold interface of the "Harvest" leaderboard.
A few paces behind him, Dabi leaned against a rusted ventilation unit, idly flicking a small, sapphire-blue flame between his fingers. The light danced off the surgical staples holding his face together.
"You've been staring at that map for an hour, Tomura," Dabi said, his voice a dry, mocking drawl. "What's the play? Are we hitting the school again? The kids are all tucked into their little bunkers. If we're going to crack the egg, we should do it while the shell is still hardening."
Shigaraki didn't turn around. He reached up, scratching his neck with a slow, rhythmic rasping sound. "Soon. But not now. Pacing is everything, Dabi. If you rush the final boss, you get a 'Game Over' screen. I'm waiting for the script to flip."
Dabi snorted, extinguishing the flame. "And how do we know when the script flips? Is Kurogiri going to play delivery boy again? Warp in, grab a copy of the class schedule, and warp out?"
"No," Shigaraki said, his voice dropping into a low, raspy whisper. "Kurogiri is a VIP unit. He's the only reason we're sitting on this roof instead of rotting in the dirt. UA has evolved. They've likely planned in ways of specifically dealing with him. Sending him in without a 'clear' signal is a waste of a legendary resource."
Shigaraki finally turned his head, a ghost of a smile twitching on his cracked lips. "Besides. We don't need to look through the window when someone is already inside."
Dabi straightened up, his eyes narrowing. "The mole. You actually got someone in there? I thought Nezu had that place locked down tighter than a coffin."
"UA is looking for a villain," Shigaraki said, tapping the side of his head. "They're looking for someone with a grudge or a blood-stained record. They haven't even thought of a 'traitor' yet because they're too busy playing 'fortress.' But this is a completely new generation, Dabi. Do you know what people crave more than money or even power?"
"Enlighten me," Dabi said, crossing his arms.
"Relevance," Shigaraki spat. "Everybody wants to be a part of the 'main story.' They're tired of being NPCs, tired of being the background characters in the 'All Might Show.' For decades, that man hogged the entire narrative. He was the protagonist, the climax, and the resolution. It weren't just the villains, he suppressed the heroes on his own side. He made everyone else feel like they didn't matter."
Shigaraki stood up, his coat billowing in the wind. "All you have to do is find a suitable storyline for them."
Dabi stared at him for a moment, then gave a slow, mock-solemn salute. "The Developer at work. Fine. But you might want to give your 'players' something to do soon. The new recruits, Muscular, that shark-mutant King Fin and even Meteor, they're getting restless. They're hungry. They're agitated, Tomura."
"Agitation is just another word for 'readiness,'" Shigaraki replied. "They'll get their moment to shine."
Shigaraki's eyes flared with a sudden, manic intensity. "The numbers that will appear on that board will be a countdown to the end of the world."
"Soon, the leaderboard is going to shake the room," Shigaraki whispered. "And All Might won't be there to save the game. He isn't the protagonist anymore. He's just a ghost in the machine."
Dabi looked at the ruined city, a cold smile touching his lips. "I hope the kids like their new roles. Being a tragedy pays better than being a hero anyway."
___
The observation room of Ground Omega felt less like a classroom and more like a submarine's CIC during a depth-charge attack. The air was thick with the hum of high-powered servers and the rhythmic, low-frequency vibration of the "Box" shifting its internal walls somewhere beneath them.
Class 1-A stood in their hero gear, but the aesthetic had changed. In the wake of the Tokyo Massacre, the bright colours had been muted by tactical plating, extra pouches for medical supplies, and reinforced joints. They looked like a unit preparing for an insurgency.
On the massive bank of monitors at the front of the room, Mina Ashido and Denki Kaminari were currently being dismantled. They were trapped in a simulated alleyway, the "Monster"—Principal Nezu in a high-tech mobile crane, orchestrating a series of structural collapses that funnelled them into a dead end.
"They're too loud," Izuku whispered, his voice a dry rasp.
His eyes were locked on the screen, reflecting the flickering blue light. He wasn't cheering for them. He wasn't hoping for a "Plus Ultra" miracle. He was dissecting them. He watched Kaminari fire a blind discharge of electricity, illuminating the smoke.
Mistake, Izuku thought, his fingers twitching against the straps of his gauntlets. In a dark zone, you just turned yourself into a flare. The hunter doesn't even need infrared now. He can see your heat signature from three blocks away.
He watched Ashido try to melt a path through a reinforced door, her movements frantic. Too slow. The acidity is high, but she's not accounting for the thickness of the alloy. She's wasting stamina on a barrier that won't give before the 'Monster' closes the gap. She should have used the acid to slick the floor to slow the pursuit.
Nezu hammered it in his explanation that the students view the teacher's as 'Monster'. Izuku didn't know why but it didn't hurt, so...
Aizawa stood at the console, his red-rimmed eyes tracking the biometric data of the students. "Neutralization in five... four..."
On screen, a heavy steel shutter slammed down, pinning Kaminari's leg. A simulated gas canister detonated, filling the screen with white smoke.
