"—Now, I've been meaning to ask you… how do you know that name? You said All For One, correct?" The large man questioned with interest.
Tōya's words were a gurgled slur, All For One was looking at him with a thin veneer of intrigue and annoyance. He wasn't quite sure. He was too low on oxygen and his brain was dying so he couldn't think clearly as the crime lord repeated his question while he held him up to the sky. Tōya's arm was too weak to get to his pocket… H-he was dying.
Todoroki's short breaths were shallow as he gasped for air, desperate and hungry, the unblemished parts of his skin purpled as he strained to move.
His brow was taut, blue wet eyes almost rolled up behind his skull from it all.
—he couldn't breathe!
All For One sighed in exasperation as he softened the hold he had on his throat. The spotlights of the helicopters veered off in their direction, locking onto their direction as soon as they were sighted. The old man closed his eyes for a moment to think, and then he snapped his finger above his shoulder with his free hand.
A shocking volley of energy lit up the sky.
The whine of the rotors was replaced with the explosions, they were muddied on account of the ringing in his ears, Tōya felt deafened and blind as his vision became covered in dark spots.
The crime lord clicked his tongue, as he shook his head, tsk-ing at the boy.
"Unfortunately for you, my abilities do not transcend the boundaries of death. At this rate you'll no doubt perish without my assistance… before I can sate my curiosity." he whispered in a low voice to Tōya's face.
A deep dark chuckle escaped him as the boy feebly fought for life. Shigaraki dropped his hold on Tōya's blistering neck as he looked into his weak eyes from below. The boy fell in front of Zen, face to face like a puppet with its strings cut.
"I'm feeling somewhat nostalgic. You've earned this I'm sure, but it doesn't come without its repercussions."
In that quick drop the demon lord instead took two seconds to crush the front of Tōya's skull in a vice grip before he hit the ground. Wrenching his spine in two directions from the instant stop from freefall. Todoroki jerked in a dwindling futile struggle against the tightening hold of steel. The crime lord laughed at that, as he re-lived the glories of old times past in his mind.
"It's a pittance, more of a consolation prize, but it will have to do," he jeered.
The dead wisps of a dark red miasma coiled around them both. In an instant Tōya felt everything go wrong, his blood curdled in a way that he could not put into words, never mind the racing emotions in his head. Plumes of blood-red energy emerged between their souls.
One unwilling and the other demanding.
The glow became blinding even when the palm of All For One's hand obscured his vision.
The sensation was horrendous, as if the cells within his body protested with every dwindling fiber of their being. He kicked with his good leg, but he couldn't muster whatever strength he had. He wasn't sure what hurt more, this or his first "death" on that damn cursed mountain.
He burned as kindling, helpless and alone.
And then the torture continued. Jagged tendrils of black and red jabbed into his stomach like bullets. Digging and prodding into his broken form. He felt his quirk activate despite his quirk factor running out, willing his body to work when he had nothing left to give, his blood sugar dropped and he was trembling. At last the crimson rivets dug into the foreign material that kept him from breathing in the confusing mess of his chest. A heavy deep pull ripped him in two, and the little drop of his energy escaped him with a last gasp.
Tōya gasped with a short wheeze… he was losing consciousness, he was dying and he couldn't stop it.
—No, no, no! I don't want to die.
I never got to apologize to mother, I couldn't get to see Fuyumi or Natsuo.
He wanted to apologize to Shoto again. It wasn't his younger brother's fault, and he still held a grudge against the little kid no matter how many times he tried to rationalize it away.
He couldn't even tell his… his idol, the infuriating man, the man he wanted to grow up to be.
The one who he hated with all his being, who he wanted to show that his existence wasn't a mistake. That even with his quirk as it was, he could become the greatest hero that ever lived.
The thought was so naive that it vexed him even as his lifeblood ebbed. They were right to doubt him, he was dying even when Phosphor did everything it could to cool his body down. It was his mother's precious gift, when he finally decided to consciously use it for whatever little good was left in this evil world. How could he be a hero when he couldn't even do this? His mind flash backed to the damn iron cage, when he refused to look his mother in the eye in that dark cell of a room.
Separated by reinforced glass and his ineptitude, he could still hear how she wistfully recounted the sight of a flower made in ice, blooming from his chest. As his family did everything in their power and then some to stop him before he killed them all. It brought him to tears, he was ashamed, and he rebuffed them as he died a death worse than a dog's.
He couldn't feel a thing and the world was a dark pit of nothingness around him, he had lost consciousness…
—When this fucked up world grated him and spat him out for the first time. He saw the hypocrisy of society, the dirty little secrets of the Hero Public Safety Commission. When he dug into hidden files and well kept untold stories. From Re-Destro's archives that their dirty heroes had smuggled out from the HPSC. Child soldiers that were indoctrinated, pointed and corralled with a carrot on a stick and a tight leash. A red hawk and a multicolored bullet flashed before his eyes.
Their little cleansing operations, killing off the weak willed fake heroes in secret. Putting down dissidents who threatened this false status quo.
The fool's gold vanity of heroes, they became commodities and celebrities. And they couldn't handle reality when it bit back. Swans and peacocks, preening like they actually made a difference. When some evildoer was just too strong, or a disaster was just too much to handle, it was easier to feign selective blindness. Or give up when it got too tough.
Instead, they rushed to the easy pickings like vultures to a dead horse. Those damn false heroes congregated to the pretty places, to the affluent areas, waiting for the paparazzi to show up to congratulate them on a job well done. And they left areas like Naruhata and Kamagasaki to fend for themselves.
And then he was proven correct on that fateful day when the world went to hell and everyone was fending for themselves. After he gave his televised hate filled speech atop Gigantomachia's back… that, he no longer believed in. And he showed Japan, that this… this was what they had raised up, a dying corpse of lies.
He's seen it, more times than he can count. When he skulked in the shadows, quietly padding through the underworld, it never ended. Not when All Might was around and not when he was gone. When people and families became ugly behind closed doors. A single man could not be everywhere. It was insanity, to put so much onto one man's shoulders. One day that man would die, if not by All For One then by old age and natural causes.
Where had the money gone? Where was the assistance for the disenfranchised? Probably funneled into some corrupt official's pocket.
People like Toga couldn't get the help they needed, where were the school advisors? The wellness centers? …The quirk councilors? She was a kid and she couldn't understand the world around her when it wasn't made for her. Maybe her parents were too unequipped for raising a child like her, too inept? No, they definitely were… when they branded her a demon and they threw her out publicly after she broke for the first time and the story made news.
His bone-dry mouth split into a manic grin. But what did he do? Dabi merely burned her empty childhood home as a token assistance. So she wouldn't wallow away like he had… when he first woke up from his coma. He didn't really help her, and he couldn't, not when he was so screwed in the head himself.
Dabi couldn't pull her out of the hole she walked into, he just told her to ignore the issue. As if she wasn't already trapped in the same struggle he had been trying to crawl himself out of. It didn't matter whether someone laughed or cried, the next day would come regardless. And that was reality, so it was better to laugh and have fun in this dreary world, while you still had the chance.
That's how he kept himself sane until he faced Endeavor.
Another face, a masked monochromatic visage flashed before his spotty eyes.
Fucking bastard's, an orphan because a villain killed his parents and screwed over by a repeat customer who held a grudge. Strung out like garbage when he was innocent with honest work, and without connections to start again. Where was the safety net? When Jin scurried into the pits of the criminal underworld as a petty crook, strung along until his metal issues cooked his brain.
