Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The river smelled of rot.

The air was thick with the scent of old iron, of wet decay, of flesh that had long since stopped clinging to life. Flies whined over a corpse sprawled in the reeds - a woman whose belly had been taut with the burden of life just hours before. She had been left there like refuse, her lips cracked, her eyes rolled back, her womb slack and torn.

But something moved within her.

A wet, glistening hand pushed through the bloodied wreckage of her body, fingers flexing instinctively, curling into the air as if to seize it. The thing was not meant to live. The mother had died alone in the filth of the riverbank, and the child should have followed, strangled by the birth that had orphaned it before its first breath.

And yet, it did not die.

With a slow, unnatural deliberation, the newborn pulled itself free from its mother’s cooling flesh. Its tiny chest heaved, gulping in air. The cord that bound it to the corpse was still attached, still pulsing weakly with the last dregs of borrowed life.

The firstborn did not know the word for mother, but he knew that she had been the source of all things before now. And yet she was nothing now - bloated flesh cooling, her insides loose and slick with afterbirth, her open legs revealing the black-red mess he had crawled from. Waste.

It did not cry. It simply stared at the world with pale, unfocused eyes. Alive.

Another weak, reedy wail came from the ruined cavity of the lifegiver’s abdomen. A second infant, still slick with blood and fluid, still curled and trembling, barely strong enough to squirm. It was a fragile, pitiful thing, and as the first child turned its unfocused gaze upon it, something stirred within its newborn mind.

It reached out - clumsy, twitching fingers wrapping around the smaller hand. .

It did not understand words yet. It did not understand names, or possession, or desire. But it understood  other child belonged to it. This small, helpless thing had come into the world with him. It was his.

It curled closer, pressing its damp, fever-warm skin against its twin’s trembling body. The second child barely reacted, too weak even to shiver. Its breath was unsteady, shallow, its ribs sharp beneath its paper-thin skin.

It would die if left alone.

The first child did not intend to let that happen.

Its tiny fingers flexed again, nails digging into the flesh of its sibling and dragged its twin fully into the world.

With instinct, the firstborn moved toward the the waste - he dead thing that had been their lifegiver. Her breast was still warm. Her flesh had not yet stiffened. The thing beside it would not have the strength, but the stronger one did. It found her, latched it’s mouth onto the softness of her body, and suckled down.

And it drank.

At first, nourishment did not come. The body was reluctant, unresponsive. Useless. But the firstborn’s will was greater. He did not cry for nourishment like lesser creatures. He took it. His small hands pressed and kneaded, demanding, and slowly, the remnants of her warmth obeyed. The liquid that once fed him in the womb fed him again.

He drank. He consumed. He survived.

But even in hunger, he was aware of the imperfection beside him.

When the stronger one had had its fill - when its belly had rounded and the gnawing ache had dulled - it turned its attention back to the frail thing still clenched in its fist..

The weaker one was barely breathing. So with clumsy hands, the stronger pushed its twin toward the swollen breast.

The frail thing did not respond at first. It was too weak, too cold, too near to slipping away.

Irritation stirred. The stronger child’s fingers tightened , pressing its weaker half’s mouth against the leaking flesh. Its tiny nails bit into its twin’s skin, scratching, coaxing, forcing. Drink.

And finally, the smaller one did.

It was weak. It drank slowly, too little, hesitating with each shallow swallow. But it drank. It lived.

For three days, they remained on the riverbank, nestled in the carcass of the lifegiver.

The stronger one took first. Always first. Always more. It fed until it was satisfied, until its body was warm and full, and only then did it allow its twin to have what remained.

And in time, the body that had sustained them bloated. The milk turned sour, thick with curdled death. The flesh grew soft beneath their touch. And the flies came in droves.

But the children survived. 

When scavengers lurked too close, drawn by the scent of carrion, the stronger child curled around the weaker one, shielding it from the night and the flesh peckers.

And when the milk ran dry, The liquid falling from the sky kept them alive for longer, as they both consumed its sometimes bountiful and sometimes paltry offerings. And when there was nothing left to take, and the firstborn’s body had evolved enough, it knew it was time to leave.

So it crawled.

Weak, trembling, but determined, it pulled itself through the filth of the riverbank. Dragged the weaker one with it, even as it wailed, with its paper thin fresh scraping against the earth. 

By the time the stronger child took its first steps, unsteady, staggering, but upright, it had learned one undeniable truth.

It- he - was superior. It had been born into filth, into blood, into death, but it had taken what it needed and survived. It had no name, no home, nothing but the frail little thing that always clung to its hand.

When speech came, it named the weaker one.

“Yoichi.”

The first born’s first possession.

His heart, born outside of its body.

Chapter Text

It was the hunger again that drove him.

The Elder twin despised how it gnawed at his insides, how it made the edges of his vision go dark until all he could think about was the next morsel to silence it. In this world, half mad with the sudden emergence of meta abilities, children like him should have died in gutters. But he and that frail thing called Yoichi had survived each day by stealing, by prowling like feral animals under broken streetlights and through garbage-strewn alleys.

He was only five, but fear was a concept that didn’t belong with violence or threats. He held no fear for men thrice his size or the roving gangs that took whatever they wanted. All that mattered was survival. And so, he entered the abandoned store with an authority that belied his small frame.

Shattered windows let in a filthy haze of sunlight. Shelves were tipped and rusted, cans rolling across the floor. Human vermin - older and bigger than the Stronger twin - already occupied the area, hunched over a single dented can they fought over. Their voices rose in anger, desperation, but hushed the moment they noticed the two children.

The Stronger remembered how quickly hunger twisted into something feral and vicious, to which children were easy prey. They lunged for him, coarse hands already grasping for the scrounged meagre bit of food from his grasp. Or perhaps the child himself

The boy did not pause, did not tremble.

He simply took.

The space around the Firstborn seemed to warp. From his slender arms, long, jagged threads erupted, black as tar, piercing forward before he knew it. They drove themselves into flesh and bone, ripping screams from adult throats, splattering the dusty floor with hot red droplets.

The vermin fell, limp and broken, their eyes wide with the horror of being destroyed by something greater than them and the Stronger boy stared with distant curiosity at how fragile they were. 

How easily those bodies crumpled beneath the force of his power. Nothing but obstacles standing in the way of his hunger with no right to exist if the Firstborn wanted them gone.

In the silence that followed, the Older boy bent to retrieve the battered can of food. He turned it over in his blood slicked hand, ignoring the coppery stench that filled the air.

Yet one of the weak still howled, still reached towards the food he now owned. It was his. 
And he would teach this vermin that.

A mild surprise came when something weak and hollow struck his arm, rolling away to clatter against the cracked tiles.

He turned sharply.

There stood the frail thing - Yoichi - eyes brimming with tears, small chest heaving. 

“Stop.” A plea. Pathetic and weak. “No hurt.”

Yoichi did not have many words, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. Fear for the ones just slaughtered, or fear for the Older twin’s soul - the boy couldn’t tell.

But irritation flared inside him. This worthless protest set his teeth on edge. A foolish attempt to question him.

The Stronger twin moved and with a single swift kick that caught his pathetic half's fragile side, sent the Weaker one falling backwards. 

Yoichi’s breath left in a ragged gasp as he sprawled on the dirty floor. Tears spilled down his cheeks, but he did not cry out.

The older boy stared down at him, breath quick with leftover adrenaline, waiting for a sense of … victory perhaps. Satisfaction. It had been a lesson - to teach Yoichi not to question or protest.

But no satisfaction came.

He found it different when he hurt his weaker half. Yoichi was too weak for him to find any real pleasure in his pain. 

Slowly, the Stronger boy stepped forward, the can of food still in his hand, watching as the Weaker twin curled in on himself. He didn’t not flinch away though, only looked up in confusion.

He dropped to a knee beside the frail thing, forced the can into the younger twin’s hands, before pushing it against Yoichi’s lips. The metal rim cut the corner of that trembling mouth, but still, the Frailer one drank, obeyed, as he gulped the half-spoiled soup.

Good, the older boy thought. Let him be sustained. Let him live.

The younger twin had to live. He was their heart, after all - an extension of the Older twins own body, pitiful and feeble as he was. The Firstborn’s imperfection. He was meant to remain fragile, reliant. That was how the Older boy could protect him, how he could control him. 

Weak. Reliant. Stubborn - but still his.

He would not kick Yoichi again. It served no purpose beyond bruising his first possession. If Yoichi needed to be taught fear, there were other ways to enforce it. Other ways to teach lessons.

Still, as he made Yoichi gulp down the last drops of soup, he cast a glance at the bloodied corpses behind them. His power had done that, and it felt as natural as breathing. An unstoppable force awakened by hunger and anger.

This world was take or be taken from - and with the power he held - the Stronger twin could take anything. The strongest were the ones who ruled and those who ruled were the strongest. 

So the Firstborn would simply take it all.

They left the store, the Stronger twin ensuring the Weaker was following behind 

Yoichi’s head hung low, but he clung to his older brother’s arm as the Older boy listened to the younger twin’s quiet hiccups. 

He let the Weak thing cling. Not out of compassion - but because that hold was a reminder that Yoichi existed by his allowance, by his strength.

He could kill. He could control. And he would feed his heart as long as it beat.

That was all the boy without a name needed to know.

X

The Firstborn had learned to survive by brutal necessity. 

By seven years of age, the older twin had already carved out a territory among the city's underbelly - a cramped alleyway and half collapsed building that no one else wanted. It was enough for him and his Yoichi, a pocket of relative safety in a world that cared nothing for children.

But safety was never guaranteed. There were scavengers everywhere. Hungry souls with rotted morals, people so far gone they would do anything to consume - be it food, power, or the frail bodies of weaker prey. He knew how to handle them, how to kill if necessary. But the Stronger couldn’t watch over his weaker half every second.

Yoichi - seven years old and painfully naive. Soft in a way that the Older twin never understood, and certainly never cared to emulate. He offered warmth to those who deserved nothing. Gave smiles to strangers. Handed over scraps of food when they had so little themselves.

It made the Older brother’s teeth clench.

He hated how Yoichi’s attention wavered from him whenever some shivering urchin huddled in the alley corner. Hated the pity in Yoichi’s eyes for others - eyes that should not look away from his protector and provider. 

Yet, the Frail Things wasteful endeavours were useful in a way. He knew Yoichi’s kindness made him appear less threatening to the city’s filth, allowed them easier passage in certain circles. So, though it rankled him, the Stronger twin let his brother give away morsels of bread or watery soup to the wretches. He let him talk to them, help them.

- But only under his watchful eye. Because Yoichi was his - the Stronger led the Weaker. Yoichi was his to protect, his to own.

One night, the Firstborn was forced to hunt for food alone, leaving his weak, frail Heart tucked away in their makeshift shelter behind a broken wall. The Older twin’s skill at stealing was near flawless; he slipped through the labyrinth of alleys, gliding past desperate wanderers and watchful gang members.

He did not return immediately - lost in the flicker of neon signs reflecting on puddles, analysing which unsuspecting body to rob or threaten for a small meal. Hours bled together until he remembered, with a jolt, that his frail other half waited for him.

Something was wrong the moment he neared the building. A hush in the air, not the usual echo of scuttling rats or distant arguments. 

He froze upon finding empty space where Yoichi should have been. No tiny figure curled up in old blankets. No soft murmur of breath. 

The older twin’s eyes narrowed, scanning for any sign of intrusion. He found broken glass, fresh footprints in the dust. A struggle had occurred here.

A low snarl built in his throat.

Vermin had taken Yoichi.

So, for the Firstborn, hunting them was inevitable.

He stormed through alleys and crumbling avenues with single-minded ferocity. When he questioned street dwellers - mostly by gripping them with threads of inky darkness or shoving them against walls - he left them trembling, wide-eyed, broken in some ways. 

Word spread quickly: the boy with the jagged power was on a rampage.

Some cowered, some pointed shaky fingers in the same direction. Toward a decaying tenement building where Carrion lurked - filth who preyed on the small and the powerless for twisted pleasures that had nothing to do with hunger.

And Yoichi - small, weak, pathetically frail Yoichi - was such easy prey when not under the watchful care of his Older twin.

The Firstborn found them huddled in a ground level room, the door half boarded. 

Their reek of filth and desperate desire to feed on weakness assaulted his senses. There, in a corner, Yoichi struggled, pinned by two of them, wrists forced behind his back. A bruise marred the fragile cheek, and tears collected at the corners of wide, terrified eyes.

It was a sight the older twin did not even stop to process.

He reacted.

Black threads erupted from his arms and shoulders. They speared forward, finding flesh with sickening ease. The intruders’ screams were quickly cut off by the gurgle of blood. 

The Stronger brother yanked them back, pinned them against the brick. The walls ran red, droplets spattering across Yoichi’s trembling frame. One tried to crawl away, moaning, but the older twin pressed a bare foot against their neck, tilting his head with cold curiosity - then simply crushed.

The Carrion found no mercy. Another piercing thrust of those ominous threads ended their pathetic existence. Their bodies collapsed, contorted, still.

In the suffocating hush, the Weaker twin slid to the ground, burying his face in his knees. The older twin wasted no time stepping forward, crouching, grabbing Yoichi’s thin arms and hauling him close. The younger boy clutched the front of his brother’s ragged shirt, sobbing in silent gasps that shook his whole body.

The older twin exhaled harshly. There was an unrecognisable pressure in his chest, a clench that felt both painful and relieving. The fact that the Firstborn had come so close to losing his twin scraped against his insides. It hurt in a way he had never felt before: a sharp, twisting ache that mocked his usual ironclad composure.

He finally realized that was what churned in his gut, what made his mouth dry and his pulse hammer out of sync -

Fear.

And beneath that fear, like dark currents swirling beneath a calm surface, was something stronger. It burned in the Stronger brother, made him cling to his twins shaking frame.

All that trembling raw emotion found its name in a quiet moment, as Yoichi sobbed into his brothers chest.

Love.

He loved his weak, pathetic other half. Not foolishly or pathetically weak like Yoichi described in those comic books he read so often. No, this was superior - stronger.

The Firstborn pressed his frail twins head closer, ignoring the sticky blood that painted their arms. Yoichi shuddered, burying his face into the older boy’s tattered clothing, too breathless to speak.
And for a moment, they existed in a pocket of stillness, the only sound Yoichi’s uneven breathing. The corpses behind them slowly cooled, trickling red into puddles by the curb.

That night, the Stronger twin kept one hand on his younger half’s as they slept, fingers curled around the weak things wrist as if to anchor him - or perhaps them both - in place.

Yoichi belonged nowhere but here.

And Firstborn would never let his dear first possession forget it.

Chapter Text

In the rotting underbelly of the city, the Firstborn learned a new lesson - not from books, not from fists or hunger, but from Yoichi.

It was not a lesson Yoichi taught intentionally. In fact, the boy barely understood its implications. He only acted as he always did: offering kindness where none was owed, giving what little he had to anyone who begged.

And in doing so, Yoichi revealed a fundamental law of human nature.

When you give something - food, shelter, aid - you instil a debt in the recipient.
A debt that can later be collected.

At first, the older twin watched with thinly veiled disgust as Yoichi parted with scraps of bread and time worn blankets. How he returned from errands with less than he started. How he let others walk away with their resources, a gentle smile on his face. It was maddening to see his possessions - because Yoichi owned nothing, so whatever Yoichi shared belonged to him - go to the scurrying pests of the street.

But then, one day, one of those pests returned the favor. 
A snaggle-toothed boy from two alleys over saw them cornered by local thugs and decided to repay a kindness Yoichi had shown him weeks ago. He distracted the thugs, allowing the Older twin to crush them with his power.

That night, the Weaker twin was amazed at the unexpected help, eyes shining as he told his brother how “he said he remembered that day I gave him my spare blanket - he wanted to help us in return!”

A single moment lit a spark in the Stronger twin’s mind.

When you give, you are owed.

It was as if the world finally revealed one of its core truths, and it thrilled him. For so long, he had understood only that strength meant taking - by force, by cunning. But this? 

This was a transaction. Give a little to secure a favor, or to bind someone’s loyalty; it was a subtle, potent weapon.

And if he could give simple things like food or warmth, he found he could trade something far better - 
Power.

