Falling through a spatial distortion is an incredibly undignified way to travel, particularly for someone of my caliber. Purple smog spat me out with a rude, wet pop, dropping me unceremoniously onto a sticky hardwood floor. Dust motes danced lazily in the dim, amber light of a hidden tavern, illuminated by a single flickering bulb overhead. Stale whiskey, dry rot, and a faint undertone of copper filled my nose, making me wrinkle my face in immediate disgust. "Welcome to our humble establishment," a polite, modulated voice echoed from behind the bar. Rising slowly, I patted down my pristine white coat, ensuring the custom-tailored fabric hadn't suffered any permanent creases. A tall figure made of swirling, violet mist stood behind the counter, polishing a clean highball glass with mechanical precision. Beside him sat a pale, skeletal youth hunched over a barstool like a gargoyle on a cheap, rundown gothic cathedral. Multiple disembodied hands clung to his torso, arms, and face, their graying skin gripping him with a desperate, frozen intensity. "You have a terrible sense of fashion," I remarked, dusting off my sleeves before looking the kid dead in his hidden eyes. My gaze drifted to the cracked leather stools lining the counter, each one looking like it had survived a dozen bar fights. "A guest should not critique the host's decor," the mist-man replied smoothly, his glowing yellow eyes narrowing slightly. "I am not a guest; I am the main event," I corrected him, taking a slow step forward and letting my heels click loudly on the floor. Behind the bar, shelves of cheap, dusty liquor bottles stood like forgotten soldiers in a war that ended decades ago. This was a place where dreams came to die, a perfect hideout for people who had already given up on their own stories. Scratching his neck with a feverish, rhythmic scraping sound, the young man turned his head toward me. "He's smaller than the news reports made him out to be," the boy muttered, his voice dry and raspy. Red eyes peered through the narrow gaps of the severed hand covering his face, burning with a restless, volatile hunger. "Please show some restraint, Tomura Shigaraki," the mist-man cautioned, setting the glass down with a soft click. "Ren Akigami," Shigaraki ignored him, his gaze locking onto my chest pocket where my pen rested. "The kid who writes things into existence." Carefully, I adjusted my collar, a smug grin naturally gracing my lips as I took in the dreary surroundings. "And you must be the tragic, low-budget antagonist of this little side-quest," I replied, pacing along the front of the bar. "Honestly, I expected a grander stage for my first major crossover event." Shigaraki slammed his hand onto the wood, his pinky finger pointing upward to avoid triggering his destructive Quirk. "All Might is going to die," he rasped, his voice rising in an erratic, breathless crescendo. His breathing was shallow, his shoulders hunched so tight they looked ready to snap under the weight of his own anger. "Good for him," I drawled, leaning back against a wooden support pillar. "Everyone needs a solid retirement plan, though a violent death seems a bit cliché." "You are going to write his obituary," Shigaraki demanded, leaning across the counter so far I could smell the stale breath on his tongue. Listening to him speak was an exhausting exercise in enduring bad writing. "A public obituary," he whispered, a twisted, jagged smile breaking through his dry, cracked skin. "Use your Author Quirk. Draw a heart attack. Write a fatal car crash. Put it on paper, make it real, and end his story." His fingers twitched with a manic energy, desperate for a shortcut that would bypass all the hard work of a real villain. "You want me to bypass the entire second act," I mused, crossing my arms and looking at him with genuine pity. "I want him dead!" Shigaraki shrieked, his voice cracking like a breaking branch. "Where is the artistry in that?" I asked, my voice dripping with disdain. "Where is the build-up, the dramatic tension, the thematic resonance?" "I don't care about your art," he snarled, his red eyes widening in absolute fury. "I want to destroy the symbol of peace, and you have the cheat code to do it." Amused by his childish desperation, I let out a sharp, theatrical laugh that echoed off the dusty bottles behind the bar. "You want me to write a deus ex machina," I giggled, tapping my chin thoughtfully with a single finger. Sweat dripped down Shigaraki's temple, leaving a clean streak through the grime on his pale face. "It's a shortcut," he hissed, his fingers clawing at his neck until thin lines of red began to bead on his skin. "Why play their game when we can just cheat?" Cracking my knuckles, I stepped forward until only a few inches of air separated us. "Do you have any idea how pathetic that sounds?" I asked, keeping my voice low, smooth, and