Location: Italy
Date: Sunday | 10:00 AM
The long mahogany table was way too big for a fourteen-year-old girl.
Anna sat at the head of it anyway. She wore a simple dark dress.
She stared at the empty plates, her eyes looking heavy and incredibly tired.
A man in a sharp suit walked into the room. He put his phone in his pocket and stopped right next to her chair.
"Ma'am," the man said softly. "We got the confirmation. The Scervinos made it out during the raid. Your parents and some of your guards crossed the border safely. They asked for asylum at a European hero agency."
Anna closed her eyes.
Haaaaah.
She let out a long, shaky breath. She gripped the edge of the table.
For a second, she just let herself feel it. The heavy, suffocating weight on her chest finally went away.
They were alive. They got out.
She opened her eyes again. The relief faded fast. Cold, hard anger took its place.
She looked down at the floor in front of her.
Paulo Gollini was kneeling on the expensive rug.
His hands were tied tight behind his back. Sweat dripped down his nose and hit the floor.
"You look terrified, Paulo," Anna said. Her voice was totally flat.
"Anna, listen to me, please," Paulo begged. His voice was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out. "I didn't have a choice! It was Valdo's order! He needed your quirk to get stronger."
Anna tilted her head. "And?"
"The monsters!" Paulo cried, pulling against his ropes. "Humility ripped people in half with his bare hands! Diligence was moving so fast that our grunts were dead before they could even blink! I thought they were going to kill me! I gave your information to them to live! And beside All For One, I mean the master,already made you the boss of the entire mafia after he found out about your power!"
Anna stood up from the big chair. She walked around the table and stood right in front of him.
"Do you know what it smells like in that underground room, Paulo?" Anna asked quietly. "It smells like bleach and iron. I spent a year and a half down there. The doctors stuck needles in my arms every single day. I screamed until my throat bled because of my quirk. And you sat up here drinking wine."
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"You held me prisoner so you guys could get stronger. You killed my people and harmed my parents," Anna said. She crouched down to his eye level. "I'm the boss now. So I'm giving it back."
She placed her small hand flat against his sweaty forehead.
She activated her Overmodification quirk.
Before, doing this to someone incompatible would have sent blinding, agonizing pain straight into her own brain.
It would have dropped her to the floor screaming.
But she had taken the newly boosted God Serum. Fueled by a thousand-percent upgrade, and she had also entered a covenant with All For One.
She didn't feel a single drop of pain. Not only had her original quirk gotten stronger, but she could also tap into the quirks All For One had given Charity
"GAAAHHH!"
Paulo screamed at the top of his lungs. His eyes rolled back into his head.
Anna ruthlessly grabbed onto his quirk factor inside his body and twisted it.
A dark, red aura, a sliver of Charity's gifted power, wrapped around her fingers as she pushed into Paolo's mind.
Overmodification before can only improve the quirks of others, not the other way around. But now she can take back the boost as long as she was higher ranked than the other.
Anna was part of the abyssal covenant, while Paolo was part of the depths covenant.
She completely scrambled his biological pathways, permanently taking his boosted modification away behind a wall of twisted nerves.
She pulled her hand back.
THUD.
Paulo collapsed face-first onto the rug. He was completely knocked out, his legs twitching slightly.
Anna stood up. She wiped her hand on her dress. She didn't smile. She just felt empty.
"A very fitting punishment."
Charity stepped out from the corner of the room.
He wore his usual neat suit. His face was calm and pleasant.
The mafia guards in the room immediately looked down at the floor. None of them knew he was a clone.
They just saw a terrifying, high-ranking boss who answered directly to the Master.
"Are we done up here, Anna?" Charity asked gently.
"We're done," Anna said. She didn't even look at Paulo. "Take him outside and dump him somewhere. I don't want to see his face."
"You can punish them, the way you want but don't overdo it, after all Master has still uses for them," Charity smiled and gestured toward the hallway. "Then we should go check on the progress downstairs."
*-*-*-*
Location: Underground Laboratory
The lower levels of the mansion were completely gutted. It was a massive, high-tech lab now.
Surviving mafia doctors in white coats ran back and forth, checking pressure valves on giant steel vats and writing notes on clipboards.
