The Sacred Cradle

[1st POV]

"This is hilarious," I said but there was not a lick of humour in my tone.

I gazed upon the humongous factory that made children's toys. I sat at the edge of an abandoned chimney, one of the tallest structures in the factory. It was a private industry located in Kawaguchi City. The factory was vast, fenced, and surrounded by thick walls.

It did not make sense why a factory that made toys needed such thick fortification. The excuse was that the factory was prone to villain attacks due to its contract with the Hero Commission and its copyright to make toys of heroes.

But that excuse was far from being true. In actuality, this whole place was a toy factory only as a cover, behind that layer of disguise, it was a paradise for villains.

They called it 'The Sacred Cradle'

A fucked up name for the neutral ground of villains. This place forbids all violence and bad blood. It was a place where enemies - rival gangs or villainous organisations could spend time together with no conflict whatsoever. It was often used for villains to meet up and settle disputes when they wanted to talk things out.

Or if you are a villain who just wanted to lay low, this was the place for you.

Like I said, it was a literal heaven for villains.

It had been quite a while since I kidnapped Kurotsuki Gai and used him for all the information he had. I started my hunt from there, going after villain after villain, location after location, all in the name of destroying All for One's criminal empire.

I would rip out information from my latest hunt to find my next targets. In doing so, I climbed higher and higher through the underworld hierarchy, it was like a pyramid with All for One at the top.

The plan was simple, destroy All for One's criminal empire step by step until I eventually reach him, or destroy enough so that he could come to me in an attempt to deal with me himself.

There was no sophisticated plan behind my desire to kill All for One because I was strong enough to not need one in the first place. The last time we fought, I was at 65% of Sukuna's template, yet I could match him.

I just need him to show himself and I could end him easily.

The thought that he might run away from me or go into hiding did cross my mind. But the more I learned about his criminal empire, the less I worry about that.

All for One was so deep-rooted in Japan that he would never leave the country. Turns out, being able to steal quriks made you a God in this world. He had absolute control over the villains and his influence even extended to the Hero Commission, along with the Police and Military. It was centuries of hard work and he would rather try to kill me than start over.

I think he had not shown himself yet because he was still planning on how to kill me without any risk or because I had not done enough damage to his empire to warrant retaliation.

Anyway, I was sure I would get his undivided attention after today.

Because I was going to raze this place to the ground. There would be no neutral ground for villains tomorrow, no paradise for the wicked.

A paradise for villains? I'm going to flip it into hell.

...

"And that's the final truck for today," I said while watching the final vehicle coming through the entrance and the gate closed shortly after.

These trucks transported villains under the guise of carrying cargo. It was a little baffling to me how such a huge operation had gone unnoticed for so long.

It goes to show just how restrictive the laws were for the pro heroes. Otherwise, it made no sense why they had not destroyed this operation when I could find out about it after only a few weeks of investigation.

Or maybe they did know about it but decided to leave it be. The place was a neutral ground after all and ironically, it was vital for maintaining order in both society and the underworld.

But that was beyond what I should care about.

"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure," I chanted and formed a curtain around the entire factory.

A dark ball of cursed energy swirled in the sky like liquid night. After I completed my chant, the ball bled out and painted a barrier upon the sky. The darkness fell on the factory like a curtain, hiding everything from the eyes of outsiders.

The factory itself was heavily fortified to keep anyone out so my barrier was just a second layer to make sure. Now no one could see what was happening inside, everything would appear normal even if I burned the place to the ground.

It did not take long for the villains to come out of the warehouses and manufacturing buildings. They were like ants in an anthill.

It had become night inside the barrier which did not go unnoticed by the people inside. They came out to check what was going on.

"What is happening!!"

"Whose qurik is this? Stop this instance! The Cradle is a neutral ground!!"

"Who the fuck turned off the sun!!"

Panicked screams filled the place as people tried to find the perpetrator. Even the other villains inside the factory or underground were starting to release negative energy.

Anger, fear, frustration, suspicions, and all kinds of negative emotions that came from the worst of humanity quickly polluted the space inside the barrier.

After a while of basking on their negative emotions, I finally made my presence known. I stood on the tip of the towering chimney and released my cursed energy.

My cursed energy was contained inside the curtain so that none leaked on the outside. But the poor villains trapped in the barrier felt a suffocating pressure on their shoulders.

They immediately turned towards me, the source of all their discomfort. I was like the sun projecting its bright light upon them.

A wide grin - that was fitting of all the names they called me - spread my lips.

"I am Ryomen Sukuna, do remember the person responsible for what happens next," I said, making sure that they heard me by sending a pulse of cursed energy with my voice.

My plan was to call out All for One. If I acted without anyone knowing who I was, it would defeat the whole purpose.

He needed to know I was behind this and he needed to come after me if he wanted me to stop.

I took a step into the empty space and fell from the tower. The people below watched in horror as I descended to the ground with an unmoving posture.

