Suguru looked at the hand-obsessed man in front of him before hearing sirens wail in the distance, 10 minutes out, maybe less.
It was enough time for a 1-on-1; he didn't have the time or patience for a battle between organizations right now.
Cranes Wings made sure not to intervene, and they made sure these Japanese didn't step in either.
But the League had confidence in their boss just as much as these foreigners had in theirs.
Shigaraki Tomura charged alone.
"You…" Shigaraki's voice came out low and raspy at first, then cracked into a snarl. "You think you can just walk in here, take what's ours, and leave? "
He came low, hands extended touching the ground and his decay surged ahead of him in a black wave, eating pavement as he closed the gap, but it was the dense black cloud of Crane's toxin that answered first, surging forward surrounding Shigaraki alone. Then the yellow energy materialized from Crane's arms coiling around them.
It lashed out in three directions at once. One tendril hooked Shigaraki's left wrist pulling it off the pavement while another snaked around his ankle forcing him onto his back and the third wrapped across his ribs like a whip and lifted the League leader clean off the ground for half a second.
Shigaraki touched and managed to decay two of the bindings. They crumbled but instead of into dust they dissolved into more concentrated bursts of toxin straight into his bloodstream and more seemed to appear and they became harder to disintegrate as he took in more toxin, it was like his fear was making them stronger, he then managed to break free and place both hands onto the ground in a concentrated attack and got back on the offensive.
The ground beneath Crane's feet disintegrated in a perfect circle, everything cracking and then turning into small pieces that spilled away into the long drop below.
Crane did not fall.
The yellow energy reshaped itself into a solid platform beneath his boots, his control of this power was now getting even better than he anticipated. The toxin cloud thickened around Shigaraki, swirling, pressing in and he stopped his decay before the ground around Crane widened to the others around them, then on Crane's silent command it dissipated upwards, clearing the immediate space.
Shigaraki then heard Crane's voice, calm and clinical. "Your quirk's strong, but if you can't touch me, it's useless."
Shigaraki now falling under the effects of the toxin lunged out but now he was moving sloppy and desperate, eyes wide with raw fury. The yellow energy snapped outward again and more tendrils were seizing his arms and legs, yanking him horizontal in the air, suspended like a puppet now completely under the effects of the toxin his fear was growing and the strength of the energy did as well, and his decay was now slow and almost useless against the bindings.
This intrigued Crane more and he made sure to investigate this later, the energy's strength seemed to depend on others fear of him or his personal fear,
(A/N to my understanding fear lanterns which is vaguely what this energy is based off of is stronger or weaker depending on how much fear there is, if im wrong sorry but thats what im going with :)
The hallucinations began to be too much now.
All For One's face appeared first with his mask off showing his rotting flesh sliding away while smiling and whispering things only Shigaraki could hear.
"You were always disappointing and your pathetic recruits are no better."
He turned to see Spinner stood behind him, maggots crawling from empty sockets eating the reptilian from the inside out, Toga laughed as she peeled off her own skin in wet ribbons eating it and drinking the blood coming from the wounds.
Then he looked down and saw his own hands on his mothers face and she began decaying while yelling how she hates him and his father was half decayed across the ground shouting at him that he should have never been born.
Then he snapped out of it as he saw the yellow energy surging.
A long whip coiled around his torso, pinning both arms and a razor-thin yellow blade was pressed against his throat, drawing a single bead of blood. Shigaraki dropped to his knees on the ruined asphalt, chest heaving, eyes burning.
Crane stepped closer, the yellow energy pulsed around his arm like a second, living sleeve.
"I finally recognize you," Crane said, voice flat but carrying the faintest edge of something almost amused. "You were with I suspect was Garaki's master before his fight with All Might and you and this group were teleported away at the last second"
Shigaraki's head snapped up "Garaki?"
He was shaking and still under the toxin but the effects were wearing off slowly, Crane hadn't intended to break him and he only had the base toxin his quirk produced none of the modified strains from his lab.
"How the hell do you know that name?"
Crane tilted his head.
"Perhaps your master didn't tell you everything."
The words were delivered in a way that planted doubt in Shigaraki's mind like a slow-acting poison.
"Since you didn't know about me or our shared interests with Garaki over the past months… Makes you wonder what else he left out, doesn't it?"
Shigaraki's fingers twitched, the toxin made the doubt feel real, his insecurities and fear of being abandoned and isolated at a all time high.
Crane continued, still conversational. "I would prefer not to be in a large fight that ends up on every television in Japan, there are more heroes on the way, you hear those sirens closing in right."
"Perhaps we can form a truce, for now."
The yellow energy released Shigaraki and he stayed on his knees for a few seconds then forced himself upright, agreeing that this was not the time or place and nodded to Spinner who called someone.
A few seconds later behind him, Kurogiri's gate opened with a low hum.
