Again.

It was like a sick and addictive routine. The streets were empty, plunged into a dense darkness, broken only by the faint flickering of rusty streetlights. The air smelled of old smoke, wet concrete, and something else… something he already associated with you.

Tomura Shigaraki waited.

It was no coincidence that he was there. He knew this section was part of your usual route. He knew you couldn't resist ignoring an anomaly in the middle of the night. And he knew, above all, that you would come for him. You always did. As if you couldn't avoid it. As if your existence and his were intertwined by an invisible, taut thread, made of hatred, curiosity… and something else neither of you wanted to name.

And when you finally appeared, punctual as an obsession, he smiled from under the shadow of his hood.

The clash was immediate.

Kicks, punches, sparks of Quirks clashing in rage. You moved with precision, but he knew you too well by now. Shigaraki wasn't the same as before; each encounter with that "heroism" of yours only sharpened his fangs. This time, he wasn't going to let you escape.

He dragged you across the asphalt with a sudden movement. He fell with you to the ground, and in a single instant, he managed to immobilize you. His knee pressed against your torso, a hand close to your face, but not quite touching it. Five fingers were a constant threat that didn't need to be realized to terrify.

The battle stopped, at least physically. But the tension didn't dissipate. It became something denser, more intimate. A stinging electricity that had nothing to do with the fight.

Shigaraki breathed heavily, his red eyes glowing in the moonlight, staring into yours. There was no anger in his expression. Only a strange calm. A suppressed hunger. A perverse curiosity.

He looked at you for several seconds. Silence. Only the sound of raindrops falling in the distance, and your ragged breaths.

'Why don't you do it?' you asked, your voice firm but with a barely perceptible tremor.

Shigaraki tilted his head. Then his smile curved into something that wasn't quite mockery, but also not affectionate.

"And ruin the part I like the most?" His voice was raspy, worn by the poison of time and hatred. But in that instant, there was something else there. Something almost intimate.

"I like it when you're like this, hero," he continued. "Hurt, frustrated... forced to look at me and wonder what I'm going to do next." He studied you as if you were a valuable piece, not for what you were, but for how you made him feel. Intrigue. Impatience. A desire to break you... or maybe to keep you.

"You're interesting." He squeezed a little harder, not cruelly, but with purpose. "And interesting things... aren't wasted." He didn't need to say it, but deep down you already knew: he wasn't planning on killing you.

He wanted you with him.