[NATIONWIDE – 3:47 AM to 5:00 AM]
The prison breaks came in waves. Shinjuku West fell first. Then Kuin Prefecture Maximum Security at 4:12 AM. Bagu Detention followed at 4:31. And Shuuchii Maximum Security at 4:47. By 5:13 six facilities across the Tokyo metropolitan area were burning.
All break ins had similar attendants with an identical pattern. Black warp gates, monstrous looking villains, and doors and pillars crumbling with a single touch.
Some villains joined the League. Others fled into the night. All of them free.
In living rooms across Japan, people watched the news coverage shift from one disaster to another. Split screens showing multiple prison breaks simultaneously. Reporters struggling to keep up with the expanding catastrophe.
"—Kuin facility reports over one hundred escapees—"
"—Bagu guards overwhelmed, requesting backup—"
"—no available heroes to respond—"
The emergency hotlines collapsed under the volume of calls. Local police forces, already stretched thin, found themselves facing villains they had no chance of containing.
In Shinkoku, a villain with a magma quirk set an entire city block ablaze.
In Hosu, Moonfish was spotted near a residential area.
Three civilians and two local pro heroes dead before he vanished. In Osaka, freed prisoners ransacked a convenience store while the owner hid in the back, phone in hand, listening to the operator tell him no one was coming to help.
Hero Society experienced their worst night in decades as the carefully constructed illusion of safety fueled by the promise that heroes would always arrive—shattered completely. By 5:00 AM, the chaos was nationwide. Five hundred and forty-seven confirmed escapees. Hundreds of dead guards and prison staff. The civilian casualties throughout the night were unknown.
And the League of Villains, having orchestrated it all, had vanished into the pre-dawn darkness.
[HPSC HEADQUARTERS – TOKYO – 4:45 AM]
The Hero Public Safety Commission building stood in the heart of Tokyo's government district—a twelve-story monument to bureaucratic authority and hero oversight.
At 4:45 AM, it was staffed by a skeleton crew. Emergency personnel monitoring the prison break situations. Analysts compiling casualty reports. And on the seventh floor, in the executive conference room, Madame President sat with her remaining senior staff. Twelve people in total. 'Fuck.'
Madame President stared at the primary wall monitor, her reflection ghosted over a map of Japan that was bleeding red icons.
"The Prime Minister is on line two," an aide whispered, his voice trembling. "He's demanding to know why the military hasn't been deployed to the Sujaku perimeter."
"Tell him the military is sitting in their barracks because they don't have the Quirk-clearance to engage this. The heroes will handle it." The HPSC chairwoman let out through gritted teeth as she continued to live the worst night of her political career. "Where is the transport? Where are the responding heroes? Where in hell is All Might?"
"Thirty Minutes out of Tokyo airspace, Ma'am."
"Thirty minutes," Her fingers curled into the edge of the mahogany table. Thirty more minutes of this chaos .... The mere thought sent a chill down her spine. In less than an hour, six prisons had been broken into. Even if they stopped now, there was no telling what the released prisoners would do.
Every additional second this went on pushed her deeper into the abyss.
"Contact All Might again. In thirty minutes, we might not have a capital left to—"
The lights flickered at that moment much to their surprise. "What just ..." Following which ... The entire city block lost power as a large surge of radio waves fried every device within range.
The conference room fell into darkness in an instant. "What just happened?" "The power went out." "We're under attack."
'Dammit!" Madame President frowned as she reached for her phone to turn on the flashlight. 'What now? ....' BOOM! An explosion resounded as the wall of the conference room was destroyed.
High-velocity debris whistled through the dark room like shrapnel, embedding itself into the mahogany table and the far walls. "ARGHHH!"
A man screamed at the top of his lungs as one said shrapnel embedded itself into his shoulder. Unfortunately, with dust and debris swirling in the sudden vacuum, it was too dark to see anything. Just then, a single backup generator that had survived the initial radio wave blast without having its circuits fried came on.
"Hmm, high quality shielding." Through the settling dust and the jagged, gaping hole where the exterior wall had once been, a figure drifted inward. Many stiffened at the sound. Turning their gazes, there he was.
Suspended mid air as if on level ground. Clad in a pristine, double-breasted black suit and an industrial mask covering his face. In his right hand, he held the limp, battered form of Endeavor by the collar. 'Him ... It's ... It's him ..' The president's eyes widened in shock and fear.
"Good evening," All For One uttered.
"DON'T MOVE!" The senior security officers yelled, all hands flying to their sidearms.
