Chapter 49: Demon Lord's Stage

~Kotaro Hakari~

"There there, it wasn't that bad! You still showed a great performance during the race and cavalry battle!" Toru rubbed the downtrodden Mina's back comfortingly as Mina groaned with her head down, the tournament's first round had just finished and predictably Half-Ass gave Mina the og Sero treatment by hitting her with an iceberg the size of the stadium.

"Ugh... why did I have to get so unlucky while you lucked out with Aoyama?" Yeah, against Toru, Aoyoma stood no chance, she easily avoided his blind beam blasts and kicked his chin to send him to sand man's embrace. On my side was Toga and Ochako who were also eating her ice cream, we all had gotten ice cream to console Mina and to celebrate the victories of everyone else.

Toga had easily won against Iron Kirishima by asking for some blood from Ochako and then manoeuvred around the rather slow boy, zeroed his gravity and tossed him out with ease. And Ochako herself who was also matched up against our Kirishima himself, it was way closer this time around with Kirishima still grappling Ochako even when she un-gravitified him but she still managed to shake him off and threw him out of the ring.

"How do you think you'll fare Hakari-kun? Todoroki is seriously scary." Mina asked me while still shivering from the imaginary cold. That's right, I was up against Half-Ass next round. Half-Assed he may be but his firepower was not something I could hope to match.

If we had to compare our energy reserves, if mine was the size of a bathtub, his was the size of a goddamn lake, not even in the same weight class. Considering he has been training day in day out with an Elite or maybe even Epic-ranked ability from the age of 6 it made sense. And his output was absolutely insane too, being able to create millions of tons of ice in a split second. She was more than right to be worried. Still, I turned to Mina with a confident expression.

"...It might be a little tough."

"But?" 

"I'd win."

No way I was going to lose to someone who was half-assing it.

⚀—⚁⚂⚃—⚄—•⚅•—⚄—⚃⚂⚁—⚀

~Kotaro Hakari~

"Damn, I pissed so hard."

I wiped my hands on my shirt after washing them while coming out of the bathroom, I split off from the group after a bit to go to the toilet and take a leak and maybe find Dekubro and give him a prep talk, the poor bastard got matched with Tokoyami. And as much as I had faith in my bro, beating Tokoyami was not going to be easy even with a 3% Full Cowl.

But as I was walking out of the bathroom I came across a hulking figure, fiery beard, blue spandex, scathing eyes, crimson hair, a head of height over me making me stop my stride.

Holy damn that was Endeavour.

"Hakari is it? I was looking for you, follow me, I need to tell you something." He said that with a commanding voice and turned around and started walking without even hearing what I was about to say like a dick but I shrugged my shoulders and followed him anyways.

Dick he might be, but he was still Endeavor, the No. 2 Hero and someone who could turn me go ash before I could blink. Not that I was afraid since he was still a hero. The reason I elected to follow him was out of simple curiosity, no large motive or reasoning.

...Alright maybe I was hoping he would net me a quest or something, surely, if number 2 is asking for it would be something important. There was a real chance of it being something different considering the Remix curse.

After getting us into an empty changing room he laid out his intentions for dragging me here pretty clearly.

"I will be blunt with you, since you are facing Shoto next round, I want you to get him to use his flame side." Ah.

I furrowed my brows and heavily sighed internally, I had almost forgotten how big of an asshole Endeavor was around this time. And here I thought Remix was throwing me a quest or a random encounter like Mirko.

Whatever, I'll just quickly wave him away and get back to whatever it was I was doing before he decided to waste my time with his problems caused by him being a shitty father.

"And why should I?" Endeavour harrumphed, either annoyed by my clearly dismissive attitude or at his son.

"My son refuses to use his flames and squanders his potential because of his pettiness in an attempt to rebel against me. And since you are the strongest in your class-" Thanks for the vote of confidence. "-aside from Shoto-" Fuck you, rotten old man. "You should be able to force him to use his flames in the next round."

"I don't care how you manage to do it. If you get him to use his flames, I will reward you personally, whether that is money or taking you in as an intern. I am willing to pay you 5,000,000 Yen and-"

I raised my hand to cut him off and shook my head. As I had thought, he spoke nothing of substance and he was still far away from being a decent person. And considering my future, I couldn't be bribed with money.

"Yeah, no. No offense but I don't want to get involved in your family drama at all. If you want to get your son to do something go talk to him yourself, don't try to buy out his classmates to do it for you for fucks sake. Maybe try using that money on a family therapist or something." I did not turn to see his reaction as I left but I felt the room I was in heat up as I was leaving.

Seriously, I can't even remember how that guy managed to get that stick of titanic proportions out of his ass originally but I struggle to care right now.

Just thinking about this situation was annoying. Oh, how I wish this ended up as Deku's problem like in canon but now I was the one who had to get involved with the Todoroki family drama. At least his mother and sister were hot, I think, despite them having ice quirks.

As I walked down the halls to grab a drink from the vending machine to clear my head I felt a shiver go down my spine, but unlike the other ones, this one felt cold. This one was a warning.