The rehabilitation… the helping hand? That's what the heroes preached.
If he was being honest with himself, he was no different from the scum he mocked.
He took advantage of Twice when he needed him most, Dabi had gone too far.
…No he couldn't rationalize it away as some unrelated persona, he was that villain and those sins carried over.
Dabi had willingly jumped off the deep end, and he no longer saw the cowering man for what he was and instead he saw him for the opportunity that he became. When Hawks drove that killing blow and he so desperately wanted to laugh and cry at the irony as he let it happen. He knew the man was too loyal to the Hero Public Safety Commission. He'd never turn, but he let Twice get too close to him as he observed with glee.
How Dabi —H…how he drove himself to satiate that forever unfilling lust for revenge.
—It never ended.
…He was a bastard and Tōya knew he was the worst of them.
Or Shuichi, a lone heteromorph adrift, when his classmates spat at him and looked down on him as the other. Confined to his room like a dog, too afraid to leave for fear of unprompted violence.
When he was looked at as if he were a villain waiting to happen. The damn Creature Rejection Clan, they were the most vocal minorities out in the countryside. But he saw the way people looked at those different from them. He'd gotten some of the same looks on account of his ruined face and the way he dressed. The protests that sprung up because an employer didn't like the unconventional way you looked. They needed someone relatable, conventionally attractive.
It was veiled in that easy politeness, you didn't fit the job description.
A villain's look… a creature's look, an evil look, they were just too chicken-shit to spell it out.
He burned brighter at the hate that coursed within, the smolder that cooked at his core.
He did nothing for Spinner, it wasn't his problem, not his fight to meddle in… If he wanted to change the world and follow Stain's ideals like him. Then he was a kindred soul in that respect, but if Tōya was honest then he could say with certainty that he did the bare minimum for Spinner in life.
…He was no friend to any of them, merely an acquaintance of convenience. He knew that then, as he used them for his own ends. Maybe he was ashamed of that part of himself now… He wasn't sure.
Now Shigaraki, he was Spinner's friend, his dear friend. Tōya saw both young men enjoy their own little leisurely escapades in the digital escape of League. And he only looked on with scalding hatred in his heart as he quietly refused their invitations to join them. He was a hypocrite because he could no longer delude himself with false joy, he couldn't find joy in life anymore. Because every single day, that one moment drew closer, and he'd finally reveal his identity.
—He remembered the letter that Spinner sent him after it was all over. When he was stuck in that metal coffin, wasting his days away for nothing. Somehow Shoto had become the intermediary between them.
How that was possible, he didn't ask and he'd never know.
But the scrawled words that got to him warmed his cold dead heart.
"Get better."
"...Even in your last moments. I thought I'd lighten the mood, maybe you'd light my tail on fire for that stupid remark. But we're both stuck. And I… I'm sorry I couldn't be stronger, we both followed Stain. And I failed to live up to that."
He could imagine Spinner as he struggled to put his words to paper, hopefully it was a better cell than the one he was stuffed into.
"Compress sends his regards. He felt a connection to you due to your apparent storied ancestries even if it was because of someone like Endeavor."
"...But if we don't get another chance to speak to one another I want you to know this."
"Tomura, left me these words and I thought that they would comfort you."
"Even until the bitter end, I kept fighting to destroy."
Tōya burst out into laughter at that, at least in his final moments. Shigaraki won out and got off better than the rest of their sorry selves. Shoto was startled after monotonely reading out that letter and at Tōya's rare display of emotion. But it meant the world to him enough that he somehow managed to give a genuine pleasant laugh. And didn't that ruin his alleviating mood, as he hacked and coughed afterwards. When he remembered that he was confined to a hell of his own making.
They weren't good people, by many metrics, they were villains and scum.
But they… existed and he wanted to show the world that he was born into this world too.
It made him mad, angry… furious really. And he literally cackled from the absurdity of it all, a warbled raspy sound that only got louder as sensation came back to him. The haze of his thoughts fell away and he woke up to reality, tears streaming down his face. His jaw crackled, falling open as he chortled in manic wrath. The offending thin red tendrils were gone from behind and above All For One.
He blinked the tears away and gazed at the malevolent palm promising him a world of pain and misery.
"...Now, we'll have to peer into that small mind of yours, young man." Tōya's bloodshot eyes could see between the gaps of the man's fingers, the wisps of red energy falling from All For One's shoulders for the final time. Tōya was building up that fire in his chest, he needed to reactivate Phosphor but it wasn't enough, it would never be enough. Not without a boost…
Tōya's infirm arm shook as he strained.
"Unfortunately for you, it means certain death. As even the stout and refreshed succumb to the power of this meta-ability. I'll lose the little spoil, but it's a paltry copy, and I won't take those back." All For One joked, his grin was too gleeful to be human, too hungry… too greedy.
Tōya thrashed and rushed for his pocket all in one desperate go. And yet nothing he could do would stop the demon lord as he held him in that damn infuriating grip. Blood dribbled down the edge of Tōya's lip.
"Fuck you—!"
Light, sensation, and sound became one as All For One activated a new quirk… And as the meta-ability activated in earnest, Tōya knew no more, his mind sent into the subconscious realm of his memories of youth.
Pain, ear shattering and all encompassing lanced his skull for a second, that infinite moment.
It felt like not only was Tōya thinking for himself as an individual but for All For One as well. Welded to him like a conjoined twin, skull to skull, that parasitic twin was trying to dig into his deepest darkest secrets.
The venomous green glow of the quirk was blinding and their minds struggled for dominance. All For One intruded on the very day of his birth like another nurse, he was a figure hidden away in his childhood as Tōya played with Fuyumi after school at the playground, and a spectator during the ugliest parts of his life when he tried to connect with Natsuo as he lamented his existence at night and in bed. Everything that Tōya Todoroki the thirteen-year-old was ashamed about was barren to the old bastard.
It went by too fast for Tōya to handle and yet.
…It slowed down… with that day.
The day he burned in that forest fire, it became something… more comprehensible. It was funny how that worked. His understanding of the event was aided by All For One's added perspective, he saw that pale haired thirteen-year-old with third-person clarity. How he peered in the shadows like a voyeur with a near invincibility quirk, taken from someone far in the distant past. And it began all over again. Tōya unknowingly went too far as he hunched over, crying himself hoarse after working himself to the bone. The end result was that during his vulnerability, Tōya couldn't stop inadvertently killing himself when the quirk activated against his own volition. The forest lit up like a furnace without escape as he patted himself down.
He chuckled at just how close his past self had gotten to the ground near the lakebed from the old man's point of view as he rushed for the water. What was left was a crumpled charred mess of unfinished dreams.
In a rush of memories he was shown the events afterwards, how All For One presented his barely breathing husk to Kyudai Garaki as if he were a new side project that they could play with abandon. The syringes and the cloned skin that was used, but was wholly inadequate for his recuperating body. They held back the better stuff just in case Tōya was too much of a problem to invest in.
He was too old to mold, is how they rationalized it.
They wanted to see if they had finally found the perfect naturally willing vessel of hatred. They'd build him up with a systematic chart, the more work he did for them. When and if he accepted All For One's offer to join him in that mockery of a daycare. The better his body would grow to become. They'd upgrade him as if that's all he was. A growing, evolving project that the demon lord would snatch away at the last minute after he did all the hard work. Maybe All For One would even meld their consciousness if Tōya impressed him. But who was the old man kidding, he didn't look like the kind of person to share.