In the middle of the room, Valdo was leaning over a large drafting table.
The former boss of the Gollini family looked like a complete mess.
His sleeves were rolled up, and his hands were covered in severe chemical burns and rapidly healed over and over. He glared at the huge blueprint in front of him.
Flect Turn stood right next to him.
He wore dark tactical gear. A fresh, dark Abyssal Covenant mark sat clearly on his neck.
He had taken Charity's blood just recently, and now he can't escape from All For One.
"The yield is terrible," Flect said coldly, pointing a blue finger at the paper. "If you drop this in the middle of a city, the blast radius barely covers ten blocks. The Master wants a total disaster, Valdo. Not a firecracker."
Valdo gritted his teeth. He slammed his burned hand on the table.
BANG.
"I'm working on it!" Valdo snapped. He glared at the blue-skinned man. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to synthesize a chemical explosive this big? I have to manually alter the molecular structure of the compounds with my bare hands! And combine it with countless quirks that can trigger man-made disasters"
Charity is supplying him with quirk factors in vials, and Valdo is using Alchemy to fuse the biology with the explosive chemicals.
"You took the serum, didn't you?" Flect shot back. He wasn't impressed at all. "Your alchemy quirk is boosted by a thousand percent now. Stop complaining and change the atomic weight of the core."
Valdo sneered at him. He raised his hands.
A bright, blinding light sparked between his palms.
He grabbed a solid block of lead sitting on the edge of the table.
ZAAAAAP.
The lead instantly warped. It hissed loudly and turned into a glowing, highly volatile red crystal.
Valdo carefully picked it up with heavy iron tongs and dropped it into a thick glass jar.
"The core is stable," Valdo muttered, wiping sweat off his chin. "If I pack the outer shell with kinetic absorbers, the explosion won't just be fire. The shockwave will cause a localized earthquake. I just need to scale the materials up."
CLACK. CLACK.
Charity and Anna walked down the metal stairs.
Valdo and Flect immediately stopped arguing and stood up straight.
"Scale it up as much as you can." Anna coldly said, walking over to the drafting table.
"Is there a deadline?" Valdo asked nervously.
"No," Charity who was standing behind Anna replied. "But the Master wants his arsenal expanded. Your quirk is a massive asset now. It would be a complete waste to let it sit idle. Build the bomb, so that it can be stacked with other quirks during the explosion. Keep building them until Miss Anna tells you to stop."
*-*-*-*
Location: Might Tower – Underground Facility
Date: 2:00 PM (Nine Days Later)
CLANG.
Recovery Girl slammed her small cane hard against the metal desk in the control room.
She was absolutely furious.
"I am not a miracle worker, you reckless kid!" she yelled, pointing a wrinkled finger right at Kaito's chest. "He is a fifty-years old man! You are treating him like a crash-test dummy!"
Kaito didn't flinch or look away. He sat in his padded chair, his eyes fixed on the live medical monitors.
"I know it's hard on you, Chiyo-san," Kaito said, his voice respectful but firm. "I really do. But look at the numbers. His core temperature is holding. He's doing it."
"Doing it?!" Recovery Girl threw her hands up. "Do you remember the first day? He tried to hold this ridiculous training and he barely lasted four minutes! His muscle fibers were literally peeling off his bones! If I wasn't standing right there to kiss him, his arms would have exploded before he can enter the bio-med tank!"
Principal Nezu sat on a tall stool nearby. He took a slow sip of his tea.
"But he didn't explode, Chiyo," Nezu noted quietly. He looked through the reinforced glass, his black eyes full of intense fascination. "Remarkable, isn't it? The human body will adapt to anything if the alternative is total destruction. By day five, he pushed the hold to ten hours. The wind pressure alone was tearing the wall panels off, but his body held together."
Gran Torino stood near the door, chewing aggressively on a hard candy. He was sweating just watching the floor.
"Stop babying him, Chiyo," Torino grunted, gripping his wooden cane tight. "He's pushing past the wall. This is exactly what he asked for."
Out on the training floor, the gravity generators were screaming at maximum output.
VMMMMMM.
All Might was on his knees.
He was in the middle of a massive, pulverized crater. The concrete around him was just dust now.
