I'm sorry for late update. I'm losing track of time—

Also, a friendly reminder, if Toga changes clothes after transforming into someone, the clothes stay there when the effect of her quirk wears off. So, no one has to be naked in this chapter.

~O~

All For One just came back to the base with Shigaraki right beside after attending a small business with one of the so called traitors from the Commission. Apparently, they went there to check on the situation regarding Shigaraki's grand plan. And coincidentally, the moment they arrived back at the unknown base was the exact moment the heroes attacked the Nomu plant.

Pure coincidence. Totally wasn't planned.

Well, that was a lie. Of course it was planned. Planned by a certain Mastermind who had been moving the strings all along. But nobody knew so it was never spoken of!

All For One made his way to the central room of the building from where they controlled all their coordination and communication. It sort of looked like an office. Shigaraki only followed behind him quietly, a smile dancing on his face, as they walked in the room. They were both silent for a while.

"So, how's the girl doing? Did she make a choice?" All For One asked breaking the silence as he sat doing on a chair.

"I dunno. Compress is the one who's been keeping watch on her." Shigaraki replied, shrugging, he stood beside him.

"I see." All For One nodded, "I'll talk with him later. You, however, seem happy."

"Hm?" Shigaraki turned around to the computers on the other side, "Of course, I am. Why wouldn't I be? I'm winning a war, after all."

"First complete win must really feel amazing, right?" All For One stated, "Tell me about it, have I ever told you about how I like to have long term battles?"

Shigaraki quickly wiped his cheek with his arm and turned around smiling, "Ah, I know how you do it! It always looked amazing! But it always sounded so time-consuming at the same time.... It gets boring."

All For One smiled before Shigaraki said, "You always get what you want. Even if you have to take risks, you prepare countermeasures. But it's mostly you who decides if you want to fight it for days, weeks or years. The other party doesn't know anything about when you'll strike. Like your first battle with All Might. You made him believe you were dead. Gathered you strength again in the next five years and came back to physically fight him... Leading to his permanent retirement. Too bad, the successor he left couldn't restore his glory. But I was able to restore yours, Master."

"That's right. That's right...." All For One said.

Just then, the communication systems started to go off, signalling that an important message was received.

All For One was about to see it when Shigaraki interrupted him, "I'll check it."

The blue haired villain pressed a few buttons and then the screen turned to show an incoming voice call which he accepted.

"Hello? Oh thank God finally someone picked up!" Came Spinner's voice.

"What's wrong? You sound like.... Someone is destroying everything and there's no stopping it?" Shigaraki said, perking an eyebrow.

"You have no idea how right you are for once!! Some stupid heroes just decided to barge in and destroy everything! I repeat; everything! We are outnumbered here. We can't hold them on our own! We need backup! Quick!" Spinner yelled.

"Alright. Alright. Backup's coming, you dumbass." Shigaraki replied.

"What was that?! I'm not getting a clear signal. Can yo—!?" Before Spinner could say anything else, Shigaraki ended the call.

All For One spoke up, "Where is Kurogiri? I haven't seen him since we came back. You'll need him to get there."

"Why?"

"... What was that?"

"Why do I need to go there?"

Alright. All For One didn't expect that.

"Tomura, those Nomus are the core to your plan. And we sent more than half of the League—!"

"The League of dumbasses," Shigaraki said, "If the heroes are destroying our shit, can't the League just use their brains and tell the Nomus to kill 'em?"

"Tomura, the Nomus aren't instructed to work according to their oral orders. They aren't yet instructed to listen to anyone except for the doctor." All For One argued.

"But, Master!" Shigaraki almost whined, "Imagine the amount of destruction that'd cause! The completed Nomus will attack them anyways, whether someone commands them or not! Who gives a damn about who dies and who lives! I only want to see the destruction it'll cause! Just imagine it, it'll look so amazing."

"... You knew something like this would happen. That's why you sent them there. Is that right?" All For One stood up, facing the boy directly.

"How am I supposed to know, Master?" Shigaraki said, scratching his neck, "I don't have a good enough foresight for that... Heck, it took me so long to even plan this stuff."

"But you have been doing things so well. You have certainly grew a lot since when I left you. And you have only been doing better..." All For One said.

"What? You're exaggerating now... I haven't changed that much." Shigaraki shrugged turning his back towards the other villain.

"Is that so? I belie—!" All For One was cut off as another call appeared on a screen.

This time, it was from Mr. Compress.

Now, what could have happened?

Hm?

~O~

Earlier,

Mr. Compress might or might not have slept while watching over Eri through the security cameras.