The sterile room was clean save for the blood and the discarded biological material on the operating table. A jawbone that could never amount to much was used, but how could he complain when his original fell off with barely any trouble the first time.
It skipped forward three years into the future flying past his comatose slumber… and into that godforsaken daycare. Sixteen-year old Tōya with the mind of a thirteen-year old was still unresponsive, yet to wake up from his coma. Clearly malnourished and listless. He recognized that sickening brightly colored wall and that haunting tablet at his bedside table, it made him want to puke.
Tōya caught sight of a relaxed All For One monitoring him from the start, chin resting on a closed fist. In that darkly lit throne room, it faced a wall of monitors that showed the greater landscape of Japan. In one screen he eyed the listlessly sitting Tomura lost in destitution. In another Nomura, enraptured by a TV that captured the image of a speedy hero. It didn't end there because the man was greedy. A surveillance state if he'd ever seen one.
Tōya's struggles renewed with added fervor.
The old man was getting too close to seeing the future, and he'd be damned if he let that happen without a fight!
Tōya resisted with everything he had, he felt a different form of strain and another type of mental exhaustion as he fought and struggled again and again. He wasn't sure if it was because of the quirk or the lack of oxygen from earlier …But he was losing the metaphorical fight in his head, it was too much and he was just that weak. Tōya's mind felt dimmer as he fought on under the malaise that clouded over him.
In a last ditch effort Tōya decided to try one of his last gambits.
It was a stupid move and he would have never considered it, but he felt well and truly fucked. His body temperature shot up and he felt unbearably hot as he raised the intensity of his quirk, internalizing it to the fullest. The last embers within shot off around him as he dimly felt the outer layers of his body become engulfed with flames. The images became more spotty, the clarity was getting fogged up. If he cooked his brain, then All For One would have nothing. He would rather die than hand the man a future foregone.
Fuck, this… this was worse than the end of the Kamino ward battle with Shoto.
Before Tōya fully lost consciousness, before the villain could wrench the secrets from his dying mind, All For One pushed for a final time.
—He couldn't see this!
Not this, even as Tōya's brain cooked. The memories sailed one into the next. All For One wasn't allowed to see the stone-still comatose boy. Tōya's eyes cracked open for the first time on that infirmary bed.
It was that moment!
The sixteen year-old was seizing and jumping up on the mattress as if he was straining against an iron cage. The first thoughts that he had when woken up fully were going to be consumed by the demon lord, stolen away. And he could do nothing to stop it.
"Is this hell—"
And then the experience shattered like broken glass, a mess of randomness, it died in a blissful reprieve as soon as the torture started in earnest. The connection snapped, but it wasn't the clean kind. The quirk rubberbanded and the whiplash went full force between both victim and perpetrator. His mind was scrambled and the memories crashed against each other. His hoarse cries died a soft quiet death, still openly reeling from the pain. The mind-numbing sensation only slowed to a dull ache, as he fought to pull himself back together.
His eyes snapped open between the gaps in All For One's fingers, back to the real world.
The landscape looked dimmed and All For One was not as bright as he once was. The pitter-patter of the rain was loud on the otherwise quiet caricature of a cityscape, the shock of thunder deafened him. Surrounded by broken buildings, the spattering of Tōya's blue flames died out under the pressure of the rain.
Tōya felt empty, there was no waning power, no hungry fire, and certainly no seedling of cold.
Just a void he could not recognize, as if he were a… boy.
And only that.
"What… is this?" Zen Shigaraki openly questioned with un-reprieved concern, as he analyzed the dying green embers of energy that would rob Tōya of his secrets. Arm outstretched, still holding onto the boy.
A lone distance away a hidden twenty-four year old hero with blood red eyes and a trailing grey scarf activated his quirk.
His long raven hair flew back like tendrils in the night, as lightning backlit his figure. He hung onto the large scale antenna of the building far away. The sight of a burning young boy crying out in pain as he was held by a large imposing man was the clearest thing he saw as he followed the struggle in the sky. The gaudy orange and green motorcycle that his senior Ms. Joke owned, was used to chase the two living calamities above them.
The road was ravaged but the small vehicle was driven by an unimpeded madwoman, the only compliment he could offer was that they got there in time.
It was parked below, as the woman climbed up the fire escape to catch up to him.
She hadn't built up her stamina for long distance running, un-rationally so. She was a hero and in his opinion she needed to increase her physical standards. He wouldn't say it plainly because he knew she would twist it into some kind of bad pretense for him having some interest in her body.
…Whatever would get more of a rise out of him, he wouldn't put it past her.
It would be the only time in his life that he would openly thank the woman for being as meddlesome as she was. It was too embarrassing to sit in the sidecar, and he wouldn't do it again.
The quirk connection was severed in an unceremonious fashion between when it truly started and before it ever ended.
Both ancient man and growing boy were left blindsided in that frantic confusion.
All For One's power left him and he let go as Tōya slowly fell to the ground. The dumbfounded boy questioned this new development with wide delirious eyes, as he gasped. Droplets slowly rained down around them as time slowed to a stop, adrenaline shooting up Tōya's body. There was one thing that Tōya knew for certain, even when his head was spinning and his mind scrambled.
—Someone needed to die.
Before Todoroki's feet could make contact with the slick surface, his hand dug into the three syringes that he pilfered from the back of Hound Dog's mane. When he sent the man off despite his protests. He noticed the vials falling in the sky, and Tōya knew that he would need them when they truly became lifesaving. The caps fell off in a flurry of movement, his arm was hyper-extended in an arc and he jabbed them all in one go into his neck just as the bottom of his bare feet made contact with the roof floor.
A heavy thump escaped the impact of flesh and metal. His blue eyes locked in on All For One's form as he looked up at the tall man, his brows furrowed into demented hate.
I don't care if I die, as long as I can take him with me!
The veins in his neck pulsed violently from the injected foreign material and the hollow sensation was instead filled and exploding within his heart. It wanted out, his quirk screamed from it all, howling like a damned soul. The sensation felt strange as if there was a third… something… in there now that didn't quite fit.
Tōya felt like he didn't know who he was anymore, it— the blowback from the mind violating quirk was making it hard for him to think.
And he winced.
"S-shit." The curse left his lips in spite of his own volition.
It was all too much and he fought to keep his consciousness from fading within the raging sea of his thoughts and memories. Trigger was only making it harder to keep himself grounded. On its own it would steal any cognitive reasoning that a person had left, berserk if there was any better word for it. And he just took three doses like an idiot. He couldn't afford to let the drug take him before he pulled the bastard down with him into hell!
Tōya gutturally shouted as he strained against his own power, arms braced near his sides. And then he retched acrid bile from the recesses of his stomach… The building he stood over melted like a puddle of molten lava and then disintegrated from the intensity of his re-energized quirk due to the emission of a second wave. A deafening shockwave rocked Tōya's world, making him stumble in the air. Light exploded, blinding and blue, near white and stark in short spurts. Making it hard to see a few feet in front of him. He could feel his skin burn hot like his nerves were truly re-awakening in earnest. The top layer of his skin bubbled, his muscles cramped and seized.
Was he cold? Did he feel heat? He wasn't sure but it hurt like hell.
