Morning crept reluctantly into the League's hideout, slanting through the cracked blinds in narrow, dusty shafts of light. The air was stale—smelling of metal, burnt fabric, and the faint tang of decay.

Y/N stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, lashes catching the light like pale threads. For a moment, she simply breathed, the world sluggish and gray at the edges. The cuffs around her wrists pulsed faintly, dampening her energy, though the effort to suppress something like her was laughable at best.

She didn't speak. Didn't even sigh.

Just reached lazily for the half-empty bottle Dabi had left behind and took a drink. The water was warm and flat, but it slid down her throat like an acknowledgment of her own stubborn mortality — or at least the illusion of it.

Voices drifted from beyond the shadows.

Shigaraki sat slouched at a table across the room, a controller in one hand, tapping it absently against his thigh. Beside him, Kurogiri's mist swirled and coiled like a calm tide, his tone ever-patient as they spoke.

"The Vanguard Action Squad is already in motion," Kurogiri intoned, his voice smooth and distant.

Tomura gave a slow, jerky nod, scratching at his neck as his red eyes gleamed beneath his messy fringe. "They don't need me this time," he muttered. "They're better than that U.S.J. joke. Stronger. Smarter. Even if they lose, they'll make the world remember us."

A pause. His grin spread, wide and brittle. "Heroes should fear again."

That was when Y/N snorted softly—an almost melodic sound, too out of place in the gloom to ignore.

Both men turned.

Tomura's gaze sharpened, that manic curiosity flaring as he leaned forward. "...What's so funny?"

Y/N looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with a light not entirely mortal. For a heartbeat, they weren't human eyes at all—they were galaxies behind glass, endless and merciless.

"What's funny," she said, voice dripping with calm amusement, "is that you speak of fear as if it's strength. You call chaos your weapon, but you don't understand loyalty."

She tilted her head, a faint smile curving her lips. "My followers fight, not because I command them—but because they believe. That's something you'll never have, Tomura Shigaraki."

His expression twitched—equal parts irritation and fascination.

In one slow motion, he stood, crossing the space between them. His hand rose, trembling slightly, and stopped just beside her cheek. His fingers hovered—four pressed lightly against her skin, the fifth poised in deadly temptation.

"You know," he rasped, voice thin as paper, "if I used all five fingers... you'd be dust in seconds."

Y/N didn't even flinch. Instead, she smiled—soft, knowing, the kind of smile that made mortals uneasy and gods amused.

"Then do it," she whispered, tilting her head into his touch, her voice a melodic challenge. "If you think you can kill divinity with a single hand, then by all means—try."

Shigaraki's jaw tightened. The faintest flicker of something crossed his face—was it doubt? Admiration?

Kurogiri's mist stirred gently, the air thickening like a warning. "Tomura," he murmured. "Enough."

After a long, loaded silence, Shigaraki withdrew his hand, the tension snapping like a live wire.

Y/N chuckled low, a sound like the distant roll of thunder. "That's what I thought."

Y/N's gaze wandered lazily across the dim room. The faint hum of an old lightbulb filled the silence, the kind of sound that grated on mortal nerves but barely reached her awareness. Her eyes swept over the corners, the shadows, the cracked floorboards—searching.

But Dabi was gone.

So was Toga.

The realization pulled a faint sigh from her lips, soft and airy, like a goddess inconvenienced by the absence of her favorite chaos-makers.

She tilted her head, speaking almost to herself. "So... the patchwork flame and the knife-happy schoolgirl have vanished. How domestic of you, Kurogiri."

Kurogiri, ever-composed, only gave a quiet, polite incline of his misted form. "They were... reassigned."

Before she could reply, Shigaraki's voice cut through the haze—low, rough, like sandpaper dragged over metal.

His lip curled, the irritation visible even under his disheveled hair. "Looking for Dabi?" he asked, mockery dripping from every syllable. "Didn't know the great Y/N had favorites."

Y/N's eyes flicked toward him, amusement flickering like starlight in her gaze. "Didn't know it was your business, leader."

Her tone was sugar and venom, balanced perfectly.

Shigaraki's jaw twitched. He stepped closer, the sound of his boots dull against the concrete. "That burnt chicken nugget isn't worth the attention," he snapped, voice rising. "You should be worrying about me. I'm the one in charge here."

Y/N's lips parted in a small, amused gasp—then curved into a slow, dangerous smile.

"Oh?" she purred, lifting her bound hands slightly, letting the light catch the faint marks where the cuffs pressed into her skin. "The leader, is it? And yet here I am—still breathing, still talking, still very much unbroken in your little dungeon."

She leaned forward just slightly, her tone soft but heavy with mock sincerity. "Forgive me if I don't quake in awe."

For a second, there was only the hum of the flickering lightbulb again—then the faint sound of Shigaraki's teeth grinding. His hand twitched, reaching toward her but stopping halfway, his fingers flexing as if remembering what happened the last time he got too close.

Kurogiri's mist rippled again, the calm voice breaking through the thick air.
"Tomura. Do not waste energy on posturing. She's baiting you."

Y/N smiled wider, eyes half-lidded. "Baiting? Oh no, Kurogiri. Just talking. You'd know if I was baiting him—he'd already be kneeling."

That earned her a sharp, half-choked growl from Shigaraki, who turned away, scratching furiously at his neck as if trying to claw the irritation out of his own skin.

Y/N tilted her head back, watching him with lazy amusement. "Mortal tempers," she mused softly. "So fragile, so loud."

Shigaraki's hand twitched at his side, nails dragging over his sleeve until the fabric frayed. For a heartbeat, he just looked at Y/N — those red-rimmed eyes flickering with something caught between anger and obsession.

Then he exhaled sharply, a humorless huff escaping him. "Forget it," he muttered, shaking his head as if brushing off an insect that had the audacity to bite him. "Not worth my time."

He turned halfway, the edge of his grin twitching wider. "You'll break eventually. They all do. I'll have you on your knees in the end."

Y/N blinked once — slow, languid. Then she smiled, the corner of her mouth lifting like the curl of smoke from a sacred fire.

"Careful," she said softly, "when gods kneel, it's usually right before a kingdom burns."

Shigaraki froze just a moment — long enough to betray that the words had landed — then forced a rasping laugh that didn't quite sound real. "We'll see," he said. "Kurogiri. Get the lab room ready."

Kurogiri's form darkened, the mist thickening. "Tomura, I must caution you—experimenting on something we don't understand could be—"

"I said get it ready!" Shigaraki snapped, whirling on him. His tone cracked like a whip, all the false calm gone. "If she's really what she says she is, we'll find out. Whatever's inside her—whatever's keeping her alive, glowing, laughing like that—we'll pull it out piece by piece and make it ours."

The words hung in the air, ugly and heavy.

Y/N tilted her head, the cuffs on her wrists glinting faintly in the light. She didn't struggle. She didn't speak.
Just smiled.

The kind of smile that made the shadows themselves recoil.

Kurogiri hesitated for only a fraction of a second — enough for Y/N to notice. Enough for her to know that even he, the quiet and composed one, could feel it now. That creeping awareness that she was something the League could cage, but never truly hold.

As Shigaraki turned and stalked toward the exit, muttering under his breath, Y/N leaned back against the cold wall and exhaled softly.

"Prod and poke," she murmured, echoing his words like a prayer twisted on her tongue. "How quaint."

Her gaze drifted upward, and for a moment, the air itself seemed to shimmer — as if the very room was remembering what kind of being it dared to contain.

"Let them try," she whispered, her voice a promise, a prophecy, a storm on the horizon.