It was the Firstborn’s to wield.  In the past, he had done it without much thought - ripping abilities from those he deemed undeserving, seizing them for himself. But he began experimenting with the idea that he could transfer or “lend” them in return for loyalty and favours.

One lucky urchin, half-frozen and trembling on the verge of death, was the first. 
The Older twin touched him and ,with a single concentrated effort, “gifted” the stolen power he had not even bothered to name. A meagre ability - merely the power to spark small flames from the fingertips - but to the near-frozen urchin, it was life-changing.

The urchin was ever so grateful - grateful enough to use his new gift to take food from other, older and more vicious vermin, and give most of it to his new saviour.

The Stronger boy felt a surge of possessive pride. He had done that. He had bestowed it, like a god among mortals. The boy owed him now, bound by both gratitude and fear.

He could take it back, as well if he wished. And the urchin learned that as well.

When he told Yoichi of this newfound “gift,” he expected the usual half-pleading, half-chastising lecture: “We shouldn’t steal,” or “We need to help people, not frighten them.”

But Yoichi’s reaction left him … off-balance.

His weaker half’s eyes lit up, bright as a dying star burning one final time. He scrambled through the ragged bag they shared, rummaging for a tattered comic book. One of those cheap prints with heroic figures and flamboyant costumes. 

The Stronger brother sneered at the page filled with color and speech bubbles, but he listened because this was Yoichi.

Yoichi pointed at the hero on the page - smiling, arms outstretched, power ablaze with noble purpose - and began to spout nonsense about how his brother’s power could be the greatest kindness in the world. How giving quirks to those in need could change everything, how he could be a “symbol of hope.”

The Older twin hummed low in his throat, unimpressed but amused. Did Yoichi not see the potential for domination that existed in such a transaction? The real power behind giving and taking quirks?

But Yoichi only saw the possibility of heroism. Foolish little thing he was.

“Think about it,” Yoichi said, voice trembling with excitement. “You give what you have and help people get stronger, and -”

Yoichi’s eyes shone. “You could be a hero! And ... And even have a cool name! How about …” He scrunched his face, thinking so hard, his older brother could practically hear the strain.
Then Yoichi grinned. “One For All. The single hero who gives to everyone. ”

The Stronger twin did not laugh out loud, though he wanted to. 

Did Yoichi forget the demon lord in those very same comics? The ones who ruled through fear, who collected powers and allegiances like trophies, forcing the entire world to bow at their feet?
That was true power - not this starry-eyed version Yoichi believed in.

Still, amusement flickered through him at Yoichi’s unwavering optimism. So naive, so easily enthralled by the promise of good. Perhaps that was why he found his little brother’s stubborn hope oddly endearing.

With a gentle snort, he reached out, tapping the comic’s depiction of the hero. “Foolish.”

Yoichi frowned, his lower lip trembling. “N - not … foolish …”

The Older brother set the battered comic aside and fixed Yoichi with a steady stare. “My name, though. Perhaps it’s time I choose one,” he mused. 
“You said …‘One For All?’”

Yoichi nodded quickly, eyes shining. “Yes! Because it’s like -”

His brother cut him off, pressing a hand gently - but firmly - against Yoichi’s mouth, until Yoichi fell silent.

Then, with a slow intake of breath, the Older twin pronounced the words that had been growing in him like a tumor since the day he first realized the true nature of give and take.

“All …” he paused, savoring it, “For One.”

“All For One …?” Yoichi blinked. 

A final flourish of power threaded beneath the older twin’s skin, swirling in the dark corners of his eyes. A name that encompassed the truth of who he was, of what he could do.

All for him.

Everything he saw, everything he touched.

He could take it. Or he could give it. And in return, the world would owe him.

He watched Yoichi’s face furrow in mild confusion. Where had his brother’s grand notion of heroism gone? But the Older twin only smiled, a dark, secretive curve of his lips.

“It suits me, doesn’t it? I will take it as my name. All For One” he said softly, voice laced with the finality of a decision made.

Yoichi’s shoulders wilted. “I … okay,” he whispered, uncertain but unwilling to argue further, not when he saw the chilling determination in his brother’s eyes. “At least you have a name now … brother.”

The Firstborn ruffled Yoichi’s hair in a mockery of kindness. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t forget your idea.”

He would keep Yoichi’s One For All in mind. It was a reminder of how his brother’s thoughts strayed to hope rather than dominion. An idea he might twist to his advantage someday, or allow to fester in Yoichi’s naïve heart, fuelling the fantasy that his older twin could be a hero.
But he knew the truth.

He had chosen the demon lord from the comics, not the hero.

And now, he bore the name All For One - a promise of the devouring exchange that would one day reshape the world in his image.

X

The argument was stupid.

Most of their arguments were.

His brother had many flaws - too many to count - but the one that irritated him most was his belief in others. His constant, infuriating, idiotic insistence on surrounding himself with pests, weaklings, the useless things that skittered through the streets like vermin.

He did not see them for what they were.

He did not see the way they used him, the way they leached from his endless, foolish kindness. He did not see how they came only when it suited them, when they needed something warm, something safe, something gentle to remind them of a world that no longer existed.

They did not deserve Yoichi.

And so, as All For One had done before - he chased them away. This tie, however, it seemed Yoichi was overreacting.

His little brother’s face crumpled, his hands balled into fists, his voice sharp in a way it rarely was. He shouted at his Stronger twin - thin, reedy words that carried more weight than they should have.

All For One did not understand why Yoichi cared so much. They were not worth the attention he gave them. They would have left him eventually, discarded him when there was nothing left to take. Yoichi was his. And that meant his time, his attention, his heart belonged to no one else.

But Yoichi did not see it that way. No, Yoichi had yelled at him. Furious, red-faced, trembling with emotion in a way he so rarely was. “You’re cruel!” he had spat, voice thick with childish frustration. “They weren’t hurting anyone!“

They were hurting him, though, his brother had thought, livid. They were taking what was his. His twin - his first possession. His Yoichi.

Yoichi had stormed off, sulking pathetically on their shared mattress, burrowing beneath the thin covers as though he could make his anger tangible.

His brother had allowed it. For a time.

Because eventually, Yoichi would break. Eventually, he always came back.

The hours passed, and when All For One finally grew tired, he moved to their bed as he always did.

But when he finally settled onto the makeshift mattress of salvaged blankets that served as their bed, the Older twin felt a disquieting knot in his gut. He could handle Yoichi’s tears, his pleas, his stubborn convictions.

But this silent rejection was worse.

He tried to make it simple, as always. Poking Yoichi’s back lightly, letting out a derisive huff: “You’re being childish.”

No reply.

The Firstborn waited - surely, his twin would turn eventually, curling up against his brother’s warmth like always. But minutes ticked by, and Yoichi wouldn’t budge.

A faint ripple of panic stirred in the Older twin’s chest. He’s ignoring me. He didn’t like the twisting sensation that accompanied that thought. 

A sensation that felt entirely too close to … fear.

“Yoichi. Come here.”He tried again, voice tight with forced calm.

Still, Yoichi didn’t move. His shoulders rose and fell in shallow, angry breaths.

A spark of anger flared in the older twin’s veins. How dare Yoichi turn his back on him - him, the one who provided, the one who protected, the one who had always kept his weaker, lesser half alive.

All For One’s hands twitched with the need to assert himself.

He repeated, sharper now: “I said, come here.”

Silence.

That was it. He’d had enough.

In one swift motion, he grabbed Yoichi’s thin shoulder and wrenched him around, ignoring the startled yelp that escaped his brother’s lips. Yoichi tried to resist, legs kicking feebly beneath the blankets, arms flailing in half-hearted protest.

It was pathetic.

The Stronger twin pinned his Weaker half to his chest, arms wrapped tight to hold him close, forcing them together until there was no space between them. Yoichi let out a choked sob, tears beading at the corners of his eyes.

For a moment, the older All F One’s lungs felt too tight. 
He could feel Yoichi’s heart hammering against his ribs, a rapid, fearful drumming. But he needed Yoichi here, needed to banish the dread that gnawed at him whenever Yoichi turned away. 

In the darkness of the warehouse, he hissed into Yoichi’s ear: “You can be mad. You can cry. But you won’t shut me out. Ever.”

His voice was low, trembling with suppressed fury and something else - an emotion he didn’t want to name.

He loosened his hold just enough for Yoichi to breathe comfortably. The younger twin sniffled, hiccupping breath washing over All For One’s collarbone. Until, slowly, Yoichi’s tears tapered off, though his eyes remained watery. Tension drained from his slender body, leaving weariness behind.

All For One pressed a hand gently to the back of Yoichi’s neck, feeling the erratic flutter of his pulse. Not pity, but possession. You are mine, his grip said. We don’t get to be apart.

Yoichi mumbled something unintelligible against his shirt, voice muffled by tears and exhaustion. All For One did not ask him to repeat it. He only needed to know that Yoichi was there, anchored in his arms.

Seconds passed, then minutes, until Yoichi’s breathing turned deep and ragged, half sobs turning to half snores as he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

All For One closed his eyes, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The swirling dread in his chest began to settle, replaced by a low, possessive relief. Yes, Yoichi was close now -right where he belonged.

He wondered if this was the vulnerability that people called fear, the terror of losing someone so essential that you’d bend them to your will rather than let them slip away. But he banished that thought, labeling it weakness.

This was love, he told himself, just as it always had been - a fierce, unyielding attachment that demanded closeness above all else. Yoichi could complain, cry, and say hateful words, but he would never leave. Because All For One would not allow it.

X

They did not have birthdays in the same way other children did. They had no parents, no proper home, no sweet candles to light in celebration. Still, this day - the day they turned ten years old - felt …  different. Special, even.

A decade of survival, of domination, of learning the rules of a world turning more vicious by the day as abilities - ‘quirks’ as they were now being called - spread chaos. Most dates were meaningless to All For One. But this one, he remembered.

The day began as any other: he awoke first, checking on his territory to make sure there were no intruders. No new threats. 
The only thing stirring in the dusty corners was Yoichi - frail, bright-eyed, humming quietly as he sorted the meager belongings stacked in a corner.

After a moment, Yoichi seemed to gather his courage. With trembling fingers, he stepped closer, offering something clutched in his hands. 

He stared at it, expression unreadable.

Yoichi’s voice wavered. “H-happy birthday…brother.”

The older twin said nothing. And yet, as Yoichi pressed it into his hands and All For One opened the meaningless wrapping of aged newspaper, something unfamiliar coiled in his chest.

It was a small, crudely bound notebook of sorts, stitched from found scraps of paper and cloth. It was lumpy and uneven; the colour on the covers was mottled by stains.

A small, fluttering sensation that made him grip the corners of the it a little tighter.

Yoichi’s face was open and hopeful, though undercut by obvious nerves. He swallowed. “I know it’s not much, but … I wrote down little … um, memories. And drew a few pictures of -” He faltered.

The older twin opened the pages. 
Inside were childlike sketches - a crude attempt at capturing their scrawny forms standing side by side, one overly tall, one overly small. Another page showed a scribbled version of Yoichi on one side, All For One on the other. Random words peppered the margins: “happy,” “safe,” “together.”

Trivial, worthless.

Yet he could not part with it.

Instead he let out a small chuckle. “You are so sentimental, little brother.”

“Oh … right.” All For One could hear the dissapointment in Yoichi’s voice and it only made him chuckle more. 

He reached out, ruffling the hair of his dearest possession. “I will keep it - because you made it. All for me.”

His heart  gave him a smile so radiant it momentarily drove the dark from the rafters of the warehouse. And in that instant, the Older twin felt something simmering uncomfortably in his stomach for not having prepared anything in return.

To his own irritation, he felt compulsion rising. It was not about owing Yoichi a debt - he wasn’t the one who owed. Instead, it was an urge fuelled by that same warmth that coiled in his chest and the wrongness in his stomach.

So, without explanation, All For One stood, throwing on a ragged coat. He waved a silent command for Yoichi to remain behind. The younger twin, accustomed to these abrupt exits, only nodded, confusion mingling with a flicker of trust.

By midday, the rain had ceased, leaving the streets slick with muddy puddles. All For One prowled the markets and side-stores with a singular focus, scouring for something that would match the day’s significance.

He came upon a small, run-down bakery. The windows were boarded, but he could smell the sweet aroma from within - someone was still baking, hoping for customers even in a neighborhood overrun by petty thieves and quirk-wielding thugs.

He tested the door, found it locked. Not for long.

With a quiet hiss of power, black tendrils slithered through the cracks, unlatching every bolt. He slipped inside, startling the lone baker working behind the counter. Before the poor soul could scream, All For One used his quirk again. A swift, menacing display of stolen abilities pinned the baker to the wall, leaving them trembling and silent.

He spotted what he was looking for.

So he took it.

Carrying his prize through broken alleys, All For One felt the weight of it in his arms - absurd, decadent. Yet somehow, strangely unworthy compared to the pitiful notebook he’d been gifted.

A strange, fluttering tension built in him the closer he got to the warehouse. His mind summoned the image of Yoichi’s face - wide eyes, a trembling mouth turned upward in that tentative, hopeful smile. He wanted to see that expression blossom when Yoichi saw what he had brought.

He wanted that.

When he arrived, he shoved open the warped metal door, letting in a gust of damp air. Yoichi jolted upright from where he’d been sitting on their ragged mattress. Confusion flared across his features - then shock as he took in the large prize in his brothers arms.

“Is that a … a cake?”

All For One strode forward, placed the three-tiered confection on the only stable crate they used as a makeshift table. Bits of icing smeared against his coat; he ignored the mess.

“It’s yours.” His tone was clipped, hiding the unsteady feeling in his stomach. “For … our birthday.”

Yoichi’s eyes glistened, as if the mere act of someone remembering and caring enough to steal - yes, it was stolen, but caring enough to bring him a cake - was almost beyond comprehension. “Brother … this is …”
He swallowed tearfully. Then he lit up.

A beaming smile - a genuine, untainted joy - spread across Yoichi’s features, making him look far younger than his ten years. He scrambled to his feet, nearly stumbling as he rushed to the crate. “It’s so big! Are we - are we really going to eat it?”

All For One allowed a small smirk. “If you want it.”

Yoichi turned to him, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered, voice watery. He took a step forward - hesitant, but determined - and flung both arms around his brother’s waist.

A hug.

All For One stiffened at first, reflexively suspicious of contact, his quirk bristling beneath his skin. But he recognized this - the privileged touch that only his heart was allowed, the single point of connection that he tolerated, even welcomed.

So, he let himself relax, arms lowering to encircle Yoichi’s narrow back. He felt the younger boy’s heartbeat, rapid against his chest. A fragile echo of the own pulse he barely acknowledged in himself.

His twin. His heart, outside of his body.

He pressed Yoichi closer, carefully, mindful of how easily those bones might snap if he was not gentle. The sense of ownership thrummed in his veins, but so did a dangerous fondness - an emotion that could be mistaken for warmth.

Yes. This was what he called love.

The only weakness he would ever permit himself.

They ate the cake by hand, tearing into the soft layers with messy fingers, devouring sweet icing. Yoichi made a royal mess of himself, smearing frosting across his cheeks and laughing as though they were not living in squalor, as though the world were not a shattered place.

All For One watched in silence, one corner of his mouth lifting in a faint smile. He broke off a piece and offered it to Yoichi, who happily accepted, face bright and unguarded.

Years later, when Yoichi was nothing but dust, when his body lay broken at his feet, when the rage had cooled and the silence had settled -

All he had of his other half was a severed hand and a paltry, treasured notebook, filled to the brim of his brothers foolish dreams.

Chapter Text

Yoichi was dying.

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t dramatic. It was quiet and slow, slipping into his fragile body with the cruel ease of something that had happened many times before.

It started with the usual shivers, the ones that made his too thin frame tremble beneath the worn blankets they shared. Then came the fever, burning high enough to leave his skin clammy, his breath ragged, his body caught between the hells of burning and freezing all at once.

His body was always weak. Too weak. And this winter - the worst in years - was devouring him.

The older twin never feared death, not for himself. But Yoichi’s death was unacceptable. His heart could not die - his first possession could not be taken from him.