Simultaneously, two pro hero bodyguards burst into the room. One's skin turning obsidian and the other transforming into a lizard creature.
"Don't—!" the President screamed. However ..
'Rivet Stab.' From his fingertips, dark, jagged protrusions erupted—sinewy black bolts reinforced by red, vein-like energy and moving faster than the human eye could track.
SQUELCH!
Her words died in her throat at the sight of multiple reddish protrusions shoot out of All For One's hand, impaling everyone bracing for an attack. The silence that followed was deafening.
"Oh, my mistake. It's morning." All For One lowered his hand, the rivets retracting back into his fingers. He drifted forward, polished shoes finally touching the carpet as he dropped Endeavor's heavy body onto the floor with a dull thud.
"It's still dark out so I confuse the timing." At the same time, the bodies fell to the ground in a horrifying display. In four seconds, the room's elite defense force had been reduced to a collection of cooling corpses.
"Forgive my lack of manners. I am All For One. Head of the league of villains." He walked toward Madame President, who was backed against the darkened monitors, her face the color of bone.
He leaned down, the black, sensor-filled surface of his mask reflecting her wide, terrified eyes. "And I believe we have a lot of things to discuss. After all, your 'Symbol of Peace' is still twenty-eight minutes away," he said softly, a dark amusement dancing in his tone. "That gives us plenty of time to discuss the new management."
_
[MUSUTAFU CROSSING – 5:14 AM]
The "Times Square" of MUSUTAFU was a ghost of its usual self as the giant billboard was glitching. The vibrant colors of the mascot had been replaced by a flickering map of the Kanto region, dotted with red "Hazard" icons that represented the six burning prisons.
Hundreds of people below stood shoulder to shoulder frozen in front of the giant ALTA Vision screen. Some were clutching suitcases, others were still in their pajamas, but everyone's eyes were glued to the screens above.
The screen was a chaotic mosaic of helicopter footage: smoke rising from the Kuin facility and the flaming wreckage of police cruisers in Hosu.
The NHK news anchor, a woman whose professional composure had long since evaporated, was pressing a hand to her earpiece.
"—repeating our top story, the National Police Agency has declared a Level 5 State of Emergency. Residents are advised to—"
The anchor stopped. She pressed her earpiece into her head, her eyes widening as the color drained from her face. She looked off-camera, her lips trembling.
"Hold on... We... we seem to be getting an emergency broadcast. This is an priority override from the Hero Public Safety Commission."
Below the screen, the murmur of the crowd died into a suffocating silence. "The HPSC has activated the Nationwide Crisis Broadcast System. All channels are being diverted to... to the Commission Headquarters." The chaotic helicopter footage of Shinjuku vanished.
The screen flickered with a jagged burst of digital static—the kind of interference that usually preceded an earthquake warning. But when the image stabilized, there was no warning text or government seal.
Instead, the first thing the nation saw, rendered in heart-stopping high definition on the massive Musutafu billboards, was the mahogany surface of a conference table, splattered with fresh, crimson blood. The only light came from the flickering emergency strobes of the HPSC conference center.
The crowds were stunned. The camera panned up, shaky and handheld, held by someone whose breathing was a series of wet, rhythmic hitches.
"Is it on?" a voice purred. A deep, distorted baritone that seemed to vibrate through the very pavement beneath the crowd's feet, amplified by every speaker, every cell phone, and every giant billboard in Japan. "Good."
The frame widened. There, in the background, was the HPSC President. She was held upright by a black, jagged protrusion pinned through her shoulder against the wall. Her eyes were rolled back, breathing coming out in shallow, terrified hitches.
The most notable feature being ..... That half her left arm was missing entirely. ".. what .. what's going on?" A man asked in fright. "What the hell is this?"
THUD! THUD! THUD! The sound of footsteps cut through the horror the scene. A hand reached out and adjusted the camera lens, centering on himself to reveal a figure that made the crowd in Mustafu collectively recoil. A man in a pristine black suit, his face hidden behind an industrial, life-support mask that looked like a skull made of obsidian. "No Way!" The same civilian fell to the ground immediately. "No way! It can't be."
"This ... This is .."
"That's the guy who defeated Endeavor and the rest of the heroes ..."
"He's in the HPSC Headquarters?"
".... That means ... The government has fallen?"
"Good morning, Japan," All For One said, his industrial mask reflecting the red emergency lights of the room. "I apologize for the interruption to your regularly scheduled panic. My name is All For One, and I believe there has been a significant misunderstanding regarding who is currently responsible for your safety."