It was like that balanced feeling of homeostasis that he got from Phosphor, it wasn't a cool breeze on a nice toasty spring day. But more of a perfect temperature, it was struck, and his body temperature was one with the world around him.
A stray thought hit him, he had been waiting for someone.
Tōya couldn't believe that he had been waiting for the All Might to put a stop to this. It felt like so long ago and yet it was barely minutes ago when this all started. Before he screwed up and decided that it was better to out All For One without a plan.
He couldn't wait for the blond man to save the day, he had to put a stop to this bastard himself.
Tōya's wet eyes were focused, scanning the man in front of him. All For One was there with him, in that ball of light that he was emitting. Hovering as if gravity was a foreign concept. All For One's face was shrouded by a stolen quirk no doubt. The old man was covered in scales to protect himself from the heat. Along with a pre-prepared dome of protective energy that sprung out. All For One's wits had recovered before Tōya could ever really take advantage of the situation.
The larger man stood tall, arms flat against his side as he hovered, and then All For One pointed to him with a single finger. All For One's stolen meta abilities woke up as if revived in earnest with a rush of sound, shooting out towards Tōya in a flurry of sensation.
Whatever had happened to disorient them both was gone, and time ticked down. The attacks happened in an instant and to Tōya it felt like it continued for forever. A maelstrom of meta abilities escaped the greatest criminal that ever lived. Tōya couldn't ever really match that range of power, but he'd be damned if he didn't try. Pushing forth his shaky hands in response, Tōya emitted the newfound quirk factor to its fullest to mitigate getting swept up in the sea of attacks. Sheer heat, too hot that the sweat forming on his skin evaporated before it could drop. It did exactly as he needed, unmitigated destruction sallied forth, meeting the slurry of quirks one to one in a loud crash.
A great cannon of air split the dome of plasma that shrouded Tōya, aided by the power of a navel laser. Both attacks cut through Tōya's spray mid-clash. The boy ducked low with the help of the recoil from a short burst of hyper condensed plasma from his palm, a second shot sent him down one foot under All For One's feet. The speed of the movements caused his head to reel back and his spine to compress. Aiming upward with a shiny glistening flat palm under the man, it reflected the light around him. Brimstone and power met the unholy amalgamation of quirks that was All For One. Tōya's body shimmered and convulsed as he built up the power and he let go to a pinpoint towards center mass. A small, almost nuclear explosion escaped the impact. Smearing the man backwards away from him.
Tōya noticed the shield that sprung up at the last moment to block the blow. Regardless of the last minute save, All For One was sent flying up into the air towards the sky. The attack left Tōya winded, his wrist felt fractured from the force. He turned with the recoil, his shoulder felt jarred from his socket. But Tōya knew that he couldn't afford to let this continue on the ground, that's why he went as hard as he did. Tōya had dragged too many people into his shit.
…It hadn't even been the end of the day and already, It couldn't continue, he needed to take responsibility for this. He had a lot of things he needed to atone for. And wasn't that funny thought...
With a self-deprecating chuckle and a resulting cough, Tōya's palms were aimed down as he propelled himself with his quirk to meet All For One above. Stars and stripes flashed before Tōya's eyes as he scaled the night sky in spite of the dark clouds that rumbled. He could see that the storm was getting worse as it grew, that almost made him forget that down below. The hellscape was a product of their own making.
It's all ruins down there, I… can't really ignore it. I screwed up, I should have left when I had the chance. But that doesn't mean I can't make the old bastard pay for this!
Superheated ionized gas from his fleeting figure, a miniscule flower of ice on his chest bloomed from where he had been impaled. There in the distance a quirk, unfamiliar and terrifying, faced off against him. Pillars of gaping maws rushed to meet Tōya, ever hungry and never satiated.
The giant snake-like creatures surrounded Tōya from all directions as he closed in. The ugly dead-pale decrepit faces soullessly looked at him with unseeing eyes. Sprouting like worms from All For One's back. And they rushed him, the closest four looped around and went for his back to blindside him. As the rest met him head on. He pivoted and waved his hand activating his meta-ability, Tōya's hand sputtered from the released energy. Turning the offending quirk constructs into carbon matter as he broke down the organic material with sheer unmitigated heat. The rest of the fleshy snakes mutated and twisted as they formed scales, becoming chimera-like monstrosities in the skies.
The clouded moonlight highlighted the monstrous quirk's new evolution with a soft pale rim light. And Tōya opened his hands in an open armed embrace for another salvo, two meta abilities condensed into a quirk singularity—
A bright white light lanced his skull just as he released his next strike, a jolt of pain erupted from his chest when he compressed his muscles from the maneuver. The alien phrase that sprung up didn't help.
—Where did that word come from? That's not what it was.
The voice almost sounded like a vague re-imaginening of Garaki's.
It was just his mother's quirk and his father's, hopped up on three doses of trigger.
The attacks met nonetheless even as he ignored the deep disorienting sensation of pain, the resulting effect was the tremors in the sky as lightning shot down around them. The shockwave forced Tōya back from the impact. With some difficulty he weaved within the pauses in the shockwaves. Todoroki skimmed his chest with a thin hand as he soared, shaking and shivering. Lightly he grasped for the open wound from the life ending bone impalement. He noted with surprise that it wasn't there anymore, however the skin was slightly raised. His head swayed from the lack of air around him, but the old man was there in the distance sending out another barrage and Tōya couldn't stop to relax.
The torrential sky flashed like bright fireworks from the sheer intensity of light that All For One emitted as he charged another devastating volley of snake heads. Tōya needed to dim his own power or he'd suffocate himself. He accelerated and cut the power in one second to give himself that moment to breathe in the thin air. Tōya rolled into a tight ball to make himself smaller, and All For One took that opportunity to intensify his salvo of quirk constructs. Now bathing them in a dark energy as they became thinner and faster.
All For One thought him inexperienced, and he was right in that assessment compared to the centuries the old man no doubt had, but Tōya made up for that with his improvisation. And one critical thought that ran through Tōya's mind.
…He's still not taking me seriously.
With a quick careen of movement, Tōya reactivated his power within an instant just before the jaws of the scaly head crushed him. Tōya's form shimmered and jerked during the lateral whirl of movement between meta-ability activation. He was clipped at his side as he smashed his elbow to the bottom teeth of the snake's head, dissolving it immediately into fine particles. Unfortunately with that move he was sent careening down to the awaiting hands of All For One. The old man had a cocked fist ready and waiting. The impact of the powered blow to his head sent Tōya reeling into a series of flips in the air.
The stars in his vision nearly jogged him out of the battle entirely from the delirium.
I can't rem- who am I fighting again?
His skull felt splitting, as he clutched it in pain with one hand, his brows were shut tight just to introduce a new sensation of pain to distract him. Tōya was falling so fast that his immediate surroundings were lighting up like a space shuttle during re-entry. His eyes strained as he opened and searched for All For One, from left to right. He couldn't find him and yet when he turned his head to check his blind spot, a nasty gray face was inches from his own, his eyes snapped wider from the jumpscare. The dark red scales that ran along its long neck glistened with dark aura. But when it opened its maw, revealing not a row of teeth, but instead a beam of caustic dark violet light.
