Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku Shigaraki. The man with a thousand faces and an even more substantial number of names. He was and had been many things and people in the long life he’d lived. Politicians, office workers, teachers, heads of state, vigilantes, villains, and many more. He was known as the ultimate evil, the greatest villain, an immortal crime lord and indefinite opposition to the forces of good.

And at this moment, he was playing the role of a third-year middle schooler at a somewhat mediocre establishment known as Aldera Junior High, located in the city of Musutafu Japan.

One may seek to question why any nigh-omnipotent immortal world ruler would ever designate to spend their time at school when said omnipotent being was most likely also nigh-omniscient as well. Izuku was indisputably more knowledgeable than any and every other human in history and thus his attendance was not out of a desire to learn academics. No All for One’s preferred subject of study was that of his fellow humans. People, at least to Shigaraki, were infinitely enthralling and thus he had made a habit of attending school every few decades in order to receive a first-hand experience in how the next generation was to be brought up and, for better or worse, how they may end up affecting his many concurrent plans.

There was, however, a second reason behind his attendance at Aldera, and it drew its cause from the very beginning of the age of quirks. All for One was (to the higher-ups at least) known as the ‘emperor of the underworld' in Japan and America, yet this was just one of an uncountable number of identities that he continually maintained.

History recalls that the first appearance of quirks was in Qing Qing City with the birth of the luminescent child. Following this birth came the rapid manifestation of quirks in all 4 corners of the globe. When historians and quirk scientists looked back, they would often state that the early quirks were objectively weaker or more dangerous than their modern counterparts. The truth was that this entire narrative was merely one of his manipulations.

Quirks had always been of similar strength and power, even back at the beginning. Unfortunately for those possessing these quirks, they lived in the same time period as a juvenile All for One. Izuku had made a conceited effort to obtain as many of these quirks as possible throughout nearly all of his life. The recent rise in ‘stronger’ quirks was simply an increase in frequency that the demon lord could not keep up with. As such, history only ended up recording the appearance of the weaker or less useful quirks (again something All for One had had a hand in).

This plan had not only shaped a more desirable retelling of events but even from the beginning, Shigaraki had amassed a power that already surpassed even the modern world’s top heroes. Not to mention his brother’s little crusade of ‘justice’. He really had fun watching that go down and it was child’s play to modify his brother’s memory a bit to give himself more entertainment.

As a result, the thieves of One for All were unaware of his true appearance, strength, motives and reach. In addition to being in the dark about his network of clones that Izuku employed in various roles across his global expanse. Each clone was capable of fully independent thought but was ultimately subservient to his will and his will alone. (All for One was no hermit, he’d seen enough movies and TV shows to pre-empt that cliché) His role in leading Japan’s criminal underworld was just one of the hundred he played across the globe. Like a play but with one actor playing all the parts with the audience none the wiser.

Izuku Shigaraki was the leader of nations and individuals in every important position. He literally had his hand in every cookie jar at once without being seen. He was on the board that directed the World Bank, he was one of the leading members of many a civil rights movement, he was 3 of the 8 members of the United Nation’s Security Council, the vice-president of the World Hero’s Association and he was everything else there was.

Right now, he was also Izuku Midoriya, a short, green-haired, green-eyed, quirkless middle-schooler who had a fabled dream All for One did not intend to fulfil. He’d probably abandon this identity after high school anyway.

Why did All for One do all this? Because being immortal and all-powerful meant that one could easily become bored. Even the users of One for All had lost their novelty after the 3^rd time. It was always the same thing over and over again, that muscle-headed blonde being just the latest in an ever-lengthening chain of disappointment. The man had finally taken down that low-tier combat clone a few years ago, but he’d treated it like it was the final battle, the fight to end all fights. Sure, the clone had been neutralised, but it only had 1000 or so quirks to play with and was basically expendable.

One minor loss to a nobody was nothing to a man like All for One.

So here he was, pretending to be some scrawny kid in order to see how the education system may or may not have changed in the last 20-odd years. He didn’t need to pay attention, his quirks allowed him to absorb any information without being aware of it, should the teacher call on him for whatever reason, he’d be able to answer no sweat.

“Now that you’re all third years, it’s time you start thinking about your futures.”

All For One didn’t need to think about the future, he could know it whenever he wanted. But he didn’t feel like knowing now. Perhaps it would make the monotony of his life slightly more interesting.

“I’d hand out these career apprehension forms, but I know you all want to be heroes anyway!’

Izuku remained stoic as all around him, quirks were turned on. No school in the country should really allow this but Aldera Junior High was rather lax in its regard to the law.

When he had noticed this at first, a quick check with a clone told him that this was because that cult of quirk users owned the establishment. The meta liberation army, was it? He’d kill that bird if it ever looked like it would take off. Then again, war was a great time to alleviate boredom, plus no one would notice quirks going missing if the people were as well.

The teacher had briefly re-established control of the class, only for the resident Pomeranian to make his over-inflated ego known.

“Ha, Sensei you better not be lumping me together with these extras and their third-rate quirks.” The Boy loudly exclaimed, bearing his very famous grin that verged on a snarl. “You can’t even compare me to these weak asses. I’m in a whole other league.” The boy let off a few sparks from his hands while leaping from his slouched position to one of combat readiness on his desk.

