The door to the League's bar hadn't even fully clicked shut before Izuku was five miles away.
He moved through the streets of Musutafu like a red-tipped needle stitching through the fabric of the night. To the average citizen, he was nothing more than a sudden gust of wind that rattled their windows. To the security cameras on the street corners, he was a glitch—a single frame of corrupted video data.
Inside the cowl, Izuku's eyes were narrowed, the red lenses glowing with predatory intent.
Alliance? Izuku thought, a scoff vibrating in his throat. Don't make me laugh.
He hadn't gone to the bar to join a club. He hadn't offered his services to All For One because he wanted a master. He had done it to get a scent.
Back in the bar, while he was "monologuing" to the monitor, Izuku had done more than just talk. He had vibrated his fingertips against the bar counter, sending a localized sonar pulse through the floorboards, tracing the hardline cables connected to the monitor's speaker system.
Wireless signals could be encrypted. Satellite uplinks could be bounced. But a hardline cable? A physical copper wire buried deep underground to prevent interception?
That was a road map.
And Izuku could run any road.
"You think you're the King," Izuku whispered to the wind, banking hard around a corner, his boots digging into the asphalt. "But you're just another relic. Just like All Might."
He found the junction box in the sewer system beneath the district. He didn't stop to open it. He phased his head through the metal casing, his eyes scanning the fiber optic tags in a picosecond.
North-Northwest. Kamino Ward. Deep burial.
He took off.
The plan was simple. Find All For One. Phase a hand through his skull. End the "Demon King" before he could try to put a leash on Zoom.
Izuku Midoriya didn't share the top of the food chain.
Kamino Ward. 2:15 AM.
The building looked like nothing. A nondescript apartment complex scheduled for demolition. But to Izuku's enhanced perception, it was a fortress.
He could hear the hum of high-grade ventilation systems hidden in the walls. He could smell the faint, chemical scent of formaldehyde and preservation fluid seeping up from the basement.
He didn't bother with the elevator.
Izuku vibrated his molecules, becoming intangible. He stepped into the outer wall of the building and simply fell. He sank through the concrete floors—first, second, ground, basement level one, basement level two.
He hit the bottom floor and solidified.
It was a lab. Far more advanced than his own scrap-heap in Dagobah Beach. Rows of tanks lined the walls, filled with green fluid and half-formed Nomu. Tubes pulsed with fluids.
And at the end of the room, sitting in a massive, industrial medical chair, was the man.
He had no face above the lip. Just scar tissue. Tubes ran into his throat, his chest, his arms. He looked like a corpse that had forgotten to die.
Doctor Kyudai Garaki was bustling around a console, adjusting dials.
"Stable," the Doctor muttered to himself. "But the regeneration is slowing down. Master, we need to—"
"He looks terrible."
The Doctor shrieked, spinning around. He tripped over his own lab coat, crashing to the floor.
Izuku stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, the yellow suit gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights. The red lightning popped and hissed, casting long, frantic shadows against the Nomu tanks.
"You!" Garaki gasped, scrambling backward. "How did you... the sensors! The shielding!"
"I am not something you can shield against, Doctor," Izuku said, his voice a distorted drone. "I am the inevitable."
All For One shifted in the chair. The sensors in his helmet must have picked up the vibration. He didn't panic. He didn't scream. He simply tilted his head.
"Zoom," All For One's voice came through the speakers in the room, calm and cultured. "I expected you might try to track me. Though, I must admit, I didn't expect you to arrive within ten minutes of leaving the bar."
Izuku walked forward. He moved slowly, letting the threat hang in the air.
"I don't like loose ends," Izuku said. "And I don't like competition."
"Competition?" All For One chuckled, a wet, rasping sound. "Is that what I am? I am a century old, boy. I am blind. I am on life support. I am hardly a threat to a man who can outrun gravity."
"You pull the strings," Izuku said, stopping inches from the villain's chair. He looked at the exposed, scarred skin of All For One's neck. One vibrating chop. That's all it would take. "You control the League. You control the resources. If I want to break this society, I don't need a shadow government getting in my way."
Izuku raised his hand. The air screamed as his fingers began to vibrate into a blur.
"Kill me, then," All For One said softly. "But consider the cost."
Izuku paused. "Cost?"
"If I die tonight," All For One said, "the League scatters. Shigaraki is not ready to lead. The Nomu project halts. The organized crime networks I control will fracture into civil war."
All For One leaned forward as much as the tubes allowed.