—Tōya flinched back so hard that he reflexively hit the quirk construct with an impromptu single handed Hell's Spider. accidentally mixing it with the pooling coolness in his chest, creating a sloppy unrecognizable improvised attack altogether… But it did its job, just enough for the two strikes to interlock in a quick whiplash. If it had been unguarded then it would surely have been fatal. During the end of the short blast Tōya squinted hard enough to make out a change in the creature's energy coloration. A thin beam of crimson light bisected the head of the soulless quirk construct. Lopping the top of its head off and almost taking Tōya's left arm with it. A jerky movement was enough to dodge it, the paper thin blade of light skimmed his cheek as he leaned back further, shearing off a thin layer of ice on his skin.
Tōya choked from the strain, hacking from the lack of oxygen.
He was losing consciousness from lack of air, he could barely breathe. But another opportunity arose from All For One's onslaught. The man was further below Tōya, All For One aimed upward with his arms wide, spread apart like a ready embrace. The caustic explosions he released to kill Tōya made it difficult for the villain to see. But All For One paid it no mind, deeming the lack of visibility worth it.
The sky was drowned in explosions.
Tōya dropped his quirk energy, fully deactivating his meta-ability to take lungfuls of air within the thin atmosphere, if only for a moment. He calculated All For One's position below, and he dropped further with a sharp pivot. Tōya fell downward like a bullet as he kept his arms crossed to his chest. His sight became spotty as one particular blast covered his field of vision with flames. Tōya felt as if he fell face first into the freezing waters of an ocean as he re-activated his quirk mid-fall, the sensation shocked his frame. But he had no choice as detonations rocked the sky around him, he couldn't afford to take one head on.
It almost reminded him of his first death, with how claustrophobic it made him feel.
No, the fire I can't stop it! It won't end. I was supposed to show dad my new moves, I even studied his videos on the internet. He'd be proud that I could follow him even if he no longer trained me. I got better, stronger. Sure a little pain hurt but it meant nothing when I could show him that I could still be a hero… M-maybe I'll never live up to beating All Might.
But I-I… think I could settle for number two or something.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
His shy smile wobbled as he looked down in shame, in that forested peak, all too long ago.
—The fire, the forest, it won't stop! I don't know where to run to!
Wait, the lake, I just need to—but no! I cleared out most of the trees and I went too deep.
His legs burned and the bones burst from the intensity of the flames.
My hands, I can't move —run!
—The bucket, the bucket!
Tōya's head was pounding, he cracked his eye open fully, ready and waiting. Vision clear of the field of flames around him.
He jerked his foot up at the last second to dodge an up close sound shockwave attack from All For One. Even still, the blast left him rattled, as he propelled himself at an angle due to being unable to deal with its wide range. Tōya's ragged gasps were strained as he ignored the after effects, and he lurched to the side. His body took the brunt of the damage with more grace than he expected. He was tempted to look at himself fully, amazed with the enhancements to his baseline quirk because he was sure that he would have died from the rattling vibrations of the blow.
Hopping himself up on such a large dose of trigger was a shitty gamble, because he knew he lost before it started. But it was better than the alternative of a guaranteed death.
"...Tsk." he clicked his tongue.
All For One was looking at him, still unphased. With a serene smile, the old man waved his fingers to beckon him, still as cocky as ever.
"Have it… your way!" Tōya yelled as he turned thirty degrees, his posture hunched as he surged.
Todoroki's hand joined the first as he ramped up with power, creating a contained sphere of fire in his hands. The concentrated ball of energy was too much and his palms burned as they closed in to contain it. Power and heat was never an issue with his quirk, it was always the limitations of going too far that damaged his body beyond what it could take. The rapidly overflowing quirk factor was making him sick to his stomach. And he needed that outlet of escape badly. He'd seen the screwed up results of Trigger overdose. Driblets of plasma cascaded down in an oozing fashion from the inferno between his fingers.
And he aimed straight and true as he let loose, All For One chuckled as he met that unnamed energy blast with a sick volley of lethal razor blades which closed in on Tōya in a wide arc. The older man planned on tanking the hit as he flew towards Tōya and straight into the center of the beam. All the while the crescent shaped razors sliced and clashed against the hardened ice that layered Tōya's body.
Tōya yelled as he forced more and more into the stream of unmitigated wildfire.
Despite his quick pivots during the release of his beam attack, he was still grazed. At the very least the offending attacks were mitigated down to glancing blows from his hardened skin. Tōya's full throttle blast died down as he bled off the quirk factor to near nothing. Small shards of ice cracked off of him like shattered glass. And All For One finally emerged from the dregs of the beam. In that moment Tōya's fist raced to meet the man head on, the concurrent impacts creating shockwaves that buffeted the sky, the storm was getting worse and he jittered as he fought to regain some semblance of control in the short scuffle; The sole of All For One's large boot was closing in and it obscured his vision.
The blow jarred him in one direction with devastating force in an instant, even as he parried the kick with both hands. His limbs were splayed out after taking the blow, and he was left breathless.
I need to defeat Endeavor! The bastard, what was the point?!
A five year old Tōya was left speechless when Endeavor informed the boy that he would no longer be training him. Even as he begged and asked for an explanation, he was rebuffed with cold eyes. It was the only time that they had together. His father was absent on account of his profession. The boy felt discarded and forgotten…
Tōya was caught mid-fall and held in place by the thin tendrils in All For One's hands.
Stain's viral speech, it resonated with him, the world was rotten to the core. Look at those bastards, smiling and waving while they stole the glory from the few hard working heroes who followed what they preached. Endeavor's and Shoto's grainy faces on the screen in Hosu pushed him harder than he ever thought possible, and he walked out of the hair salon. Hair dyed and a new sense of conviction steeling his heart.
He clenched his teeth, his wide blue eyes reflected the sharp wire-like sheen of the metal tendrils. Tōya struggled, the super enhanced rivets that entangled and crushed him left him breathless, his skin cracked. The razor sharp tips of the ends aimed down to dig into him like a pincushion. The drug induced thoughts coursing through his veins didn't help the situation.
With a defiant yell, Tōya's energy exploded outward. Disintegrating the clouds along with the reinforced wires. Tōya's hands fell down to his sides as he let out quick gasps, he could feel the bruising along his arms.
He was feeling drained
"Fuck, I-I… I almost lost myself."
But a set of grey motherly eyes pushed him forward, he so badly wanted to see his mom. The rivet that dangled inches away from his eyeball reflected a face he wasn't really sure was real.
Tōya's breathless gasps were enough for All For One to capitalize on the opportunity, no longer following the charade in earnest. The man blurred behind Tōya in an instant arm raised to strike him down. Every offensive meta ability at his disposal mixed into one ultimate quirk combination, mutating All For One's arm into an unrecognizable monstrosity. The mastermind released the pressurized power within. The hairs on the back of Tōya's neck rose and he turned at the last moment. Eyes widening as the shadow of the man covered his vision entirely, his arms rose up to block the attack but he was too late.
"Oh—!"
Shigaraki flash stepped forward and he cocked his fist down towards Tōya's head, the quirk hammer arced into the metaphorical anvil that was Tōya with a deafening blow. And Tōya was tossed into a freefall spin, excess quirk energy trailing after him. Involuntarily his eyes closed shut, a sheer cry left his lips.
"Fuyumi, that wasn't nice."
The twelve-year-old Tōya said as he rubbed his sore nose, after she kicked the ball into his face.
He opened his eyes but his involuntary rolls blurred his vision. The wind was leaving him deaf, even as he desperately shot off his quirk factor to slow his fall.
