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FLASHBACK 1

Seven years ago...
UA's Allegiance Heights;
Uraraka's dorm.

The girl with two blond buns didn't know for how long she stayed there rereading that letter. When she accidentally kicked the bin in Uraraka's dorm and saw a shrinked paper with the words To Deku written on it she had blushed and giggled in a naughty way. But later, the more she read the more she forgot about whatever task Shigaraki had told her to do in UA that time.

Tears hadn't returned to her amber eyes since Twice died the year before, but the content of that letter was pure feeling and she was unsure of what to make of the mix of emotions inside her.

However, at that moment there was something in her mind she was strangely sure about:

"This... I wish I was Izuku to be told it. Yes... I want to be Izuku... and I want Ochako to tell me these things and to tell them back to her..."

And the course was almost over. She just pictured the two of them dancing, smiling, confessing... oh, who wouldn't love to be on Izuku or Ochako's skin in that situation...

***************
FLASHBACK 2.

Four years ago...

"Hey" Dabi asked without his usual sass. "Are you okay?"

Toga just stared at the now dying blue flames that had previously consumed the corpse.

"I didn't want this to happen..." she muttered, as some tears of frustration run from the eyes her released blonde hair covered to her chin. "I told him I wasn't interested in him. Then he tried to hurt me..." Toga looked at the bloody knife she had managed to take from her stalker and use to relaliate him during their struggle in the alley.

Dabi covered the girl's shoulders with his black coat, but he kept looking at the remaining ashes with disgust. When Toga stabbed the young man in self defense and he fell dead into the floor, she felt both excited for the blood and nauseous for her action.

"They believed in me, you know. After all I did. Izuku... and others... they deffended that villains deserve a second chance in this society and they stood up for me. I thought I was reformed. I thought I could go back for you and the rest and convince to share my new life as a normal citizen. But... all I did was to wear a new mask... like my parents demanded me as a child..."

"I heard of this asshole" Dabi said putting one of his scarred hands over his friend's hair and affectuously moving it. The no longer existing body belonged to the spoiled brat of a rich family with contacts in various hero agencies. A real douchebag used to escape legal consequences for stalking young girls thanks to his privileged position. "Had I known he was bothering you before, I would have killed him myself before."

"Izuku or Katsuki would have kicked his ass..."

"Even so, his family would have protected him, and he would be after you or another girl in a month or two" Dabi kicked a can in direction of the ashes. "You shouldn't feel bad for this."

"That's the problem" Toga had stopped crying. After all that time without stabbing anyone, she had been in shock. And she felt sorry for their friends of UA, who have supported her for those months. But as much as she tried..., "I don't regret having killed this dude."

When Dabi arrived, the fight had already over, and Toga's messy expression in her bloody covered face said it all. He made no questions and once he was sure none was near, he immediately proceeded to cremate the body and confort Toga.

"Listen, you don't have to worry; there is no corpse anymore. The police has no way of relating this death with you" Dabi knew she decided to give normal citizen's life a second chance. The now Pro Hero Deku had been the main voice in a new initiative to reform villains, and Toga accepted the offer when she was sentenced to prison for her crimes. Deku always believed every word he said and defended with his own body. Even for villains was hard not to listen to him, and Toga was far from being an exception.

"I tried to, Dabi. This time because I wanted to, not because my family forced me to" Toga regretted, as she picked her hair up. "Izuku, Ochako, Katsuki, Tsuyu... all of them wanted it to work."

"My family still wants that for me too" Dabi confessed. "My pure innocent little brother... no matter how many times we fight; he refuses to let me go..."

But now Shoto had become a hero, soon he would learn the truth: Endeavor was not the only evidence of the hero society failure.

"Thanks for your help" Toga said, after a minute of silence. "I'm tired and I want to go home."

"Let's go, I'd walk you..." Dabi put on his coat and hood when Toga returned it to him.

"I mean real home, Dabi" she turned to look at him, with her two hair buns now completed and back on their place. "This year as a normal girl has been quite fun, but, as you see, I can't hide what I am. And I have kept reading the papers: I know how Tomura likes to act and I know he's back."

Dabi looked at his friend with a little surprise, but then he nodded and smiled in approval.

"Took you long enough, Toga. Come on, you're going to love our new place..."

"OOOHH MY.... FINALLY!!" a male voice that would always be in Toga's head to the point of seeing its owner had returned. "THE FEMME FATALE OF THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS IS BACK! Aw, now we are going to miss Ashido's party... NAH, WHO NEEDS A BOY WHO CALLS YOU *SUCKER* AND *MRS DOUBTFIRE* ON A DATE OR A BOY WHO ONLY HAS EYES FOR THE KIRBY GIRL, WHEN YOU HAVE US?"