Can you blame him though? Watching a young child just sitting between some Nomus ain't entertaining. Plus, he liked stuff that came with a twist and apparently this wasn't going anywhere near that. So, eventually, the man ended up sleeping right then and there. Keyword; apparently.

Suddenly, there was this little something that just happened all of a sudden and woke him up from his careless slumber. There was this feeling that something was happening. And whatever was happening, it surely wasn't on his side.

He quickly bolted up straight and observed the screens' display to learn what was going on.

And to his dismay,

All the screens were blacked out.

The video was still ongoing, but there was something blocking the view.

Mr. Compress was about to go and head down their to check what's up before suddenly there were sounds of something crashing and the screens turned static one by one.

"What the?!"

Stumbling on his feet, Mr. Compress rushed down to the underground storage compartment, where all this commotion was taking place.

Once he reached down there, breathing heavily, he pushed open the huge metal doors and stepped inside the area.

His eyes widened when he saw what was the case.

The room was fairly huge, I mean, it was set to keep a hundred Nomus, of course it was huge! But, you know, a room looks smaller when it's filled with all those different kinds of things. But when you take everything out, it just looks bigger and far wider.

And that was exactly what Mr. Compress was experiencing right now.

The area that was filled with those bio-engineered beings was now completely and utterly deserted.

Like whoosh, and it all just disappeared!

Unless you count an unconscious Kurogiri tied to a chair in the middle of the compartment.

Seeing this situation and considering the fact that only left an untrained six years old girl in here, Mr. Compress knew someone... No, the Mastermind was upto something dangerous.

Mr. Compress immediately contacted All For One directly.

He has to know.

The villain thought that All For One can still stop this Mastermind

Only if he knew, how wrong he was.

~O~

"What is it, Compress?" All For One asked while now Shigaraki stood on the other corner of the room, giving his teacher some space.

"As if I know anything! There's nothing! I don't even know if 'disaster' is the right word to describe this!" Mr. Compress exclaimed.

"... Why?" That was all the Symbol of Evil could ask in that moment.

"I don't know! Maybe because everything just disappeared and Kurogiri is unconscious — wait are you back in the base? How did you even get here without Kurogiri?! What's going on here?!" Mr. Compress questioned and All For One could almost see him clutching his own head in confusion.

"Relax. I'll see it. Is the girl there?"

Mr. Compress replied, "I said there's no one except Kurogiri!"

"Get up here now."

After a statement of approval from Mr. Compress, the call ended and All For One placed his hands on the sides of the keyboard supporting his frame, that was hovering over the desk.

There was a moment of silence, until Shigaraki coughed to get his attention.
All For One chuckled.

"It really is amazing, you know. There hasn't been something like this for a long, very long time..." All For One said, not looking up.

Shigaraki stayed still, his expression was unreadable.

"It's just like you said earlier," All For One said, "You really haven't changed at all. You are the same thing you were before. At least from the time I've known you..."

"What do you mean, Master? I don't... Understand. What are you talking about?" Shigaraki asked, looking at his feet.

"Oh, is that so? Come on now, we both know what I meant. Let's not argue on it further, Tomura Shigaraki."

Shigaraki looked up at him.

"Or should I call you by your real name?"

The light blue haired boy smirked, slightly tilting his head.

His eyes held anticipation.

"... Izuku Midoriya."

~O~

{Flashback}

The last thing Todoroki saw before going back to UA High was Shigaraki disintegrating Midoriya's face.

And that's it.

That's all he knew.

And thus, it led him to the most obvious assumption that could be a possibility; Midoriya's death.

There was already great blood loss when it came to the green haired boy's condition and to top that Shigaraki had started using his quirk on him. All For One, too, said that Midoriya didn't have much time left. What else could Todoroki think of? Anyone in his shoes would've thought Midoriya was dead.

While on the other hand, with Midoriya, things went a little differently.

You see, just when he warped all the heroes away from the scene — whilst delivering his message — Midoriya found his plan going as smooth as ever.

Now, now, he never said he wanted to be a villain rather he said he wanted to be the villain. Hence, he already had a specific person in mind. He wasn't really going to make himself a villain, he was just going to play one of them.

And surely he wanted to play the villain, but playing dead was even better!

Actually, one-sided playing dead. He was still going to play the villain. And the villain he was going to play was none other than Tomura Shigaraki himself.

So, after the villain had chipped off a side of his face — thinking that it would look convincing enough to make others believe he was dead — Midoriya activated Erasure.