Katsuki Bakugo, Quirk: Explosion. He was everything there was to dislike about modern hero society if you wrapped it up into a single person and dialled the arsehole up to 110. His powerful quirk combined with his personality and upbringing had moulded something quite interesting. Izuku pondered to himself about the child, and how that strange marriage of an inferiority and superiority complex could ever become a functioning adult, let alone a hero

“Oh, Midoriya was also trying out for UA as well.”

He was?

When had he...?

Izuku Shigaraki, All for One. The man with a thousand faces and even more names. The one who controlled the entire world for simple entertainment was caught off-guard.

He had been surprised.

This was…Interesting.

Chapter Text

He had been…surprised? When was the last time he had been surprised?

For the first time in a long while, Izuku Shigaraki actually strained his mind. Not by much, but he was still the most powerful entity on the planet. But the effort was great enough that his entire network of clones felt it.

They all asked him what the problem was, this was less of a cacophony of voices and much more of a sharp increase in signals in the mind which didn’t much help his thinking problem.

His answer arrived in picoseconds, he had never at any point applied for UA. Why would he? In simple terms, he had been there and done that already.

(His history with the school was actually something he was personally proud of. He’d been there when some drunk revolutionaries, fresh off of his ‘defeat’, had broached the idea of opening a ‘hero school’. He’d watched as the ribbon was cut at its opening. He’d served as a teacher there twice and even as its principal for a few decades, not to mention his role in the sports festival and the ‘UA crush’ at the Provisional licensing exams. The point was that he had a soft spot for the place and thus had decided to stay away from it if he could at help it.)

Now, All for One was not someone who would be majorly inconvenienced by this turn of events and on any other day, he’d have used his many millions of quirks to erase this event from the minds and records of history before the teacher had even finished talking. Yet the simple fact that he’d been surprised held him off. He’d made decisions in the past he’d had to wipe. But this was a decision he hadn’t made.

So Izuku Shigaraki was sitting back, not even paying attention to the jibes from his classmates. They’d make fun of him for trying obviously. Izuku Midoriya was quirkless.

“UA? That’s the top hero school. I heard it's super difficult to get into.”

“Yeah, and will they really accept someone like him?”

“You can’t just become a hero with good grades.”

This did not bother the immortal man, for he was determined to get to the bottom of this. So, he turned on some more quirks, outwardly ignoring the insults as well as the snarling, pissed-off existence that was Katsuki Bakugo.

As the Teacher returned to the lesson, Izuku began. First, he used a telepathy quirk to read the mind of everyone within a 2km radius while using several multitasking quirks and information processing quirks to sort through it all. In milliseconds, he had his answer, no one in the immediate area had signed him up for UA. Strangely enough, the eighth idiot was in Musutafu. But a quick second glance at his mind before it slipped away revealed the reason why.

Unimportant. Well, time to look deeper

Human Archive, Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Mental Glance, Back Again, Power Amplification x14…

His search of all of the memories of those in the area continued to yield no fruit. So, he decided that it was time for a more direct approach.

Complex Illusions, Cloak, Stealth, Levitate. Intangibility, Remote control.

To Izuku’s classmates, he appeared to sink into his chair and continue writing in his notebooks. But in reality, he had slipped into the air, completely undetectable to any human or machine. He floated to the front of the class and located the forms on the side of the teacher’s desk. A few perception-warping quirks and he had his hand on his own form.

He remembered filling it in, having selected just the local high school in the Aldera Family. Since this identity was quirkless, to aim any higher would have been a fruitless endeavour. On his form was unmistakably the UA hero course as his first pick. Why had he even been allowed to pick that? Surely there were rules against allowing defenceless kids into the hero course.

Blip

Never mind, it seemed UA had redacted that rule a few years back. A publicity stunt most likely. No self-respecting hero would ever let a quirkless individual join their ranks. He placed his hand firmly on the form, letting his Psychometry quirks take over. He felt everything the paper had ever experienced, from its first light as a baby tree to himself handing the form in.

Yet there was something else.

In a tiny unit of time, only a few thousand Planck instants, there was a flash of…something. Something had changed his paper. And now he had always put UA as his first choice. Even though he himself had not written it, somehow, it was always pre-determined that this was what was written.

All For One was no stranger to manipulating the fabric of reality itself, but this was the kind of warping that would even take him a few minutes to complete. To further complicate matters, the previously thought all-powerful quirk user could not track how this change had been made. Nor could he undo it.

Then Izuku suddenly came to the realisation. This was a manipulation of reality that was on par with his own. And it had targeted him. Him. He had no equal.

The matter of attending UA was irrelevant now. Someone had targeted him. No one but he knew who he was at any given time. He had thousands of faces. He was All for One!

As quickly as the rising anger had filled and bubbled within the immortal quirk user, it died and simmered. Before being replaced by a strange feeling of elation. Then he found himself chucking. It quickly devolved into a full-on laugh.

This was not a problem! This was a triumph!

