Weeks passed.
The absence All For One left behind did not feel like silence. It felt like pressure. Like a lung collapsing in on itself, forcing the underground to breathe differently.
The criminal world shifted uneasily. Old alliances destroyed. New ones formed and failed within days. Information flowed faster, messier, full of contradictions. Everyone sensed it. The void at the center of the underworld was dangerous, and dangerous things attracted ambition.
Chaos ensued.
Just like his master had said.
Chaos without direction is ineffective.
Tomura watched it all from the bar.
Reports came in through Kurogiri. Through fractured networks. Through stolen broadcasts and whispered conversations intercepted at the edges of decay. Each group tried to move carefully at first, testing the waters. Some vanished. Others made noise and paid for it quickly.
None of them held his attention for long.
What did linger were the rumors.
They were inconsistent at first. Just another name passed around by nervous informants. A supposed cult. A fringe group. Madmen who dressed in robes and burned things for attention.
Tomura dismissed it. The city produced lunatics constantly.
But the details did not fade.
They repeated.
Witnesses described black clerical robes, heavy fabric that did not burn easily. Triangular hoods hid faces completely, except for jagged eye cutouts painted red. On their foreheads sat a large symbol, crimson and unfamiliar, drawn with deliberate care.
They did not act like criminals.
They did not flee.
They laughed.
Screamed.
They wanted to be seen.
Shouted incoherently about devotion, about love, about sacrifice and salvation. Survivors said they talked as if someone were listening. As if they were being watched and approved of.
They called themselves, the Witch Cult.
Tomura sat slouched on the couch, scratching the side of his neck as Kurogiri delivered the latest report.
"Religious freaks," Tomura muttered. "They'll burn themselves out."
"There is one additional detail," Kurogiri said.
Tomura paused, fingers stilling against his skin. "What."
"They carry books."
The word lingered.
Tomura slowly straightened. "What kind of books."
"Black," Kurogiri replied. "Witnesses consistently mention them."
The bar felt colder.
Tomura's gaze drifted to the table beside him, where The Gospel lay closed and silent. He stared at it for several seconds, jaw tightening.
"...No," he said. "That's not coincidence."
...
He did not rush into action.
That was what the book had taught him.
Instead, he began to dig.
Tomura leaned on the network All For One had cultivated over decades. Information brokers who lived off secrets. Villains who survived by knowing which doors not to open. He offered incentives where necessary. Fear where it was not.
Nothing.
No names. No confirmed leader. No ideological center anyone could point to. The rumors dissolved when questioned too closely, as if they could not exist under scrutiny.
"They don't recruit normally," one broker whispered over a distorted line. "They just show up."
Another laughed nervously, hands shaking. "They don't talk like normal people. It's like they're already forgiven for what they're doing."
Tomura ended that call by letting decay creep up the desk, close enough to make the point.
Each failure tightened something inside him. The Gospel had told him fragments. It would not do that without reason.
Late one night, the bar was quiet.
Kurogiri had stepped away. The screens glowed softly, casting pale light over cracked walls and overturned chairs. Tomura sat hunched over his computer, nails scraping absently at his neck until the skin burned.
"Show me," he muttered. "You didn't bring them up for nothing."
The Gospel lay open beside him.
Silent.
Then the computer chimed.
A notification appeared on screen.
Anonymous sender.
One file attached.
No message.
Tomura stared at it for a long moment. His instincts screamed danger, but curiosity pressed harder.
He clicked.
The video began without sound. From a CCTV camera.
Shaky footage. A quiet residential street at night. A small house sat at the center of the frame, lights on inside. Curtains drawn. Normal.
Figures emerged from the darkness.
Black robes.
Red eyes.
The sound cut in abruptly.
Glass shattered. A door splintered inward. Screams followed almost immediately. Not panicked yelling. Terror.
The robed figures moved slowly. Deliberately. One dragged a man out by the collar, laughing softly. Another pulled a woman free, her hands clawing uselessly at the ground. A child stumbled after her, crying, clinging desperately.
Tomura leaned closer to the screen.
They did not rush. They did not hesitate.
Flames caught quickly. Too quickly. Someone had prepared for this.
One of the figures raised a book as the fire spread, holding it up as if in offering.
Black.
Then without hesitation they slaughtered the family.
Tomura's breath slowed.
"Pause."
He zoomed in frame by frame. The book's cover was smooth. Unmarked. Its dimensions were unmistakable.
Identical.
The video ended abruptly, cutting out on laughter and crackling fire.
Silence filled the bar.
Tomura turned slowly toward the table.
The Gospel was open.
He had not touched it.
Fresh ink bled across the page, dark and deliberate.
The heretics wear devotion like skin.
They burn in her name.
They are not yours.
Not yet.
Below it, a second line formed, slower this time.
Show them the path. Find them.
Tomura stared at the words, then smiled.
Not wide. Not manic.
Focused.
"So that's what you want," he whispered, fingers brushing the page.
Outside, sirens wailed again.
"Kurogiri" he paused, "I need you to get me information about this witch cult. Their activity, last seen locations. Anything."
Kurogiri looked towards the boy.
"Understood."
A/N: I hope you are enjoying Shigaraki's part. Keep in mind that he will play an important role.