He wasn't holding a focused smash on his chest or his back anymore.
He was holding the United States of Smash.
The absolute, strongest attack of One For All.
Instead of throwing it, he was cloaking his entire massive body in it. It was a continuous, suffocating armor of pure, unadulterated destruction.
"PLUUS ULTRAA!"
All Might roared through the pain.
A solid, blinding dome of red and black lightning whipped violently around his skin.
The sheer heat and pressure radiating off him made the air in the room wave and distort like a mirage.
"Keep the output steady, All Might!" Kaito shouted into the microphone. "Do not let the energy spike! Let it burn into your muscles!"
Nezu looked down at the digital timer on the desk.
"Seventeen hours and fifty-eight minutes," Nezu said softly.
Torino pressed his hand against the thick glass. "Don't you dare drop it now, Toshinori!"
Out in the crater, All Might was bleeding from his mouth. His vision was completely blurred.
Every single nerve in his body was screaming at him to just let go. To drop the pressure and pass out.
But he held it. He gritted his bloody teeth and remembered the warm voice waiting for him in the dark void.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The eighteen-hour alarm finally rang through the room.
"Time!" Kaito shouted, instantly slamming the master kill switch.
FWUMPH.
The heavy gravity died.
All Might cut the power in the exact same second. The terrifying red and black dome vanished into thin air.
SKRRT.
All Might heard a loud, heavy sound deep inside his own chest.
It didn't sound like a rib breaking. It's more like something opened.
His eyes rolled back into his head.
His body completely hollowed out. Every single drop of strength he had left the building.
All Might started to fall backward, aiming straight for the hard, dusty floor.
Swish.
But he didn't fall right away.
For a tiny, split second, All Might's massive body gently floated.
He hovered about two inches off the ground, completely weightless. Then, gravity caught back up with him.
THUD.
He hit the dirt hard.
Nezu and Torino didn't notice the float. They were already moving because he collapsed.
But Kaito saw it. His eyes widened slightly behind his golden glasses.
"Get out there!" Torino yelled, shoving the heavy door open.
SWISSH.
Recovery Girl was already sprinting. She rushed out onto the dusty, ruined training floor as fast as her small legs could carry her.
She reached All Might, grabbed his face, and kissed his cheek.
SHMOOCH.
A massive surge of stamina rushed right into All Might's exhausted body.
It wasn't enough to heal the deep muscle strain and damage, but it was enough to jumpstart his brain.
Recovery Girl sat back in the dirt.
HUFF. PUFF.
She wiped the heavy sweat from her wrinkled forehead. "I'm getting too old for this."
"Ooh" All Might groaned. His eyes fluttered open slowly.
Before he could even try to lift his head, Kaito was kneeling in the dirt right next to him.
"Don't move, All Might," Kaito said quickly, keeping his voice low. "Don't get in the tank yet."
All Might blinked, confused.
"Your body is completely hollow right now," Kaito told him, his eyes completely serious. "Close your eyes. Meditate. We are proceeding directly with the psychological training now."
All Might looked at him, realizing exactly what Kaito meant.
He didn't argue.
He closed his eyes, let his body go totally limp, and let his breathing slow down into a deep, steady rhythm.
*-*-*-*
Location: The Quirk Plane
It was dark.
All Might opened his eyes. He wasn't in the basement anymore.
He was standing in a strange, newly formed misty city. The buildings were blurry. The sky was pitch black.
He looked down at his hands. They weren't bruised or bleeding.
He was fully healed, standing in his prime muscular form.
"Toshinori?"
All Might froze.
He slowly turned around.
Standing a few feet away was a woman with dark hair tied back in a half-bun.
She wore a dark cape and a white hero costume. She had a small mole under her lip.
Nana Shimura.
She looked exactly the same as the day she died.
But she looked confused, rubbing her head like she just woke up from a terrible, long nap.
The Symbol of Peace vanished.
THUD.
All Might dropped straight to his knees. He covered his face with his massive hands. His shoulders shook hard.
"I ran away," All Might choked out. His voice was messy and broken. "I just left you there. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Master."
"...."
Nana's eyes watered.
She ran over and dropped to her knees right in front of him.
