….
The morning after the Kiyashi Ward Mall incident, Class 1-A filed into their horoom wrapped in an unusual, heavy quiet.
They were all within the periter of the scene when the entire comrcial district was locked down by ard police. The news networks had also run the sa headlines throughout yesterday, repeating the sa details of the villain's involvent.
Aizawa and Dabi are present in their usual spots.
"Before anyone starts throwing their hands in the air." Aizawa began, his voice flat enough to instantly kill the rising murmurs. "As you all can see for yourself, Midoriya is fine, and well. And the villain who initiated the encounter escaped, though their primary transport asset was captured. That is all you need to know, and it is all you will discuss."
"But sensei–" Uraraka started, her hands gripping the edge of her desk.
"That is all you need to know." Aizawa repeated, layering a fraction of his Quirk into his glare to demand silence. "What you do need to concern yourselves with is the upcoming sumr training camp. Due to yesterday's events, the destination has been changed."
A collective ripple of surprise went through the room.
"The new location will only be announced on the morning of our departure." Aizawa continued. "This is a mandatory security asure, and the exact coordinates are currently known only to select faculty and the training supervisors on site. It is not up for debate."
"Isn't that excessive?" Yaoyorozu asked. "Surely, even the league of villains would target us again soon after their last failure."
"We can't be certain of anything. It is a proactive counterasure to ensure you aren't." Aizawa said, delivering the half-truth smoothly. "The fewer people who know your location, the safer you will be."
From his spot against the wall, Dabi's turquoise eyes drifted lazily across the classroom, sliding past Midoriya, skipping over Bakugo, and landing briefly on Yuga Aoyama.
The French student sat near the back, his usual flamboyant, sparkling posture noticeably subdued. For a fraction of a second, Aoyama's gaze darted up and t Dabi's.
?!The boy flinched, looking away instantly, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.
The spy kid, Dabi thought. All For One's unwilling little bird. The reason the League will know exactly where we're going, no matter how many confidential stamps Nezu puts on the paperwork.
The question was whether to act on that knowledge:
He could corner Aoyama, drag the truth out of him, and offer the terrified kid a way out of the blackmail keeping him compliant.
It would be easy.
But if he did that, his connection with League would also be cut.
Right, the reason Dabi was damn sure of the attack was because he tracked Aoyama's movents.
So if he was caught, the League would realize their feed had been cut and go to ground, waiting for a ti and place of their own choosing to strike again.
….
No, Dabi decided.
Let the kid deliver his report while Shigaraki convinced himself he still held the advantage and walked willingly into the center of the forest.
When you know exactly where a trap is going to snap, it ceases to be a trap. It becos an execution block.
"The first sester is officially over." Aizawa announced, gathering his papers. "Which ans sumr break starts today. Rest while you can, because once we leave for training camp, you're all going to wish you were back in this classroom instead."
….
.
Three weeks passed.
It took exactly twenty-one days for the bureaucratic team, the forensic laboratories, and the deep-cover investigations to process the blood gathered from the mall incident and the genetic material swabbed from the captured Kurogiri.
Now, on the eve of Class 1-A's departure for the sumr training camp, the waiting was finally over.
Inside Principal Nezu's heavily secured office, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on.
Nezu sat behind his desk, his usual cheerful deanor absent. All Might sat rigidly in his skeletal civilian form, looking impossibly fragile, while Dabi leaned against the bookshelves.
In the center of the room stood Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, holding two thick, manila folders.
"The lab finalized the results three hours ago." Naomasa began, his voice weary.
He set the first folder on Nezu's desk. "The blood sample recovered from Tomura Shigaraki at the mall produced conclusive genetic markers."
Opening the file, he slid a genealogical chart across the polished wood surface.
"Shigaraki is the biological grandson of…. Shimura Nana, through her son, Shimura Kotaro."
The silence that hit the room was absolute, a vacuum that sucked the air from All Might's lungs.
The forr Symbol of Peace went completely bloodless. His skeletal hands gripped the armrests of his chair so hard the knuckles turned stark white, the wood cracked under the pressure.
Obviously first ca the denial.
"No." the word slipped out of Toshinori's mouth, hollow and broken. "That's not– Naomasa, there must be a mistake. Master Nana's son..."
