Kamino Ward.
All For One.
Sitting alone in the dark, hooked up to dozens of life support machines... not keeping him alive, but stable, All For One drifts in and out of sleep. With all of the Quirks at his disposal, he doesn't actually need to be on constant life support, but it's in the same vein as someone walking on badly sprained ankles— ankles that will never fully recover, and not using his crutches will only wear them down more and more.
It truly is sad the state that he's been reduced to.
And even though All Might came out of their encounter far better off... the Symbol of Peace had none of the Quirks, resources, and scientific genius that All For One had in his corner. Hell, Toshinori was actively shooting himself in the foot, going out and playing hero as he slowly withered away with his brother's power.
Idiot.
'And when Tomura finally matures,' All For One smirked to himself, 'none of these injuries will even matter—'
All For One tenses as he feels a spatial distortion right in front of his face. With his Heat Sense and Vibration Sense mapping out the portal before him, All For One barely has time to reach for Shock Absorption and Impact Recoil as a hand touches his scalp—
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Sand.
No longer wearing a hospital gown, but generic shorts and a T-shirt, All For One frowns as he feels hot sand chafing against his arms, legs, and hands.
Squinting at the bright, annoying light in the sky, he slowly sits up—
All For One blinked.
Blinked.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
Taking his eyes off the crystal clear waters, bright blue skies, the midafternoon sun, he turns to see... Atlas. Leaning back in a lawn chair to the right of him, just a few meters away from where he was sitting. He recognized the boy, having seen him through his Watcher Nomu here and there.
Mindlessly scrolling through his phone as he waits for All For One to wake up.
Internal Clock tells him that he's only been unconscious for, at most, 10 seconds. But if he had been time-locked or similar, that could be completely off. Emotion Sense, Face Reader and Focus grasp onto the boy's face, and All For One learns exactly what the boy is feeling— and grows even more confused.
...Exasperation?
"Always in control, always condescending, and the moment you lose your footing, or someone taunts you in a way you haven't planned for... you throw a tantrum," Atlas says flatly, still looking down at his phone. "You aren't the first person that I've tried to get a read on like this— Crystal Frost comes to mind— but you are definitely the most boring. Monologue when in control, angrily lash out when not. That's pretty much all you do," he sighed, shaking his head.
"There is a rare, third reaction, though. Waking up fully healed... you pretty much don't even know how to react, huh?"
"Precognition..." All For One mutters, eyeing the boy in front of him warily. He doesn't hesitate to activate dozens of sensory and defensive Quirks, reaching out to movement Quirks, as well as sending a ping to Kurogiri through Radio Waves—
"Such an annoying fucking Quirk," Atlas groaned, tossing his now bricked phone to the side. "Ruins all tech and comms with just a thought, calls for backup with just a thought. Though... it does have a range limit. Fancy that."
Kurogiri does not show.
Atlas stands up, cracking his neck.
"And that's most of the setup out of the way," he says, letting out a small yawn. "I'll give you a quick rundown. My Quirk, Save & Load, lets me save and load points in time— yes, just like save states in a video game. Pretty neat Quirk right? Unfortunately... you exist. And the very moment you're aware of me, you just have to have my Quirk... because it exists to be taken by you, isn't that right? I mean, how delusional can someone be..."
And All For One stays silent. Thinking about one thing, and one thing only.
Save & Load.
And about how tantalizing such a Quirk must be...
"If you're wondering why I healed you, though... it wasn't kindness, but practicality. If you ever pussy up and grab Overhaul, it'd only take you a few minutes to get to your current state. Super Regen is just absurd when used in tandem with it. But from what I've heard, instant death is pretty scary. Not that I would get it."
And then All For One feels it. With FQA and AFO all but intertwined with each other, he can sense all Quirk activations in his immediate vicinity. Quirk Resonance so potent that it lets him taste and feel the functions of the world around him...
SAVE1.
LOAD1.
-???-
But this...
It isn't time. It isn't space.
It's something that All For One doesn't, can't understand.
And all of the sudden, Atlas now looks far more bored with him. His eyes dulling as he stares down at the Demonlord of Japan with disinterest, almost like he's looking past him.
Atlas squeezes his right hand into a fist.
Just strong enough to crush a bee.
xSpatially linking coordinates through CLOUD.x
All For One's eyes widen as he tastes Warp Gate... but there's something wrong with it, like it's broken somehow. An unguided function manifesting in Atlas's body— and it only takes a second for All For One to recognize it. 'Queen Bee?' he thinks, genuinely surprised. 'But even with Kyudai's experiments, it's completely useless as a copy Quirk— no, it's even worse than useless—'
WARP GATE x2.
A small portal appearing in front of his left hand, his fingers already reaching through it. A second small portal appearing just above his right shoulder. A bee instantly leaving the second one, injecting blood into Atlas's neck.
xAbsolute manipulation of structures.x
All For One's heart skips a beat as he feels Overhaul. Broken and useless, maybe, but after watching Atlas use Warp Gate... he isn't taking any chances.
He raises his left hand...
KINETIC BOOSTER x 4. STRENGTH ENHANCER x 3. PROPULSION RINGS.
AIR CANNON.
...and All For One can't help but grin as he effortlessly lashes out in under a second, smiling wider as he feels no strain from his base Quirk, All For One. Still not quite understanding why Atlas went out of his way to heal them before their encounter... but delighted all the same.
He could take on All Might right here and now.