She grabbed his massive head and pulled him into her shoulder, wrapping her arms tight around him.
"Shut up," Nana cried softly, rubbing his back. "Stop apologizing. You lived. That's all I wanted."
All Might hugged her back, crying into her cape.
"I was asleep, Toshinori," Nana whispered, her voice shaking. "For years. We didn't have a room in here. We were just asleep in the dark. I only saw you through a foggy window. Just tiny, blurry flashes of you smiling and saving people. But I saw enough. You held the whole world up. I'm so proud of you."
After a few minutes, she pulled back. She wiped her eyes and gave him a bright smile.
"Come on," Nana said, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. "There's some guys you need to meet. They just woke up too."
She led him through the mist.
There were no chairs yet. Six men were just standing around in the fog, looking at their own glowing hands in absolute shock.
A frail, white-haired man with kind eyes looked up first.
"Hello, All Might," Yoichi Shigaraki said. He gave a small, awkward bow. "I am the First. All For One is my older brother. He locked me in a vault until he forced a certain quirk on me and miraculously it fused to my original one. I never thought anyone would take One For All this far. Thank you."
A tough-looking man with spiky hair and a scar across his face grinned and crossed his arms.
"Name's Kudo. Second user," he grunted. "I broke Yoichi out of that vault. You got crazy grit, kid."
A rugged man nodded right next to him.
"Bruce. Third," he said. "I fought right beside Kudo. When he went down, I took it and hid it to keep us alive—"
"DAHA!"
A massive, bald man with a wild beard jumped forward and cut Bruce off.
SMACK.
He slapped All Might hard on the back.
"I'm Daigoro Banjo! Fifth user!" Banjo yelled, laughing loud. "I pulled the quirk out of the woods and brought it back to the fight! Man, you are huge compared to us!"
A quiet man with scars on his face gave a small wave from the back.
"Shinomori. Fourth," he said softly. He pointed at the side of his own head. "Holding this power for years aways from All For One literally cracked my skull. It killed me young."
A man with a high collar covering the lower half of his face sighed heavily. He rubbed his eyes.
"En. Sixth user," he said. He looked at Banjo. "And please, stop yelling. I just woke up."
All Might looked at all of them. He was totally overwhelmed.
"I don't get it," All Might said, looking at Yoichi. "Why now? Why couldn't I talk to you guys for years?"
"Because One For All was just a stockpile of raw physical power," Yoichi explained. "The core was too small. Our minds were just sleeping embers buried at the absolute bottom of it. We fully thought the next guy, the Ninth user, after you would be the one to finally make the core overflow."
Kudo laughed loudly. "But you didn't pass it! You just stood in a basement and literally expanded the physical vessel yourself! Weeks of holding your smash? Absolute madness!"
En stepped forward. He scratched the back of his neck, looking highly fascinated.
"The physical training gave us room to breathe today, sure," En said. "But guys, that isn't what woke us up the first time."
"....."
The others went quiet.
En looked at All Might. "Through the fog, we only saw bits and pieces of that manager kid of yours. Smart kid, bad quirk rejection, right? But that drink he gave you last week... that wasn't a normal drink."
All Might frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It felt like an absolute command," En said, his eyes wide. "It didn't follow the rules of a quirk. It was like someone bypassed reality itself just to shock us awake for a split second. That Kaito kid... how did he do that?"
Before En could think too hard about it, Banjo grabbed him.
RUB. RUB. RUB.
Banjo threw a heavy arm around En's neck and gave him a rough noogie, messing up his hair.
"Who cares how he did it, En!" Banjo laughed. "The kid's a genius! He fixed our boy!"
"Banjo's right," Kudo chuckled. "Drop the conspiracy theories. The manager trained him so much."
En groaned, pushing Banjo off and fixing his hair, but he was smiling a little bit. "Fine. But it's crazy."
The group settled down. Nana walked up to All Might.
"Well," Nana smiled. "At least we finally get to talk."
"It's more than that," All Might said. He looked at Nana, then at the others. "Right before I passed out... I felt it... I didn't hit the floor immediately. I hovered in the air for a second."
The Vestiges went dead silent.
"....."
GASP.
