The sirens blurred into background noise after a while.
At first, Tomura had counted them. Every wail felt like a reminder that something was wrong, that the world was moving without his master in it. After a few days, they became part of the bar's atmosphere, like the hum of bad wiring or the drip of a leaky pipe.
He sat on the couch, legs spread, controller loose in his hands, eyes half-focused on the game flashing across the screen. His character died again. The screen screamed failure in bright red letters.
"Whatever," Tomura muttered, tossing the controller aside. It clattered against the floor and didn't break, which annoyed him more than if it had.
A week.
All For One had been gone for a week.
Tomura scratched at his neck until his skin burned. Every instinct screamed at him to move, to go out there and tear answers out of the city. He had tried on the first night. Had made it halfway to the door before the mist had thickened.
Kurogiri had been calm, as always.
"Master Shigaraki," he had said, voice echoing gently from within the fog, "All For One-sama instructed me to keep you here if anything were to happen."
"What if he needs help?" Tomura had snapped, hands trembling. "What if he's hurt?"
"He will return," Kurogiri replied. No hesitation. No doubt.
That certainty was the only thing that had stopped Tomura from decaying the door on the spot.
So he waited.
He played games. He slept in bursts. He watched the news on mute, reading the captions instead. Reports of destruction. Of heroes injured. Of All Might's rumored absence.
That one had made his fingers twitch. He knew from Kurogiri that somewhere out there, the symbol of peace was vulnerable, and it would only take a single touch from him.
Then, one night, there was a knock.
Tomura remembered how wrong it felt immediately. Nobody knocked on the bar door. Ever. People barged in. Or got dragged in. Or didn't come at all.
The knock was soft. Polite.
Three taps.
He opened the door with one hand already flexing, decay ready.
The alley was empty.
No one stood there. No shadow moved. Just trash, damp concrete, and the distant glow of streetlights.
And a book.
Black. Clean. Sitting neatly on the ground like it belonged there. That alone was enough to make his stomach twist.
Tomura stared at it for a long moment before picking it up with four fingers. It didn't decay.
Inside, written clearly at the top of the first page, was a title.
The Gospel.
He had not slept much after that.
Time passed strangely once the book entered his life. Days blurred together, marked not by sirens but by pages turned and reread. Tomura learned quickly that the book did not behave like anything he had ever seen.
It never showed the same thing twice unless he wanted it to.
The words shifted when he looked away. Symbols rearranged themselves. Some pages were blank one moment and filled the next. It did not explain. It hinted.
It showed futures, or pieces of them. A path laid out not in steps, but in impressions. Images of crumbling cities. Of heroes falling. Of a hand reaching out from darkness.
Sometimes, it showed him standing at the center of it all.
The more he read, the more certain he became.
This book was his.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
One afternoon, he shoved it across the bar counter toward Kurogiri. "Look at this."
Kurogiri leaned closer, mist swirling. "Is that the item you mentioned earlier?"
"Yeah. Read it."
Kurogiri opened the book.
Paused.
"...Master Shigaraki," he said slowly, "these pages appear to be filled with meaningless scribbles."
Tomura's fingers tightened. "What?"
He snatched the book back and looked.
The words were still there. Clear. Sharp. Speaking directly to him.
Path converges through ruin.
The hand that destroys will inherit the future.
Do not rush. Let the world rot first.
Tomura's breath hitched.
He pushed the book back again. "Try now."
Kurogiri studied it once more, longer this time. "I'm afraid it has not changed."
Tomura laughed under his breath, a dry, broken sound. "Figures."
From then on, he stopped trying to show it to anyone.
The Gospel spoke only to him.
It showed him what could be, if he followed the path. And when he ignored it, the pages went quiet, as if waiting patiently for him to catch up.
At first, that patience unsettled him.
Then it comforted him.
His master had always said the world needed new direction. The book felt like proof of that philosophy, written into reality itself.
One night, as sirens wailed faintly outside, Tomura traced a finger along a line of text.
The successor must endure absence.
Loss tempers resolve.
When the symbol falls, the true hand rises. A hand for the successor to take.
He smiled, small and sharp.
"Master," he murmured.
The book did not confirm it.
It did not deny it either.
Tomura leaned back, resting the book against his chest. For the first time since All For One vanished, the waiting did not feel empty.
It felt intentional.
Whatever this future was, whatever this path led to, it was his. And when his master returned, Tomura would be ready.
The sirens cried on outside.
Tomura turned the page, ignoring them.
His gospel had told him that he was the chosen one.
A/N: I couldn't help myself so here is another chapter. So now, what do you think Tomura's role is going to be?