"Natsuo! Let's play."
The cityscape of Tokyo was in view as he clenched his teeth. Eyes furrowed down so hard he knew he'd strain his eyesight. His wrists couldn't take the recoil as he pumped all he had to slow his fall.
—It… no, his father's scarred, half-burned face hit him like a truck, surrounded by the desolation of the Gunga Mountain Villa Ruins and a flaming blue dome. No, he was a mirage, it wasn't real, a nightmare that's all it was. The hero desperately pleaded for him to stop, Endeavor was missing an arm and his hero costume was a ruined mess.
Enji Todoroki crushed him in a hug, finally… finally, his father was looking at him, like he always wanted.
"I won't let you die alone son… I've got you."
He was held in a tight embrace, a maw of flames and a mind empty. Tōya chuckled, it was already too late, he'd fucked things up beyond repair. Even as his mother and siblings rushed in to stop him from making another mistake.
" —Hold on a little longer." his father pleaded
And he was… as All For One met him down below assaulting him with an onslaught of fists. When All For One finished his combo, he delivered a devastating knee strike that crumpled him inward, he bowled over. Tōya couldn't hold on no matter how much he tried, a mush of spittle and rice cakes were thrown up as he emptied his stomach over the knee, leaving his stomach truly empty. His mind flashed back to that dark room… in that tight cage. When it was all over after Shoto and his family stopped his stupid suicidal tantrum up on the Gunga Mountains. He was forced to listen to that unrecognizably small man in that wheelchair, bandages covering him from head to toe.
"I… I'm responsible for all of this." But he wasn't sure if he heard his exhausted father's voice or his own dying one.
The ice around his stomach cracked from the pressure of All For One's tight fisted punches. It was at the breaking point, the plasma around him warbled. Like a balloon ready to pop. Tōya grimaced and then his expression morphed into a sneer. Using All For One's upper leg as leverage, Tōya superheated the offending appendage with both hands. Smoke and the popping of flesh instantly exploded before his vision. Utilizing the opportunity to both send himself back from the recoil and away from All For One. It wouldn't slow the man down as the leg blistered and popped to uselessness, but it was something.
A second later, before he could fall back five feet, he ignited his whole back with supercharged hellfire to propel himself forward. Tōya's arm mimicked All For One's earlier punch; He cocked it back, and he used his other ailing hand to support the arm mid-strike. He unleashed a powered Vanishing Fist as they collided blow for blow. All For one was ready for it, already disregarding the burning leg and instead meeting Tōya mid-swing. Nonetheless, it was enough to sheer off the first layers of the villain's defense, Tōya planned on taking full advantage of the villain's first sign of unbalance…
With a yell, a second strike of his closed fist met All For One's unblemished jaw, it was robbed of its power on account of the rising nausea. Tōya struggled to hold on to reality, he'd been pushing the issue back. But his head was splitting in pain the whole time, it was becoming too unbearable to even think.
The... whatever the quirk did, jumbled my head, t-the trigger.
Please give me more time…
Before he ran down the clock and the trigger ran out. He'd be dead, if not by All For One then by all the shit he'd been piling onto his unwilling body. If it wasn't his own, he'd probably feel sorry for it. Unbidden, the memories of the junkies he met in their dens who had overdosed on Trigger made him wince. Their bodies mutated into unrecognizable piles of living bio-matter. He'd heard from one of the thugs in the area that they were stuck living life like that. He never stayed to see if it was true.
Remembering the loss of his own right arm when he unleashed the full power of Vanishing Fist in a delirium, oh so long ago. He ducked under All For One's elbow strike, even when half his mind was a mess. Tōya recalled that Dabi, in that past memory, was going feral. So he was willing to take Endeavor and any bystander down with him in the Gunga Mountains. A sloppy rendition of Vanishing Fist costing him his arm was no big issue. Tōya planned on fixing that mistake, but it was going to be difficult, and the move was prone to making him take more damage than he wanted.
But I can make that work.
Tōya kicked off the fist that All For One sent his way, anchoring himself on the large appendage, he swung himself over the man.
The shock of lightning uncovered the minefield of miniature black spheres around him. The readied flaming fist died out before he could parry another strike. On account of the spheres exploding. They popped and he jerked at the impact, gasping for breath, his head whipped back as he tumbled downward to avoid a green solid wall of hard flame. Tōya turned with a wary fear like he was looking at his surroundings for the first time, mid-flight. Because now it was impossible to track All For One when he simply vanished into thin air. His sheer speed tripled. Based on the rush of wind.
The advancing blur that was All For One was too fast for him to trace and the villain circled him like a blade within a blender. Tōya paid for that when the man sent the full powered leverage of each strike from Tōya. He was faster than Nomura, more technical, a better version of the boy. The old man snapped Tōya's skull to the left, continuing the strikes in a flurry before he could recover. Another elbow strike dug into Tōya's right bicep from a different angle and he thought he heard a crunch.
Tōya flipped after the second to last attack, shooting off his quirk from his heels to escape the subsequent blow diagonally. He escaped the onslaught desperate to escape, Tōya ramped up the power in his soles to create some more distance. However during the flight, his leg was extended just enough that the villain instead grasped it as he followed after him. With two hands All For One flung Tōya across the sky after a quick rotation. A series of purple beams pinpointed Tōya's falling form like seeking missiles.
Running out of many options Tōya instead arc-ed upward, catching and headbutting the last beam as it met him.
"Fuck! Keep it together!" He growled in pain, tears pooling at the ends of his eyes.
Tōya let out a low curse as the villain soared far too fast with the aid of a glowing gold ring around All For One, with glee on his face. All For One's figure was larger than the imposing six foot something he had pegged him for. The man caught up to Tōya and his grin was wide with satisfaction as he started a new barrage of strikes. Tōya was spent and he couldn't run away, but there was a lull, a second between strikes Tōya willingly took. He could never match All For One's speed, so he memorized each combo, before the man had gone full throttle. It was another gamble and Tōya's instinct made up for his mind as he cradled a Vanishing Fist at the last second like a wounded animal.
Don't telegraph it, it hasn't worked so far. Arm's fucked but it's probably still good enough for one last attack.
A fist glowing brilliant and blue bloomed, the light was low as if he held the battered arm in a hug. Internalizing the heat within him almost cooked Tōya's brain a second time, but he needed every last dreg of time before he siphoned the energy into his strike into one fluid motion. Tōya was shoulder checked within the combination of attacks exactly as he predicted.
There!
The hook after the jab, the combo, he recognized it.
This time the ultimate rendition of Vanishing Fist was cleaner in execution, refined by ice and a stable mind instead of the disjointed version he once used that blew his lower arm clean off.
The ultimate move.
A sharp pivot, a missed strike from an old man too comfortable for his own good, too extended.
The perfect opportunity and the blow was an uppercut that shattered the sky when the impact resounded to full effect. Tōya's vision blurred stark white, his teeth clenched tight from the truly devastating blow as it traced back top to bottom.
---
The man was equal parts astounded, entranced, and enraptured.
Disregarding the earlier goals that he had originally set into motion. His memories were mixing, and he used another quirk to hold his thoughts into place before he lost himself completely. As the second wielder of this Mind Splicing quirk, he knew the ramifications as he tested it out on the original owner of the meta ability.
Back then, oh… so long ago.