"Actually, Jin, Katsuki knew I love that movie..." Toga smirked.

"Huh? You said something?" Dabi asked, from some steps ahead.

"Nothing" Toga giggled, somehow forgetting she had just killed someone. "So, how are Tomura and the rest?"

"To be frank, we are all slowly reuniting. You come in a good time. He must be preparing something..."

***************
July 10th, 17:30.
The Man's Island; ¿?.

They were all immobile and apparently unconscious inside big crystal tanks. The sight and the idea of any of them waking up and attacking anyone close enough didn't make the creatures less threatening, though. That place looked like a huge aquarium populated by sleeping horrors, orquestated in lines and lines of tanks one above another.

The situation had forced the members of the group to go on separate ways to reach the heart of the volcano. Luckily, Mina and Toru would be alright, but when she managed to get rid of the henchmen, she ended up in that underground structure where hundreds or maybe thousands of Nomus were kept.

"ROUND FACE! Is that you!?"

When she heard a familiar male voice calling her, Uraraka instinctively run into the place to meet the person where it came from. But she would stay alert: as much as Bakugou preferred to be his own leader, he wasn't supposed to be there.

"Deku! Stop! She could be a imposter!"

"Well nerd, we're going back to open the gates! If you don't show off because you were stabbed, we'll continue the plan without you!"

Uraraka slowed down as her heart accelerated. She had just heard Bakugou and Todoroki. And could it be that Deku happened to be there too?

"Ochako!"

A hero whose costume she would recognize anywhere came out from behind one of the lines in a hurry. When he saw her, he removed his long eared mask and flashed her with the green eyes and sincere smile that stole her heart years before stealing the fans', before starting to walk quickly towards her. Her feels would always beg her to jump into that boy's arms, so she fought to stay still.

"Deku..."

"Ochako! You're here!" the happiness in his voice couldn't be more obvious.

However he stopped some feet before reaching Uraraka.

"Okay, okay, now calm down, Izuku. We are working..." he muttered to himself in an overracting way, like only Deku would do. "Sorry, my love, I almost got carried away. Don't worry, Mina and Toru are fine and we already know where Eri is and we have a plan to free her. And now you're here we can do it more easily... " he took a deep breath, but then he looked back at her with those green eyes that seemed to erase the word "impossible" from Uraraka's vocabulary. "We have a moment before those two bring the gate down. I just want to say... I'm happy you are okay after we couldn't contact you..."

Uraraka sighed and gave a forced a smile back.

"Oh God..." Uraraka thought. "How many times shall we have to go through this?"

Like a Wild West showdown out of an old movie, both ladies made her respective move as fast as they could. Uraraka shot the wires from her right pink bracelet, and her opponent responded by skillfully dodging and tossing one of her knifes towards her. Luckily the knife met a magnetic field the hero activated in her left bracelet, which was enough to strongly attract the metallic object before it continued its way to her chest. Uraraka knew Toga for long: as long as she knew they had arrived she would look for her or Deku, so she came prepared.

Uraraka took the advantage to jump forward and go after the smiling fake Deku, who was already turning into a muddy mess. She calculated well: Toga wouldn't be fast enough to pick a second knife. But when Uraraka was close enough to touch her, then some different substance was shot from behind the curtain of mud. She hissed out of pain when it impacted on the front part of her helmet and her right shoulder, making her put some security distance before she was cut by a new blade.

Uraraka took cover behind one of the lines of tanks. Once she checked the villain hadn't followed her, she threw away her helmet ruined by the acid and treated the burns of her now bare shoulder. She wondered where the hell would she had gotten Mina's blood, as well as the others', and whose others she could have brought.

The sound of Toga's echoing laugh announced second round was about to start.

"Hehehe, this never gets old... tell me: how did you know this time?"

"Deku never calls me like that in public or at work" Uraraka answered, staying alert as she cautiously tried to follow that voice along the line of Nomus. That was one of Toga's main weaknesses: she loved to do some talking during a fight.

"Aww, I'm pretty sure when and where he does call you sweet names..."

Uraraka swallowed her blushing annoyance and went on with the conversation. She wouldn't be caught unguarded.

"You can transform faster now, I see. But where did you get the blood of so many people?"

"Heroes enter and leave hospitals like every day. It's that not hard to steal samples since the League set some spies there."

Uraraka couldn't believe corruption in their society had reached that level despite all their success as heroes. She could only thought of all the times Deku had been there, on one occasion because of a comma.

