The rain continued its relentless assault on the abandoned industrial complex, each droplet carrying away traces of what had once been Kurogiri. The puddles reflected the gray sky above, broken only by the ripples of falling water and the occasional splash of boots against wet concrete.
Shigaraki stood in place, his red eyes fixed on the empty space where his partner—his guide had existed mere seconds before. The scratching urge that normally plagued him was completely absent, replaced by a hollow numbness that seemed to drain all color from the world.
"Kurogiri?" The word fell from his lips, barely audible over the drumming rain. "This isn't funny Kurogiri. Come back."
The silence stretched on, broken only by the steady patter of precipitation and the distant rumble of thunder. No familiar misty voice answered his call. No purple portal opened to whisk him away from this nightmare.
"No .. no way ....."
He took a step back as reality sank in. "This can't be happening .. it .. it just can't ..." His words echoed through the silent battlefield.
As the seconds elapsed and the Warpgate villain was still nowhere to be found, something inside him seemed to snap.
"Why .." His body trembled. "Why .. Why, Why, Why .. " His raspy voice got progressively louder. Until. "KUROGIRI!" A full blown scream tore from his throat, raw and desperate.
His hands struggled to reach his neck, habits urging him to draw blood despite his body pain as reality crashed down around him. "YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME! NOT NOW! NOT LIKE THIS!" He couldn't understand it. Why was the world so against him? He failed to kill All Might. Failed to achieve his convictions. Had his own pawn turns against him, and now ... Now ...
"Is he ..."
".. I think he is .."
"You can't be serious right?"
The assembled villains shifted uncomfortably, some taking unconscious steps backward. They'd signed up to work with the League of Villains, not to witness their leader's complete psychological breakdown. Several of them began exchanging glances, hands moving closer to weapons as they reassessed their situation.
Team B watched from their defensive position with a mixture of horror and confusion. They'd been expecting death or capture—not to witness their captor's descent into madness.
"What the hell just happened?" Bakugo whispered, his usual bravado tempered by the surreal nature of what they'd just witnessed. "Did that mist guy just... disappear?"
"Implode," Yaoyorozu corrected quietly, her analytical mind still processing the physics of what she'd observed. "His quirk collapsed inward without the restraints to contain it. But what destroyed the restraints? I couldn't see anything."
Tokoyami's eyes narrowed as Dark Shadow coiled around him more protectively. The sentient quirk's form was agitated, its usual smooth movements jerky and uncertain.
"Something's wrong," Dark Shadow hissed, its voice barely above a whisper. "There's something else here. Something dark."
"Huh? What?"
Tokoyami asked. In so many years, this was the first time he had seen Dark shadow so disgruntled over something that wasn't bright light.
Darkness?
"Hey. What the hell is .." SQUELCH! A villain attempting to question Tomura Shigaraki on just what exactly was going on had his voice cut off.
Everyone turned sharply.
Their eyes bulging at the sight of a dark shadowy substance running through his chest.
"Holy Quirk ..."
THUD! The man's body fell to the floor. Before anyone could react, movement caught their attention from the edges of their vision. A shape detached itself from the Man's shadow. It's form coalescing until it became purely solid as it stood on two feet.
It was humanoid .. or looked that way. With a form that seemed to blur and shift as if it existed somewhere between liquid and solid matter. The feeling however, was wrong.
They could all feel it. As despite having no features, it certainly bore none of them goodwill.
Like a person's silhouette giving form and malevolent purpose.
"What in hell is that? ..." Kirishima asked "Don't ask me you moron. How would I know?"
Bakugo was equally unsettled. Not just him, everyone was. Just at that moment, it happened.
The shadow made its first move towards one of the villains. With one step, its figure blurred before reappearing before a man with rock like skin.
The dark figure's arm extended and sharpened into a blade-like appendage that punched through his enhanced durability as though it were paper.
The man collapsed with a gurgling cry, blood pooling around him as the shadow withdrew its weapon and turned toward the next target.
"Damn it! Get him."
In an instant, the villains attention was drawn from the students as those with long range quirks bombarded the shadow. Unfortunately, the figure rushed past in a blur, allowing the floor he stood on to be reduced to rubble. They adjusted their aims, firing as it dodged constantly. The result, a villain firing bullets from his fingers had his two arms cut off. Then a man with blades in his forearms, and another that looked half man, half gorilla.
Panic erupted among the villain ranks. The woman with shark-like features spun around wildly, her gills flaring as she tried to track a threat that moved too fast to hit.
"No .. No .."
Watching the massacre around him, Shigaraki was silent for a moment.
"My underlings ..." It changed nothing.
"What is this?!" someone screamed. "What's happening!"
His voice was cut short as the black entity continued to move at fast speeds and take lives in the process. It showed no mercy, no hesitation, only the cold efficiency of a predator that had evolved beyond the need for emotion.
Team B huddled closer together as the massacre unfolded around them. They wanted to look away, to close their eyes against the horror, but survival instincts kept their attention focused on the threats surrounding them. Several of them were fighting back nausea as they watched criminals die in ways that would haunt their dreams for years to come.
"We need to move," Kirishima whispered, his hardened skin trembling despite its enhanced durability. "We use the chaos as a distraction—"
"No." Yaoyorozu's voice was firm despite her pale complexion. "Look how it's moving around us. We're being avoided deliberately. If we move and break whatever protection we have..."