"I am afraid there isn't any mistake, Toshinori." Naomasa replied gently, looking at his old friend with quiet sympathy. "We ran the sequence three separate tis using different control thods. The result never changed, the match was definitive."
"Master Nana's... grandson." All Might's voice fractured. "She gave up her family to keep them away from him… and now her grandson…"
"After everything she sacrificed, he still got his hands on–" He couldn't finish the sentence.
Nezu stepped in, his voice quiet but steady. "We connected the dots from the foster care records, Toshinori. Knowing how Kotaro grew up resenting Nana's 'abandonnt,' it is entirely logical that his deeply ingrained hatred of heroes created a volatile environnt. He built a life completely rejecting her world, and enforced it strictly on his children."
Nezu tapped a key, and an old, slightly faded family photograph appeared on the wall monitor.
It showed a stern-faced Kotaro, his wife, a young daughter, and a small boy with distinctive, muted blue hair. Even from the old photograph, the facial structure was unmistakable. It was the face of the monster who had tried to murder Class 1-A at the USJ.
"The youngest, Tenko Shimura." Nezu said softly. "The timing of his manifestation, the complete lack of any hero intervention during their dostic tragedy... everything aligns too perfectly to be an accident."
"Six years ago, when the household was destroyed." Naomasa took over, his expression grim. "Official records listed it as an unexplainable tragedy with Tenko as the sole survivor. But looking at it now, with the tiline Nezu mapped out, the individual who 'found' him wandering the streets wasn't a good Samaritan."
"All For One." All Might whispered, his sunken eyes wide with horror.
"He must have found the traumatized, broken boy, and grood him with his hatred, and twisted him into Tomura Shigaraki." Dabi added quietly. "He goal was probably turn your master's legacy into her worst nightmare just to torture you."
The complete psychological warfare of it was almost beautiful in its cruelty.
All For One hadn't just killed Nana Shimura. He had taken the very family she died to protect, orchestrated their ruin, and forged the sole survivor into a weapon designed specifically to break her successor's heart.
Truly, All For One at his finest.
All Might stood abruptly. "I need… excuse –"
He stumbled blindly toward the door, his long, skeletal legs giving out. He caught himself heavily against the doorfra, his breathing ragged and shallow.
"Toshinori." Nezu said gently.
"I can't…" All Might gasped, a hand clutching his chest as if his old wound had been ripped open all over again.
"Are you telling everything she gave up was for nothing? That in the end... he still won? He turned her own blood into a weapon against us."
His legs gave out, as he slid down the doorfra, hitting his knees.
Dabi crossed the room in three long strides, grabbing All Might by the shoulder and hauling him back up before he could completely collapse.
"Breathe, old man. Get up."
"How?" All Might looked at Dabi, his sunken eyes swimming with desperate, haunted tears. "How do I look that boy in the eye? How do I fight him, knowing he's the grandson she sacrificed everything to protect?"
"The sa way you always do," Dabi said, his grip tightening on All Might's shoulder, anchoring him. "By stopping him from destroying the world she built. You don't honor her legacy by letting her grandson burn it to the ground. You save him by stopping him."
….
All Might squeezed his eyes shut, a shuddering breath rattling through his hollow chest. He nodded once, slowly, allowing Dabi's anchoring grip to guide him back to his chair.
As the forr Number One hero tried to compose himself, burying his face in his trembling hands, Naomasa turned back to the desk.
The atmosphere in the room had shifted from clinical to suffocating.
Naomasa reached for the next file.
"There's... sothing else." Naomasa said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Before he could continue, a sharp, clean knock echoed through the room.
The door opened, and Shota Aizawa stepped inside.
The underground hero looked exhausted, his dark eyes scanning the heavy tension in the room before he quietly took a seat.
Naomasa waited for the door to click shut. Then, adjusting his posture, he looked directly at Aizawa.
"It's about Kurogiri."
"Kurogiri?" Aizawa finally repeated, his tone flat, devoid of any context. "What about him? If this is an interrogation update, you don't need here. I have a class to grade."
Naomasa didn't look away, but the pity in his eyes was instantly louder than any words he could have spoken.
Beside him, Nezu closed his eyes.