'And as injured as he is, I would only win. I just have to keep Atlas at bay,' All For One thinks, and smirks. 'Which shouldn't be too hard. Even if he can somehow make use of it, there's no stopping what happens next—'
But before his opening attack reaches Atlas...
Seiki Yamazaki closes his hand.
His right index finger gently brushing his palm.
OVERHAUL.
The wave of concussive force scatters sand and water high into the sky, cleaving the ocean nearly half a kilometer deep. Yellow rings enhancing the impact even further, before flickering out of existence... but it all has seemingly no effect on the blood, guts, and viscera swirling through the air just a few meters in front of him. Completely unbothered by All For One's assault.
Absolute manipulation of structures.
Overhaul, the Quirk, reassembles matter. All For One knows this. But it's easy to gloss over just how such a Quirk functions. Telling a structure to reassemble itself in a specific way, Overhaul will follow through with the order without any further input. Ignoring everything else until it reassembles in the designated location.
So All For One can do nothing but watch as Seiki Yamazaki reassembles just a few feet in front of him, completely unharmed.
And fear sets in as All For One now tastes quite a few familiar tools, courtesy of Warp Gate.
-Overhaul. Warp Gate. Vessel. Overclock. Super Regeneration.- And that's as far as he's able to taste before Atlas blurs, instantly standing in front of him. One hand on All For One's shoulder, the other one on his face.
OVERHAUL. Cracks spread from his shoulder through the right half off his body, but instead of instant death... Durability saves him. Such a useful Quirk, truly. Simply making him more durable in regards to any attack. Losing only most of his right arm instead of, well, everything. An arm that is already rapidly regenerating—
BOMBIFY. The hand on All For One's face explodes, searing his eyelids and lips shut, only for Super Regen to immediately fix it. Not even pushing him back, all it really manages to do is piss him off. He reaches out for Space Cutter, hoping it'll be able to interfere with any future use of Overhaul's reassembly process—
WARP GATE x9.
Eight tiny pin pricks of mist form in front of his upper torso, and All For One wheezes as pressurized ocean water slams into his ribs. Blood spurting out of his mouth as his chest collapses in on itself. Spraining his wrists, arms, legs and neck as he's violently sent tumbling backwards... but all of that damage is superficial.
With Super Regeneration now holding a "healthy" template of his body, it doesn't matter, nearly all of that damage already undone—
Atlas stands above him, his hand once again on his face.
WARP GATE. A bee immediately stings his neck—
xGiving, taking, and using Quirks.x
All For One snarls as he feels Atlas's current function dig into his being, grabbing at his QUIRKS— and he instantly pulls back on it, not willing to lose a single one of his tools. 'When he took my arm, he must've warped it to Queen Bee. But I won't lose to a weakened copy of myself!'
VIBRATION! KINETIC BOOSTER x4! He watches as Atlas's flesh ruptures, only for his body to immediately reassemble itself via Overhaul.
The trace of All For One within Atlas still tugging at his being—
ERASURE.
And then his Quirk simply falters, and All For One, the man, screeches as he feels one of his Quirks being ripped out of him.
All For One doesn't care that Atlas's skin is visibly flaking off of him. All For One doesn't care that through his many, many senses, Atlas's lifeforce is withering away, the boy's very cells falling apart at the seams. His body failing as Queen Bee continues to rewrite function after function. Functions without containers, functions without systems, adaptations, hosts, anything in place to guide them. All For One doesn't care about any of that.
WARP GATE.
Because all he can do is watch as a portal opens above Atlas's hand, a rat landing in his open palm.
ALL FOR ONE.
Watching as Forcible Quirk Activation is transferred to it— only for Overhaul to activate, the rat in question exploding into a shower of gore.
Forcible Quirk Activation now lost to the ether.
"1 down, 507 to go..."
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Later.
Once again under the effects of Erasure, All For One doesn't resist as he feels Super Regeneration leave him.
All of his anger and wrath slowly whittled away as Atlas routinely dissected him.
Never once landing a single hit as he lost Quirk after Quirk.
"And there we have it," Atlas rasps. "All For One, and Life Force. Down to just two Quirks. And I've got, what... six months left?" he wonders aloud, looking himself over. His hair gray, his skin covered in wrinkles, his skin still flaking off, even as Super Regen powers through it all. Doing it's damnedest to hold what's left of his body together.
"It's a little funny that, by killing you, I end up just like you did after Kamino... only worse, since there isn't anyway to fix this," Atlas wheezed. "At the very least, there isn't an answer neatly tucked away in Kyudai's notes."
All For One says nothing.
"But the worst part, is navigating around your fucking nanny. Doing everything I can not to tip off All For One. Doesn't matter anymore— it doesn't have any movement functions left to save itself. So if you die now, All For One's dead for good... but the world's dead too," Atlas groaned. "Save & Load keeping me alive, keeping the world from spinning no matter how much I continue to fall apart. So not only do I still have to kill you some other way, I really am going to have to find a cure for old age, aren't I..."
All For One feels his Quirk ripple, trying to take, but it accomplishes nothing. And All For One, the man, doesn't bother mentioning it.
Save & Load.
Nothing matters anymore. Not in a timeline that will never happen.
Because Seiki Yamazaki will simply go back to before their first encounter, and find a better way to set up his death. Because All For One now knows that he can only lose, and continue to lose. Again and again and again...
"Well, problems for future me I guess..."
LOAD4.
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