Yoichi burned.
His frail body curled in on itself, damp hair plastered to his forehead, breath shallow, too fast, then too slow. His small fingers clutched at the blankets, twitching, searching blindly for something that wasn’t there.

All For One hated it.
He hated the way Yoichi looked when he was sick - hated the sharp hollows beneath his eyes, hated the absence of him, the way he was reduced to little more than a bundle of trembling bones. Hated the way it made something cold and panicked settle in his gut.

This fever would kill Yoichi and that could not happen.

Medicines were rarer than gold.

He had allies on the streets - human tools indebted to him for the quirks he had doled out over the years - but even they had limited means. The apothecaries that did exist were heavily guarded, too dangerous for a straightforward theft.

He needed something less fortified. A place so desperate it barely had resources, let alone security. A place others overlooked.

Eventually, he learned of a healing shelter for street children hidden away on the city’s outskirts. Rumour said they offered basic medical aid to orphans too worthless for the better-funded charities. Just saline IVs, pain meds, perhaps a handful of antibiotics. Possibly enough to keep Yoichi alive until the fever broke. The staff there were few but passionate about their work apparently, they wouldn’t turn anyone away.

That would be enough.

All For One went under cover of darkness, slipping through the moonlit streets like a beast on the prowl. Winter winds bit at his cheeks, stung his eyes, and threatened to freeze his breath in his lungs, but he pressed on.

The shelter was as pitiful as expected. A low, sprawling building full of chipped walls and flickering lights, barely standing upright. Through the grimy windows, he saw children’s silhouettes huddled on cots. A single nurse dozed near the entrance, her body slumped with exhaustion.
His heart pounded, not with fear - he had none for these weaklings - but with raw determination.

Yoichi must live. That was all that mattered.

He slipped inside, footsteps hushed against the broken tiles. The corridors reeked of disinfectant and illness. A row of ragged cots held children of various ages, most asleep, some feverishly tossing in nightmares. He approached them steadily.

An IV drip hung beside a skeletal boy. Saline solution - enough to stabilize someone. He snapped the plastic tube free, ignoring the way the child whimpered at the sudden tug. Another bed had a half-empty bag of what looked like antibiotics. He took that, too, stuffing it into a tattered sack he’d brought for the spoils.

A brief shuffle of movement alerted him to a small girl who had woken, eyes wide with confusion. She clutched a cheap action figure in her arms - some gaudy hero model. He wanted it.
It was perfect for Yoichi.

The child whined, a pitiful, broken sound. All For One gave him a detached glance, feeling no sympathy. A reminder why he was here came in the echo of Yoichi’s ragged cough in his mind.

Yoichi needed everything he could get - medicine, supplies, even a small toy to calm his fever dreams. These children - weak, worthless - had no claim to life if they couldn’t protect what little they had.

It didn’t take long for someone to notice. A harried volunteer in a worn lab coat stepped into the ward, eyes widening at the sight. She gasped, raising a trembling hand as though it could ward him off.

“W-what are you doing?” she demanded. “Those supplies are for the children!”

Her voice woke some of the others. Small heads rose, eyes filling with fear and confusion. A few coughed, but none dared approach.

All For One looked at the woman without blinking. She was an adult - a caretaker, perhaps. But he could not afford a confrontation that would give anyone courage. His threads responded, slithering out in tangled black lines that pierced her. Blood and a gurgled cry stained the ward’s silence. She slumped to the floor, her eyes rolling back.

The children screamed then, the sound building like a wail of lost hope. Some scrambled off beds to hide, others froze. His quirk pulsed around his frame, a living reminder that he was in control.

With clinical detachment, All For One stepped over her body, bag laden with his stolen supplies but a  flicker of annoyance twisted his expression at the continued cries. He turned, surveying the ragged group. Not one had the strength to fight him. They would die anyway, he thought, if they remained so spineless.

In a twisted moment of what he believed was mercy, he took a single bottle from his bounty -something potent that might help their fevers or infections - and tossed it onto the floor. The plastic skittered and came to rest in front of the cowering children. They were weak and the weak did not deserve to live if they simply laid there waiting to die, waiting for a saviour. If they wanted to live, they needed to fight for it. That was the way of the world - the strongest thrived, and the weak perished.

“If you want to live,” he said quietly, “take it.”

He watched their eyes dart to the bottle, each child too fearful to move first. A microcosm of the weakness infesting them, too timid to fight, too timid to survive.
Let them devour each other for the scraps, as the city devoured all who were unfit to stand on their own.

By the time he returned to the warehouse, the first hint of dawn threatened the horizon. He found Yoichi delirious on the mattress - face flushed, sweat plastering hair to his brow, breath rasping like broken glass.

All For One set to work with brutal efficiency. He wasn’t a trained medic, but he’d seen enough to know the basics: cool the fever, administer the medicine, keep Yoichi hydrated. He forced pills down Yoichi’s throat, one hand lifting his brother’s head, the other steadying a jar of water. Some of the liquid trickled over Yoichi’s chin, but he managed to make him swallow.

IV bags, half-empty from his night’s raid, were rigged to hang from a rusted hook in the ceiling. He pressed the needle into Yoichi’s arm, ignoring the faint whimper that escaped his twin’s pale lips.

“Live,” he hissed into the darkness, voice shaking with anger and fear. “You will live.”

He pressed the small action figure into Yoichi’s limp hand, as if that toy might somehow anchor his fragile twin to this world.

Exhaustion weighed heavy on All For One by the time he’d done all he could. He draped his threadbare coat around Yoichi for additional warmth. Every breath from his brother sounded rattled, but it continued - one shallow inhale after another. A sign that life still flickered in his chest.
Fury, fear, and a twisted kind of tenderness warred within him. His twin was so fragile, so easy to lose. And the thought of facing the world without Yoichi was worse than any horror he had inflicted on others.

With careful resolve, he collapsed beside Yoichi on their ragged mattress. Slowly, he rested his head on Yoichi’s chest, listening for that steady thump. It was faint, but there - the sound of his heart, living in another’s body. The only comfort in this cold, endless night.

He feared what dawn might bring. If the fever claimed Yoichi, if the medicine proved too late, then morning would be a new era of emptiness. He would be forced to walk the earth without his other half, a prospect that churned his stomach with something dangerously close to dread.

He tried to stay awake, tried to force his eyes to remain open and track each stutter of Yoichi’s heartbeat. But fatigue tugged at him, dragging him into the depths of exhausted slumber.

And so, head nestled against Yoichi’s narrow chest, All For One slept, unwillingly surrendering to the night, uncertain if he would wake to find his twin still breathing - or gone.

X

At fifteen, All For One moved through the underbelly of the city like a shadow given form, slipping between the cracks of the world’s decay. 

There was order now - his order. Small, but growing. Favours whispered through alleyways. Debts paid in blood or power. Meta abilities exchanged like currency. He took and gave with practiced ease, shaping the chaos into something that bent beneath his hand.

To him, it was benevolence.
To those below him, it was providence.

He reached into others and plucked out their best parts, left them emptied or changed. In return, he offered strength. Protection. Purpose. They came to him willingly, and why shouldn’t they? Power was everything. And he was power.

He felt it singing through his veins, burning bright in his marrow - a new quirk each time, a new gift to master, to wield. He was drunk on it.

Yoichi, of course, had noticed. He always noticed, because his attention was where it belonged - on his twin.

His weak protests were like gnats buzzing near his ear - easily ignored, sometimes even amusing.

"You shouldn’t be doing this," Yoichi would mumble as he rifled through their pathetic excuse of a pantry, brow furrowed in that particular expression he wore when disappointed. "It’s not right to take what doesn’t belong to you."

And his brother would smile, placating, indulgent. It was harmless. Yoichi was harmless. It was almost charming, the way his soft heart still tried to resist.

Almost.

But then - Yoichi began talking about him.

The Glowing Baby. Or Glowing Person, now. The so-called first - born luminous, unafraid, full of hope and preaching peace. A symbol. A movement. A threat.

Yoichi had heard of them through street whispers, then from pamphlets, then from old radio broadcasts, now from televisions displayed behind dusty storefront windows. He’d stand outside the shops for minutes at a time, transfixed by the flickering image of a person wrapped in light, their soft voice promising unity, courage, a world free of fear.

It was nauseating, and what was worse - what made bile curdle in the Older twin’s stomach - was the look in Yoichi’s eyes.

Soft. Warm.

"They’re pretty, aren’t they?" Yoichi commented, voice almost bashful as he watched the fool on a display T.V.

All For One turned his head sharply.

"Pretty?" he echoed, suspicion rising like bile.

Yoichi flushed, eyes darting away. "I just meant - they have got a nice face. And their glow is … pretty to look at. That’s all."

That was not all.

They were fifteen now. The line between childhood and adulthood had begun to fray. There were ... biological realities. Things Yoichi insisted on observing, like separate beds, like not sharing clothes, like shame. His body was changing, and so was Yoichi’s, and with it came new behaviours - some of which pulled his twin away.

That same night, while Yoichi slept on his separate cot, the Older twin sat awake, staring at the flicker of a single, half-broken lightbulb. He mulled over the Glowing One’s words from the broadcast - calls for unity, peace, an end to fear.

And he felt … disgust.

He had crafted his power base upon the currency of fear: offering relief from it, or doubling it, whichever suited him best. If the Glowing One’s influence spread, his carefully woven system of debts and favors would unravel. Even worse, if that glow continued to captivate Yoichi’s attention …

With a tightening of his fists, All For One made a decision.

It was about consolidating his power. That he could not tolerate the presence of a rival strong enough to disrupt his city, his domain, his illusions of generosity.

He came upon the nuisance during a quiet moment before a public gathering. The Luminous One still glowed, faintly illuminating the alley behind the stage. When they turned and saw All For One, their features held no fear, only perplexed compassion. “Are you all right?” they asked gently, stepping forward.

That single question disgusted All For One.

He unleashed his quirk in a violent surge of jagged black threads that snaked around the Glowing One’s limbs, crushing them to the pavement. Shock replaced compassion in the luminescent eyes; All For One relished the instant he saw that realization - fear - flicker across the person’s face.

They’re not so pretty now, are they?

Claws of power tore into flesh, into the quirk itself. All For One could feel that radiant ability thrumming, resisting him for an instant before it finally yielded. He felt it enter him, merge with his own malignant aura, the sensation like swallowing a star.

The rush of it nearly knocked him off his feet. He clenched his fists and watched the luminescence fade from the Dying One’s eyes. Light seeped from their body, from their skin, leaving behind only ashen flesh and a dull expression

All For One left them there, no doubt to be found by their followers, dead in the gutter like every other useless rat.

X

Yoichi was awake upon his brother’s return, worry etched into every line of his face as he paced by the door. The moment the Older twin floated down, quirk blazing with a visible luminescence, Yoichi’s expression shifted from relief to dread.

“What…what did you do?” Yoichi whispered, eyes darting from the faint glow around his brother’s body to the dark spatters of blood still clinging to his clothes.

All For One smiled - a cold, triumphant thing. In a demonstration of power, he let himself rise higher from the floor, floating in midair with a smooth command. 

“I killed their leader and stole what was theirs.”

“Wh - what - ” Yoichi stuttered in horror, the poor frail thing stumbling backwards.  “- why? why would you - ?”

“Don’t you remember what those comic books always told us - what you named me?” the Older twins grin grew sharper, full of self-adulation. “All For One and One for All. All for me. I was inspired just like you, Yoichi. I found my dream; I’ll be the demon lord. I will make a world that exists just for me.”

Look at his pitiful other self, so horrified and shocked. Almost … disgusted even. 
Why was he looking at his twin - his saviour like that?

Yoichi stumbled back, nearly tripping over the bare cot behind him. “No… you - you can’t do this! People admired them - they were…”

The older twin’s gaze narrowed. He could barely hide his dissatisfaction, his disdain for such open resistance. Yoichi was his heart - his most precious possession - but right now, that heart was defying him in a way that hurt more than any physical blow.

Such defiance - after All For One had to gone to such trouble to procure this pretty glow.

Yoichi let out a soft, stricken cry. “Taking from others, murdering them for your own benefit - don’t you see how - ?”

But All For One cut him off with a glare, floating forward so that the shimmering aura seemed to envelop his brother in shadow. “Don’t you dare lecture me,” he murmured, voice low. 

He laid a gloved hand on Yoichi’s shoulder, grip tightening enough to be a warning. “You want to speak of right or wrong? It’s because of my power that you sleep safely in that bed you insisted upon. That you have food in your stomach. That no one would dare touch you, ever again.”

Tears slipped down Yoichi’s cheeks. He tried to twist free, but All For One’s hold remained.

“This is a gift,” All For One breathed, leaning closer. “A demonstration of how much I can take…and how much I can give.”

In that moment, the warehouse lights flickered. The stolen luminescence danced along the walls in harsh, shifting shadows. A show of cosmic terror rather than serenity.

“You kept me alive,” Yoichi whispered, his face pitifully miserable. “Looked after me. You held my hand, even when we were born. It was kind.” He peers up at his brother with watery, defiant, eyes. “If only you had a little compassion for others.”

All For One pushed him and Yoichi, weak and pathetic as he was, crumpled to the ground with cry.

“Compassion is for fools,” he told his weaker self coldly. “And kindness is for the weak. No wonder you have both in droves, dear little brother.”

Yoichi’s voice finally cracked as he tried to recover: “You’re … a m-monster.”

All For One let out a soft, humourless laugh as he stepped onto the floor, moving closer to the pathetic thing on the floor. “Monsters, demons, it doesn’t matter. One day, the world will see how benevolent I truly am. And if they resist?” A hint of malice glimmered in his eyes. “I’ll remind them of who owns this power now.”

Anger and heartbreak swirled across Yoichi’s face, but he said nothing more. He shrank away, pressing himself against the filthy concrete, as the Older twin’s crouched beside him, reaching out to pet his hearts mussed hair.

Some deep part of All For One’s mind recoiled from Yoichi’s revulsion, but he smothered the feeling. Yoichi was already his - whether trembling in terror or lost in naive devotion, it made no difference. No matter how fear or disgust shaped Yoichi’s face, All For One would keep him.

If something threatened to steal Yoichi’s gaze - like that glowing fool - he would erase it, crush it, devour it. He would ensure Yoichi’s eyes never looked on anyone else with awe.

He would guarantee that all of Yoichi’s attention, all of his tiny, flickering love, belonged solely to him.

Chapter Text

Yoichi had always known his brother was different.

It was something beyond words, beyond even the whispers of caution or the worried glances strangers would cast at his twin. All his life, he'd felt it - a subtle wrongness that tingled through the air whenever his older brother walked by. An aura colder than winter itself, sharper than hunger.

But despite that chill, Yoichi still remembered warmth.

He remembered bitter winters, nights so cold they'd wake trembling, bones aching with frostbite. His twin would silently pull him closer, enveloping him in sturdy arms, sharing the sparse heat their starving bodies produced. He remembered stolen gifts - small comics slipped carefully into his hands, treasured food and clean blankets pilfered just to ease his frail body's pain. Those had been moments of care, of devotion, of genuine love.

Now, those memories felt distant, as intangible as smoke drifting upward to vanish in a dark sky.

Now, they lived in comfort. A grand house provided by some wealthy ‘patron’ of his twin, filled with rooms that never warmed no matter how high the fireplaces blazed. It was beautiful and plush, but Yoichi felt strangely out of place here - more a ghost than he'd ever felt in any decrepit alleyway or draughty warehouse. This lavish home seemed cold, and lonely, and strangely hollow.

Ever since the death of the Glowing Person - the luminous figure whose smiling face still sometimes haunted Yoichi’s sleep - something had gone rotten within his twin. Maybe it had always been there, festering beneath the surface; maybe he’d always been rotten at his core. But after that terrible night, something essential had been forever tainted.

Yoichi tried not to think about that. He tried, but the memory clung stubbornly, tormenting him in moments of quiet, like today.

The house was always filled with strangers now, people who appeared grateful at first - bowing their heads in reverence and gratitude to his brother, whispering thanks for the strange gifts he bestowed upon them. Yet, beneath the gratitude lurked fear. Yoichi felt it in the strained smiles, the nervous eyes that quickly shifted away from All For One’s gaze.

He felt their unease because he knew it himself intimately.