Nana covered her mouth. Yoichi's eyes went wide as dinner plates. They were just as shocked as All Might.
Because they just woke up, they didn't know their quirks could be used either.
"The core just broke past the singularity," Yoichi whispered in pure shock.
Banjo cracked a massive, feral grin.
CRACK.
"The power didn't just overflow," Banjo laughed loud, cracking his knuckles. "You ready for some new tricks, big guy? Because all of our quirks belong to you now."
*-*-*-*
Location: Might Tower – Underground Facility
It was late at night. The control room was dead quiet.
Recovery Girl had already packed up and gone home. She had burned way too much stamina trying to keep up with the group for the past week.
Nezu sat on a stool, staring at a cold cup of tea. Gran Torino paced back and forth, his wooden cane tapping the floor.
Kaito sat in his chair, quietly scrolling through his tablet.
On the medical bed in the corner, All Might finally opened his eyes.
He slowly sat up. His muscles ached deep in his bones, but his posture was totally different.
The heavy, suffocating weight he had carried on his chest for decades was just... gone. He felt impossibly light.
"Bout time," Torino grunted, stopping in the middle of the room. He leaned forward, squinting. "How're you feeling, Toshinori?"
All Might looked at his old teacher. He didn't answer right away. He just let out a massive, genuine laugh.
"Hahaha! Like a brand new man, Sensei," All Might smiled. "I met them. All of them."
Nezu's black eyes went wide. "Who? The previous users? You actually spoke to them?"
"Yeah," All Might nodded eagerly. "The First User... turns out he's All For One's younger brother. And En, the sixth user was there too."
Torino froze. "En? The guy with the high collar?" Torino shook his head, looking amazed. "I haven't heard that name since he passed the quirk to Nana. They're really all just living in there?"
"They were asleep this whole time," All Might explained. "The core of the quirk was too small. But because of the crazy training Kaito put me through... the physical vessel expanded. The core finally overflowed today, and it woke them all up."
Nezu leaned forward, his tail twitching. "You forced the quirk past its natural threshold through sheer physical trauma. Incredible."
"But it didn't just overflow," All Might said. He looked down at his own massive hands. "It unlocked the vault completely. I have six new quirks."
COUGH. COUGH.
Torino violently choked on his hard candy. He hacked, hitting himself in the chest.
CLINK.
Nezu jumped, knocking his teacup over. The cold tea spilled all over the metal desk.
"Six?!" Torino gasped, his eyes bugging out.
All Might nodded. He slowly stood up from the bed to show them.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and concentrated.
FWISH.
All Might's giant body lifted right off the floor. He floated five centimeters in the air, hovering completely weightless over the concrete.
CLATTER.
Gran Torino's wooden cane hit the ground.
The grumpy old man just stared. His jaw dropped.
Thick tears instantly welled up in his eyes as he looked at his best friend's quirk in action.
"Nana..." Torino whispered, his voice cracking completely. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "You brought her back, kid."
All Might dropped back to the floor. He smiled softly at his teacher, then looked across the room at Kaito.
Kaito was just sitting quietly, watching them.
All Might remembered what En said in the mist. But he looked at the twenty something years old kid sitting in front of him. This kid changed his life. Kaito gave him his Master back. Banjo was right, drop the conspiracy theories.
All Might pushed En's suspicion away completely.
Step. Step.
All Might walked over. He just reached out and put his massive hand on Kaito's shoulder, giving it a firm, grateful squeeze.
"You did it, Kaito-shonen," All Might said quietly, his voice full of real emotion. "You actually made me stronger. You changed my life."
Kaito looked up, adjusting his glasses. He gave a small smile. "We did it together, All Might."
"No, this was you," All Might insisted. He pulled his hand back and let out a heavy sigh. "But I'm going to be greedy and ask for more, Kaito-shonen. And I've got six new powers that I have absolutely no idea how to use."
All Might looked him right in the eyes.
"I need you to stick around," All Might asked earnestly. "Extend the contract. Help me figure this out."
Kaito looked at the giant hero. His smile grew a little wider.
He stood up and shook All Might's hand.
"You couldn't get rid of me if you tried," Kaito said. "Contract extended. We've got a lot of work to do."
.....
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(9 Advanced Chapters)