The identity of this mysterious person who’d used power on par with his was overshadowed by the fact that they had chosen to mess with him. Not come out and challenge him to a battle that would decide the fate of Earth. They had pulled a prank on him!

And the method they had chosen was quite hilarious to All for One.

So, at that moment All for One made a decision. He’d play along with whoever this entity was. And if they wanted him to be a hero? Well, why not?

Besides, if their opening move was anything to go by, this would be quite interesting.

Chapter Text

It was a common statistic that in modern society roughly 80% of people had a quirk and of those, 70% were over the age of 50.

It was also a common fact that those people with a second joint in their pinky toe were unlikely ever to develop a quirk 99.99999% of the time.

Or at least, that’s what every quirk doctor on the planet would say. Because they did not know about All For One.

The pinky toe myth fact was just one of Izuku’s manipulations, like the pyramids or Stonehenge (god he’d had fun building the latter.)

It had all started back in the late 21^st century after his public defeat. He had made himself known, in the form of one of his clones, to a renowned biologist known as Dr Garaki.

The man had had many interesting ideas that Izuku entertained, usually the kind that were so close yet so far from the truth (Quirk singularity? As if. All For One was living proof that quirks could never grow too powerful) But one of them did catch his interest. The man had brought up how since the emergence of quirks, the human body had mutated in roughly 50-60% of people with a quirk to remove a toe joint from the pinky, and in all likely hood, it would reach a point that a lack of a second joint in the pinky toe would be synonymous with having no quirk.

All For One was able dismiss this crackpot theory as quickly as the others the good doctor conceived. But he found it quite hilarious nonetheless. It was like one of those old conspiracies about vaccines causing autism. So, he took it upon himself to complete a self fulfilling prophecy.

It wasn’t unusual for Izuku to stalk hospitals to find new quirks for himself. At first he’d just taken any interesting quirk he found, but now he’d make an effort to only target quirk users with 2 pinky joints.

Give it 150 years and a billion quirks stolen, and this ‘crackpot conspiracy’ became reputable biological fact, backed up by multiple sources.

Garaki always viewed himself as the bleeding edge of quirk theory and practise and he did good work for Izuku’s Japanese empire, so the immortal was more than okay to entertain this man for as long as he amused All For One.

In the modern day, Quirk users were now the majority despite his tampering and he couldn’t steal many more quirks without alerting both governments and the ever annoying holders of One For All of his true capabilities. Izuku was plenty aware of the heavy discrimination faced by quirkless individuals in society, so one might question why, when making the persona of Izuku Midoriya, did he intentionally decide to go quirkless. The reason is that All For One is a supporter of the idea that you learn the most about a civilisation by how they treat their weakest.

Which is why Izuku was currently on the floor of his classroom, with the Bakugo boy waving his notebook like it had personally offended him, which it probably had.

“Who do you think you are Deku? You’re a pebble for me to step on, yet you think you can be a hero?” The blonde snarled, seemingly more pissed than usual.

Izuku did not respond, feigning the weakness one would expect of a quirkless boy, while Bakugo and his cronies leered over him.

He’d first met Bakugo around when he started at Aldera, and he was just the same as he’d been back then. They weren’t close by any means and most of the time Bakugo would just ignore the ‘boy’ unless he did something that the boy perceived as a personal attack, which to him, was nearly everything.

“Listen Deku. All of the great heroes showed signs of it from their school days and I’m no different. So I’m gonna be the first and only one from this shitty school to get into UA.” Izuku was roughly grabbed and hauled up, before being pinned against the wall by Bakugo. He made sure to let it happen

“You better not apply, not even to general studies. You got that?”

On any other day that would have been the end of it. Bakugo would be done stroking his ego, Izuku would get up pretending to be hurt before leaving and going home.

Even immortal, nigh-omnipotent gods need time to unwind in the evening.

But this was not any other day, this was the day said immortal being had been shocked by something he hadn’t predicted. Izuku had continued to ponder who the identity of the thing that had done so, and this has lead him down the train of thought that if he could effortlessly hide in plain site, any being like him would be able to do so as well. And if they were close by, perhaps even in Aldera, then they may have not been effected by his disguise.

This had ultimately lead All For One to assemble a suspect list, and who better to start with than Katsuki Bakugo. It was the last person anyone would suspect, which in turn made him top of the list.

He’d have to be rather direct in his approach, but it was the most logical way to start.

Blip

If Katsuki Bakugo was innocent he’d suddenly have memories of being lifelong ‘friends’ with Izuku, where the latter would have followed him around and admired him for his strength and commitment. This was something Katsuki would interpret as Izuku looking down on him and judging him as weak if he needed a quirkless friend. While dialling up his jerk persona by a factor of 7, it would allow Izuku to operate much more efficiently in future.

Plus it’d be fun to watch.

If Katsuki Bakugo was guilty, he’d feel Izuku’s influence and most likely pretend to act like Bakugo would have otherwise. Only he wouldn’t act exactly how Izuku predicted, which would tip his hand. Izuku would then only reveal himself as knowing once he could see this other entity’s intentions.

It’d be less fun though.