The gnat was a man who begged for alms, at first he took him for a good for nothing and yet when he found the opportunistic homeless man digging into the mind of another drunken fool.
In that dingy alleyway, he was dumbfounded and spellbound at the possibilities.
The original quirk was weak and rather than scour the mind for everything of worth. It merely combed through the surface area thoughts and latest memories, at the detriment of the victim. A simple headache was all the harm it could do to the unwilling.
But no, when he took the quirk and made it his own. He mastered it truly, no secret would be left untouched. The kill condition only happened if the recipient was not coaxed out into openly letting him into their mind. And no one had yet to do so, not that he would care to let them know.
People were a resource that he freely consumed without issue.
Tōya was an anomaly that defied belief, more so in stupidity and disregard for his own safety.
None of his earlier controlled projects and experiments ever came close to this conclusion. Not in this spectacular fashion, two conclusions made themselves abundantly clear, time and time again. A slow dead drop of energy as their bodies died out like a dying star, or a supernova that blanketed space for that infinitesimal moment. Tōya was no doubt killing himself from the vials of Trigger.
The quirk he added into the mix to keep the boy alive may have pushed things too far altogether. He had never tested the boy for his capability to use multiple quirks, the boy had been too frail at the time.
Kyudai, was this what you believed in all those years ago?
The magnificence of it turned his smile into elation and wariness. But no, he wasn't really sure if the boy really achieved Quirk Singularity or not. If it killed him as he brought destruction to the whole of Japan? Then yes, he had achieved that condition in a roundabout way. Tōya's wits were leaving him, and his own attacks were sending him to that breaking point.
The theory was only that, a simple thing. As always, these little experiments always left him with prime opportunities to enjoy himself to the fullest.
But he was not without understanding of his own somewhat negative circumstances. All For One's head was a jumbled mess, and he compartmentalized the dying parts of his brain with a quirk. He could easily relive the words that the good doctor imparted to him, as he studied Tōya further.
"Proposing that quirks evolve faster than the human body can adapt, leading to uncontrollable power, social collapse, and eventual humanity-ending catastrophes."
"Then it would herald the end of the world as we know it."
The memory, old and spotty, met him with increasing clarity.
The youthful stocky doctor with glasses openly explained to him in glee as he wrung his fingers together. No doubt happy that someone had finally taken interest in his doomsday belief. They shared a bottle of wine in his penthouse. Why wouldn't he? When All For One had reached the limits of his quirk. There was a capacity that each individual had for quirk factors, it was a mutation after all. Nonetheless, that was how they began their cooperation in earnest. The idea was interesting, but Kyudai's merits were not solely based on that far flung idea… No. It was on surpassing the limits of the human body, and how they could bring that magnificence out to fruition.
This… was merely a diminished power-up from near death, a fight or flight response.
He had seen it a hundred times, his head pounded and his memories were a mix of fuzz and mud. It didn't mean he couldn't test the boy, if he died it would be no skin off his back. This experience could not be left an afterthought, or he would be left dissatisfied.
And that could not do, not after the numerous resources he and the good doctor spent on the Tōya.
…He needed to see more, it was not enough, none of it was.
Zen decided then and there to discard the Mind Splicing quirk from the sea of quirks, he could always find another. Even if it would be difficult to find a replacement. Regardless of the compartmentalization, the meta-ability was leeching outside of the confines of the prison he imposed on it. So that vestige died a dog's death even as the specter of the homeless man cursed him from beyond the grave.
His dark chuckles rang out in his mindscape.
All For One noted the plasma that engulfed the boy with distaste, the cool mix between both ends of the spectrum when it came to temperature was a dime a dozen novelty. The sun rose, and yet not really because the moon was still behind the boy like a shroud.
Was his play on words too literal?
It wouldn't be enough, none of All For One's attacks struck truly. He could give the boy his props, a beating he could take, more gracefully than the grown wretches around him. All For One could simply wait the boy out as he diminished from the rapid loss of stamina and the benefits of trigger.
…Push the boy, or you will forever regret it.
—Take it, his power is yours. It is not theirs, they took the gift meant for his brother. And they used it to play the hero.
Voices of the dead warred within his mindscape.
He shook his head, the quirk's debilitation had grown much too quick while he played with the boy. Regardless of the fact that he removed the offending quirk, it had done enough damage, and the symptoms were still present, although diminishing. He openly debated the thought of leaving and coming back for another day of retribution.
No… The boy, Tōya, This ended now.
—This game ends now.
A wounded purple wisp entered his vision in worry and concern.
"...Go Kurogiri, make sure we're not interrupted. Once I'm done here, join Tomura, look after him. I'll be back with you soon. You've done enough to slow down the lumbering fool." He'd almost forgotten about All Might.
The number one crime lord's man-like figure exploded and he lost his mortal form in the sea of flesh. Meters and miles of flesh and faces cascaded out as it blotted out the sky. It was an eldritch shape that when looked at would turn anyone insane. Understanding became unfeasible, and yet when it met the brilliant light of Tōya's Hellflame.
—It became chaotic and unrefined.
It wasn't time to play around, he was done with this petty charade.
It was a form he had not used in a long time, he so dearly wanted to see the ramifications, he'd crush the boy to the ground and take the city with him. He had spent too much of his later life playing it safe. Because a blond brute of a man thought he could cow him with power unbecoming of himself. Of cowards and sycophants and meddling thieves who believed themselves paragons of justice.
Once he was done with Tōya, he would destroy the rest of this prefecture all in one go.
He was fed up with this pretense. It did not matter if All Might got here, he would come back to a ruin regardless. It was not the first time he had done such a thing. Wiping the board clean, and that was more than fine with him, it had all gone on too long…
---
Vanishing Fist left Tōya winded, he could barely keep his eyes open. His body ached, with fatigue. When he blinked his eyelids became heavy…
The rush of unbidden memories was coming back despite his best efforts.
He saw his father and Shoto below him on that barren ground… they looked up at him as he revealed himself fully with surprise and anguish. Chemical color remover soaking his dyed hair. He no longer hid away as Dabi, he was Tōya Todoroki and the world would hear his story today. As he stood on Gigantomachia's back gazing out at their shocked gazes.
His right eye flinched, a cold snap hit him, he was sweaty and cold.
–No, no, no… that wasn't right. All For One was in front of him, he was fighting… him, the thing in front of him. Tōya needed to stop the man, or he'd never see his family again. All For One exploded out into a gargantuan wall of flesh, it dwarfed Tōya to the limits of what he could see.
I can't fight that, where would I even start?
His right foot was shaky, he tremored, Tōya couldn't do it anymore. His face fell into a mush of emotions and then his head rose up a second later. His eyebrows low, he could hear his family's cries, their encouraging words, imagining their faces… he'd made up his mind. Openly he debated his next course of action as he scaled upward, was there some way that he could get out of this?
—"Come father, dance with me in hell!"
A shaky breath escaped Tōya, his breathing visible, no there really wasn't.
That… lingering memory was both a detriment and an opportunity.
"If I'm losing my mind then… just—just let it happen." Tōya dropped the power in an instant for one last gasp into a controlled freefall. He flipped into a dive, controlled like his mother had taught him when she took him to the community swimming pool with Fuyumi. His palms were wide open as he extended them outwards to slow his descent, his outstretched arms burst into flames. The air screamed into his ear. The flesh wall was shooting off beams of light and he rolled to dodge them.