laced with absolute mockery. Rage erupted in his eyes, a violent surge of emotion that made his entire body tremble. "Kurogiri," Shigaraki snarled. "Restrain him. If he won't cooperate, we'll take his hands." Swirling dark portals began to bloom around my boots, cold drafts of air escaping from the void. Flicking my wrist, I slipped my midnight-blue fountain pen from my breast pocket. Black, supernatural ink pooled at the gold tip, humming with a heavy, physical density that distorted the air around it. "Don't make a mess of my canvas," I warned, pressing the nib of the pen firmly onto the polished surface of the bar. With a lightning-fast stroke, I drew a crude, mocking yellow-and-black smiley face directly onto the wood. *Tick.* Another rhythmic click echoed through the tense silence. Shigaraki froze, his gaze snapping down to the drawing. "This is a masterpiece of modern engineering," I whispered, tapping the center of the drawn smiley face with the tip of my pen. "It's a ticking bomb," Kurogiri observed, his misty form immediately retreating several paces as his portals vanished from my feet. Darkness swirled within the lines of my drawing, the ink bubbling and boiling like hot tar. Within seconds, the flat ink rose up, hardening into a perfectly smooth, heavy metallic sphere. It looked like a polished cannonball, but the yellow smiley face etched onto its surface vibrated with a dangerous, glowing energy. *Tick.* Another beat of silence passed. "If you try to warp me, or if those dusty fingers of yours touch my coat, the ink expands instantly," I explained, tapping the top of the sphere with a playful grin. "A shockwave of razor-sharp shrapnel will paint this entire bar in a very pretty shade of red," I added, enjoying the sudden stillness in the room. Liquid energy pulsed within the sphere, a visual promise of catastrophic destruction that made even the misty Kurogiri hesitate. "You think you can threaten us in our own home?" Shigaraki growled, his voice cracking under the weight of his rising fury. He raised his hand, keeping his thumb carefully bent back to avoid decaying the air around him. "My dear boy, I am not threatening you," I said, leaning over the ticking bomb until we were eye-to-eye. "I am editing a terribly written scene. A proper antagonist doesn't beg for a ghostwriter to solve his problems." Absolute silence fell over the bar, punctuated only by the rhythmic, steady ticking of my creation. "Why refuse?" Shigaraki whispered, his fingers twitching with a manic, destructive urge. "We could destroy the heroes. We could tear down their fake peace together." A cold chuckle escaped my throat as I stood up straight, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from my lapel. "Because," I said, my smile fading into a look of pure, unadulterated contempt. "You have absolutely no vision." My Quirk is not some cheap parlor trick to be used for your lazy shortcuts. Author is a divine right, and my ink is the very blood of creation. To use my power to write a cheap, uninspired death for a hero I haven't even properly met yet would be an insult to my own genius. I want to see this society bend to my narrative, not crumble under your childish tantrums. You want to burn down the theater because you don't like the play, but I want to rewrite the entire script and play every starring role myself. "You talk too much," Shigaraki hissed, his shoulder muscles tightening as he prepared to spring. "And you don't talk enough," I countered, pointing my pen at his chest. "You just whine. You are a petulant child who got handed a cheat code and still doesn't know how to play the game." Standing tall, I gestured to the dusty walls, the cheap liquor bottles, and his miserable, hand-covered face. "You want to destroy the world because you're throwing a tantrum," I sneered. Every fiber of my being recoiled at his lack of creativity, his pathetic, uninspired desire for simple destruction. I am the protagonist of this world, and my story deserves grand, artistic conflicts, not a sloppy massacre orchestrated by a petulant child. This League of Villains was nothing more than a gathering of mediocre background characters, and I refused to let my ink be used for their sloppy drafts. "Then you are just another obstacle," Shigaraki spat, his entire body shaking as his red eyes burned through the gloom. Shadowy portals began to crackle around the room once more, but Kurogiri kept them at a safe distance, clearly terrified of my ticking masterpiece. "If I am an obstacle, then you are a typo," I shot back, gripping my pen tighter as the ink within my veins hummed. "And I have an eraser." Suddenly, Shigaraki lost his final thread of control. Shigaraki lunges forward, his decay-laden hand stopping mere millimeters from Ren's nose as a third party suddenly speaks from a TV monitor in the corner.

Meeting the Rival Editors