Fun was still in store however, because the next words out of the blonde’s mouth almost brought a hysterical laugh to All For One’s lips.

“We’ve known each other for a long time, and you’ve always been looking down on me!” The boy stated, his followers smirking. “You can never be hero you freak of nature!”

Oh he was a freak of nature alright, just a different one altogether

The trio of middle school bullies began to leave as Izuku feigned pain against the wall, struggling a fair amount to keep the grin off of his face.

“If you want to be a hero so bad, why don’t you take a swan dive off a roof and pray you’ll get a quirk in the next life!”

Well, he’d never been suicide bated before. The original Bakugo would never go out of his way to insult Izuku.

Bakugo was innocent, Izuku had one less suspect and one more pawn of entertainment.

Chapter Text

Generally, Izuku’s journey from school was completely uneventful. Primarily due his liberal use of teleportation. But today he had other plans. His initial study of Bakugo was simply one way of ending the game, but it was halted by the fact he wasn’t the entity.

By Izuku’s prediction, the chances of the entity being someone from Aldera and not Bakugo were less than 0.02%. Bakugo was really the only notable person at the school, and if All For One’s profile of the entity was correct, they were not the kind of person to assume a background role.

He wouldn’t completely discount that place, but his full attention was better spent elsewhere.

Since his (very likely fruitless) investigation would most likely take time to complete, his next best means was to continue to play the entity’s game. And the only way for the entity to play its game is for it to have opportunity.

Plink

Speak of the devil.

Izuku had been walking home like a mortal when he was hit with a sudden jolt of information that made him almost squirm with anticipation. The entity either was a ridiculously forward thinking planner, or what was about to happen was merely coincidence. All For One truly doubted it.

As he progressed through an underpass, he heard a rushing sound followed by the clang of a manhole cover being lifted.

Turning his head round halfway, he noted the writhing mass of foul smelling sludge emerging from the sewers. From the grotesque form, emerged a pair of yellow eyes and a wide toothed grin.

“Oh, well just my luck. A medium sized invisibility cloak.”

Not the strangest thing he’d been called by a sewer monster

“I’m real glad you’re here because now I can get away from him. Man, if I’d known he was in town I would’ve stayed home.”

Throughout this whole exchange, the immortal quirk user had not moved, he remained thoroughly disinterested in what would have been impending death to anyone who wasn’t him. Or the Entity probably.

When the sludge villain finally stopped monologuing and actually decided to attack, Izuku was already bored.

He effortless side-stepped the opening leap and retreated, his face not betraying an expression. As he ducked and weaved, helped by a mere 20 quirks, the sludge grew increasingly frustrated by his lack of success

“Come on kid, why are you making this so hard? It’ll only hurt for about 45 seconds.” The sludge whined.

“Maybe that’s because you are attempting to scoop out the internals of my body and puppeteer it like some bargain bin version of Ennead and the purple guy.”

“Ennead? Who’s-“

The sludge’s next question was interrupted by the manhole cover flying several metres into the air. Izuku watched both this and the sludges slowly building terror in amusement. Seriously, it’s like disk got hired for a dramatic reveal or something.

Emerging from the sewers was the reason All For One hadn’t atomised the sludge villain yet.

The eighth holder of his late brother’s quirk, looking as dashing as ever. From his gravity defying golden locks to his ever present forced smile (did his cheeks ever ache? Did he have to massage them every night when he went home? Probably not considering the state the rest of his body was. In a condition like that, a small ache was almost nothing.)

“Fear not young man, for I am here! I apologise for letting this villain get away but now I shall dispense justice!”

Izuku simply slinked out of the blast area and watched as the idiot launched a punch at the fleeing sludge. With a single blow, the sludge was scattered.

The hero busied himself with gathering up the sludge into two 2-Litre plastic bottles, before turning to talk to his mortal enemy.

“Ah, well done for getting out of the way. I was worried that the villain might have already got someone in its dastardly grip! AHAHAHA!”

“What’s funny about an injured civilian?”

“Err…Well, I didn’t mean that I was laughing at…You see it was…”

Oh god the man was really an imbecile. As he sputtered out an excuse, Izuku considered why the entity would have wanted him to meet this man. Did it want them to make up and become friends or something?

‘Oh hi, remember me, I’m All For One. You fought one of my clones 5 years ago and almost died from it. Wanna go get some coffee?’

While thinking about this ridiculous idea, Izuku came up with a much more entertaining one. He quickly gave a set of instructions to his physical body to perform and then entered the mental space of his quirk.

Within this space was a large infinite terrain. The ground was some sort of fine dust layered incomprehensibly thick. In the centre of the space was the large glowing sphere of All For One’s quirk. It discharged small burst of black lightning but otherwise remained quite uniform. The sky above was home to what were to any one else, an uncountable number of what looked to be stars. But All For One knew that these were in-fact all the quirks he had stolen over his 236 years of life.

All 2,578,000,081 of them.

His attention was not on any of this however, instead he focused on a small doorway, glowing with a brilliant white light, beneath the imposing light of his quirk. Instantly he arrived at it and went through.

He now found himself in a much darker location, shrouded in black mist and a stony floor. The other difference between this place and his were the 7 or 8 figures milling around, some seemingly coated in coloured mists.