She couldn't tell what made her look up, but that instinct totally saved her: another familiar female image was stuck against one of the tanks about twenty feet over her, and a knife with the tip of a long tongue wrapped around its handgrip swang like a whip. Uraraka dodged and covered the best she could, which wasn't an easy thing when an enemy could move and climb like a frog  from that position. When she finally could take cover between two tanks, after taking several cuts, she needed a moment to catch her breath, but she hurried up and made some distance from there.

"I was too busy and we didn't have the chance during the wedding, so I'm really happy we meet again at last, Ochako" the echo made the ecstasy in her voice even creepier. "I'm sorry about the place, though; these Nomus are unnerving even when they're on your side..."

Uraraka managed to jump and roll over the ground when the tanks on her right were destroyed by a giant iceberg that grew at the speed of a lighting from behind them. The image of Todoroki was already half melted when it practically flied over the piles of glass, metal and flesh to land over Uraraka, knife in hand.

"Arf... obviously I never have the chance to properly train the Quirks I reply..." the muddy substance was going away and Toga's grinning face was back as her knife holding hand struggled with Uraraka's grip from below. All she was wearing at that moment was her blood sucking machine and bag of knifes. "But I'm too curious to resist. You know that well, don't you?"

"You'll end up killing yourself..."

Toga's Quirk allowed her to take the image of the person whose blood drank, as well as use his Quirk. But the use of Quirks without training was dangerous for everyone, including the user. A thing the female villain didn't seem to fear.

Uraraka was able to maneuvre and make the knife crash against the ground missing her face, and later to roll over, put her arm around Toga's neck and pin her from behind keeping her opponent's offensive hand against her back.

"Uhuhu..." Toga just blushed and giggled at her new situation. "If someone comes and sees us in this position, he's going to think something funny..."

Toga couldn't reach her knifes or needle in that position, but there was always room for improvisation. Uraraka wasn't surprised when Toga raised her left and pressed her nails against her opponent's face, but she was surprised when she noticed there was a metal ring on that hand. Too late: a tiny blade hidden in the ring made a superficial but bleeding cut on her cheek (a.n: yes, it's Annie Lionhearts' ring from AOT; I believe it would be a simple yet effective addition to Toga's equipment). The drops of blood she catched in delight with her tongue would be enough.

Toga began to transform, again, faster than years ago. The mud helped her to slip and Uraraka lost her grip, which resulted in Toga stabbing one of her legs and suck a more generous quantity of blood, before putting a hand on her and delivering a swing of her knife to the just floating Uraraka. She miraculously avoided, but this time it grazed the vest of her costume, tearing it in that part.

The hero girl ignored her wounds and tried to catch Toga again with her wires, but her villanous double was already using Zero Gravity to easily evade them. However, that Quirk remained Uraraka's, so she took control over her body and floated in another direction. Now it was her turn to seek and catch.

Meanwhile, the fake Uraraka elevated herself to the top of the tanks and moodly as she looked for the real one from above. The amount of blood would allow her to look like Uraraka for a long time.

When Uraraka appeared and landed only some distance ahead, she blushed and her heart began to run faster again. Uraraka was bleeding from her cheek, with another flesh wounds by her torso and abdomen, some burn on her right shoulder and she was visibly panting. And yet focused on her enemy, looking as irresistible as Deku would.

Toga carried a hand to her hip in excitement, but after tapping it a couple of times, she looked down and found a surprise, a moment Uraraka didn't miss. Toga's surprise was followed by a jumpscare: something that looked like a projectile flied at high speed and destroyed the blood tanks of her sucking machine.

When she looked back at her, Uraraka showed to her the bag of knives she was missing. It had cost her wounds and the loss of some blood, but she had managed to unadvertedly disarm Toga in the middle of their struggle. And now she had used her Zero Gravity Quirk to throw one of the knives with such precision and at such speed at the samples of blood. Finally, Uraraka did the same with the bag, throwing it to the other side of the place, making it impossible to know where exactly, since all the walls and lines looked exactly the same.

"This is my favorite toy and my work tool, Ochako" Toga's grinning expression was no more. "Breaking it wasn't very friendlike of yours..."

"We're even then" Uraraka replied, pointing to her now discovered head and mistreated costume. "Surrender, Toga: you're out of blood, and you only have one knife left."

"Surrender?" Toga showed her feline teethed smile one more time before bowing her head so her expression was hidden by brown strands of hair. Her advanced transformation was complete: now she was a fully hero dressed copy of Uraraka. "Never! I'll win! I'll win and I'll be just like Deku!" she cried, nailing Uraraka's voice and expression in the process before jumping ahead knife in hand.