He'd give himself over to the delirium in full, it wasn't the first time. Energy coursed within his veins, exploding outward and running down his torso. At this point the cold rush felt all too familiar.
Dabi fell from Gigantomachia's back and rushed forward, his hands raised up in a sort of prayer. His right arm went over his brow and his left was extended. His form was solid as he rocked across the sky like a meteor towards Endeavor.
…This time Best Jeanist wasn't here to stop him, he chuckled at that, a raspy shrill sound.
"Flashfire —Fist!" Tōya's voice was low, and then it shot up an octave.
His gaze was burning from the wind resistance as it mixed with the wet state of the plasma he emitted. He kept them open despite his body's protest. If he strained his eyes then he could even imagine that the tortured face stuck to the flesh wall that he focused on could even be mistaken for Endeavor's.
"Prominence… Burn!"
His mouth was an open wordless gap, the azure flames exploded out like a star, ghostly and hungry, as it engulfed him and his surroundings entirely.
—He blotted the sky with everything he had.
Tōya was a blur of speed as he made contact with the wall, audibly yelling as he called out his attack. It barely came out within the torrent of fire that rained down like a shower of rain.
A supercharged Prominence Burn filled him to the fullest edge of what his body could take.
Everything around him was blinding light as the flesh wall caught fire and turned into carbon. He'd burn up because he overheated, but that was fine, this was a killing blow and this time it was worth it. It was the same story all over again, nothing ever changed, Tōya went too far and his body couldn't take it. And yet at the last second his mother's quirk finally shattered, crystalizing into tiny shards. He'd completely forgotten about it. After that short burst of defence from the highest output of his ultimate attack, he looked around at the snowflakes with wide eyes as they took the brunt of the recoil from his own attack.
Tōya's dumfounded gaze then turned to the heads that cascaded out of the wall of flesh weeping in pain. All For One was in there, he was sure of it, he'd dig him out if he had to. He increased the output further as the plasma around coalesced, Prominence Burn needed to end this. He couldn't afford to let All For One's quirk amalgamation get too close to him. With a short rasp for breath, Tōya kept going. He felt faint, not like he was dying but tired and it was a nice kind of tired, like sleep when he was just too exhausted to go on.
…That was good, more than good, great.
There was a persistent shake to his figure, like a tremor, he was still dead he was sure of it. There wasn't a single answer in which he found himself surviving this final encounter, and he made peace with that fact.
He charged the last attack… Prominence Burn, with everything he had. He could see it now, the flesh wall was breaking apart turning into ash and he felt faint. Tōya's vision became spotty as pure white energy fully covered his sight. All For One was aiming… something but he couldn't really see anything anymore.
---
All For One was held within the sun-like dome of plasma, it looked like a sea of white, without a floor and ceiling. He held his head, it was not the sun, not truly. And he was merely hitting Tōya with an easy combination attack from his flesh wall but he lost sight of him. Within this blazing new landscape in the sky.
It was no matter… his quirks could withstand this volley.
—The villain felt faint from the Mind Splicing quirk.
It should have killed the whelp, but the connection was severed prematurely. And the ramifications of that action were too much for him to parse in earnest… Not now, not when he had so little time. Instead he made use of a Soothe-Saying quirk, metaphorical ice washed down his back, cooling his nerves.
A vast expanse of nothingness and everything, he was left alone in this bubble of plasma. He turned as he made use of his Empathy quirk.
But that was a mistake because the crescendo in the child's mind deafened him.
He cut the connection abruptly, it made his delirium worse. His mood took a downturn. All For One's farsight quirk mixed with the temperature sense quirk and a calibration meta ability. They were combined to give a more refined sight. The slightest difference in temperature would give him the accurate idea of where Tōya was…
There!
A figure was out in the distance, in the form of a boy? No, it was a young man with white long hair rushing towards him horizontally. All For One's old eyes were struggling with the blur of memories and not even rewriting the composition of his own DNA with another would fix this. His soul was hard coded with experiences that jumbled together, skin deep changes would amount to nothing. He would need to find another quirk to fix this issue.
He turned to the figure fully and he inspected the rapidly closing in man… he found the features to be startling.
The young man's eyes looked soft and green, but he could have imagined that they looked blue and angry a second ago. His face was unblemished, his baby teeth were gone and instead a full row of adult teeth lined his mouth. His lips closed into a tight hard line and his brows furrowed… in disappointment or was it anger?
He wore plain simple clothes, a pale long sleeved shirt, dark pants and basic canvas shoes.
His face was determined and he looked at him with a clarity that was startling. Little motes of light rotated around him, but he was transfixed on the golden aura surrounding the figure.
…It couldn't be? Could it?
No the young man was dead, Yoichi was gone.
That time… once long ago he overdid it.
When the young man was too rebellious for Zen to fully forgive him… for the last time.
And then he murdered his own twin brother in cold blood, by happenstance.
A simple flick of his wrist in that dank humid sewer system and his body shattered like a plastic blood bag. All that was left was the singular hand that reached out to that cursed man. It became a taxidermied trophy.
—Kudo.
And then he would never get him back, it was a mistake he couldn't take back. He was his possession, forever his. And he broke him, the most… precious thing. The one thing that accompanied him for what no longer amounted to much of his artificially prolonged life. It was strange how things like familial connections could run so deep, and yet he felt nothing for his own mother. He hadn't gotten to know her like he did the naive fool.
"Zen!"
He could hear the word in the distance from the spectre, but he must be imagining it. It had to be a detrimental side effect of an unwanted meddling. Of a quirk connection gone wrong, and he regretted it. He was forever chasing his lovely possession, and yet he could never catch up to him.
—It only strengthened his resolve. He needed to defeat All Might and take back what was wholly his. Years and decades were the culmination of this journey and he would not have it ruined by some second class hero's whelp. His smile fell, a grimace mixed with hate pooled into his gut. All For One's eyebrows lowered to a pitch and he scrutinized the figure. It almost looked like the young man was reaching out for him, even as he held a cocked fist back. That sad boy who held a comic in his hands while the world continued on in ruin.
…That missing baby tooth, and the lamp, it was a nice thought.
No!
it was not Yoichi, and this was not the past. Tōya needed to die, especially because of this transgression.
It would not be left a stain without repercussions, without reprisal.
His dark thoughts were added into a charged flurry of attacks, the last one was a personal thin trail of death, a surety aimed at the Tōya's skull.
…A howl may have been heard between either men but it was lost in it all, when they clashed into a crescendo.
---
The detonation shattered his ear drums, it was only a split second. Just that moment, he looked at the boy and then at the man when he activated his Erasure quirk. The green light that cascaded out of the man's eyes connected past the hold he had on the burning boy's head.
And when he involuntarily lost eye contact after a piece of paper obscured his vision just as he shut off the man's quirk, the boy glowed and flashed brilliantly. That staggering light forced him to close his eyes for fear that he would go blind permanently. The buildings around those two melted in a caustic fire. And both individuals shot off into the sky in an instant.
Emi Fukukado, rushed behind him at the top of the roof. She was coughing up a storm as she puffed out her words. Her hands fell to her thighs as she hunched over in exhaustion. His ears were ringing, but he could hear his colleague's next words.
"What was that Eraserhead!?"
He had no idea, and he was being brutally honest with that assessment.
"I-I… don't know."
The light dwindled and there was a thin trail in the stormy sky when he looked up.