Izuku Shigaraki was no longer wearing the face or outfit of Izuku Midoriya. For an important meeting like this one, he would wear his own. Gone was the scrawny boy of barely 5 foot, curly green locks, wide innocent eyes and baby fat.

Now he stood a strong 2 metres in height, with sharp chilled features. His eyes were still their famous emerald shade, but were now narrower along with his mouth. His hair had reverted to his natural pure white and was gelled back against his head. While he was not a muscle bound titan like the hero he had been speaking to mere seconds ago, he had a well defined body with a more lean but chiselled build. The school uniform of Aldera had been replaced with a black turtleneck and matching suit jacket, dark slacks and formal shoes.

This was the true appearance of Izuku Shigaraki, All For One.

Izuku had not been noticed yet, mainly because he had still hidden his presence, but still it was annoying that none of these people who had dedicated their lives to bringing him down had realised that something was amiss. He cleared his throat for effect before speaking

“Hello there.”

The reaction was immediately and so hilarious he had to school his entire body not to double over in laughter.

The 2^nd and 3^rd, both jumped back, adopting combat stances, 4^th tripped and fell over, his quirk failing to notice Izuku likely catching him off-guard. 5^th seemed to look like he was choking while 6^th jumped over to hit his back (how would a ghost even choke?). 7^th meanwhile flew a good dozen metres into the air, before stopping and regarding the new figure.

The only one who did not seem fazed was one small man with a hunched posture and smooth white hair. Instead he slowly rose, turned around to face All For One, and responded calmly.

“General Kenobi.”

Oh he had missed Yoichi!

The other thieves seemed to regain their composure. Now appearing confused more than frightened, the 4^th quickly spoke up.

“Who are you? How did you even get in here?”

Ah, right. None of them could recognise his true form.

“I am the one you have all fought and died against. I am the immortal terror of the world. The one who rules all and none can oppose.”

His statement reignited the fear in all their eyes, seemingly recognising the voice and manner in which he spoke. He suspected at least a few of them had nightmares of it. Yoichi was the only one who remained unfazed.

“And?”

Rude. Little. Brat.

He really had missed Yoichi.

Chapter Text

“What the fuck?”

It was the 5^th who broke the silence first. The bald man had seemingly recovered from almost choking despite the fact he was dead.

“I think a better question would be how the fuck?” 2^nd or 3^rd. Those two were really so similar that sometimes Izuku couldn’t be bothered to remember which was which.

It was his legendary brother who finally completed the trilogy, exhaustedly speaking both to All For One and the thieves. “I’ll do you one better, why the fuck?”

“To answer your questions in order…As you should be able to tell. I’m All For One. How am I here? I’m All For One. Why am I here? I’m motherfucking All For One.”

His words did little to alleviate the tension in the air. As expected, the only one who even seemed capable of pulling a face other than pure hate was his ever impressive brother. The frail man was merely staring in curiosity at Izuku, as if he was trying to find falsity in his words and appearance. “You’re different from how I remember brother.” The man eventually said.

“Well I did take the time to ensure that no one but me knew of my real appearance. What’s the point in having thousands of faces when someone knows they’re fake.”

“You modified my memory.” Yoichi seemed…like he was expecting it. “Oh, and how did you come to that conclusion Sherlock Holmes?” Izuku said with fake sarcasm. He knew that Yoichi was merely processing his thoughts aloud. All For One himself had had a habit of muttering when he was younger, especially when it came to quirk analysis.

“My memories of you were always blurry, I suspected you altered them at some point. Given that you’ve now revealed yourself…and your supposed true form. It would make sense.” Yoichi was always quick to figure things out when he had access to the right information.

“So, you’ve been wearing a disguise every time we fought you?” One of the other thieves said.

“I have only personally fought the 2^nd and 3^rd. After that, I had to divide my attention between my many projects. My clones had to act as a supplement for you.” Izuku didn’t let the real reason slip just yet. If they knew that their crusade was entirely fruitless from the beginning, it could cause the legacy of One For All to end. He’d lose a prime source or potential entertainment, regardless of how lacklustre the recent players were.

He’d also lose Yoichi permanently and wouldn’t be able to come and speak to him like this.

“Tell me brother, what is the reason behind you finally gracing us with your presence?” Yoichi was quick on the uptake.

“But of course, it’s not like I don’t need a reason to visit my brother…and his…emulators.” Izuku spoke the word with as much venom as he could muster. Which considering he was All For One, was a lot of venom. “But I have a few things that I came here with the purpose of completing. First, I suppose some semblance of congratulations are in order…” The thieves seemed confused by this. He ignored it and continued. “As of 5 years ago, you successfully managed to take down one of my combat clones.” He decided not to mention that said clone was a low tier. Gotta set em up before you knock em down after all. “Regrettably, you only succeeded in that. A Pyrrhic victory, but it was a victory none the less.”