[The city is restless, the shadow evil awakens from its slumber and starts moving. Its hands grab villains, vanishing their lights, never to let them see the light again. The false crusader is being approached by the devil]

...What the actual fuck does that cryptic bullshit mean?

Crusader? Devil? I am not good at solving puzzles. Why the hell is Shiver trying to be cryptic about this shit? Just be normal and tell me what I need to know without me having to decipher it.

Cryptic or not, I can't just ignore that red flag the size of Everest so I pulled out my phone and looked up villains disappearing on the web and found some articles about various villains vanishing randomly with no arrests made or even murders.

Apparently, one such group was the Magma Thieves, some random villain group whose leader and his right-hand man were found dead in an alleyway with their female member Dusty Ash missing.

Another one was solo villains who were also found dead, one of those that stood out to me was Overtaker, a villain who could possess people's bodies for an hour at a time, he was found dead in a river.

With both villains and heroes dying people were starting to panic and a sense of unease was spreading around the forums. This isn't like how Stain operates, the lacerations on the hero bodies are him but the dead villains aren't.

I rubbed my temples as I tried to piece the information together.

The Devil... that can't be anyone other than the self-styled Demon Lord can it?

According to this timeframe, the false crusader should be Stain considering he views himself as someone fighting for the truth while his ideals are... very fucking stupid to put it lightly.

So, shadows stretching and moving, villains disappearing, Stain being approached by All for One.

A sense of unease bloomed in my chest as I thought about what this meant. I was almost certain about what this meant and I didn't like what this meant, at all.

All for One was starting to make moves.

Shit.

⚀—⚁⚂⚃—⚄—•⚅•—⚄—⚃⚂⚁—⚀

~All for One~

All for One leaned back in content as his visual data and sensory quirk read the reports from his various connections.

People were like sheep, the easiest tool to direct them was with fear. If they know there is a wolf around, they will run away from it.

The biggest problem Tomura faced with the league was recruiting, so he decided to give him a hand. He would have normally let him to do it on his own to let Tomura develop on his own but...

Tomura was now plan B.

He had already invested too much in him to just throw him away but his development became a secondary objective. Thus, he decided to start using a more... hands-on approach to things.

Building a proper criminal empire again felt satisfying.

He had independent villains he was interested in the quirks of killed and took their abilities before leaving them to be found, putting existing villains and villain-to-be's in fear. What if they were next? It wasn't too big of a fear but it would gnaw away at them, they wouldn't be able to ignore it.

He also benefited from the self-styled Hero Killer Stain, he emboldened villains, with Heroes dying like flies it gave the existing criminals confidence, and it also gave criminals-to-be ambition. After all, if Stain could kill so many heroes unscathed why should they be so afraid of heroes? Especially with All Might appearing less and less.

So, he used his connections to reach out to villains and promised them an umbrella, they received help from the league, giving them access to weapons and support items from his black-market connections, allowing them to connect with each other and form teams all the while receiving protection from the league from other villains so they don't end up like the dead villains in the news. The league even had a teleporter.

He was giving the villains a united front. They were selfish and short-sighted people, and selfish people were easy to manipulate, as long as he fed their greed, lust and wrath they would eat out of his hands, they didn't have to have loyalty to the league, it just had to be their best option. And greedy, selfish people will always protect their best interests.

There were some people who he had to recruit forcefully but it was easy to instill obedience into people with a remote detonation quirk.

He was already ramping up the crime rate of Japan slowly, specifically targeting areas that All Might couldn't comfortably reach with his timer away from UA to further embolden criminals. With a symbol of peace in place, it was difficult and progress was slow but it was there.

Of course, his real goal was him.

The league was a tool, it existed to be continually pitted against Hakari, to keep escalating his powers and pushing him further and further. Without a league to provide backing, there aren't enough villains in Japan for Hakari to be challenged by after all.

He would keep pushing him to near death, to the breaking point again and again. Either he would come out stronger, or come back to him to make sure he gets stronger.

And he had the perfect plan for him currently.

Smiling, All for One looked over the report on the Hero Killer Stain.

'Idealist Zealots like him are so very easy to manipulate.'

A/N: Problems are brewing, things have been calm for too long. In the original MHA AFO's goal was nurturing Shigaraki and staying out of his way. Well, not anymore. Because this potato man is feeling motivated Shigaraki has fallen to the side and the real Demon King is taking the stage. I always felt like he wasn't properly used in MHA, especially his quirk, do you guys agree?

The League of Villains will be an actual league instead of like 8 guys, they will be an actual present threat without being absorbed into the Paranormal Liberation front. I always felt the League of Villains in MHA were underwhelming. And now hopefully they won't be. I hope you guys like the newly awakened Demon Lord. What did you guys think of the AFO situation and his plans? I would love to know.

_______________________________

If you like my works and want to support me and my works you can do so at my P*treon at: p*treon.com/BronzDeck. You can also read up to 10 chapters ahead on all of my works there and participate in story polls.

Just replace the * with an a.