"Step into it, Tsukauchi." Aizawa said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous warning. "What aren't you telling ?"
"During his intake processing at Tartarus, they ran the standard genetic and quirk-factor swabs." Naomasa explained, his voice tight. "Normally, matching a John Doe's DNA against the national registry takes months of bureaucratic red tape. It's like finding a needle in an ocean."
Naomasa glanced briefly at Dabi before looking back at Aizawa.
"But my office received an anonymous, encrypted tip a few days after the arrest," Naomasa continued. "The informant suggested we bypass the civilian registry entirely. They told us to cross-reference Kurogiri's genetic markers specifically with U.A. Hero Course casualties from the last fifteen years. It narrowed our search pool from tens of millions down to a few hundred files."
Dabi stared blankly out the window, offering no reaction. He had leaked that tip through the dark web channels Spinner used, knowing that waiting months for Tartarus to process the DNA normally would delay the truth far too long. He wanted the board set now.
"We got a hit." Naomasa said softly.
He pulled a photograph from the folder.
It was old, a bit grainy; a standard U.A. student ID photo. He slid it across the desk so Aizawa could see it.
Aizawa stopped breathing.
The silence in the room beca brittle, fragile, ready to shatter. Aizawa stared at the photograph, his dark eyes wide and locked, his face draining of all color.
The image showed a young man, roughly seventeen years old. He had a bright, blindingly genuine smile, a band-aid over his nose, and distinctive, cloud-like white hair styled upward.
"Shirakumo Oboro." Naomasa said, his voice heavy with sympathy. "Registered as missing, presud dead thirteen years ago in a building collapse during your second-year work study. And-
"-His body was never recovered."
"What are you... what kind of sick joke is this?" Aizawa's voice was barely a whisper, cracking under a weight he hadn't carried in over a decade. "What are you trying to suggest?"
"The genetic analysis confirms it with absolute certainty," Naomasa replied, refusing to let his tone waver, forcing the cruel reality into the room. "Kurogiri's base physiology belongs to Shirakumo Oboro. His quirk is a modified, weaponized amalgamation of Shirakumo's 'Cloud' quirk, engineered with multiple spatial manipulation factors."
Naomasa looked away, unable to watch the underground hero break.
"The League didn't just build a warp gate, Aizawa. All For One dug up your dead friend and turned his corpse into a loyal puppet to serve as Tomura Shigaraki's caretaker."
The room seed to lose all sound.
Aizawa didn't scream or drop to his knees like All Might had.
Instead, a terrifying, absolute stillness took over his entire body.
His fingers dug so hard into the edge of Nezu's mahogany desk that his knuckles turned a ghostly white, the wood groaning slightly under the sudden, imnse pressure.
"A corpse..." Aizawa whispered.
The word sounded hollow, scraped out from the bottom of his throat.
Thirteen years of buried grief, of sleepless nights, of forcing himself to move past the tragedy that had defined his entire adult life, all of it ca rushing back, twisted into a grotesque, sickening caricature.
He closed his eyes, but behind his eyelids, he didn't see the dark room.
He saw the USJ, a purple misty villain standing between him and his students, politely introducing himself. He rembered the way Kurogiri had protected Shigaraki, the way he had spoken with that eerie, calm cadence.
Oboro.
"Where is he?" Aizawa demanded, looking at Naomasa. "I want to see him. Now."
"In the lowest sector of Tartarus," Naomasa replied instantly. "Under maximum restraint and constant surveillance. We haven't begun a formal interrogation regarding this specific data yet and wanted you here first."
"Prepare the transport." Aizawa said as he turned toward the door, his expression cold and unwavering. "I am going to Tartarus."
"I will make the arrangents imdiately." Naomasa Tsukauchi replied quietly, knowing there was no point arguing with a grieving man.
Then he hesitated before speaking again. "I know this is difficult to ask right now, but I hope you will also be the one to inform soone else who has the right to know about these findings."
He didn't say the na aloud, but the implication was obvious.
Present Mic deserved to hear the truth too.
….
.
Six hours later, in the deepest, darkest bowels of Tartarus Prison.
Aizawa stood in front of a reinforced, soundproof glass cell.
Beside him stood Present Mic.
Aizawa had called him the mont he left Nezu's office.