“I’ll forego asking how you managed to crawl away from that considering you just told us…” The 7^th was now speaking. She was probably the most interesting one aside from his brother. He absentmindedly wondered how she’d feel about her family when she learned the truth. (It was not his fault that the Shimura family had been killed by her own grandson. That was an accident…) “…So instead I’ll ask why did you wait so long to do so?” She was such an enthralling women, the audacity to demand something like an answer from him about something so basic even the 8^th would’ve figured it out.

“I just didn’t want to soil the taste of your victory, so I decided that a few years of peace were deserved.” Their were a few grimaces at that but no one spoke. “My second reason for visiting is to inform you all of my continued existence. The fact I decided to reveal my real appearance to you however, leads me on to my third reason.” He passed for dramatic effect. “The status quo from the last 2 centuries has been changed.”

“What do you mean by ‘changed’?” It was Yoichi talking again. His face had shifted to a look of growing concern. All For One chuckled slightly before answering the man. “A third party, that may or may not be related to either and/or both of us has made their presence known.” He ended the speech while ensuring questions were left unanswered. He liked to make people think. Seeing their minds put together clues over the course of hours while it took him less than a second was always fun to watch.

“The fact that you’ve come here…does this mean that this so called ‘third party’ is someone or something you consider a threat?” Both Yoichi and Izuku had inherited the brain of their mother. A women often joked to be half demon when it came to her mind. (Did that make the two of them both Demi-demons as well? Or were they a quarter demon?).

“Their true intentions seem to be a mystery to me as of now. But if you are referring to the power they wield, then it is on par with my own.” Izuku enjoyed the growing looks of fear that etched themselves deep into the faces and minds of every one of the vestiges.

“Afraid someone will steal your crown brother?” Yoichi mocked.

“If it is my crown that they are after, their actions so far seem to indicate that they’d rather make a game out of it.”

“Whatever the situation, the time has come to bid you thieves and my brother a farewell.” He began, preparing to leave and considering if he should let the 8^th find out about this conversation. Nah, the ghosts should be able to handle it fine. One For All was, if nothing else, always an entertaining variable. “Wait!” Yoichi shouted, causing the immortal to pause in his retreat. “Why would you go so far as to make contact with us, just to drop a vague hint of a threat and then leave?”

Izuku Shigaraki, turned slowly and grinned devilishly (yeah he was a semi-demon no doubt!).

“I’m All For One” he said simply, leaving before another word could be spoken between them.

Chapter Text

‘Really?’

As Izuku exited his connection with One For All, that was the thought occupying his head. He had chosen to end their reunion like that? He must have been losing it in his old age. ‘Speaking of losing things, what exactly happened while I was occupied.’

Blip

That. Mother. Fucker.

Before now, Izuku had tried to remain neutral toward the 8^th holder. He was little more than a minor nuisance and thus the man had rarely bothered with entertaining him. He was just supposed to do his job and pretend all was right with the world. He’d play the role of the number 1 hero everyone can aspire to be and Izuku would play everyone else.

But now…

When he’d decided to take a trip into One For All, he’d put his body on autopilot with a specific set of instructions on how to act, specifically, it would act as one would expect of Izuku Midoriya. The quirkless boy, with a big heart and (recently) the desire to become a great hero like the idiot.

The instructions given were quite vague. To scripted and the persona wouldn’t sell, so with a few quirks like mental construct, persona, remote, and hear what I want for a few minutes, Izuku Midoriya was a separate existence from Izuku Shigaraki.

And in those few minutes, the hero had crushed his manufactured dreams and told him to give up.

Granted he didn’t take the One for All holder’s words to heart, hell he barely cared what the hero said. But it did annoy him that he would be so heartless to someone so young and innocent.

He gazed around at where he now found himself. Some rooftop apparently. The hero really didn’t care about him. Or rather, he was selfish enough that he only thought of his time limit. Imagine if he’d been a regular child, The blonde had basically left a quirkless, bullied middle schooler on a rooftop high enough to take a swan dive off of after he’d been suicide-baited only an hour prior.

Either way, Izuku didn’t really care. He now had the business of getting home so he could unwind and ponder the entity’s plans.

Making a note of what had happened so far, the entity had bent reality to make Izuku go to UA and set up a meeting with the holder of One for All by having a villain come into his path. Granted, he wasn’t sure of exactly how much the second was influenced by the entity, but the hero should have been able to catch such a villain with little to no sweat, even in his weakened state, and Izuku reasoned that he must have had some subtle help.

When he thought about it, it almost seemed like the entity was setting up some sort of convoluted origin story for him, or rather Izuku Midoriya. A quirkless boy desired to be a hero and a meeting with the greatest hero of all time (not his opinion, but the publics’). It would’ve screamed coincidence had Izuku been literally anyone else.

All for One did believe in coincidence. Even he knew that not everything was worth shaping to be perfect otherwise all the fun of waiting to see what would happen would be drained out before the play began. All for One believed in coincidence, he liked coincidence. He found coincidence entertaining. But right now, he sure as hell didn’t trust coincidence. Like that guy from one of the old Star Trek shows.

This entity was someone All for One would very much like to meet. He could easily see himself getting along with them, provided their intentions were altruistic toward him.

Izuku Shigaraki left the rooftop where the 8^th had left him and continued his route home, taking note of everything and everyone he passed, looking for some sign of the entity of its influence.