She was right. The shadow entity flowed past them repeatedly during its work, but never once turned its attention toward the students. It was as though some invisible barrier protected them while the villains died around them.
Though that was highly unrealistic and debatable as it might have other purposes. Logically, they should all make a run for it, but if they were attacked once they tried to escape, then someone among them would die.
SQUELCH!
"I've had enough of this shit ..." With the deaths of several villains, those still alive immediately ran for their lives, scattering in different directions. They didn't get far. The man who screamed had barely run a few meters before getting stabbed through the head. The remaining villains ran even faster. Sparing no expense to get away from here.
Some even slamming shoulders against their ex boss who was standing there, watching the scene unfold as if his soul had been sucked out. Taking in the scene of systematic slaughter with his eyes go wild.
The shadow darted constantly, and his eyes mimicked in an attempt to follow its blurring pace which was fast, but visible. Compared to All Might and NOMU, it was slow. Too slow. But to these amateurs? It could have as well been the god of speed. It wasn't fast enough to hit before they locked on and attacked, but it could weave through those attacks.
It had slaughtered his men, but left the U.A brats untouched.
'I see.'
First Kurogiri, now his underlings. Before Kurogiri closed the gates, he had been attacked by that U.A brat who had foiled his plans.
Just right after, Kurogiri was killed, and his men were being slaughtered.
'It's him, isn't it?...'
The thought crossed through his mind as he put together the pieces.
'You damnable brat. Tricked us for all this time ...' There was no logic behind it. No deductive reasoning, no clues pieced together. Nothing tangible to make sense of.
'He spoiled my plans ... He got rid of the mental implants. He certainly knew .. he remembered everything this whole time,'
There was no other explanation for it. This was Shigaraki's reasoning.
It was simple really, with no concrete proof of any kind except his own misguided, biased and unhinged judgement. He automatically pinned whatever this shadow entity was to the cause of his failure. No other judging criteria beyond his personal feelings.
Flawed and inadequate for a calm mind, but his current state had all but rationality. And yet, he hit the bullseye.
"YOU! YOU DID THIS." Shigaraki roared at the shadow that has just slain the last villain in the vicinity. "YOU MAY NOT LOOK LIKE IT BUT IT'S YOU AUTHOR BRAT. ISN'T IT?"
The humanoid form of darkness gave no reply.
Just turning to stare at him with its non-existent facial features. An act that drove the already irrational man completely off his hinges.
His injured shoulders groaned with pain, but he didn't care as he forced himself to raise his hands up in a menacing posture.
"I'LL KILL YOU .." He dashed forward. "FOR WHAT YOU DID TO KUROGIRI! I'LL KILL YOU ...." SQUELCH! The battle cry ceased before it could finish. The U.A students recoiled at he sight before them.
In the distance, Shigaraki's body stopped running, managing to take an extra step before plunging to the ground.
Blood spewed out of his severed head like a fountain. However, a moment later ....
THUD!
The sound of his head falling to the floor resounded. The shadow? It stood motionless with an outstretched, elongated blade like arm. One swipe ... And Shigaraki's head had come clean off.
The pale young man who had dreamed of destroying hero society was gone, leaving behind only a headless corpse that would never threaten anyone again.
Silence fell over the industrial complex like a heavy shroud. The rain continued to fall, washing away blood and evidence alike, but the oppressive weight of what had just occurred hung in the air like smoke.
Not too far away, the students of class 1A stood as stiff as statues.
"Yaomomo, what do we do now?"
The invisible Hagakure asked in a low voice. The answer? "I ..." Momo didn't know.
No one uttered a word, each trying their best to hide the fear and terror in their hearts at what they just witnessed. The sight of death laid bare ... Even Bakugo was no exception.
Watching and waiting for the entity to turn to finish them off ... or leave.
Newsflash, it did neither.
Quite the contrary, it did nothing as time elapsed under the rain. Just standing there, not deigning to give them a silver of attention over Shigaraki's corpse, with unblinking patience
Well, it didn't really have eyes or eyelids for that matter now, did it?
Time passed.
'What's it ...'
Just when their patience was wearing thin, it finally moved. It finally moved.
The shadow entity surveyed its work with emotionless efficiency, then began moving toward the scattered remains of Kurogiri's metal restraints. It gathered the pieces carefully, along with what little organic matter had survived the implosion.
Then it turned to Shigaraki's body.
With deliberate precision, it's hand expanded and wrapped itself around the corpse, lifting it from the wet concrete. ... And turning to leave.
Team B watched in stunned silence as their mysterious protector prepared to leave. The shadow entity paused at the edge of the light, its featureless head turning back toward them for just a moment. Then it disappeared.
Blurring away at full speed, taking the bodies with it and leaving no trace of its presence behind
The students remained huddled together long after the shadow had vanished, their eyes wide with shock and their minds struggling to process what they'd witnessed.
"What..." Jiro's voice cracked as she tried to find words. "What just happened here?"
"Someone saved us," Tokoyami said quietly, Dark Shadow coiling around him with obvious relief. "Something saved us."
"Yeah, and killed dozens of villains too." Ojiro said while holding his stomach, face deathly pale from exhaustion and nausea.
"What ... What was that thing?" Kirishima asked, his hardened skin finally relaxing as the immediate danger passed.
He turned to Bakugo, only to see the latter's face turning a sickly green. "I don't feel so good ..."
Then ... "BLERGHH!"
"EW!"
___
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