All For One had given him everything: shelter, safety, food. But Yoichi understood too well the price of generosity. His twin believed every act of giving demanded a return, and the silent terror that filled Yoichi’s days was the question of what repayment his brother would eventually demand.

It gnawed at him, twisted at his heart with relentless anxiety. Would he be asked to compromise everything he believed in? To turn a blind eye to suffering? To condone his brother’s cruelty?

Or would it be worse?

He trembled at that thought, helpless and weak as always, knowing his voice was little more than noise to All For One’s indifferent ears. They argued frequently now - or Yoichi did, only to be met with humiliating condescension and dismissal that echoed hollowly through their sterile halls. With each argument, the distance between them grew wider, a dark, cavernous rift that Yoichi feared would swallow them both entirely.

Today, their ‘argument’ had been particularly vicious. So Yoichi had fled outside to breathe air untainted by his brother’s presence, grateful at least for the small mercy that he was allowed to wander the nearby streets alone. A concession, but one he clung to fiercely.

He stood now in a small, bustling makeshift market, wiping angrily at tears of frustration and shame. His breaths rattled, lungs protesting the autumn chill, frail fingers shaking. A small notebook he’d held - filled with sketches, memories, hopeful scribbles - slipped from his trembling hands, hitting the ground.

“Stupid,” Yoichi whispered harshly, angry at his weakness, his tears, himself. He bent slowly, trying not to cough, reaching for the notebook.

A hand reached it first.

“Allow me,” a voice said gently.

Yoichi looked up, startled. The man before him appeared around his own age - perhaps a bit older - with dark eyes that sparkled mischievously and lips curved into an easy smile. 
He was handsome, Yoichi thought distantly, warmth rising in his cheeks. His heart stuttered with nervous energy.

“Th-thank you,” Yoichi stammered, accepting the notebook with a grateful nod.

“You looked upset,” the stranger said softly, still smiling kindly. “Are you ok?”
Something about the man's voice was calming, steadying - like sunlight piercing storm clouds.

“I -” Yoichi hesitated, uncertain. “It's nothing important.”

The stranger chuckled softly. “Anything worth crying over is important. But I'll take your word.” He extended a hand. “I’m Tohru, by the way.”

Yoichi took his hand hesitantly, surprised by its warmth. “Yoichi.”

“A pleasure, Yoichi,” Tohru said sincerely. His eyes glimmered warmly, and Yoichi felt an unfamiliar flutter in his chest. “If you ever need someone to talk to - well, you know where to find me.” He gestured around the market, smile gentle and open.

“Thank you, Tohru.” Yoichi smiled back. “I’ll…remember that.”

They exchanged brief, nervous smiles, the simple human warmth leaving Yoichi lighter than he’d felt in months. A small, timid joy kindled within him as they parted.

The walk home felt shorter, the crisp autumn air easier on his weakened lungs. For once, the ever-present tightness in Yoichi’s chest loosened.

He stepped inside, warmth still tingling on his cheeks. Then, suddenly, his brother stood before him, expression sharp and suspicious as always. The warmth faded.

“You’ve been crying,” his twin said softly, reaching out a hand to trace the redness along Yoichi’s cheek.

“It’s - it’s nothing,” Yoichi murmured quietly, dropping his gaze.

“Nothing.” His brother’s voice tightened subtly, a dangerous undercurrent beneath gentle mockery. “You shouldn’t be wandering in the cold air. You know your lungs can’t handle it.”

“I know.” Yoichi swallowed, voice nearly breaking. “I just needed air.”

All For One hummed softly, thumb brushing away the faint trace of Yoichi’s tears. “Air can be found indoors, can’t it?”

Yoichi stayed quiet. To admit loneliness or frustration was useless. He knew that well enough. Instead, he clung secretly to Tohru’s quiet smile and kind eyes. To the tiny ember of companionship sparking in his heart. He would keep it close, hidden from the cold scrutiny of his brother’s gaze.

Yoichi felt the urge - the fierce necessity - to protect that new friendship from his twin’s shadow. He couldn’t bear for it to be stolen away, or destroyed by that dark possessiveness he’d come to fear.

As All For One withdrew his touch, Yoichi quietly climbed the stairs to his bedroom, mind filled with hopeful whispers of another tomorrow.

That night, he tucked himself under blankets, secretly smiling at the memory of Tohru’s kindness, heart warm with tentative excitement. The rift between himself and his brother remained cavernous, terrifying, yawning wide - but tonight, he allowed himself the briefest, softest hope.

And though he knew he was weak and powerless, and though the darkness in his brother seemed ever-growing, Yoichi vowed silently he would not let this small flame be extinguished. 

Even if he had to hide it forever from his brother’s watchful eyes, he would nurture it - a quiet, fragile hope all his own.

X

There was something quietly intoxicating about keeping a secret.

Yoichi had never done it before - not really. His life, since birth, had been shared, scrutinized, and possessed. His twin, his ever-watching shadow, knew every inch of him. Every cough, every stumble, every flicker of rebellion before it even formed.

But Tohru - Tohru was his.

Something his brother didn’t know about - And that made it precious.

They met in the little side market more often now. It started simple - polite smiles, idle talk about the weather or the softness of the baked buns Tohru sold. But it had bloomed quickly.

Tohru, as it turned out, was a baker - his family’s tiny stall nestled in the corner of the market, always smelling of cinnamon and butter and warm, golden crusts. He had calloused hands and a dusting of flour always clinging to his sleeves. He wasn’t like the others Yoichi had met - he didn’t look at him with pity, or strange caution. He spoke to him like a person, like a friend.

He gave Yoichi sweets he ‘accidentally’ made too many of. Shared stories from his childhood, cracked dry jokes that made Yoichi giggle through bites of cream-filled pastries.

Tohru laughed often. Yoichi didn’t realize how little he’d laughed until he met him.

Their meetings stretched from minutes to hours, weeks into months. Time passed quickly when they were together - safe and unburdened. In Tohru’s presence, Yoichi wasn’t a twin, wasn’t All For One’s pathetic, useless younger brother. He was just Yoichi.

And it felt like flying.

But flight always invites hunters.

Lately, his brother had begun to ask questions.
“Where were you today?”
“You came back late.”
“Who have you been talking to?”

Each inquiry was casual on the surface, but Yoichi could hear the teeth behind them. The sharpness of suspicion.

So Yoichi lied.

He hated it. It twisted in his stomach like guilt-coated thorns. But he would not put Tohru in his brother’s sights.

He would not risk the brightest thing in his life being swallowed by the dark.

So he said he wandered farther than usual. Got lost. Stopped to rest. Went to the library. He spoke with care, too practised now in the art of deceiving someone who had once known his every heartbeat.

It terrified him. But he’d already decided - Tohru was worth the lie.

One night, Yoichi had laughed so hard his sides hurt. Tohru had smuggled out two sweet bean buns with smiling faces drawn on them in icing. They sat by the riverbank, passing stories back and forth like breath, joking about the faces on their food.

Then the sky cracked open. Rain fell suddenly, sharp and cold, washing out the moonlight. 

Tohru leapt to his feet, shielding the pastries from ruin, shouting over the storm, “Come on! Run for it!”

But Yoichi didn’t move. Not at first. He was laughing too hard.

And when Tohru saw that, he grinned wide, the kind of smile that made the storm feel like background noise. “Actually …” he said, extending a hand, “dance with me.”

Yoichi blinked. “What?”

“In the rain!” Tohru’s eyes were bright, his voice gleeful. “Come on. When’s the last time you did something stupid just because it felt good?”

“I -” Yoichi hesitated, eyes wide. He was already soaked. Cold. His lungs weren’t great to begin with.

But Tohru just looked at him. Patient. Warm. Not demanding. Just inviting.

So Yoichi took his hand.

They danced. Poorly, awkwardly, spinning and slipping in puddles, laughing so hard that Yoichi’s ribs ached. They twirled beneath the falling sky, two idiots with bean buns and wet socks, and for a few stolen minutes, everything was light.

It happened then. So gently it could’ve been mistaken for something imagined.

They slowed, breathless and dripping, standing far too close. Tohru’s hand brushed Yoichi’s soaked bangs from his eyes, and Yoichi’s heart thundered so loud he was sure Tohru could hear it.

“May I?” Tohru asked, his voice softer now.

Yoichi didn’t answer with words. He just nodded - small and unsure and eager all at once.

And then Tohru kissed him.

It was shy. Soft. Like the rain itself - fleeting, beautiful, and cold against their warm lips.

Yoichi didn’t know if he was shaking from the cold or the feeling. Maybe both. But when Tohru pulled back, he was smiling, and Yoichi felt something in him bloom. Something fragile. 

Something that could only survive if kept secret.

When Yoichi returned home, his heart was still light - his skin still tingling with the memory of a kiss.

His brother was waiting. Standing by the window, arms crossed, his eyes a sharp, unreadable thing.

“You’re soaked,” he said calmly.

Yoichi swallowed. “It started raining.”

“You’re shivering.”

“I … I’ll change.”

All For One said nothing, but his gaze didn’t soften. Only watched. Only studied.
Yoichi turned away before his twin could see the blush still lingering on his cheeks.

He didn’t sleep that night. Not from fear. Not from guilt. But from happiness. 

A secret, tucked close to his chest. A small, sweet rebellion. His first kiss, his first real laughter, his first real choice - hidden in the folds of a rainy night, with a boy who smiled like sunlight.

He wouldn’t give that up. Not for anything.

X

It was impossible to regret the stolen days and evenings spent with Tohru: the comfortable hush of the shop after closing, the stolen pastry Tohru insisted he taste, the quiet laughs they shared while the world outside seemed so far away. 

The gentle press of Tohru’s mouth on his skin.

Yoichi clutched the book Tohru lent him to his chest, stepping softly into the vast corridors of the house. Usually, everyone would be asleep at this hour. He could sneak to his room unnoticed, bury himself under blankets, and relive Tohru’s warmth in private.

But the living room light glowed, faint and ominous.

He froze when he heard a voice from within - his brother, smooth and low. 
“Yoichi … come here.” 

Yoichi stepped into the doorway, pulse loud in his ears. “You’re up late,” he managed, voice trembling despite himself.

His twin’s silhouette, half-illuminated by a single lamp, shrugged fluidly. “So are you.”

Yoichi swallowed the dread knotting in his throat. “I - I was just out for a walk,” he lied, hugging the book closer. “I’m tired. I’ll head to bed.”

He started to back away, but All For One’s next words pinned him in place.

“Were you out walking with Tohru again?”

Yoichi’s heart nearly stopped. His lungs felt squeezed, an invisible vice pressing the air from them. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. All he could think was: How does he know?

“That’s his name, isn’t it?” his brother continued, softly mocking. “Tohru Ishido. A small-time baker in the market, your new… friend.”

A chill went through Yoichi’s veins, a sickening wave of panic. He tried to speak, to form a coherent question, but the pieces fell into place in a terrible rush. He’s had me followed. He’s known for days - maybe weeks.

Oh … oh god -

“You …” Yoichi finally rasped, his voice breaking. “Why would you -?”

“Why would I ensure my dear brother is safe at all times?” The corner of All For One’s mouth curled. “I won’t tolerate secrets, Yoichi and I won’t have you seeing him again.” He said it simply, as if declaring the weather.

Rage was not an emotion Yoichi indulged in often. It wasn’t something he could afford. But tonight -tonight - it rose hot and terrible in his chest.

“You don’t get to tell me who I can see!” he snapped. “We’re the same age. Nineteen. We came out of the womb seconds apart, remember?. You’re not older, not wiser, and not in control of my life!”

A shadow crossed All For One’s face and Yoichi stepped back instinctively.

“I’m not your child,” he said, voice trembling. “I’m not your pet. Why can’t I have just one person? Just one friend who isn’t you -?”

Before he could finish, All For One advanced, backing Yoichi into the wall. The lamp’s low light carved harsh shadows over his features.

“Friend,” the larger twin murmured, like the word was a foreign thing, something sour on his tongue. “Is that what you call him?” 

The book slipped from Yoichi’s grasp, hitting the floor with a muted thud as All For One’s hand rose, fingertips brushing Yoichi’s neck. 

Instinctively, Yoichi flinched, pressing himself into the wall, but his brother followed. A thumb ghosted over the tender bruise Tohru’s lips had left behind. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” All For One asked in a tone of mock concern. The sarcasm was razor-sharp. They both knew exactly what it was.

Yoichi felt nauseous. The memory of Tohru’s warmth clashed violently with the dread now clawing up his spine.

He knew how this would end. Knew it when children were sent scurrying away from him, even as young as the twins were. Knew it when that nice old lady lost the hand that offered Yoichi a cake. Knew it the moment he realised All For One knew about Tohru.

“Don’t,” he whispered, hating how small and trembling his voice sounded. “Don’t hurt him …”

All For One’s breath hissed out in a quiet, humourless laugh. He stepped back just enough to let the tension coil in the space between them. Then he turned away, as though dismissing Yoichi entirely.

In a jolt of desperation, Yoichi reached out, seizing the back of his brother’s shirt, voice cracking as he begged, “Anything - please, anything you want. I’ll do it. Just… don’t hurt Tohru. Let me keep this one friend.”

His brother stood perfectly still, the fabric taut in Yoichi’s trembling fist. Seconds felt like hours. Then came the soft, coldly amused reply: 
“Poor Yoichi.”

Yoichi’s breath hitched as All For One turned back slightly, eyes gleaming in the dim light. 
“Do you know why I named you Yoichi?” His twin continued in a tone that was almost gentle. “Because you were my gift. My dear, foolish brother - mine from the moment our cells split in two. You belong to me.”

His fingers brushed Yoichi’s cheek, an unsettling echo of something that once might have been affection. “Your body, your heart - and your brain, if you ever find it in that fragile little skull of yours. You should have thought about the consequences before you let some worthless baker lay a finger on what’s mine.”

Yoichi’s hand slipped from the back of his brother’s shirt. Every cell in his body screamed run, but he remained frozen, pinned by despair.

All For One’s voice lowered, finality chilling the air. “I will not share you, Yoichi. Not with him. Not with anyone.”

Yoichi’s eyes burned with tears he refused to let fall. He couldn’t find words; fear had stolen them.
His brother stepped away then, leaving Yoichi against the wall, breath coming in ragged gulps. The silence was deafening, pressing in on Yoichi’s ears until he wanted to scream.

Eventually, he forced his shaking knees to hold him, stumbling forward to pick up Tohru’s fallen book. Clutching it protectively, he retreated to his room, mind reeling with what had just transpired.

A single bruise, a single mark, and everything he cared about was in danger. He was in danger. Tohru was in mortal peril. And for the first time, Yoichi felt the full, crushing weight of his brother’s impossible hold over him - body and soul.

X

Tohru was dead.

Yoichi knew it before the words were spoken, before the whispers reached his ears in the marketplace that morning. He knew it when he woke to silence - a silence so unnatural, so perfect, that it screamed of something missing.

The book Tohru had lent him still sat on his nightstand. Yoichi stared at it for a long time, not moving, not breathing.

Then he ran. Out of the house, out into the streets, lungs aching as they always did in the cold air. He asked the vendors. He asked the children. And finally, someone told him.

The bakery had burned down in the night.
The boy who owned it - the sweet one, with flour always clinging to his sleeves—was caught inside.
They said the fire had taken him in his sleep.

But Yoichi knew better. His brother wasn’t that kind.

He staggered home in a daze, tears rolling hot and endless, hardly able to breathe around the knot in his throat. By the time he slammed open the door to confront his brother, his vision blurred with grief.

All For One stood in the living room, hands calmly folded behind his back, as if he’d been waiting.

“You -” Yoichi choked, voice raw. “Tohru’s … He’s dead.”

A lazy tilt of the head, his brother’s expression as unreadable as stone. “You’re upset,” All For One remarked, voice low with a near-mocking concern. “Come here, dear brother. Sit. Let’s talk.”

Yoichi’s heart pounded, fury roaring in his veins like acid.  “You had no right. You - why?” His voice broke around the word, grief pulsing in every syllable. “I … liked him.”

All For One’s lips curled into a dismissive sneer as he stepped closer to his smaller twin. “And that,” he said softly, “is precisely why he had to go.”

