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There were many plans that had to be changed, backups to backups that were implemented, but Kurogiri’s portal appearing in the Sky Coffin and dropping a braindead Spinner onto the ground before going haywire around the area was not a “planned for” scenario.
“Yes!” gloated All For One as he watched the heroes' expressions turn from determination to horror, many panicking as they got caught and relocated around the death trap by the erratic portals.
“It’s just as I’ve told you pathetic heroes, the deck is stacked in my favor!” He turned and used his ward’s power to throw yet another amorphous mass of fingers and hands at his opponents, Spinner’s unresponsive body now in his sights, “It’s always been stacked in my favor!”
And that was all the villain could say before his body suddenly burst apart.
The visual could only be likened to that of a butterfly ripping its cocoon apart, desperate to break free. And from the ruptured cocoon of All For One rose Tomura Shigaraki, liberated of his master’s possession and using his first unrestricted action to dash towards Spinner.
Still in shock from the rapid changes in fight’s pace, it took Deku a moment to spring back into action and he quickly used blackwhip as an attempt to restrain Tomura. Unfortunately, Deku seemed to have underestimated Tomura’s determination to reach his destination as he didn’t stop running and Deku was swiftly yanked off his feet and dragged along the ground, only given respite when Tomura dropped to the ground himself to pull his ally into his arms.
“Spinner what the fuck happened to you?! Say something!”
Deku unburied his face from the dirt just in time to see Tomura place his hands on his ally and… stay still and wait for something to happen?
“What are you trying to do?” Deku demanded incredulously.
“Apparently your job,” the villain snarked back as he scanned the battlefield, pausing long enough in Eraserhead’s direction for Deku to realize that his teacher had regained control and was preventing Tomura from using his quirk. Tomura snarled in frustration before whipping his head towards his former caretaker and screaming, “Kurogiri help! Block Eraserhead’s view, get him out of here! I can’t cast healing on Spinner while he’s using his quirk!”
“Healing? What healing?” Deku asked, genuinely baffled at the concept of the most destructive villain he knew having new healing abilities, “Since when could you heal?”
“Since I decided to take the overload of quirk mods out of my player 2 and switch it out with my master’s regeneration quirk until he’s freaking stable!” Tomura shrieked, his red eyes flashing with an intensity that made Deku realize this really wasn’t some weird All For One clone anymore, this was the real Tomura Shigaraki, the one he wanted to save but still had legitimate apprehensions for.
“My team doesn’t have healers, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get some kind of use out of my master’s garbage ‘quirk and vestige’ package deal. I don’t care how badly you wanna drag me backwards into the fray, you’ll either help me save my friend quickly so we can continue our fight or you’ll sit down and patiently wait for your turn to die!”
“Okay fine,” Deku agreed, “Mr. Aizawa, let Shigaraki do his thing!”
“WHAT?!” cried the dual voices of his enemy and ally.
“You want help with saving an ally, fine! But try anything else and I’ll enact every vengeful thought I’ve had about you since I saw my best friend’s body lying on the ground!”
“… Fair enough,” Tomura growled, deciding to keep a retort about how said “best friend” was literally undergoing surgery anyway to himself. He waited, and within a few moments that felt like hours, he heard the telltale sound of a warpgate whisking Eraserhead off somewhere else in tandem with the rush of his master’s quirk working to clean up the mess that was made of his closest friend.
The visual below him could only be likened to that of a reptile shedding their skin, ridding itself of dead weight and ready to start anew. And from the pile of hardened scales that had fallen off awoke Spinner, his blank eyes returning to their original rosy color as he blinked back into awareness… and then overflowing with tears as he began to sob uncontrollably.
“Sorry, ‘m sorry,” Spinner blubbered.
“Hey don’t do that, you’re fine,” Tomura soothed, carefully wiping Spinner’s tears with his usually deadly hands, “What’re you even apologizing for?”
“I tried to follow All For One’s guidance, fill in the role he gave me so I could make your dream a reality. But I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t lead the team I was given. All I could do was throw myself at Kurogiri and beg him to keep you safe before it all went to black. Even with all the extra mods, I still couldn’t follow through on my end. Should’ve known that potato head was lying when he said ‘everyone can be somebody’s hero’, because I sure can’t!”
While Deku recoiled in shock at the subject of heroes being brought up now of all times, Tomura merely sighed, then leaned back just enough to take off the red cloth wrapped around his neck before closing the distance once more to bundle Spinner within it. Noticing someone shift from behind, Deku chanced a glance and saw Mirio looking shaky yet restrained. He hoped he’d be able to ask what shook him up later.
“Well, you’re right about All For One being full of shit. Still, haven’t I told you before? You don’t need to have every skill maxed out, and you don’t need to apply half a dozen strength mods. You don’t need to do anything grandiose or push yourself into a role that you can’t handle. Your loyalty and friendship are enough. It’s helped me through every fight we’ve been in, and didn’t you just admit that you powered through a quirk overload to free Kurogiri for my sake by sheer willpower? You’ve already saved me, you’re already my hero.”
Spinner let a few more tears drip down his face as he listened to the praise, then he let his body relax fully into Tomura’s embrace, using his snout to nuzzle his friend’s face with Tomura gladly returning the gesture.
In the background, Deku watched as Kurogiri settled down with the help of his old friends, pro heroes began to band together to treat each other’s wounds, and his fellow students milled around providing aid where needed. As the silence stretched on and the full weight of what everyone had witnessed was processed, that the villains who were labeled as most monstrous were capable of extraordinary compassion and tenderness, all who had considered themselves heroes turned inward to reflect, unsure of where they could or should go from here.
For Deku however, he saw what he needed to see, the missing piece that took his wavering resolve and solidified it. With his nerves steeled, he crawled over to the pair, and with a hand reached out towards them, opened his mouth to speak.