Shigaraki stared at Crane one last time.
"I didn't do all this for nothing, just remember that…"
Then he walked through followed by the rest of the League.
Silence fell over the highway, broken only by the approaching sirens.
Highway – Immediate Aftermath
Cameron landed lightly on the first van, wings folding with a soft rustle. "Cops and heroes are 5 minutes out max."
Crane used the energy to cover the decayed hole in the highway before getting back on the pavement and walked toward the now silent Overhaul before someone stepped in front of him.
"Boss," Roman growled, voice tight with frustration, "we had him on his knees! Why the fuck are we letting them leave? We could've ended every last one of them right here."
Crane stopped and glanced behind Black Mask where Overhaul lay strapped and restrained, before looking at Roman.
"Because the Yakuza in Japan is finished, we have everything we could get."
He paused.
"I wouldn't want to burn bridges with Garaki and this League… well at least not yet."
Cameron's wings flexed once, before speaking up. "Why bother with them at all? They're just a bunch of Japanese punks with daddy issues. We don't need them."
Crane's masked gaze shifted to Cameron. "It's not them, did you not hear what I said, It's their master and Garaki."
"Garaki is the direct connection, he has resources and research we can use when you can look up what you can about the Nomus after seeing that you would understand that. Destroying the League now would be… wasteful."
Roman muttered something under his breath but holstered his pistols. Cameron gave a short nod, accepting the logic even if he didn't like it.
Crane was now looking over Chisaki directly.
He was strapped to the gurney/restraints, and only one of his arms remained after that villain in the magician getup made the other into an orb. When he saw Crane, he realized this was his only way out.
"I thought the League had me," he rasped. "I thought—"
"I don't care," Crane replied.
He stepped back and Overhaul's gaze slid past him to Ivy, who leaned against one of the vans with Eri cradled gently against her chest. The little girl's silver hair caught the sun's light. She wasn't crying but she wasn't happy, she simply watched her former captor before looking at the Green woman holding her and hoping these people wouldn't be the same.
Chisaki's face cycled through fury, shock, then a sickening realization. "How did you get her out before the…
You… planned this from the moment you walked into my base."
William drifted forward, Pyg mask gleaming. "Of course we did, you think we would partner with the likes of you?"
It took four seconds.
William's Quirk activated with surgical precision. Overhaul's remaining arm came off cleanly at the shoulder, severed, cauterized, and then ripped out of the restraints before it was dropped into a large biohazard bag before Chisaki could even scream William was already stitching the wounds with the same detached efficiency he used on test subjects. Blood barely hit the ground.
William looked in the bag and then at overhaul, "I could make some beautiful things with this"
Crane watched without blinking.
Overhaul's last facade of composure fell and he began to thrash and scream like an animal, the sound of a man comprehending the end his empire, his future, and dream vanish in seconds.
"You bastards—!" he snarled, voice cracking with fury and terror. "Those bullets… The knowledge to produce more of them lives entirely with me. Without my expertise the formula is dead, you understand that? You need me to—"
He stopped looking up to see Crane and William looking down on him like he was nothing.
"Then just kill me!" he screamed, voice breaking. "If you're going to throw me away like trash, then just kill me!"
Crane looked down at the broken man.
"You're right, I do need the knowledge," he said calmly.
"But I do not need you."
"There are things far scarier than death, Chisaki," he said, voice low and almost gentle.
"You're about to learn what it feels like to be nothing more than a resource, for as long as we decide you still have value."
Chisaki then saw William stab him with a syringe and the sedative went in and he looked back at Crane as he took off his mask and smiled.
"Enjoy your last time looking at the sky, your last time smelling air, your last time feeling the wind against your face"
"Because soon…"
He paused.
'Lets not ruin the surprise"
Overhaul thrashed harder for a few seconds and in his final moments before unconsciousness claimed him, his gaze found Eri.
She didn't look at him terrified of what was happening and clung to Ivy as she took her into another vehicle as the police and heroes were now a couple minutes away.
The vans split at the next interchange spreading out through the city for now to not draw attention.
Crane just started to relax until his phone buzzed, it was Jaina contacting him from back in Gotham.
"I know you're busy so I'll keep it brief, Garaki just made contact and since you're in Japan he wants a meeting."
Crane read the message twice, then answered he would look into it before putting it away.
Crane leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes for the first time since the raid began.
He thought of his mother, maybe he should pay her a visit and see if she would keep ignoring her hero instincts and judgment.
Crane looked out the window again at Osaka, a city who had just experienced their first day comparable to a Gotham afternoon.
He had the bullets, he had the mind behind the bullets under his soon to be absolute control, and he had the girl, Eri.
The heroes had fought with idealism and desperation, the yakuza fought to their death, the League had schemed for revenge and for each of them it had been-
All for nothing.