Yoichi couldn’t comprehend the casual finality of those words. Fury erupted in him, stronger than the fear that usually kept him caged. With a broken sob, he slapped All For One across the face.

Instantly, his brother’s hand snapped around Yoichi’s wrist, twisting it painfully away from him. Yoichi gasped, eyes wide with shock, tears still pouring as his brother leaned in close.

“Did you truly believe,” All For One said, his voice dangerously quiet, “that I would allow you to give your attention to someone else so easily?” He tightened his grip, dragging Yoichi closer, forcing him to meet that unyielding gaze. “Did you imagine Tohru could take care of you—own you—love you as I have, from the moment we were born? You, who can barely look after yourself? You’d have flailed and fallen on your own long ago.”

“Shut up,” Yoichi choked, voice tight with rage and heartbreak. His body trembled, adrenaline fuelling him. “You’re sick. You’ve always been sick - ”

All For One gave a low, humorless laugh. “Call me what you will, but it doesn’t change the truth: You are mine, Yoichi. I’ve nurtured you since our first breath. I’ve kept you alive in every sense. He could never provide what I do.”

“I’m not an object to own!” Yoichi spat, yanking futilely against that iron hold on his wrist.

His brother’s face darkened. In a single fluid motion, he flung Yoichi to the ground. Yoichi’s lungs seized with pain, fingers splayed across the polished floor. He tried to push himself upright, but All For One knelt beside him and his body froze in a prey’s instinct to survive.

“Doting as I am,” All For One murmured, “I have let you flit about with your doubts and disapproval, so open for everyone to hear. All I ask in return is your unwavering loyalty - the love you dared to give away to that weak excuse for a boy.”

Yoichi felt tears on his cheeks, hot with sorrow and fury. “That -  that love was different. I … I cared for Tohru. Not the way I -” He bit off the words, voice stuttering under the weight of grief.

His brother’s eyes narrowed. “It shouldn’t be different, Yoichi. Any love you have - all forms of love - must focus on me.”His brother’s sneer twisted into something darker, more deranged. “You’re mine. You love me. Why must you complicate matters? Love is love - I have no use for your silly boundaries.”

Yoichi’s felt revulsion coil insides him. An icy horror rooted him to the spot as goosebumps prickled along his arms, a primal instinct telling him to run - as fast and far away as he could get. But he couldn’t move. He was rooted to this spot, forced to bare witness to this thing that bore his brothers face.

Above him, All For One inhaled slowly, a serene satisfaction on his face. “There will be no more mistakes, will there?” he purred, almost kindly, leaning closer so Yoichi could smell the faint cologne he wore - rich, uncomfortably sweet.

Yoichi trembled, eyes fixed on his brother’s face, tears streaming, unable to speak. 

“My dear, pitiful Yoichi … We’ve always been together, haven’t we?”All For One cooed in a soft, almost tender voice. He brushed aside a strand of Yoichi’s hair. “So don’t try to run. Don’t try to love anything but me. You belong nowhere else.”

A strangled cry escaped Yoichi’s throat. He tried to pull away, but a strong hand caught him by the chin, holding him in place. The older twin’s eyes reflected a vicious satisfaction - one that promised he would take whatever steps necessary to keep Yoichi bound to him, body and soul.

And Yoichi knew, as he saw the cruelty behind that gaze, that he was trapped in a nightmare with no escape - at least, not without unimaginable cost.

Chapter Text

Little brothers were such ungrateful things.

Six months. Six full months since that pitiful pest's death, and still Yoichi pouted like a wounded animal. As if he - All For One - had done something wrong. As if his brother hadn't strayed first. As if Yoichi hadn't whored himself out to a common baker with a soft voice and flour-dusted hands.

The grief had long since curdled into a bitter, nagging defiance. Yoichi was no longer soft-spoken and pliant, no longer content to stay quietly by his side. He questioned everything - everything - from the power being amassed beneath All For One’s growing empire to the ever-loyal followers who bowed as the Elder twin passed. He glared during meetings. Raised his voice. Demanded justifications.

He was becoming irksome.

It would be easier if the frail thing could just be what he was meant to be: weak, devoted, loyal. Why couldn’t Yoichi remember how it used to be? Before all these petty tantrums.

All For One could barely keep track of how many times he’d had to send his men to collect his pitiful twin - always found in some alley, some market square, trying to hide - trying to escape.

Escape his own brother. Who’d cared for and looked after the pathetic Yoichi when he could have left him to die.

And yet … there was pleasure in it.

Each time Yoichi was returned, he’d arrive dishevelled and trembling, breath catching with that hollow defeat in his eyes. And then, like clockwork, the fire returned. That pathetic, trembling flame that sputtered defiantly inside him.

It was exhausting.
It was annoying.
It was oddly endearing.

It was on one such night, hours after Yoichi had been brought back, squirming and flailing like a drenched kitten, that All For One found his weak twin standing against the railing, shoulders trembling, the wind fluttering his too-thin shirt.

Troublesome thing.

He slipped off his jacket and draped it over those thin shoulders, swallowing Yoichi in dark folds of expensive cloth. 

“You’ll catch a cold,” he chided softly, voice edged with the sort of gentleness that had long ago turned mocking. “Stand around much longer, and you’ll look half-dead.”

Yoichi said nothing, at first, just clutched the jacket closer, as if silently grateful for the warmth - though he wore a scowl that said otherwise. He seemed … quieter than usual, as though some new exhaustion had worn down his protests. All For One wondered if this was the moment he’d been waiting for: the return of the obedient, skittish creature who once followed him with wide, trusting eyes.

He tilted his head, regarding Yoichi curiously. “Cat got your tongue? I expected the usual protest about how cruel I am.” He said it lightly, letting a small smirk tug at his lips. “Isn’t that your daily routine these days?”

Yoichi didn’t turn around. “I’m tired,” he said quietly, voice flat. “I’m … just so tired.”

Another attempt at guilt, no doubt. All For One exhaled, a hint of impatience flickering under his skin. If Yoichi insisted on sulking, he should at least do it inside. “Then go to bed, little brother.”

Yoichi let out a soft, humourless laugh. “It’s never that simple.”

Always so dramatic.

All For One stepped closer, elbow resting lazily on the balcony’s edge, letting his gaze drift over the city. “You know,” he began, “if you’re tired of running, there’s an obvious solution.”  He flicked a sidelong look at Yoichi. “Stop trying to leave.”

That got him a sharp glance from the corner of Yoichi’s eye, something halfway between fury and resignation. 

“I wouldn’t have to run,” Yoichi said, voice trembling, “if you - if we - went back to how we were.” His fingers curled deeper into the coat’s sleeves. “Before this place. Before all your … power grabs.”

A bark of laughter escaped the Older twin before he could stop it. “Scuttling around the streets like rodents, half-starved and freezing? That’s what you’re nostalgic for?” He threw Yoichi an incredulous look. “We have everything now. I thought even you enjoyed a decent bed.”

Yoichi’s mouth curved in a sad, faint smile. “I miss you,” he said quietly. “The way it was back then … when I actually felt like I had a brother.”

The words hung in the cold air, a jagged note that fell between them. Confusion twisted in All For One’s mind. “I’m right here.”

“You’re not,” Yoichi said, voice soft. “Not the brother I remember.”

The silence hung between them. Cold and unrelenting.

All For One leaned against the railing, fingers tapping thoughtfully. “It doesn’t have to be difficult between us,” he said at last. “I’ll give you anything. The whole world, if that’s what you want. I can put it on a string and hang it from the sky for you -” he reached forward, tucking a strand of hair behind Yoichi’s ear, “ - so long as you remain mine. Loyal. Devoted. Like you used to be.”

Yoichi’s breath hitched. He turned his face away from the touch, though not quickly enough to hide it.

“Have you ever,” he said quietly, “considered me a person at all?”

The question hung there like a knife, sharp and trembling.

All For One tilted his head, regarding him like something strange under glass. “You’re my Yoichi,” he said, as if the answer were obvious. “My gift. The world handed you to me before we ever drew breath. You were made for me.”

He reached out again, brushing his knuckles across Yoichi’s cheek. He didn’t miss it - that recoil, the tension in Yoichi’s shoulders. The way his hands clenched tighter around the coat, how he flinched like someone expecting pain. Or worse - as if he was expecting something … untoward. That damned notion again. It was almost … offensive to see such reluctance. As if Yoichi had any right to set any boundaries between them.

A prickle of annoyance sizzled under All For One’s skin. So be it, Yoichi will learn in time. He reached out again, firmer this time, and snared Yoichi’s chin between forefinger and thumb, forcing his brother to meet his eyes. The look of raw dread shot a dark thrill through him - like an echo of victory. He leaned in just enough to ensure Yoichi felt the warmth of his breath.

“You want a brother?” he asked, voice low. “Then be obedient. No more attempts to leave, no more heartbreak over dead pests. Stay where you belong - at my side, serving my dream, returning every ounce of the love I give you. Is that so impossible?”

Yoichi shut his eyes, tears threatening to spill - either from fear or from heartbreak, All For One neither knew nor cared. “I’m … tired,” was all Yoichi said, voice barely above a whisper. “Please let me go inside.”

All For One held his grip for one moment longer, silent, drinking in that trembling submission. Then he released Yoichi’s chin with an exasperated sigh. “Very well,” he said. “Go.”

Yoichi slipped away without another word, disappearing into the house, almost seeming relieved to be away from his own brother.

X

Yoichi had become troublesome.

That once-fragile thing - so obedient, so easy to quiet with a word or touch - had taken on a sharper edge by their twentieth birthday. The changes were small at first. Longer silences. Lingering glares. Harsher questions. Then came the sneaking. The slipping away. The whispers.

All For One found it almost laughable at first. As if Yoichi - the soft, sickly brother who had clung to his side like a shadow since they were born - could ever pose a threat to him. What did he have? A trembling voice? A heart too easily wounded?

And yet, the city stirred - quietly. Faintly. But stirred nonetheless.

Whispers had begun circulating through certain corners of the underground. Quiet warnings, clothed in caution. Coded speech about “power misused,” about a “brother who stole,” and a boy with a soft voice and tearful eyes who begged people not to listen to him.

All For One didn’t need names. He knew where it came from.

Yoichi.

Pathetic, trembling Yoichi - slinking through alleys like some second-rate saboteur, smearing their bloodline in the dirt with his cowardly little stories.

Of course, he didn’t do it openly. All For One doubted his little brother had the spine to stand in the street and raise a hand in defiance. But in secret, in half-lit corridors, in dusty market stalls and whispered conversations - Yoichi was speaking out. That alone would have been easy to squash. But the danger lay in something else entirely:

People were beginning to listen.

And so, the narrative naturally had to be rewritten.

He crafted it as all things were crafted: carefully, elegantly, without a ripple. A few words, a few suggestions to the right people - the ones desperate for meta-abilities, for protection, for favour.

 He spoke of his poor, fragile brother with a mournful expression. Said Yoichi had always been unwell. Not dangerous, no. Harmless, really. Just confused. Weak in the head. Said he wandered sometimes and whispered nonsense about conspiracy and fear, but meant no harm.

“He’s not to blame,” All For One had said, eyes downcast, voice just so. “He doesn’t understand what he’s saying. He needs care. Patience. I only keep him close out of love.”

Yet, Yoichi did not stop.

Not when he was watched. Not when his routes were mapped. Not even when All For One locked him inside his room, with reinforced windows and a monitored door.

He always found a way out.

It was infuriating. How? Yoichi wasn’t clever. Not like him. He was desperate, emotional, fragile.

So who was helping him?

It didn’t take long to find the traitor.

Mika. One of the staff. A plain old woman with soft features and a tendency to leave doors “unlocked.” He had suspected her for weeks - the subtle shifts in schedules, the way she lingered near Yoichi, the way her eyes stayed down when they should have met his.

He watched. Waited.

And then, when the moment was right - He acted.

When he confronted her in the main hall, the entire household gathered at his command. He led Yoichi by the wrist, the Weaker twin’s eyes wide with dawning dread.

"You've betrayed my trust," All For One said gently, his voice sad and sympathetic, each word carefully measured. "I trusted you with my brother's care. And you've deceived me."

Mika dropped to her knees, tears already streaming, pleading softly for mercy, swearing it was only kindness, nothing more. Around them, the gathered household watched silently, obedient and loyal as Yoichi should be. As this … rat should be. 

From his side, Yoichi’s voice rose sharply, anguished: "Stop this! Don't hurt her!"

All For One smiled indulgently toward Yoichi. "My dear brother," he sighed theatrically. "You're confused again."

Yoichi lunged forward desperately, weakly. All For One met him calmly, stepping between Yoichi and the sobbing girl. He wrapped strong arms around his trembling twin, holding him close, letting him struggle futilely against his chest. Yoichi’s frail frame shook violently, his protests muffled as All For One cradled him gently, tenderly, a heart-breaking spectacle of brotherly affection to the frightened spectators around them.

"See how distressed you’ve made him," he chided softly to Aiko, voice rich with false sorrow. Then he nodded toward the guards, his smile vanishing into ice. "Teach her the price of treachery."

"No!" Yoichi gasped, twisting violently. "Brother, don't -!"

He tightened his hold, murmuring comfortingly into his possession’s ear, quiet enough only he could hear, "Watch, dear brother. See the consequences of your rebellion."

Mika’s screams tore through the hall, savage and raw, punctuated by the sickening sound of bone and flesh giving way under brutal punishment. Yoichi’s cries dissolved into desperate sobs, clawing weakly at the arms wrapped around him. All For One kept his embrace firm yet, offering no comfort even as Yoichi's struggles weakened into numb resignation.

Finally, when the screams died away and the broken servant girl lay motionless on the polished floor, All For One turned Yoichi to face him. He cupped his brother’s tear-streaked face in his palms, brushing away those hopeless, pitiful tears with his thumbs. "You see? Look what your defiance has wrought, stupid twin of mine."

Yoichi shuddered, tears blurring his gaze. Horror and grief etched deeply into his face. "You're a monster," he whispered, voice choked, broken.

All For One leaned in close, softly sighing into Yoichi’s ear. "You say such tiresome things." He pressed a soft, possessive kiss to his twin’s temple, delighting in how Yoichi flinched violently beneath his lips. "Yet you know you can’t stop me."

Yoichi jerked away, stumbling backward, shaking his head frantically. "You’re wrong," he rasped, voice weak but defiant. "Someone will stop you. One day."

"Oh, Yoichi," All For One smiled indulgently, voice honeyed yet edged in steel. "My useless little brother, trapped and helpless as you are, still you fight. Tell me, does it hurt to struggle so futilely?"

Yoichi glared at him, fists clenched, eyes bright with agony and impotent fury. His voice shook, but the conviction was still there, stubborn and desperate. "I'll never stop."

"How pitifully stubborn you are. But it matters little." The Older twin gestured toward the broken body on the floor. "As you’ve seen, those who attempt to help you - those you turn to - will always suffer for it. Fight me if you must, but remember; you can’t win against me.“

His grip was absolute. Yoichi’s futile rebellions were meaningless, pathetic ripples against the unshakable foundation he had built. And yet - Yoichi’s constant defiance, his stubborn little rebellions - it still prickled beneath All For One’s skin.

Perhaps, he thought, returning to his luxurious office, the time was nearing for more permanent solutions.

After all, he would allow no cracks in his perfect empire.

Not even from his beloved, pitiful brother.

X

People, All For One found, universally held one consistent trait;

When it came to power - stupidity prevailed.

They arrived eager, hopeful, pathetically trusting. Two men, each anxious to trade away their burdens for new power - each desperate to believe in the miracle of All For One's benevolence. They stood before him in awe, looking upon his carefully sculpted image of generosity and compassion, oblivious to the dark currents beneath his gentle smiles.

It was precisely as he had planned, precisely as he had designed. Stupidity built empires.

"Welcome," All For One murmured warmly, hands spread in open hospitality. "You've come seeking assistance, my friends. Rest assured, you've found it here."

He watched satisfaction ripple across their eager faces, felt their gratitude like sun-warmed silk against his fingertips. He was a master conductor, and these pathetic, trusting fools would dance precisely to the rhythm he set.

Until Yoichi interrupted.
   
The doors burst open without warning, slamming hard enough to reverberate through the room. Yoichi stormed forward, wild-eyed, pale with desperation, shaking like the frail thing he had always been.