The Voice Hero was currently weeping openly, his glasses off, his face red and raw, staring at the misty villain strapped to the high-tech restraint chair.
Dabi stood near the heavy steel door, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He had accompanied them at Nezu's request, as the two n who were currently watching their hearts be ripped out of their chests.
"Oboro!!!" Mic's voice cracked, his palms hitting the glass. "Hey... look at , man. It's Hizashi. Shota's here too. We're right here."
Inside the cell, Kurogiri didn't move. The dark purple mist around his collar swirled lazily. His yellow, slit-like eyes remained fixed on the blank wall ahead.
"The baseline scans show zero cognitive retention," the guard in the corner volunteered nervously, his hand resting on his holster. "He doesn't register external stimuli unless it pertains to directives regarding Tomura Shiga–"
"Quiet." Aizawa snapped, his eyes flashing red. The guard flinched and fell silent.
Aizawa stepped closer to the glass, lifting a hand to press his palm flat against the cold surface, directly opposite the hollow space where his friend's face used to be.
"Shirakumo Oboro." Aizawa said, his tone flat, forcing the emotion down into his chest. "Class 2-A. Hero Course. The idiot who wanted to start an agency together because you couldn't stand the thought of anyone working alone."
"I still go back." Mic choked out, a ragged sob escaping him. "Every single year. I bring those stupid pork buns from the corner store. Shota and I... we talk to the stone, Oboro. The promise we made? To beco Pros? It happened. But there were supposed to be three of us."
Aizawa leaned forward, resting his forehead against the glass. The barrier between them felt miles thick.
"I don't know what's left of you." Aizawa whispered, the absolute exhaustion finally bleeding into his words. "I don't know if he erased everything. But if you can hear ... if there's even a shred of you left in the dark... just know nobody gave up. Nobody left you behind."
Inside the chamber, the mist suddenly shifted. It wasn't the slow, idle drift of the automated vents. It was a sharp, erratic jerk.
The glowing yellow slits flickered, dragging away from the wall, trembling as they locked onto Aizawa's face.
"...loud..."
The intercom crackled, the output heavily synthesized and distorted by static, but the cadence was a ghost from a decade ago.
"...so... damn loud..."
Mic gasped, his hand flying to his mouth to stifle a cry. "Oboro? Oh god, Oboro!"
"...hurts..." The mist violently shuddered, the restraint chair whining as Kurogiri's fra strained against the tal clamps. "...Shota... it hurts..."
Then, the light in the slits vanished. The mist settled back into its smooth, uniform hum. The blank, unblinking stare returned, burying the ghost back beneath layers of corrupted quirks.
"He's there." Mic wept, grabbing Aizawa's shoulder, his grip frantic. "Shota, did you hear that? He's still in there!"
"I heard." Aizawa said.
He didn't cry, but his eyes simply hardened, turning into cold, unyielding obsidian.
He turned slowly to face the guard. "I want his full intake log. Every genetic scan, every neural map, and every piece of data Tartarus has logged since he arrived."
"Sir, those files are highly classified dical–"
"I have Level-S Underground clearance, and the man in that chair is my classmate," Aizawa stepped into the guard's space, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm register. "Get the files. Or I will dismantle the bureaucratic red tape of this facility piece by piece. Do you understand ?"
The guard swallowed hard, looking at the dark red tint flaring in Aizawa's eyes. "I will... I will request the transfer imdiately, Eraserhead."
Aizawa turned back to the glass.
"I am going to fix this, Oboro." he said quietly to the empty mist. "I don't care what it takes. I will find a way to drag you out. And if I can't..." His hands curled into tight fists inside his pockets. "If I can't save you, I will make sure All For One pays for every single second you spend in this cell. That's a promise."
By the door, Dabi slowly closed his eyes, a grim, humorless tilt to his mouth.
This was the true face of the man they were fighting.
All For One didn't just kill his enemies; he dug them up, reshaped them, and used their corpses to break the spirits of the living.
And for once, Dabi had nothing sarcastic to say. He just stood there, letting them carry the weight.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access 1 chapter for free, available for Free mbers as well. For additional content please do support and gain access to 12 more chapters.
-->[email protected]/WrightBrothers
User Comments
0 comments from readers