"Round two: Fail," Nezu's voice came over the intercom, sounding oddly metallic and distant. "Extraction unsuccessful. The 'Monster' has claimed the targets."
The room was silent. The weight of the failure pressed down on everyone. This wasn't the old UA. There were no jokes about "better luck next time."
"Next duo," Aizawa announced, his voice flat. He tapped the touch-pad, and the names flickered onto the screen in bold, jagged font.
TEAM: MIDORIYA & BAKUGO
VS.
THE MONSTER: ALL MIGHT
A collective gasp rippled through the class. Izuku felt his heart skip a beat, then hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird. Bakugo? He glanced to his left.
Katsuki Bakugo stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest. His face a mask of simmering, volatile rage. As the names appeared, Bakugo let out a loud, disappointed scoff that echoed through the tense room.
"You've got to be kidding me," Bakugo hissed, not even looking at Izuku. "I have to drag this dead weight through the Box?"
Izuku's jaw tightened. Before he could respond, the heavy reinforced door at the back of the room hissed open.
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. It was a pressure shift, a sudden, overwhelming surge of "Presence."
All Might walked in.
He wasn't in his usual skin-tight hero suit, he was wearing heavy tactical trousers and a dark blue vest, though his signature cape still billowed slightly behind him. He looked thinner, the shadows under his eyes deeper, but the smile, the iconic, unwavering mask of the Symbol of Peace, was pinned firmly in place.
"I AM HERE!" he announced, his voice booming, though to Izuku's trained ears, it sounded like a recording played through a straining speaker. "And I see I have made it just in time for the main event!"
Izuku stared at him. It had been two weeks. Two weeks since the world had ended in Tokyo. Two weeks since Izuku had sat by his mother's bed, listening to the machine breathe for her. In all that time, All Might had sent three texts. 'I am safe.' 'Be strong, Young Midoriya.' 'The world needs its Heroes.'
No visits. No calls. No comfort. Just the "Symbol" keeping his distance.
"Ah, Toshinori," Nezu's voice crackled over the speakers, followed by a dry, chortling laugh. "Always the dramatic entrance. But you are in the wrong room, I'm afraid. The 'Monster' is meant to be in the containment breach zone for pre-staging."
All Might laughed, a hearty, booming sound that felt entirely too loud for the grim bunker. "Ah, forgive me! The new layout of the bunker is quite the maze. I suppose I was just too eager to see my students!"
He turned to the class, his eyes sweeping over them. "You all look like true heroes! Keep that fire burning! The darkness is only as thick as you allow it to be!"
As he turned to leave, his gaze landed on Izuku. For a fleeting second, the "All Might" mask slipped. His eyes looked hollow, filled with a desperate, unspoken apology. He raised a hand and gave Izuku a sharp, stiff salute.
Izuku felt a sudden, violent surge of heat in his chest. It wasn't One For All, it was raw, unadulterated bile. He wanted to open his mouth. He wanted to shout. He wanted to ask All Might where he had been when the water rose in Chiyoda. He wanted to scream at him for being a "Wild Card" in a test when he couldn't even be a mentor in real life.
.
.
.
He couldn't even save his mother...
But Midoriya's throat was a desert. He remained silent, his hands curling into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
All Might vanished back into the hallway, the door sealing shut behind him.
"Midoriya. Bakugo. Move out," Aizawa commanded.
The walk to the starting gate of Ground Omega was a journey through a concrete tomb. The lighting was dim, flickering orange to simulate a failing power grid. The only sound was the heavy thud-thud-thud of their combat boots and the faint clinking of Bakugo's grenade gauntlets.
They reached the heavy blast doors that marked the entrance to the "Box."
Bakugo stopped, staring at the steel surface. He didn't look at Izuku. "Listen to me, Deku," he said, his voice a low, dangerous vibrate. "I don't care what the mouse says. I don't care what the teachers want. This isn't a team-up. You stay behind me. You keep your mouth shut. And most importantly..."
Bakugo turned his head just enough for Izuku to see the manic, traumatized glint in his eyes.
"Don't you dare get in my way."
The silence that followed was heavy, pregnant with a decade of resentment and the fresh rot of their current trauma.
Izuku didn't flinch. He didn't look down at his shoes. He stepped forward, entering Bakugo's personal space until they were shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at the same steel door.
"Don't get in my way?" Izuku repeated.
But he didn't whisper it. He didn't say it with the stutter of the boy Bakugo used to bait into suicide. He said it with a sudden, thunderous aggression.
"DON'T GET IN MY WAY, KATSUKI!" Izuku said, his voice echoing off the concrete walls like a gunshot.
He turned his head, his emerald eyes burning with a cold, predatory light that made him look less like a hero and more like the "Monster" they were about to face.
"I'm not the one who spent the last month in a coma," Izuku spat, his voice trembling with a terrifying mix of grief and rage. "I'm the one who's been living in the dirt. So move your feet, or I'll move them for you."
The green lightning of One For All flickered across Izuku's skin.
The blast doors began to groan open, revealing the dark, smoke-filled ruins of the Box.
"Let's go," Izuku said.