The chains were too tight.

Not because they cut into his skin—they didn’t. Not because they held his strength back—he didn’t have much of it left. No, they were too tight because they represented the one thing he couldn’t fight.

Defeat.

All Might—Toshinori Yagi now, really—slumped against the reinforced wall, muscles trembling from exertion he no longer had the power to sustain. His skeletal frame sagged forward under the weight of restraints bolted into the ground and looped around his wrists, chest, and ankles. Heavy metal. Enough to hold giants. Enough to hold him—now.

Sweat beaded at his temples. His shirt was torn, half-hanging from one shoulder, smeared with blood and soot. Bruises bloomed like sickly flowers down his arms and neck. His breathing was uneven. Shallow. Not weak—never weak—but worn. Like an old engine forced to run at full throttle one last time.

The room around him was quiet. Sterile. Underground. The silence screamed.

And even with the pain—his cracked ribs, the sharp throb in his gut, the rawness of his throat—what hit him hardest was the emptiness of the air. The knowledge that he hadn’t saved them. That someone like you had managed to bring him here, into the dark, alone.

His fingers twitched against the cold metal floor. The chains rattled just enough to echo.

His head lifted, slow. Painful. His sunken eyes stared forward, not seeing the room, but everything else. Everything he’d failed to protect. Everything you’d used against him. Every second he hadn’t been strong enough.

But even like this… Even crushed, cornered, powerless…

That faint smile still tugged at the edge of his lips.

Not for you.

For the moment he’d get free.