"Stop this!" Yoichi shouted, his voice trembling with both fear and defiance. "You mustn't listen to him! You have no idea what he'll take from you - what he'll demand in return!"

All For One turned to his guests, his expression shifting into a carefully cultivated mask of apology, pain, and resignation. 
"Gentlemen," he sighed sadly, "please excuse my dear brother. As you see, his health has not been well of late - I'm afraid he suffers from these … episodes."

“Stop telling people that!"

One of the men shook his head sympathetically. "Please don't worry yourself, sir. It must be difficult."

"It truly is," All For One replied softly, his tone rich with sadness, an actor delivering his lines flawlessly. "Yoichi is troubled - easily confused. He doesn't understand I'm only trying to help."

"Liar!" Yoichi snapped, desperation sharpening his features. He turned toward the guests. "Don't let him fool you. He's a monster who will own you, control you - use you."

The guests exchanged awkward, pitying glances. Exactly as All For One knew they would. Pity - not belief - was all Yoichi could inspire. Perfect.

Yoichi took a bold step forward toward his brother, trembling, fists clenched. "You're not fooling everyone. I'll expose you for what you are."

It happened in a blur: one of All For One's bodyguards moved swiftly, trained reflexes propelling him forward to tackle Yoichi to the polished floor. The frail thing hit the marble with a sickening thud, pinned roughly beneath a much larger body. His weak limbs scrabbled uselessly against the man's weight.

All For One raised a hand immediately, feigning alarm. "Gentle! My brother is frail - handle him carefully. He bruises so easily."

He knelt beside Yoichi, touching his brother's hair with gentle fingers. "Dear brother, you worry me so," he sighed theatrically, loud enough for their guests to hear. "You must stop putting yourself in harm's way. You know your body isn't strong."

"Stop this," he choked out. "This is wrong. Using them like this -" Yoichi twisted beneath the grip, eyes wild, tears of frustration and humiliation brightening his gaze. 

All For One only sighed, shaking his head sadly. He rose, signalling the bodyguard to carefully restrain Yoichi while he turned back to his guests.

"I truly apologize for this. As you can see, it isn't easy," he murmured, voice expertly layered with sorrow and embarrassment. "Shall we finish our exchange, gentlemen?"

“Don’t - !”

The men nodded readily, sympathy and gratitude etched deep in their trusting faces. They completed the trade swiftly - one meta-ability extracted and granted to the other, power flowing effortlessly between them, all while Yoichi lay struggling helplessly on the cold, hard floor.

Finally, as his newest 'friends' expressed heartfelt thanks, All For One turned and ordered the room emptied, voice calm but firm. The doors clicked shut, leaving only him and his trembling brother.

All For One moved forward, gazing down at Yoichi with eyes now stripped of their benevolence, cool and sharp as steel. "This tiresome defiance of yours must stop, Yoichi."

Yoichi met his gaze bravely, chest heaving with effort. "You'll have to kill me to silence me," he spat weakly.

All For One tilted his head, gaze curious. “Kill you? My beloved twin?” A slow smile spread across his lips, icy and devoid of warmth. “What a foolish suggestion. No - I see now - you’ve left me no choice.”

Yoichi’s eyes widened in fear, but before he could even move, the Older twin reached forward and pressed his palm gently against his Weaker half's forehead. A meta-ability flooded forth, rendering Yoichi utterly immobile, muscles locked and frozen, useless to even twitch a finger.

All For One took advantage of Yoichi’s sudden helplessness to scoop him up, hooking an arm under his knees and another around his back. 

“That’s better,” All For One murmured, pressing his dearest possession to his chest. “I’ve prepared something for you. It’s been ready for months - just in case.”

He strode from the office, down marbled hallways, eyes forward, ignoring the confusion on passing staff faces. He offered them no thought, making no explanation. And they would not dare ask.

Finally, he reached a sealed steel door in a secluded corridor - thick, imposing, installed quietly some time ago, hidden from prying eyes. A vault carved into the very foundation.

“My dear Yoichi,” he said, stepping inside. “I made this for you.”

He set his his possession on a bed - clean, comfortable, albeit surrounded by walls of cold concrete and a single reinforced vent for air. 

The immobilizing quirk’s effect waned, allowing Yoichi to twitch and writhe. Panic flared in his gaze as he registered the finality of this place. “No - no, no, you can’t -”

“You’re leaving me no choice,” All For One repeated, calmly stepping back, crossing to the door. “This is for your own good.”

“S - stop -!” Yoichi stumbled off the bed, nearly collapsing as his legs struggled to obey. He lunged weakly, arms outstretched. “You can’t do this!”

But All For One was already at the threshold. He shot one last look at Yoichi’s dishevelled form, the pitiful attempt to stand. “You’ll be safe here. No more running away. No more interference. This is your own fault, Yoichi.” 

Yoichi’s eyes shone with tears. “Please - Brother -”

All For One offered a cool, tranquil smile, gripping the door. “I’ll take excellent care of you,” he promised. “My Yoichi.”

He shut the door.

At once, the sound of fists pounding rang out, muffled cries filtering through the thick steel and All For One exhaled slowly, the weight in his chest shifting to a quiet, twisted satisfaction. 

Finally. No more escapes. No more defiance in the open streets. As the screams faded to soft, hopeless sobs, All For One smiled faintly and turned away, footsteps echoing quietly back up the stairs.

 His brother would never escape now. No pathetic baker, no meddlesome servant - no one - would ever take his brother away again.

Finally, his heart was safely locked away.

Chapter Text

All For One considered himself a doting brother.

After all, he'd always taken care of Yoichi, even when the ungrateful thing had thrown kindness back in his face. He provided everything - food, clothing, books, warmth - all the comforts one could desire. Everything his fragile twin could possibly need, wrapped in gentle generosity. 

Yet Yoichi remained obstinate, always spitting in the face of benevolence, screaming his defiance like a child throwing a tantrum.

Still, All For One persisted. Love required patience. Discipline, even.

The vault was perfect, impenetrable. Safe from prying eyes and hands, safe from a cruel outside world that would devour such a delicate creature as Yoichi. Safe from Yoichi's foolish and repeated attempts to escape. 

Yoichi never seemed to grasp how fortunate he was to have someone who cared so deeply -someone willing to protect him from his own reckless impulses.

It was exhausting, truly, the ingratitude. Exhausting how Yoichi glared at him, cursed his name, demanded his freedom - as if freedom were anything but a word whispered in desperation by fools.

One particular day, Yoichi's frustration boiled over into violence. It was pathetic, really - his frail twin lunging forward with shaking fists, driven by desperation more than strength. The fight, if it could even be called that, was pitifully brief. Yoichi’s fists landed harmlessly against All For One’s chest, weak and ineffectual, scarcely registering as anything beyond a minor annoyance.

All For One sighed, gripping Yoichi’s wrists tightly, forcing him down onto the cold concrete floor. Beneath him, Yoichi trembled violently, gritting his teeth, angry tears streaking pale cheeks.

"Are you done?" All For One murmured impatiently. "You're only embarrassing yourself."

"I hate you," Yoichi spat weakly. "I'll never give in."

 The foolish words  stirred something dark in All For One’s chest, a frustration only his brother could ignite.

All For One released his ungrateful twin roughly, stepping back with an icy glare. He straightened the sleeves of his suit, letting silence stretch, tense and suffocating between them.

"So be it," he whispered coldly.

Without another word, All For One stepped to the door, knocking twice sharply. 

Immediately, his staff entered, eyes downcast, awaiting orders.

"Remove it all," All For One instructed, voice calm but unyielding. "Books, clothing, bedding, all of it."

Yoichi’s eyes widened. He stumbled forward, anger replaced instantly by panic. "Wait - no! Stop!"

All For One regarded him calmly, unmoved. "If my gifts mean nothing, you need not have them at all."

The staff stripped the room bare quickly, efficiently. Soft blankets, carefully curated literature, luxurious clothing - all gone within moments. The room’s temperature controls, the bright overhead lights, even the padded mattress - removed swiftly and mercilessly until nothing but concrete walls and cold emptiness remained.

Yoichi stood shivering, pale and small amidst the oppressive greyness, wrapping thin arms tightly around his trembling form and All For One felt his heart twist in a perverse satisfaction.

"I always provided for you," he said softly. "But perhaps you need a a show of what life will be like if I don’t."

Yoichi glared at him fiercely, jaw clenched despite the tremors. "You won’t break me," he whispered harshly.

All For One tilted his head slowly, eyes narrowing. "We shall see."

And he left, leaving Yoichi in darkness and silence.

He returned late the next evening, stepping soundlessly into the now-barren vault. 

The air was thick with chill, seeping through the walls, pressing down mercilessly upon his fragile twin’s weakened frame. Yoichi shivered violently in the corner, curled into himself, small and pathetic.

All For One sat himself calmly against the door, observing. Waiting.

"I’m still here, Yoichi," he spoke coaxingly. "Even after everything you’ve said and done. Can’t you see how deeply I care?"

Yoichi refused to answer, eyes squeezed shut, trembling harder.

"Come here," All For One urged, opening his arms invitingly, voice warm and patient. "There’s no reason to suffer. You only need to apologize."

Yoichi’s stubborn silence echoed back at him.

Days passed this way, a cruel game of wills. He returned each day, waiting patiently, watching Yoichi’s slow descent into agony. Each evening the temperature dropped lower; each hour, Yoichi’s skin grew paler, his breath raspier, his shaking more pronounced.

But still, he refused to yield. Stubborn to the very end.

All For One watched impassively, unbothered by the chill, perfectly still. He knew patience was his ally. The cold would break Yoichi eventually. His twin’s frail body was never built for hardship. Sickness would come soon enough, fevers and chills that would shatter pride and resistance alike.

One night, as the frost seeped through the walls, Yoichi eventually broke into muffled sobs.
It was weak, pitiful crying, barely audible, but it reached All For One’s sensitive ears. Carefully, approaching the wounded prey his little twin was, he moved closer, kneeling beside the trembling figure.

"Shh," All For One murmured tenderly, pulling Yoichi close, arms wrapping around his twin’s shaking body. "I’m still here. Even now. I’ve always been here."

Yoichi stiffened violently, sobs growing louder, desperate and helpless, but didn’t pull away. He couldn’t, too weak, too cold, too broken by the merciless grasp of the freezing temperatures All For One deliberately set.

"You could end this at any moment," All For One murmured in Yoichi’s ear. "Just apologize. Admit you were wrong. I’ll give you back everything - warmth, comfort, every gift. Simply say you’re sorry for being ungrateful."

Yoichi’s voice cracked between sobs. "I … won’t."

All For One stroked Yoichi’s hair, running fingers through those soft, familiar strands. "Then suffer as you must, until you understand how fortunate you’ve always been."

And so, it continued - night after night and the Older twin  simply waited, tender and patient. All for Yoichi’s own good. A lesson in gratitude, one his weaker half needed desperately to relearn.

After all, true love required discipline. Sacrifice. Patience.

X

Yoichi couldn’t say he was surprised it had come to this, not truly. 

Even so, it hurt in a way that left him raw and aching inside. He had always known something in his brother was not well, but he had never imagined it would end like this - the door to his new prison clanging shut, locks sliding into place with mechanical finality.

In those first few days of gray concrete and cold steel, he struggled to come to terms with the reality that his own twin had done this. Each morning, All For One had arrived - brisk, calm, and brimming with cruel affection - to bring him food, clothes, and books. Yoichi found it almost mocking, the pretence of a caring caretaker when he had been robbed of everything else.

They had argued each time. Yoichi seethed with words he knew would never penetrate his brother’s armor. All For One simply smiled, that maddening, indulgent tilt of his lips, as if they were sharing some private joke only he understood.

Once the veneer of generosity had dropped however, and Yoichi was left with nothing but the cold and constant coughing, he still refused to bend to his brothers will. He wouldn’t take cursed gold from his own Midas’ corrupted hand.

 It was a vow Yoichi had stuck to over many constant visits and tempting offers. Time and days bled into an endless stream of cold and empty dark. He’d grown used to paltry meals of plain rice and fevers kept him warm sometimes. 

One day - or perhaps hours after his last visit, All For One stepped inside Yoichi’s cell in unnervingly high spirits, his polished shoes echoing across the concrete floor. 

Yoichi tensed; nothing good ever accompanied his brother’s cheerfulness.

“All but official name,” All For One announced. “That’s how firmly this city rests in my hands now. Politicians, businesses, so-called heroes… all of them bend to my will without a fight.” He paused, eyes gleaming. “You really should have seen it, Yoichi. Some fools tried speaking out. My loyal friends ended their protests before I even lifted a finger.”

The cruelty in that boast made Yoichi’s stomach churn. “You’re proud of that?” he rasped, anger stirring beneath his exhaustion. “You’re proud people fear you so much, they won’t dare speak against you?”

All For One shrugged casually, like a child dismissing a minor inconvenience. “If you only abandoned this foolish rebellion, you wouldn’t need to rot in here.” He spread his arms wide in an almost theatrical gesture. “Stand at my side, Yoichi. Share in my glory. Be part of something greater than your self-righteous illusions.”

Yoichi’s heart pounded, rage twisting hot and nauseating in his chest. “I’d rather die,” he said quietly. “I promise you, someone will stand up against you, no matter how powerful you become. Wherever there’s cruelty, people will rise to fight it.”

All For One laughed, the sound echoing hollowly against metal walls. “You’re still living in those absurd comics you read as a boy - that’s your problem. The real world doesn’t follow stock plots. Power wins. That’s all there is.”

He approached in a slow, menacing prowl. Yoichi fought the urge to back away. Retreating would only delight his brother. Instead, he stood his ground, fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white.

All For One’s hand rose, pressing firmly against Yoichi’s forehead. An unsettling warmth seeped through his skull; behind it, he sensed a hunger, a terrible pull that made him want to recoil.

“This is for your own good,” All For One pronounced. “You’ll stand with me, one way or another. It’s time I give you a gift - something even your pathetic body can hold.”

Yoichi tried to jerk free, but his brother’s grip was solid, cold as iron. Fear thrummed through him. “No,” he whispered, dread coiling in the pit of his stomach.

Pain shot through his head - sharp, electric agony that ripped a ragged scream from his throat. He felt his body lock up, every nerve firing, an alien energy forcing its way inside him. It crackled behind his eyes, leaving him dizzy and sick with anguish.

“Brother - stop!” he choked, struggling with all his might. But there was no mercy in All For One’s touch. His twin leaned closer, unyielding, as though pressing a brand into Yoichi’s very soul.

His vision blurred; hot tears of torment slipped down his cheeks. That terrible sensation pounded in his chest - like a second heartbeat - and he felt something fuse with him.

And then it ended. 

All For One pulled away, leaving Yoichi trembling, half-collapsed. The aftershocks of pain still ricocheted through his mind, making his teeth chatter. He stared up at his brother’s triumphant expression with numb horror.

“How …” Yoichi rasped, panting heavily. “What did you - ?”

The world spun as Yoichi forced himself upright, heart pounding in ragged terror. His muscles still spasmed, every joint aching from the forced intrusion. The faintest flicker of something new thrummed in his limbs - a power not wholly his own.

All For One reached out, brushing tears from Yoichi’s cheeks. “Don’t cry, little brother. This was a gift. You should thank me.”

Yoichi’s entire body shook with fury and revulsion. Even if he’d had the strength to stand, he doubted he could move without staggering.

“You won’t break me,” he spat, voice trembling. “No matter what you do, I won’t become your tool.”

All For One only sighed, almost pitying. “I’m tired of these dramatic proclamations. Soon, you’ll see the wisdom in standing by my side.” 

He left Yoichi on the cold concrete, turning to exit the vault with that same collected calm, as though he hadn’t just ripped Yoichi’s autonomy away yet again.

The heavy door boomed shut, leaving Yoichi alone in darkness, breaths coming in short, painful gasps. The echo of that new, foreign quirk rattled inside him, an unwanted presence forced upon him by the very person who should have been his closest ally.

Tears of rage and helplessness slipped down his cheeks. He wasn’t surprised - of course, he wasn’t. But that didn’t stop it from hurting, like a blade twisted into his heart.