"Would you just shut up?"

The two identical opponents met in mid air, which would bring an exchange of missing hits and swings from both women. If Toga loved being Uraraka and fighting Uraraka as much as she said, that must be one of her top fantasies.

When one caught each other while floating right there, Uraraka gripped the hand of Toga that wielded the knife as hard as she could. However, as they stood there struggling, Toga suddenly looked more tense and less focused.

"SHE'S ALREADY YOURS, HIMIKO! But play nice, you are friends; SHOW HER WHO THE SUPREME WAIFU IS!" Toga knew Uraraka wouldn't be able to see them, but she did hear and would see some Twice's doubles below her, moving pompons like cheerleaders.

"Jin... please..."

Toga had avenged Twice by fatally wounding his killer's reputation, and soon Shigaraki would have the rest of the heroes right where he wanted them. Now she was having the time of her life playing with one of her hero besties. Why was he still there?

Her sorrow and frustration unbalanced her in the use her temporal Quirk. The fight had started in her own field, but her attacks were each time more reckless and less accurate.

"You were always an amazing actress, Toga, I'll give you that" now it was Uraraka who seemed to carry the baton of their conversation. "But I'm far more than a floating hero and a girl in love..."

They flew along the room and passing between the thousands of tanks. Toga tried to attack her various time, but somehow Uraraka was faster and full of practice.

"And I have been training my Quirk since far before you discovered you could use it..."

Uraraka still hadn't succeeded in taking that last knife from her, but Toga had made a mistake trying to fight her in zero gravity. The last one was taking too many punches and kicks now, and the nausea due to Uraraka's Quirk overuse was visibly making the combat impossible to her.

After a particularly strong hit almost sent her back to the ground, Toga concluded the tables had been turned and needed to get away from there. She clumsily returned to the ground and covered herself between the tanks, about to puke out of her dizziness.

And there was something that wasn't doing her any favour either...

"Thanks for joining us tonight; this is Jin "Twice" Bubaigawara welcoming you to this no holds barred confrontation between these two lovely and impressive ladies! I'm here with another League of Villains legend fan favorite and old bestie of one of our protagonists... JIN "TWICE" BUBAIGAWARA!"

"Thank you, Jin! I've got to say this is being an incredible match. With all the things these two old time rivals have gone through, this final showdown between them could only be described as epic. I mean, look at this public: they can't even make a sound or a move because of the excitement!"

"But it looks like Himiko is having a bad time now. Damn, it would be hard to know who is who, now both look beaten and bloody..."

"Nonsense! She's just going easy on Uravity! She's such a pure and loving friend... and yet heroes are often mean to her! Two of them didn't even invite her to their wedding! What a bunch of jerks!"

"Well, Jin, you need to understand there was a time when she actually tried to change her evil ways to be accepted and forgiven for her crimes. But... what can I say, hero society keeps making people believe villains are meant to be hated..."

"Oh, Jin, look at that! Someone is coming across the crowd and approaching to Himiko! OH MY! IT IS HIM!"

Toga was on the verge of tears and almost falling to her knees because of stress and anxiety.

"Come on, Himiko, you've almost got it! The party is getting started!"

"Please, Jin... you died a long time ago... and I made justice... you need to move on..." Toga carried both hands to the brown hair she would still have for hours.

"But I'm always here for you! This is what friends always do!"

"No... you don't understand..." she was once happy to have Twice again with her, even it wasn't real... but as time passed, even she knew her insanity was crossing the line.

"Toga!!"

The evil version of Uraraka turned in a hurry and saw the real one some feet away, looking at her. How long had it been since she found her? Was she just standing there?

"This is it, ladies and gentlemen! The two  competitors are back face to face! Who will be the last woman standing?"

"Ignore it" Uraraka called.

"What...?"

"Whatever you are seeing or listening, just focus on me" Uraraka told her. She had to be cautious, but heroes must save everyone. "I followed your progress when you returned to prison. They said you often referred to someone named Jin..."

"Hey, that's me!"

"You once told he was like a precious big brother to you. I can't know how did his death affected you, but I know it is never easy. We have lost some friends and teachers in our path too..."

"Don't follow that way, Ochako" Toga wielded her knife and looked back at her. Recess was over. "I appreciate you tried, but this time I'm not falling for it..."

"Forget about that and listen: I know it is hard, but Twice is dead."

"Of course he is!" Toga cried, for the first time in anger. "Hawks killed him!"