"All Might will clean up the mess in a week. With no organized threat, the Hero Society stabilizes. The fear you want to instill? It will vanish. You will just be one villain running fast, chasing a retired hero."
Izuku's hand hovered near All For One's neck. The red lightning reflected off the villain's helmet.
All For One continued. "You want to break All Might's spirit. You need pressure to do that. You need chaos. I can provide the army that keeps All Might busy. I can be the distraction. While he fights my monsters... you can destroy his heart."
Izuku lowered his hand slowly. The vibration stopped.
The logic was sound. It was cold, calculating, and correct. Without a credible threat to the general populace, All Might wouldn't be pushed to his limit. And Izuku needed All Might at his limit. He needed him desperate.
"You're bargaining for your life," Izuku noted, his tone mocking.
"I am investing in a partnership," All For One corrected. "Use me. Use my resources. Use my protege. And when the world is broken... well, I doubt I will be alive to contest your throne anyway."
Izuku stared at the broken, scarred man. He felt a wave of disgust. This was the boogeyman? This was the ruler of the underworld? Just another fragile human desperately clinging to life.
Izuku leaned in, his distorted voice dropping to a demonic whisper right against the sensors of All For One's helmet.
"Make no mistake, 'Sensei'," Izuku hissed. "I am not sparing you because I need you. I am sparing you because you are useful bait."
He stood up and turned his back on the most dangerous man in the world.
"Keep your League in line. Make sure Shigaraki attacks the Sports Festival mentally, not just physically. If he bores me again..."
Izuku looked over his shoulder, his red eye flaring.
"...I'll come back. And next time, I won't stop."
BOOM.
The air pressure change blew out the glass on the Nomu tanks. Green fluid spilled onto the floor. By the time Doctor Garaki wiped the slime from his goggles, the yellow figure was gone.
Garaki trembled, standing up. "Master... that boy... he is uncontrollable. He is a monster."
All For One sat back in his chair. A low, sinister laugh bubbled up from his chest.
"Yes, Doctor," All For One murmured, sensing the residual heat where the speedster had stood. "He is exactly what we needed. A monster who thinks he is free."
High above the city, Izuku stopped on a gargoyle overlooking the glittering lights of Musutafu.
He gripped the stone, crushing it to dust.
He hadn't killed him. He should have. But the game was more important than the pieces.
"Soon, All Might," Izuku whispered to the city below. "I have the villains. I have the fear. Now... I just need the stage."
He looked toward the construction site where the UA Sports Festival stadium was being prepped.
"Let the games begin."
All For One's laughter died in his throat as the air pressure in the room suddenly dropped, a vacuum forming instantly behind his chair. The hairs on the back of Doctor Garaki's neck stood up, not from fear, but from the static charge filling the basement.
"Did you really think," a voice whispered, vibrating directly against the back of All For One's skull, "that I was that naive?"
Before the Demon King could trigger a quirk—before his air cannon could fire, before his warp sludge could activate—Izuku's hand was already moving. It wasn't a strike. It was a phase. Izuku's vibrating hand passed through the back of the medical chair, through the life support tubes, and straight into All For One's chest cavity.
All For One gasped, a horrible, wet sound. He felt a cold, unnatural sensation gripping his heart.
"You thought you could manipulate me?" Zoom hissed, his red eyes reflecting in the black visor of All For One's helmet. "You thought I would be your dog, distracted by your 'army' while you played 4D chess?"
Izuku squeezed.
"I don't need your army. I don't need your distraction. I am the distraction. I am the army."
"Wait—" All For One wheezed, blood leaking from beneath his mask. "The... plan..."
"The plan has changed," Izuku said flatly. "I analyzed your vitals the moment I walked in. You're dying. You're barely holding on. You aren't a partner. You're dead weight."
With a sudden, violent jerk, Izuku solidified his hand for a fraction of a second inside the villain's chest, crushing the primary life-support pump implanted next to his heart, then phased out before the blood could touch his glove.
All For One slumped forward, the machines around him screaming in alarm. The great villain, the man who had ruled the underworld for a century, didn't die in an epic battle. He died choking on his own arrogance, dismantled by a boy who simply refused to play by the old rules.
Izuku stepped back, watching the flatline on the monitor. He looked at the terrified Doctor Garaki.
"Congratulations, Doctor," Zoom said, his voice devoid of empathy. "You have a new employer. Clean this up. The League answers to me now."
He vanished before the first alarm could sound, leaving the King of Villains cold in his throne.