Deika City
The city was a ravaged wasteland, bones of buildings jutting skyward like broken teeth, streets torn into rubble-strewn scars bleeding dust and ash. Fires crackled fitfully across a shattered horizon of crumbled façades, their orange glow swallowed by the choking haze of smoke and ruin.
The League of Villains—or what remained of them—was strung out over half a kilometer of shattered cement and blackened rebar. Bodies lay everywhere—not all dead, but none particularly ambitious about changing that status.
Atop what had been a corporate headquarters, now a dramatic pile of rubble, Tomura Shigaraki stood with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He was bandaged, bruised, and still managed to look like a kid told he couldn't have dessert until he ate his broccoli.
Across the wasteland, a limping, grinning Re-Destro approached, half his suit scorched off by a particularly aggressive explosion.
"These fine people," Re-Destro bellowed, "were just following my—no, Destro's Will!" His trembling gloved arm gestured toward the sprawled Liberation Army goons. "It was their willingness to die for the cause that brought us this far!"
Tomura picked at the raw skin on his cheek, mostly to distract himself from the fact that his entire body felt like an open wound.
"If you say so," he replied flatly. "Pretty sure most of them would have preferred not dying."
He expected another sermon. Instead, Re-Destro's demeanor shifted—gone was the high drama, replaced by something pinched, nasal, almost… familiar. His suit shimmered and rewrote itself; within seconds, he was dressed like a department store pharmacist, white lab coat and all.
"Ah, Tomura Shigaraki! What a surprise! By surprise, I mean COMPLETELY EXPECTED!"
Re-Destro's voice changed to cartoon villain—the mustache-twirling kind with zero sense of personal space.
Tomura stared for five solid seconds. "Did you hit your head? Or is this a bit?"
Re-Destro grinned wider and produced from his coat a ray gun the size of a saxophone. He pointed it directly at Tomura's chest.
"Behold the power of my Shirt-Inator! Fear as it slowly transforms your molecules, turning you into—"
A blinding flash.
Tomura braced for agony, disintegration—that particular flavor of pain that screams,
"Congratulations, your atoms are now soup."
But when the light faded, he was neither shirt nor laundry nor a note of apology printed on fabric. He was still Tomura Shigaraki, sporting a black t-shirt so tight it could double as a blood pressure cuff.
Re-Destro lowered the weapon, squinting at the settings. "Uh, so my Shirt-Inator doesn't transform victims into shirts molecularly. Instead, it… gives people shirts." He looked sheepish. "Like my Ball-Gown-Inator, but with shirts."
Tomura flexed his new t-shirt-clad arms and deadpanned, "What the fuck, man."
"Cower before me! Tomura Shigaraki, your League of Villains is nowhere to save you! Once I rid myself of you and yours, my followers and I will take over the Tri-State Area!"
Re-Destro cackled and gestured to his minions, who charged forward, fists pumping and battle cries echoing through cratered streets.
Tomura, momentarily forgetting existential horror, prepared to murder everyone within ten meters.
Then, the nightmarelike Bat-Mite interlude erupted.
A shimmer of electric-blue light coalesced in the thick, oppressive air above him. Space bent and twist unnaturally, as if reality itself folded into impossible origami.
Writhing abyss emerged a tiny man in a suit two sizes too small for his grotesquely round, childlike body. His grin was far too wide—unnerving in its lunacy—his eyes gleamed like black holes, ravenous, unhinged, and bottomless.
The One and Only Bat-Mite
"TIME OUT,"
He called, voice laced with twisted merriment yet echoing with a hollow, unearthly resonance.
"Welcome, one and all, to this week's episode of Villain-Over-the-Top."
He trilled with manic glee, a carnival barker whose cheer masked darker intent.
"Proudly brought to you by your favorite imp of chaos—Bat-Mite! Shake a tail feather and buckle up!"
Before Tomura could ask what any of that meant, the newcomer snapped his fingers, and the world tore open.
He and the League—plus, for reasons unknown, Gentle Criminal, Twice, and half a dozen minor henchmen—were yanked through a funnel of impossible geometry, tumbling end over end in a void of colors no human had ever conceived.
Next to Tomura, All For One sat in a full tuxedo, radiating equal parts confusion and contempt.
"Sensi, you're here—and fully healed?" Tomura's voice shook, small whimpers escaping as tears welled and traced slow paths down his cheeks. Seeing the man he had come to see as a father, standing free and whole, struck him quieter than any battle cry.
All For One's eyes widened in surprise. He had always considered Tomura a pawn—an invaluable, special pawn—but this display of raw, genuine emotion unsettled him. The only person to have shown such unguarded concern before was his younger brother, before their bitter falling out.
"Yes, Tomura," he said, pride and confusion warring in his voice, woven tightly with a thread of sadistic joy—especially knowing Nana Shimura was watching.
Nana Shimura's heart broke, watching her grandson treat All For One—the man she despised with every fiber of her being—as if he were the father he had lost.
Yoichi observed the scene with great interest; he had never expected to see the day his brother displayed such unmistakable fatherly affection.
"Maybe he can be saved," Yoichi thought quietly, eyes narrowing with cautious hope.
Across the aisle, All Might sat rigid, steel-eyed and locked onto All For One. The villain leaned back, smiling as smoothly as poison.
Tension rippled through the theater like static electricity.
"Show yourself, coward! How dare you kidnap me!" Bakugo's furious scream shattered the tense silence.
Then the lights dimmed.
Bat-Mite appeared in the projection booth, waving like a late-night host. His grin stretched cartoon-wide, eyes gleaming with something bottomless.
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
His voice bubbled with mischief, but beneath it lay something vast and oppressive—too large for his small frame.
"Boys and girls!"
Beneath the bright, mocking laughter was a palpable shadow—a heavy weight too massive for his tiny body. The air thickened and pressed down; the floorboards barely contained the vibration of his voice as it dropped an octave or more.
His tone became a low, grinding bass, reverberating through bone and sinew:
"Heroes, villains, students, corpses-in-waiting—welcome to tonight's feature presentation!"
The shadows writhed and pulsed. The screen exploded to life, roaring with raw light and savage fury.
"You think you're symbols, inheritors, masterminds? Wrong! You're stories. And stories…" His tone dipped low, vibrating through the floorboards, "…need to be tested. Bent. Broken. Rewritten."
The screen roared once more.
Two titans collided—fists like cannons, muscles straining, veins bulging. Each blow cracked bone, rattling the theater itself.
Midoriya gasped, notebook halfway out. "T-this is… incredible!"
"NERD," Bakugo barked, eyes locked on the screen.
Todoroki narrowed his gaze. "That strength…"
"Better than cable," Shigaraki muttered.
Toga leaned forward, eyes sparkling. "Oooh, I like this."
The room vibrated with awe. Even villains were silent.
All Might didn't look at the screen. His gaze remained fixed on All For One, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
"What game are you playing?" he murmured toward All For One, assuming this was some plan of his.
Bat-Mite heard this and began to giggle—a sound sharp as shattered glass.
"Game? Oh, All Might. This isn't a game. This is architecture. You're all blueprints. And whether you win or lose your little battles…"
His smile widened, eyes swallowing light.
"…the story will end when I want it to."
The words hung in the air, echoed and stretched by the shadows themselves, lingering as a cold, unsettling murmur that seemed to breathe with the space between them.
Realization
The audience sat frozen.
For the first time in a long time, every hero, every villain, every student was silent.
Not because they chose to be.
But because they understood.
They weren't just watching.
They were inside the script.
From the projection booth, Bat-Mite grinned
"And now, for our feature presentation..."