Most people had 5 senses, some claimed to have a 6^th that was ESP-like in nature, and some people did have a 6^th. All For One had at least 14 senses running non-stop, even when he slept. He didn’t always take note of the information but could access it whenever he wished to.

Right now, he had something like 2 dozen senses running at full tilt. He knew that the entity wasn’t finished with this day yet. He knew because All for One would never settle to leave a plot thread like that unfinished. He’d ensure that, if the positions were reversed, the other party would come out of the day with a changed outlook on what they were meant to do and perhaps the feeling of euphoria from dancing in someone else’s hand for a change.

Low and behold, the coincidence strikes again.

As he turned onto another street, he suddenly sensed something that, while not the work of the entity, was interesting, nonetheless.

It seemed that the number one hero had somehow allowed that D-rank villain to escape from his grasp (was he really that useless?) and it was now attacking Katsuki Bakugo, Midoriya’s childhood friend and bully. The sludge had the blonde embraced in a tight grip and was currently violating his throat by forcing those tendrils of his into it.

Izuku Shigaraki would have laughed, gotten out his phone, taken a selfie, put his phone away, and laughed even harder.

But Izuku Midoriya had to pretend to be a worried citizen, so he clapped his hands over his mouth in a feigned look of shock and horror. Pictures were unnecessary since he had an eidetic memory anyway. But it was always nice to have some possessions he didn’t magic out of thin air.

All For One could sense the deflated form of the 8^th holder within the crowd of bystanders. He had seemingly exhausted his time limit for the day and thus was being as useless as the 5 ‘heroes’ currently standing around and looking at the scene like they were at the cinema or something. Unless something did something fast, Bakugo was going to fall unconscious due to a lack of oxygen or leave a rather pissed-off-looking corpse. (All For One has killed enough of his enemies to know what kind of people have the capability to have a ‘pissed off corpse’ and Bakugo is one of them. The boy figuratively emitted enough anger that it increased the rage levels of the surrounding environment by 20%)

What would Izuku Shigaraki would’ve done is wait to see how the scene ended and then walked away with new memories, but the entity’s influence had changed him.

Not literally, that was impossible.

No, it had changed him. Made him want to intervene in things that were usually irrelevant. Made him want to play a game that so far had been quite fun to play.

So, All for One played the game.

And Izuku Midoriya ran into the villain attack.

He ignored the words of the ‘heroes’ and darted straight from Katsuki. Being careful to use the minimum number of quirks that he could pass it off as athleticism, Izuku quickly came up against the figure of the sludge villain. Before the thought had finished formulating in his mind, he came to his next step in a few picoseconds.

Unhooking the bag, he wore on his back for his school appearance, The disguised boy locked onto the living sewage’s eyes. His quirks and common sense told him that they were the only parts he could affect with current resources, and he had no desire to out himself in front of 5 pro heroes, the surrounding bystanders and on television. That was a mess he did not want to spend his evening clearing up

In a spiralling motion, building up some kinetic energy, Izuku spun around and tossed the bag and its contents in the direction of one of the eyes. Thankfully it struck and seemed to disorient the villain, causing the mass of sludge and slime to yell in pain. The attack momentarily allowed Bakugo to be released from its grasp.

“What the hell Deku?” The blonde snapped. “Get out of here!”

“You know for someone who just had imminent death 6 inches down their throat, you’re awfully concerned about me. It’s nice to know you care.” He replied.

Removing the sludge pinning the blonde in place without using quirks was impossible in the form he’d constructed. But All for One was anything but a quitter and with the slight heave from a few minor telekinesis quirks, he successfully extracted his pet bully from the villain.

“Stupid Deku, I didn’t need your help!” Bakugo said as they both got to their feet to face the now-recovered slime villain.

“Alright, Kacchan.” He paused as he suddenly sensed a flare behind him as the 8^th finally got his act together and did his job. “I’ll let All Might help you.”

“All-“

The explosive child didn’t finish his sentence as the hero immediately jumped between them and the lunging sludge.

“I really am pathetic, forcing children to do the work of heroes. Well, it’s time to make amends.”

“Kacchan we should probably make a valiant effort to run. Like, right now.” Izuku evenly stated as All Might’s fist was chambered. For once the blonde listened without complaint. Apparently, self-preservation trumps the superiority complex.

“Detroit Smash!”

…

“You think anyone would notice if I created an umbrella from thin air?” All for One asked absentmindedly as rain from the 8th thief's smash began to pitter down on him, causing mild discomfort

“What the fuck are you talking about Deku?” Bakugo, unlike Izuku, was currently sprawled on the ground from the force of the blow. The immortal quirk user had briefly considered pretending to follow suit only to come to the rapid conclusion that the ground here was far too unsanitary for such an act.

(All for One wasn’t a germophobe per se. He just preferred to stay immaculate when he could.)

“Well, I can see that this shitshow is over so I’m going to continue home,” Izuku said as he turned to leave, ignoring both the paramedics and heroes (using some quirks of course) and continued to walk home.

The Entity's plan was getting ridiculous what was the point of these continued interactions with the hero anyway?