"Twice is gone. Not even All Might could remedy that" Uraraka spoke, slowly coming closer. "I know I won't convince you that the hero society can be changed for the better from inside. I didn't know Twice, but I know a good friend wouldn't want you to live with sorrow and hatred for the rest of your life."

"Aww, I think I'm going to cry: these rivalry-frienships are the best!"

"Wait she gets too confident; then pick this chair and HIT HER!"

"You know, Ochako... I knew we would meet today... so I brought you something..." Toga took a wrinked ball of paper and tossed it to Uraraka so she could catch it. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore, but this is yours and I should return..."

Uraraka didn't understand, but when she unfolded the paper ball, she almost jumped when she identified her own letter. That was one of the many possible ways of confession she tried and later threw to the bin in defeat. To be precise, that was the last she wrote before the end of the course's dance.

"I just... read that and... I wished I was a person that was so deeply loved for one night. To the point I literally believed it . Not that I'm proud of what I did but... hey, I can't be that bad at kissing, right?"

Uraraka rolled her eyes.

"You always hated it when people thought of you as some cute girl in love who wanted to be like her crush, didn't you?" Toga asked. "Well, I do too. I love a lot of people, Ochako, including of course Izuku and you. But I follow my own life plan, and I work for a better world for those people and those who most need it. Much like you."

"But you hurt and kill people in that process, Toga. And you have fun with it."

"That's part of my job" Toga shrugged, giving Uraraka her best smile. "I'm a lucky girl who can have fun while she works. But it I don't actually love killing. Not even those who deserve it. I simply do it because I must, like Mr Stainy."

Toga positioned herself with her last knife in hand. Which she found harder than expected after all the fighting.

Uraraka also felt tired, but she knew she had the upper hand.

"You can't win, Toga."

"So?" she panted. "Would you give up in my situation?"

Uraraka didn't bother denying it, and got ready for the final round.

Before any of them did anything else, a siren-like sound began to echo in the room. The small blue lights illuminating the tanks before them turned red, and the creatures behind the glass began shaking.

"I have nothing to do with this..." Toga said all serious.

And that wasn't Shigaraki either. Those Nomus had been sold to The Man, who at that point must be kind of sick of both heroes and villains pestering around his island.

"Toga..." Uraraka watched in terror how those creatures began to wake up and crash the tanks, "... we need to get out of here now..."

End of chapter 38.

OHH, but first, because you are all cool and deserve it...

Bonus scene:

Takeo Tokuda woke up when the captain announced the airplane would land in ten minutes in Tokyo.

When he heard the news about the chaos that was beginning to spread in Tokyo, he knew he had to put an early end to his vacation and return to cover the news. Various media were giving some harsh and unfair judgement to the heroes, but he would take care of proving otherwise so the population could relax and trust them.

When he reincorporated on his seat, he noticed the man sitting beside him was reading something that made him feel glad:

"When the Symbol of Peace was young"

"Hey that is my book! I'm Takeo Tokuda! Are you liking it, sit?"

"It is?" the man took a moment to answer. Apparently he wasn't a man of many words. "Actually... it is the third time I read it. It is a good work..."

"Oh thank you! I told my editor it was a bit too soon to publish it, but... he said the people has waited for long enough to see a new Symbol of Peace. The media wouldn't say it yet, but when I asked people which modern hero they think that could and should fill All Might's shoes..."

"Deku was the winner, huh?" that man smirked with his grave voice.

"Yes! You know, I actually knew him in person."

"I have met Deku before too... more than once..."

"Really? Oh, what a small world! Did he saved you from some villain?"

"In a way..." that tall man with black hair and noseless face was definetely not very talkative. "Would you sign it to me?"

"Oh sure!" Takeo happily answered. Your name, sir?"

"Put just... To Chizome..." there was no way he would give him his complete name.

"Just that? Okay!" the reported asked as he signed the first page after the cover. When he returned it to the reader, he made appear a camera len on the palm of his hand. "Oh, and... can I offer you a...?"

"No photos..." the man more sternly replied, "...please."

"Oh, sorry. That's fine..." Takeo apologized. He wasn't one of those pesky paparazzis. "So... may I ask what brings you to Tokyo, sir?"

The strange man remained focused on his book. Luckily, that chat wouldn't last longer.

"Work."

Oh, yes, he had a lot to clean in the city he was about to arrive...

Now yes...

End of chapter 38.

Did Uraraka vs Toga lived up to hype? Did you like Stain's short appearance?

Sorry it took me so long. You know what happens with action sequences...

It's late and I need to sleep 🥵🥵; I didn't want to keep you Watties waiting for too longer.

Hope the await was worth! See you soon!😙😙😙