He clenched shaking fists, burying his face against the cold floor. Even now, he swore he wouldn’t give in. Whatever this new power was, he would find a way to fight … because otherwise, there would be no escape from the hell his brother had created.

X

The hunger strikes were not a new development, merely another tantrum his fragile twin had employed in the past. Yoichi’s stubborn resolve to refuse sustenance had usually crumbled after a few days - his body was frail, after all, and pain was not something he endured easily.

But this time, something felt different.

All For One supposed bestowing that paltry meta-ability to Yoichi had strengthened his twin’s defiance. Days passed, then weeks, and Yoichi continued to waste away, lips pressed tight, hands trembling with malnutrition. He outright refused everything All For One offered: carefully prepared meals, nutrient-rich drinks, even water. When coaxing and threats failed, All For One resorted to forcing sips past Yoichi’s lips.

Yet Yoichi spat them out every time, letting the liquid dribble from the corner of his mouth in a silent gesture of disgust.

Eventually, All For One tired of the game.

He summoned his most trusted servants to the vault, instructing them in that his brother - poor, mentally unwell Yoichi - was endangering himself again. They were to help ensure his safety.

They believed him, of course. They always did.

Yoichi's eyes flared wide when they entered. Four people in pristine attire, each one calm, respectful, dutiful. 

“What’s this?” Yoichi rasped, his voice cracked, parched from dehydration. He tried to rise but failed miserably, weak limbs barely capable of holding his diminished weight.

With a simple nod form their master, the four pinned him down on the bare mattress, careful but firm, while All For One stood at the bedside, arms crossed.

"You forced my hand," All For One muttered, leaning in close so that Yoichi could hear his low, menacing tone. “You do realize that, don’t you?”

Yoichi offered no answer - only ragged breaths and furious glares. His chest heaved, bony ribs rattling under the weight of restraint. The anger and terror in his eyes was as sharp as broken glass.

All For One clicked his tongue disapprovingly, watching one of the servants produce the tube with clinical precision. “You must be fed, little brother, whether you want it or not.”

One of the servants, a woman who believed wholeheartedly in her master’s benevolence, pinched Yoichi’s nose. 

Even that Yoichi tried to fight. But survival was an instinct and when he inevitably gasped for air, the tube slipped between his quivering lips, guided down with practised coldness.

A wet, choking gag from Yoichi tore through the silence, muffled by plastic and the press of strangers’ hands on his frail limbs.

He struggled, of course - thrashed in a wild, desperate frenzy, eyes bulging, tears rolling down pale cheeks. But it was pointless. The body was weak, and there were too many hands holding him. His feeble attempts at biting down on the tube only made the insertion more painful for himself.

All For One felt no pity. Why should he? Yoichi had forced this situation by refusing nourishment, by endangering his own life - their life, really. 

If anything, All For One was being the good brother here, stepping in to prevent catastrophe.

A low whine of distress escaped Yoichi’s throat as the tube slid farther inside. It was a pitiful sound, one that would have stirred sympathy in any normal human. But All For One only felt a coil of frustration in his gut. 

Why must his brother be so dramatic?

The servants administered the nutrient solution and Yoichi writhed, retching against the relentless flow, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. The entire procedure lasted only a few minutes, but it felt endless, pressing in on them all with claustrophobic certainty.

At last, they pulled the tube free. Yoichi gasped and coughed violently, body wracked by spasms as he tried to clear the cloying taste of liquid from his throat.

All For One dismissed the servants with a curt nod. “Thank you,” he murmured softly, carefully layering his tone with regret. “It had to be done.”

They bowed, murmuring words of comfort that Yoichi couldn’t hear over his own choking coughs. Then they were gone, leaving the vault quiet again.

The Older twin bent down, firmly gripping his Weaker half’s shoulders to force him upright.

“Breathe,” he commanded. 
Yoichi’s head lolled, eyes brimming with disoriented rage, body trembling so violently that All For One had to steady him against his chest.

“You did this to yourself,” he continued, brushing damp strands of hair from Yoichi’s flushed forehead. “All your choices led here. If you would simply eat -”

Yoichi jerked in his arms, raw sobs ripping from his throat. His eyes, red and puffy, stared through All For One with loathing. He had no words - perhaps none were left.

For a moment, neither spoke. The echo of forced feeding lingered, tangy, chemical, oppressive in the stale air. All For One’s arms remained locked around Yoichi’s frail body, a cruel parody of comfort.

“It’s over now,” All For One murmured. “You made it difficult, but we’re past that. I won’t let you destroy yourself.” He paused, letting a note of reproach seep into his voice. “You’re too important.”

Yoichi’s breath shuddered as he hiccuped, tears still wet on his cheeks. He looked utterly lost, pinned between anguish and hate, pinned in All For One’s hold. But he no longer fought - no longer had the strength, perhaps.

All For One wrapped his arms more tightly, leaning his cheek against Yoichi’s sweat-damp hair. “I forgive you,” he whispered, with the arrogant grace of someone bestowing undeserved mercy. “Now rest.”

Yoichi let out a broken, exhausted sob, and went limp in his grasp.

No repeat performance. No further resistance. For now, at least, the hunger strike had ended in hollow defeat - exactly as All For One had expected.

X

Turning twenty-one was, by all accounts, a milestone.

An age of legal authority. Of adulthood in the eyes of the fragile systems that once dared call themselves “law.” A symbolic step, if not a practical one. All For One found it amusing more than anything. A number. A title. Something the world celebrated as if time itself conferred power.

He had conquered more by fifteen than most of these grovelling adults had in a lifetime.

Still, the world acknowledged milestones, and it was useful to play into their little games when it suited him. The suits, the sycophants, the trembling hands hiding under lacquered nails—they all came bearing gifts to his house, faces stretched in smiles so thin they cracked under the pressure of his attention.

Tonight’s celebration was tasteful by design. Modern decadence with the polish of corporate civility. Not a wild affair, but calculated - like everything else he allowed. The chandeliers above the dark marble floors flickered with soft light. Jazz poured from hidden speakers. The smell of wealth lingered in the air: fine wine, foreign cigars, delicate appetizers passed by trembling staff trained to keep their eyes down.

His loyal friends came in droves - politicians barely clinging to their posts, businessmen begging for survival, petty dignitaries with polished shoes and greasy motives. They knew where the power lived now. Not in crumbling courts or outdated laws. It lived here, under his thumb.

Their offerings were increasingly extravagant. A mint-condition luxury vehicle. Keys to private towers. Entire business equities laid like sacrificial lambs at his feet. One man had brought him a living gift - a young woman with a particularly rare meta-ability. She knelt beside the wine table, trembling with perfectly rehearsed submission, her power already documented in full.

“Useful,” All For One had mused aloud, as the businessman preened with anticipation. He had not looked at the girl. She was merely the vessel. The utility. The ability itself was the gift.

An oily magnate whose name he didn’t care to remember - offered another meta-ability tied up in a bow. The boy, no older than sixteen, was shoved forward with trembling limbs and forced to demonstrate the quirk his family had groomed him to perfect. Another brought a woman who could liquefy metal with her breath. Another, a child with glowing veins and a healing touch. Flesh and power, auctioned under the guise of generosity.

They all wanted the same thing- his favour. A word, a gesture, a single thread in his cloak of influence. It was predictable. Disappointingly so.

Still, their desperation amused him. It was a different kind of power - the kind that made men degrade themselves with gratitude, the kind that made them offer daughters, sons, and bloodlines in hopes of forging some bond.

One city official, flushed from wine, leaned closer at one point, voice lowered with the false intimacy of the cowardly.

“How is your brother?” he dared to ask.

All For One smiled, soft and mournful, as if speaking of a delicate illness. “Resting,” he said, voice deliberately touched with sadness. “The poor thing’s had another … episode. His mind is so fragile. He’s on bedrest now.”

The official nodded solemnly. “A tragedy.”

“Indeed.” All For One sipped from his glass, hiding the amusement behind crystal and poison. 

Yoichi would have hated this.

The thought delighted him. The discomfort, the horror on his twin’s face if he had to watch these people grovel. How lovely it would’ve been to watch him squirm, watching fools scramble to offer wealth and lives to a man Yoichi considered a monster.

It would have been amusing - if Yoichi hadn’t proven so consistently uncooperative.

A shame. His company would’ve been the only one worth having.

What did baffle All For One - truly - was the barrage of romantic proposals. Business dynasties offering daughters and sons alike. Heiresses in velvet gowns fluttering lashes. A pair of slick-haired brothers offering to "share" him. Engagement contracts slid discreetly into his hand by trembling fingers, some as blatant as auctions.

Ludicrous.

As if any of them could be worthy of him. As if anyone could comprehend what it meant to stand at his side.

He dismissed them all with polite neutrality.

No one else was his equal. No one else had been with him from the beginning, from blood and rot and riverwater, from the cold world of gutters and hunger and survival. It was Yoichi who had cried beside him, starved beside him, dreamed beside him.

Marriage was meaningless anyway - a piece of paper to bind to fools to one another. He had a much deeper bond than that - one superior even tied to something so weak. 

All For One had an extension of himself - a twin. How could any outsider compete with that? What greater intimacy could there be?

When the last sycophant had bowed and left, when the wine was spilled and the laughter turned hollow, All For One descended.

The vault greeted him with silence, cold and humming with tension.

Yoichi was seated on the edge of his bare bed, limbs drawn close to his thin frame, shadows carved deep under his eyes. He didn’t look up when the door opened. Stubborn as always. So pitiful, so wilful.

Months had gone by and still no sign of All For One’s well-deserved apology.

Still, today was an exception to discipline.

“Happy birthday, brother.”

Yoichi didn’t look up.

“I brought cake.” All For One held up the box - black sesame and honey sponge with cream. “I remember, you always liked this one.”

“I liked a lot of things before you locked me underground,” Yoichi muttered.

All For One chuckled and crossed the room, sitting beside him. “Still sulking, I see.” 

With the same care he’d always shown, he draped a thick blanket around Yoichi’s shoulders. The boy flinched at the contact but didn’t shake it off, clutching the fabric close with a clenched hand.

Good. Let him remember what warmth was.

All For One cut the cake with a silver knife, plated a slice, and handed it over. Yoichi stared at it but didn’t touch it. So the Older twin helped himself to his own piece and ate quietly, savouring the taste. It was a rich flavour, not one All For One preferred though.

“You could be upstairs,” he murmured between bites. “I could’ve had those fools bow to you instead. But you’re stubborn.”

“You mean I could be paraded like one of your pets?” Yoichi said coldly, finally looking at him. “Go eat your cake with them.”

All For One’s smile didn’t falter. “You’re the only one I wanted to share it with. It’s our birthday, remember?”

Yoichi looked away.

A quiet fell again. It was peaceful, almost. 

All For One chewed thoughtfully, watching Yoichi’s clenched jaw and shaking shoulders. A few crumbs dropped onto the concrete floor.

“You know …” he said slowly, setting the fork down with delicate care, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe if you remembered how to be grateful - I could take you out. Treat you to an hour or two of fresh air. Eat our cake in the moonlight. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He leaned close, brushing Yoichi’s bangs behind one ear. “All you have to do is look me in the eye - and apologize.”

Yoichi recoiled at the touch. His voice was sharp and repulsed. “You’re disgusting”

Something cracked behind All For One’s eyes. He withdrew his hand slowly. “That’s not very kind, Yoichi.”

The silence between them stretched again - tight as wire.

Pitiful, pathetic wretch -

All For One stood, brushing nonexistent dust from his suit. “I’ll return later. We can enjoy the evening properly then.”

He didn’t expect an answer, and Yoichi didn’t give one. All For One watched the trembling of Yoichi’s limbs beneath the blanket, the defiant tilt of his chin that masked the deep fear in his eyes. How long could this stubbornness endure? The question both vexed and enthralled him.

He removed the warmth he’d generously given, ignoring Yoichi’s desperate grasps for the blanket as it was taken away. It was gift afterall, not a right.

He turned to make a calm exit. That was when he heard porcelain crash against steel. The plate exploded in shards near the doorframe.

All For One froze.

The Older twin turned his head slightly, just enough to look over his shoulder. His voice, when it came, was low. Cold.

“So ungrateful.”

He stepped through the door and let it close loudly behind him, leaving behind nothing but silence, sugar, and broken porcelain.

Yoichi would learn, eventually.

After all, All For One was nothing if not a doting brother.

Chapter Text

At twenty-five, All For One lived a life that most men never even dared to dream. 

Nothing lay beyond his grasp - power, influence, loyalty. Favours came by the dozen from politicians and businessmen alike, each one fawning over him with trembling smiles. He stood at the centre of a vast web of conspiracies and deals, pulling strings in secret while letting figureheads claim the spotlight. Puppeteering was more entertaining than taking the throne outright.

His influence had expanded far beyond city limits. It spread throughout the country, whispers of his invisible empire carried on fearful tongues. Like smoke, his reach drifted quietly, softly, filling every gap, every crack, suffocating resistance without them even realizing it until far too late.

He stood in his private suite - a gleaming office perched at the top of a sleek tower - reflecting on recent annoyances. 

Attempts on his life, laughably frequent, had grown bolder. 

He supposed there was some admiration to be found in their audacity. Only last week, his personal barber made an attempt, lunging with a hidden blade that glinted under the fluorescent glow. A shame, truly; the man had given splendid haircuts. His skill at assassination, however, proved mediocre. Shame about the scheduling inconvenience. He hated rebooking.

The remains of that miscalculated attempt now lay quietly in a morgue somewhere, and All For One had hired a new barber. After all, appearance still mattered.

More attempts followed. Poisoned food, rigged vehicles that never exploded in time, infiltration plots that cowered under his watchful eyes—petty, trivial matters all. He crushed them with the same ease he used to brush lint from his collar. Bothersome, yes, but far from threatening.

Still, he recognized a pattern in the growing resistance. Their efforts lacked sophistication yet dripped with raw determination. Some elusive figure or group continued to rally them, propping up new rebels each time the old ones fell. Like cockroaches, he thought, half amused, half irritated.

A discreet rap on the heavy door signalled his staff’s entry. A man in a crisp black suit approached, bowing deeply before producing a slim dossier. All For One accepted it with a mild smile, leafing through the pages. Grainy photos, scrawled notes, clipped attachments referencing the so-called “leaders” of this ragged underground rebellion. The typical flair: burning passion, meagre meta abilities—nothing too dangerous.

One name surfaced repeatedly. Kudō. Young, reckless, and tenacious. The dossier noted a string of minor successes - small infiltration attempts, symbolic sabotage. Nothing truly noteworthy beyond an apparent knack for rallying others. A bold little whelp, but no real threat unless he stumbled upon actual power.

All For One barely spared him a second thought.

The pest was a dog with a bark, no teeth.

What pulled his attention wasn’t Kudō, however. It was the copy of a scavenged note hastily scrawled before the rats had scurried back into their holes:

Family relations - Possible asset for blackmail or assassination. Removing the brother might drive him into the open.

His hand froze mid-page.

How … interesting.

It was vague, barely more than hearsay. They didn’t know Yoichi’s name. They didn’t know what he looked like. But they had guessed at his existence.

Oh, how little they understood. They might imagine Yoichi existing somewhere in the city, a prized accomplice - an enabler. Perhaps they pictured him as some twisted, lesser version of All For One. Or maybe they believed Yoichi wandered freely, as if All For One trusted him to roam about, meeting with conspirators. Fools.

His dear twin was - and always would be - safely locked away. The mere thought of rebels seeking to harm Yoichi made his temper flare. As if they could slip past the vault’s thick walls, the unyielding security that surrounded his prized possession. As if he would ever allow such an intrusion on what was rightfully his.

All For One snapped the dossier closed and dismissed the man with a curt nod. Then he walked to the tinted windows overlooking the teeming city, where bright lights sparkled like fallen stars.

They would never so much as lay a finger on Yoichi.

No rebel, no wretch, no Kudō would ever see him, touch him, or breathe near him.

The night stretched forward, ripe with promise and possibility. All For One stepped out of his office, mind already turning over strategies to deal with this Kudō and the rest of his ragtag group. Perhaps he’d indulge them - let them grow a fraction stronger before crushing their hopes. Nothing was more satisfying than the moment a rebel realized just how inevitable his victory truly was.