*BOOOM*

I landed with a cloud of smoke and blitzed out before the dust could settle.

I started wreaking havoc upon the villains and chaos ensued. I began beating on the hundreds of villains unfortunate enough to gather here today.

A burst of shockwaves filled the factory and the equipment exploded frequently. Many quirks were thrown out in the form of retaliation but they were only enough to distract me for spit seconds.

The difference between me and the common villain was laughable, a grown man and an infant were closer in strength. There were rare villains with strong quirks like time manipulation in a small area or elemental manipulation but their own strength turned out to be a curse as I used my cursed technique on them while I beat the rest with my fist.

Amidst the chaos and destruction, I always had control over the situation - from the biggest explosion to the smallest dent in steel tanks. This was because there were civilians in the factory.

Although the place was infested with villains, innocent workers were inside the barrier too and I wished to leave them unharmed.

...

"You!! You will pay for this!!" one villain screamed. He was on the stronger side with the quirk that allowed him to turn part of his body to stone.

From the sheer confidence laced in his tone even after he had seen my strength, I knew he was talking about All for One. He had grossed a sense of invincibility among the villains, he was All Might for the other side of the coin.

"I want him to try,"

He charged at me with heavy steps that cracked the ground. I sank under his devastating hook before I grabbed his stone arm and ripped it off his shoulder with a swift utilization of cleave.

"AHHHH!!" he screamed but I deftly silenced him by slamming a fist at his jaw before I spun around and threw his hand to three approaching villains.

The stone arm all but broke their ribs and crushed their insides, leaving the three grovelling on the ground while vomiting blood.

I dealt with another dozen or so weak villains swiftly before I felt a tingle on my skin. An attack strong enough to tickle my instinct came my way.

"Magneto?" I questioned when I saw the Magneto look-alike gathering metallic objects from the surroundings.

He created a heap of iron from those objects - a perfect cube - and shot it towards me at a speed five tons should never reach.

A single dismantle separated the cube of iron vertically. I shot out so violently that the ground cracked like cobwebs and I blitzed right through the separation of the cube.

My four eyes were a blur of red above a sinister smile.

The villain only had time to widen his eyes before my hand clamped around his face. I slammed his head on the ground but I did not stop there. I pushed his head to the ground while I continued to run.

A trail of red marked our path and I only stopped when his skull was revealed and his scalp had been scraped off on the earth.

I let him go and leapt somewhere else to traumatize more villains. But all through this violence and cruelty, I did not take a life. That was a line I did not allow myself to cross.

An hour filled with screams and the defending sounds of battle passed by and at last, I had put my hands on all the villains. Every single criminal suffered an injury from me.

That didn't mean the end of the battle though as the first villains I put down had enough time to recover and fight once more.

I could go on forever. But I deemed that to be enough.

I was satisfied.

I jumped into the air and when I was high enough I created a barrier to act as an invisible platform.

A grin involuntary came upon my face once more. I felt a sadistic glee at what I was about to do.

I put my hands together and made a sign.

"Domain Expansion,"

The world stilled as I painted my will on the fabrics of reality.

"Malevolent Shirne,"

The air within the curtain shifted, it was a subtle crackle, a faint hum of something ancient awakening.

It was my first time using my open domain and I absolutely loved it.

The space around the factory seemed to fracture, as invisible slashes lashed out in every direction. The air itself felt like it had been sliced into ribbons, making oxygen a scarce resource to the point that the people suffocated.

Walls didn't crumble, they disintegrated. Conveyor belts twisted and collapsed in on themselves, their once-sturdy frames now reduced to paper-thin strips that slid apart soundlessly.

Beams of steel, once the skeleton of the factory, stood for a single, suspended moment before collapsing into a cascade of thin, symmetrical fragments. It looked absolutely surreal to the villains.

It looked like reality was slowly falling apart.

And yet not a single person was harmed.

The villains stood frozen, the weight of my cursed energy pushed them to the point that negative emotions overwhelmed them. Their bodies were untouched, but their clothing bore the marks of my mercy - sleeves severed, hair shaved by slashes too fast to register, shoes split down the middle.

I held back Cleave and only allowed Dismantle to go wild.

One villain dared to touch his neck, his hand trembling as he realized a single bead of blood had trailed down from a nick so precise it hadn't even hurt. It was a whisper of what could have been.

The moment was instant and forever, there was no concept of duration.

When I was finally done with destroying everything, the villains collapsed on the sunken ground. Some passed out while some gasped for air with the palest of faces.

There was a huge crater of 150 meters in diameter. The whole factory had been reduced to sand and dust that collected at the bottom of the crater.

Meanwhile, the outside world did not have the faintest idea about what just happened.

Only when I left the place and undid the curtain was the destruction revealed and the whole nation was plunged into chaos.

"I wonder what your reaction will be, All for One,"

..

..

..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------