Chapter Text

“…For I am Here!”

Was it at all possible for Izuku to have even a partially quiet stroll home today? Apparently not as he’d now run into the 8^th for the third time in less than 2 hours. It seemed like longer but because of climate change the sun hadn’t gotten the memo that winter was over yet and thus the sky was thrown into deep shades of orange and crimson despite it being literally 5:30 in the afternoon.

(He really should get around to fixing the planet’s axial tilt one day. Ever since that time, he’d accidentally knocked the moon out of orbit it had never quite the same.)

“I’m sure you’re wondering how I gave the press the slip!”

‘Not really, I did exactly what you did. But, you know, better.’ is what he wanted to say.

“Y-yes. How?” is what he actually said.

“AHAHAHA! It was easy for I am All M-“ the imbecilic blonde deflated quite suddenly spraying blood across the path. Some of it hit Izuku’s cheek.

If All for One didn’t already have a strong urge to do something so unspeakably incomprehensible to this man for what he said to Midoriya earlier (He was still pretty annoyed at the idiot’s tact), he now very much wanted to backhand him across Tokyo, demolishing it in the process.

“Kid. Listen, I came here to thank you.”

“F-for what All M-Might.” Izuku Midoriya asked. Was it for sparing him on several dozen occasions when he could easily turn the man into a smear on the sidewalk? Izuku hoped so. Maybe they could go out and get that coffee after all? (He could really go for a coffee or 4)

“Today I said something to you that I shouldn’t have. It was highly hypocritical of me to say that you couldn’t be a hero when out of all the people at the scene today, it was a young, quirkless boy who acted…”

Wow. He had not expected the hero to eat his words. Granted, it was a slight probability he wouldn’t, but still, it was strange to hear this guy the public assumed could do no wrong come out about his mistakes. (It was a good thing too. His ability to view multiple futures told him that there was a low chance of Izuku Midoriya turning into a villain because of this event and his manufactured life could apparently be taken as some sort of tragic backstory.)  It almost made him not want to pound All Might into the pavement because of how long he was going on for…speaking of which.

“Young man…you too, can be a hero.”

Oh. That’s where he was going with this.

So, the Entity wasn’t satisfied by giving Midoriya a basic backstory. These meetings with All Might, it was almost like it was a set-up for…

“…You are truly worthy to inherit my power!”

Yep.

Blip

All around Izuku, time immediately froze. All Might’s words stalled in his throat. Birds stopped mid-wing beat and the sounds of the city were instantly silenced.

Izuku took a deep breath and snapped his fingers. In a sudden flash of white light, another figure appeared on the street. The man looked disoriented for a few seconds before his gaze focused on the form of Izuku.

“Brother?” Yoichi said confused

“Bingo.”

“What the fuck do you want?” he said with more amusement than annoyance

“4 double espressos and a bacon sandwich but that is irrelevant at the moment.” Izuku paused. “Your spiritual great-something grandson wants to give this body his quirk.”

“I saw.” He said simply. “I can’t speak for the others since you basically just froze time but I’m sure they wouldn’t want that to happen. Regardless, it’s not like we can have a say in who Yagi gives the quirk to.”

“I concur.”

Yoichi actually managed to look stunned. “I’m sorry, but did you just turn down One for All?”

“Yoichi, don’t think for a minute that I don’t see your game plan,” Izuku warned

The previously stoic expression of his brother began to break. “Oh, my dear onii-san. What could you possibly mean?” Yoichi sarcastically asked with a chuckle.

Izuku just looked at his junior. Yoichi held his gaze and somehow managed to look innocent while he did so. Eventually, All for One sighed and relented. “Yoichi, we both know that you are the one who decides who One for All goes to, you just let the thieves do as they please because you don’t want to clue anyone in on it.”

His brother didn’t visibly react but Izuku ‘saw’ a change in his mind. It was a mix of shock and amusement.

“Furthermore. Do you really think I’ve forgotten the real reason you decided you wanted to oppose me? I would probably have fewer brain cells than the average pro hero if I was to fall for something like that.” All for One listed off.

“Brother I’m impressed. 200 years ago, you would’ve fallen for something like that instantly” Yoichi laughed. He laughed.

For the love of him, he had definitely erased Yoichi’s memories of the more…embarrassing moments from their past along with his true appearance. The problem was now that Yoichi was remembering.

He was remembering how much he didn’t care about Izuku's power.

“Well, I’m reasonably certain that you bequeathed your singular brain cell to me when you died so I’m surprised you find this as news.”

“Eh, never needed it.”

Oh dear, Yoichi really had never needed smarts. All for One may be nigh-omnipotent. He may have not spoken to Yoichi properly in decades, he may control the entire world for his own amusement, and he may have wiped out several nations from both the face of the planet and history. (And people still thought Plato created Atlantis!). he might have done everything there was to do.

But nothing could possibly erase the memory of Yoichi’s activities in the 21^st century. How this man who flipped between wise sage and philanthropic man child at a whim had terrorised him throughout his both waking and sleeping life

Yoichi’s quest for justice might’ve never stood a chance against his power.

But Yoichi never really took the hint.