In just one moment, Shigaraki's quirk stopped and Midoriya punched him in the guts, sending him backwards, despite the stinging pain that was everywhere in his body.

"You fucking idiot. You think any quirk is going to get you out of this?! If anything, a quirk's just gonna kill you faster!" Shigaraki said as he stood up on his feet.

"Oh, I don't think it will..." There was a certain playfulness in Midoriya's tone of voice. And it wasn't until then, Shigaraki noticed the beige horn sticking out from the side of his forehead.

A bright yellow flash and Midoriya fixed all his injuries with utmost precision using Eri's quirk. It wasn't that difficult. It was like he was using One For All.

For an instance, five percent would heal the injuries of the user's body. While a hundred percent would completely rewind the whole existence.

Oh! He's gonna teach Eri that later.

But for now, he needed to take care of Shigaraki.

Easy.

He placed his right hand on the ground below and using Chisaki's quirk, let a thin but sharp spike grow out towards Shigaraki. He didn't really attack to kill him though, he just wanted a little blood. Okay, maybe more than a little blood since he was going to use Toga's quirk to play Shigaraki.

Grabbing out a test tube like object from his pocket that he took from All For One's lab earlier, he leaped forward and took the blood that was pouring down the side of Shigaraki's face. And before the other villain could shove him away, Midoriya had enough amount of blood to go the night. Plus, the green haired boy already figured that he would need more than just this amount of blood to completely fool the others. And where did that take us?

Midoriya used Mr. Compress' quirk to capture the light blue haired villain — for in case he needed more blood and also for he wouldn't be able to interfere.

What was Shigaraki's plan again? Ah, yes. Taking care of all the nuisances before heading to the actual part. He should be thankful Midoriya was keeping up with the plan... Just on the completely opposite side. But hey, marbles don't get an opinion do they? And what was Shigaraki right now other than a marble? Nothing.

And of course, the green haired boy knew All For One was hiding the drawback of the quirk he gave him. Midoriya wasn't stupid that he'd actually believe some quirk came without even one drawback. All quirks have at least one, he studied them his entire life for saying out loud. He just didn't know what the drawback was. And now that he knew, he had a counter prepared. Just use Eri's quirk once in a while and your good to go! Not like he wasn't already used to his limbs exploding, he could handle this easily. Recovery Girl was probably gonna kill him for this later, but it was worth it.

Midoriya then used Toga's quirk as planned and transformed into Shigaraki. Now, bringing the cyan orb — that held the real villain captive — close to his eye, Midoriya smiled, "Let's get going now, hm? Can't keep 'Master' waiting for too long, now can we, Shigaraki?"

Shoving the cyan born into his pocket, Midoriya — as Shigaraki now — made his way downhill to meet up with All For One.

It was fun.

~O~

Now back at the base, the boy who was seemingly Shigaraki smiled.

Until his smile turned into a chuckle and then laughter. He ran his hand through his hair before looking at the villain again, the pale skin began melting off, "Aw? Way to blow my cover! What if I wanted to fool around a little more? That's not fair, is it." There stood Izuku Midoriya, smiling — the Mastermind was completely unfazed by All For One figuring out his identity.

"I should have pointed it out earlier but I had some doubts. Which you just cleared with our earlier conversation." All For One stated.

"Oh? Did I?" Midoriya asked, playfully.

"Tomura was never that observant nor he ever knew about my first fight with All Might. But you did. Props for the acting though. You fooled the whole League. Must've been hard?" All For One said.

"Not at all. Though, I'd say," Midoriya said, "the hardest part was to call you 'Master'... I'm over here planning to destroy you and at the same time I have to act like I admire you the most. Ridiculous!"

"I doubt you have to do that anymore," All For One said, "But if one thing I see from all your planning, it's that you would've been a great asset to us. I might as well had considered making you my successor if you were to join us."

"Well, you don't always get what you want. Plus, I made my mind to destroy everything of yours the moment you added Eri into the picture. That was uncalled for." Midoriya replied, keeping his posture and maintaining a serious face. It was true though, throwing a little girl into this situation — Midoriya had to give everything he had not go and straight up hug the girl, tell her everything's fine and send her back to UA immediately.

But he still managed to get Eri to safety though. She wasn't in the base.

"Too bad because now you're going to die by my hands, right here. And later she is too." All For One said and quickly placed his hand on the nearest wall. Using the quirk he took from Chisaki, All For One impaled Midoriya's chest in an instant.

...

Midoriya laughed.

"Too bad, today's so not your lucky day, All For One!"

He turned to mud.

It was a clone of a clone.

Damn.