He’d savour that moment, just as he savoured every victory. And he would keep Yoichi safe, no matter how many bodies he had to bury in the process.

His empire was secure, and his brother belonged solely to him. Power, wealth, loyalty—all perfectly orchestrated, woven into his fingers like a web of steel. Everything was exactly as it should be.

Yes.

He truly was living his best life.

X

Yoichi didn’t know how long it had been.

Years, at least. Five, certainly - he could count the birthdays, if he bothered to. His twin never forgot them. There was always cake, always a celebration - one he never asked for, never wanted, and never once enjoyed. The candles were always blown out by someone else.

He woke. He existed. He endured. And then the day started again.

He moved like a shadow within his own body, drained of everything but the bare flicker of will that hadn’t yet been crushed. His limbs remembered how to move when summoned, how to sit when told, how to speak when silence would mean worse. His emotions were raw - skinned, red, and tender. Every moment was like walking barefoot through salt.

He wasn't a person anymore. He knew that.

He was a possession. A cherished, guarded, jealous possession.

All For One had won. And Yoichi had no illusions left.

The vault - the cold, merciless cage he now called home - was no longer terrifying. That fear had dulled years ago. Now it simply was. Like gravity. Like breath. He hated it, but it was familiar.

Predictable. The iron walls, the artificial light, the cameras tucked neatly into corners - he knew them all.

So did his brother.

Game nights, shared dinners, those awful scripted evenings where they pretended to be something normal. They still argued, of course - they always would. But even those fights were performative now. All For One liked them. Found them “lively.” On the rare occasions Yoichi pushed too far, there were … reminders. Threats, real and imagined, against the lives of innocent people he would never meet. Just the idea of it was enough to silence him.

At least when they argued, he still felt like himself.

The rest of the time?

The rest of the time, he was just a puppet - strings tangled in a master’s fingers, unable to cut himself free.

X

Time had long since stopped making sense.

Days passed - or maybe they didn’t. There was no sun in the vault. No dusk. No dawn. Just the constant hum of fluorescent lights and the ever-watching eye of the camera blinking red in the corner.

Stagnant.

That’s what it was. Like water left in a sealed jar. Stale. Heavy. Drowning.

His body was fine - pristine, even. Fed, cleaned, clothed. His captor - his brother - made sure of that. Because a possession had to be maintained. A prized thing had to be kept whole.

But his mind - that was something else entirely.

Yoichi could feel himself wilting, like a flower left in the dark. Something vital was decaying inside him, shrivelling up and curling into something unrecognisable. He tried to fight. Of course he did. For years, he fought with every fibre of his soul. Resistance was purpose. Refusal was identity.

But even purpose had weight. And down here, beneath concrete and steel and suffocating routine, it was too heavy to carry anymore.

So maybe that’s why he did it.

Maybe it was a moment of madness. Maybe it was spite. Maybe it was the last ragged, desperate claw at freedom, or the need for silence, or just the longing to leave. Maybe it was more thought out than that. He didn’t know.

But he did it anyway.

He stood.

His legs shook - deerlike, trembling and fragile from disuse - but they held.

Then, without hesitation, Yoichi ran.

A ragged sprint, if it could even be called that. More instinct than strategy. More scream than motion. The wall came toward him like a promise.

He crashed into it.

Headfirst.

Pain exploded across his skull, a searing flash of white. His vision cracked, body rebounding off the concrete like a rag doll. Blood spattered warm across his cheeks, dripping into his eyes. His ears rang. A scream - was it his? - echoed in the vault, but everything felt muffled, distant.

He blinked, disoriented, struggling to orient himself. His knees buckled under him, but he forced them to lock, forced his battered body upright. There was more to do.

A second time. This time his head pulsed with agony. Blood trickled down, wetting his hair, leaving his vision a haze of red. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his balance wavered, but still he tried to push forward. Another slam, weaker. Another useless crack against the wall. He tasted iron in his mouth - blood from a bitten tongue or a split lip, he couldn’t tell.

He stumbled, hands scrabbling along the rough concrete. The throbbing in his skull was relentless, black spots dancing at the edges of his vision, threatening to swallow him whole. 

Yoichi tried again - he had to - but his body had grown so heavy, so slow. His fingers dragged along the wall, leaving red streaks. 

Somewhere, an alarm was shrieking - had he triggered something, or was it the shriek of the staff? He couldn’t parse it.

Two more steps. Or one. Yoichi couldn’t be sure. The floor lurched under him. He pressed forward on unsteady legs, blood pounding in his ears, that single driving thought finish it, finish it surging through his mind. A final, half-hearted attempt to slam himself into the wall ended in a pathetic crash. He slid down the rough surface, leaving a crimson smear in his wake.

He heard distant shouting - footsteps, the vault door clanging open. Hands grabbing him, voices urgent. Everything blurred. 

Darkness inched across his vision. He sank into it gladly. Somewhere, beyond the rush of blood in his ears, he heard a frantic, familiar voice. But the words were lost to the black tide that swallowed him whole.

X

Yoichi woke slowly, consciousness seeping back in like ink spreading through water - slowly, painfully, and muddled.

His first coherent thought was of warmth. Someone beside him. Someone familiar. His mind fumbled through blurry memories and clutched desperately at the single, constant presence he'd always known.

His brother.

All For One was there, seated beside him, features unreadable at first, posture oddly rigid. For one fleeting moment, Yoichi felt oddly relieved. Safe, almost. His mind foggy, he wondered if he'd fallen ill again. Perhaps another fever or fainting spell - his brother had always cared for him during those times, quiet and tender.

But memories flooded back, violent and brutal.

His brother was gone. Only his captor remained

Yoichi opened his mouth, a dry, scratchy whisper escaping, barely audible. "What ... happened?"

All For One’s eyes narrowed sharply, and he exhaled slowly, controlled. Forced calm overlaying that hidden, trembling fury. "You did something extremely foolish, Yoichi," he began, tone even, dangerously soft. "But fortunately, I had the best doctors in the city piece your skull back together. Meticulously. You're lucky there wasn't permanent brain damage."

Yoichi blinked again, swallowing around a dry throat. The words drifted strangely, disconnectedly around him. No lasting damage, his brother explained. No permanent harm. He was lucky, apparently.

Lucky.

Yoichi almost laughed. He didn't feel lucky. He didn't feel pain. He didn't feel much of anything - just numbness, a dull, lingering sensation of something horribly wrong beneath the thick blanket covering him.

He couldn't move. Could barely turn his head.

His chest rose and fell too quickly, breaths turning shallow.

“You’re safe now,” All For One continued. “Or as safe as you deserve to be.”

Yoichi’s dread twisted tighter. Everything in the vault seemed off - too clean, as though it had been scrubbed top to bottom. A new metallic scent lingered behind the usual disinfectant. Cold sweat gathered at Yoichi’s hairline.

But something felt wrong. Deeply wrong. An unsettling, crawling sensation crept beneath Yoichi's skin, prickling at the edges of his senses. 

He  felt oddly numb - detached. He was awake, aware, yet suspended. Trapped.

He tried to shift slightly, but there was no response from his limbs - no twitch of fingers, no shifting of feet.

"Brother..." he rasped weakly, panic tightening his voice into a brittle whisper. "Why can't I...?"

All For One leaned forward just slightly - close enough for Yoichi to see a faint tremor in his brother’s hands. "You left me no other choice," he said, voice a harsh whisper that quivered beneath the surface of that cold calmness.

Yoichi’s pulse quickened, breath hitching painfully. Something heavy pressed against his chest - dread climbing through his bones, clawing its way up his throat. He lifted his head with effort, vision dipping down toward himself.

All For One reached out, plucked away the covers with a flourish.

Yoichi stared.

At first, his brain simply refused to process it. The stumps at his elbows where his arms should have been. The abrupt, horrifying emptiness where his legs ended at the knees. Pale, pristine flesh sealed naturally, as if they’d never been attached at all. And no blood - no raw wound - just absence.

Gone. They were gone - just gone.

"No -" Yoichi choked, hysteria bubbling violently in his chest. "No, no - what did you - ?!"

All For One leaned forward sharply, capturing Yoichi’s chin firmly, forcing his terrified eyes upward. "Look at me," he said sharply, voice taut, trembling with barely-suppressed fury. "This is your own fault, Yoichi. You've gone too far - far beyond what I can tolerate."

His twin’s hand moved to cradle his face, grip painfully tight. "You can't be trusted anymore, even with your own body," All For One whispered harshly, voice cracking with barely-contained rage. "So I've taken that responsibility from you."

Yoichi's breath stilled, terror choking him silent. His brother’s gaze was wild now, unsteady, flickering with a madness Yoichi had never seen so openly before. All For One leaned closer, voice trembling violently as he gestured toward the floor.

"See?" he whispered, eyes burning with sick triumph, voice fraying into unstable edges. "Look, Yoichi. Your precious limbs, like porcelain. Pretty, aren't they? I used a quirk to disconnect them. No messy surgery, no permanent damage. In time, I can reattach them.”

Yoichi’s eyes slowly followed his brother’s gaze, breath catching in a strangled, suffocated sob.

His arms - his legs - lay perfectly intact, neatly placed on the floor beside his bed, detached from him as cleanly as if they'd been pulled from a plastic doll. Skin unmarred, limbs strangely pristine, joint sockets disturbingly smooth.

Pulled off like toys.

"Oh god," Yoichi whimpered, mind breaking under the weight of it all. "Please, brother - please -"

All For One’s thumb brushed away a tear, pale eyes cold and cruel. "Hush, Yoichi. It's temporary. I can reattach them anytime. Perfectly functional, good as new." His voice lowered, shaking slightly as his mask slipped further. "But you’ll have to earn them back. Until then … you’ll remain under my constant care. We can’t have you hurting yourself again, can we?"

Yoichi’s lips parted in a ragged, broken gasp, and he finally found enough air to speak. “No… please … p-put them … back…” he sobbed openly now, choking against horror and betrayal and grief. He was nothing but a helpless doll, broken and limp beneath his brother’s unyielding hand.

His twin’s voice was hollow, like that of a stranger. A stranger with barely contained fury as harsh fingers dug into Yoichi’s face, threatening to break the skin beneath digging nails. "You did this to us. Do you understand that? You forced my hand. You nearly left me. You nearly left me here alone!" The last word cracked painfully, desperation raw beneath his fury.

All For One pressed a trembling kiss to Yoichi’s forehead, voice raw, unstable. "But don’t worry," he whispered roughly. "I'll take care of you, always. Even if I have to take everything else away to keep you safe. No one can take you from me. Not even you. Do you understand? You are mine. My possession, my gift - my Yoichi"

Yoichi sobbed quietly, eyes fluttering shut as despair swallowed him whole. He’d failed. His last escape ripped cruelly away, leaving him less than human, trapped in a nightmare that would never end.

X

Yoichi had thought it couldn’t get worse.

He had been wrong.

Without limbs, he had become utterly helpless—reduced to nothing more than a living doll, unable to perform even the smallest acts of independence. Every humiliating day dragged on endlessly, blurring into a waking nightmare, each hour marked by bitter, unbearable shame.

All For One relished it. He reveled quietly, intimately, in Yoichi's newfound vulnerability, eyes alight with satisfaction as he cared for him like one might care for a cherished but fragile toy.

Yoichi was bathed carefully, gently. All For One’s hands moved meticulously, sponging water softly across skin, fingers lingering on exposed shoulders and neck. He dressed him, buttoning shirts, pulling trousers over the ends of severed limbs, carefully smoothing fabric as if Yoichi were his precious mannequin.

The brushing of his hair was slow. Gentle. Too gentle. All For One would hum as he worked through the strands with a comb carved from ivory, fingertips lingering just a little too long against Yoichi’s scalp. He would talk as if nothing were wrong, telling Yoichi about political manoeuvrings, assassins he'd outwitted, and gifts he’d refused because they simply weren’t worthy of him.

Mealtimes were worse. He sat propped up helplessly, forced to watch as his brother spooned bites into his unwilling mouth. Food he couldn't taste slid down his throat, swallowed reflexively beneath his brother’s satisfied gaze. All For One would wipe Yoichi’s mouth clean afterward, murmuring soft words of praise like he might a disobedient child.

Even sleep - his last refuge - was stolen. Yoichi lay awake in bed, rigid and silent, his brother pressed close, a possessive arm draped over him. All For One’s breathing was always slow, deliberate. Steady. Sleep never came easily to Yoichi. When his brother was away, the sedation followed swiftly, forcing him into numb unconsciousness, mind dragged into a chemical darkness devoid of dreams.

Nothing belonged to him anymore. Not his body, not his movements, not even the privacy of his thoughts. He had become utterly and absolutely dependent. Every humiliating second reminded him that he existed purely because his brother willed it.

Weeks passed, marked only by humiliation. Something deep within him - some hidden, stubborn core - finally snapped.

All For One was brushing his hair, fingers gentle, deliberate - tenderly arranging strands of silver with excruciating slowness. Yoichi felt the words slide past numb lips before he could stop them.

“Just … kill me.”

A brittle whisper. Hollow. The only plea left.

All For One froze, fingers still entangled in Yoichi’s hair. Slowly—so slowly—he circled around, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched tight.

“What did you say?”

Yoichi met his brother’s gaze unflinchingly, voice ragged and dry. “Kill me,” he repeated softly, voice barely audible. “Please, brother… Just end this.”

Then, All For One shifted.

Yoichi turned his eyes to him and immediately regretted it.

All For One’s face was still. But his eyes - those cold, pale eyes that never reflected anything - burned. Not with fire. Not with sorrow. With something deep and rotted.

“You don’t say that,” he said quietly.

Yoichi didn’t reply. What was there to say?

“You don’t,” All For One repeated, voice lower now, trembling beneath the surface.

Something fractured behind his carefully maintained facade. For a terrifying moment, silence hung thick between them—then, with frightening speed, his brother’s hand shot out, fingers closing like a vice around Yoichi’s throat.

“I’m the one who decides that. Your life belongs to me - if or when I want you dead, it will be by my hand,” his brother hissed, his voice fraying, cracking with the force of his restraint. “You don’t get to take what’s mine.”

His grip tightened as he climbed swiftly over Yoichi, crushing him into the mattress, both hands clamped around Yoichi’s throat, eyes burning - no longer calm, no longer measured - filled instead with pure madness, pale and unreflective, glittering with rage and something else, something dangerously unhinged.

Yoichi’s vision began to pulse, spots blooming behind his eyes. Panic rose in a scream his body couldn’t form. His chest heaved weakly. His mouth opened and closed like a drowning man’s.

“You are mine, Yoichi,” All For One growled. “Your body. Your soul. Your life. All of it. Mine. Mine!”

Yoichi’s lungs screamed. His survival instincts flared - every nerve begging for motion, for fight - but his body gave him nothing. Just useless, empty air where arms and legs should be.

He was helpless. And his brother knew it.

“You don’t get to die,” All For One hissed harshly, voice shaking with fury and manic desperation. “You have no right. If you ever dare utter such words again, I'll rip that rebellious tongue from your mouth and keep it in a jar beside our bed. Do you understand? You are mine. Your life, your death - every breath you take belongs to me.”

Yoichi tried desperately to breathe, survival instincts clawing at the inside of his skull, muscles straining uselessly against empty sockets where his limbs should have been. Spots burst in his vision, blackness pressing at the edges, consciousness slipping rapidly. His lungs burned, desperate for air, body seizing weakly beneath All For One’s iron grip.

And just before the world faded completely - just before the numbness claimed him - All For One released the crushing pressure, allowing air to flood Yoichi’s lungs with a violent gasp. Tears blurred his vision, sliding down his cheeks silently, chest heaving as he coughed painfully.

Suddenly, his brother’s arms encircled him, pulling him into a bruisingly tight embrace. All For One’s breath came ragged against Yoichi’s neck, whispers slipping urgently from his lips - manic, frantic, terrifyingly desperate.

“You are mine, Yoichi. Mine. Mine alone. No one else can have you - not even death. Especially not death. Do you understand?”

He held Yoichi closer, painfully, almost suffocating in his possessiveness, repeating the words with terrifying fervor.

“Mine. My gift. Mine. Mine. Mine”

Yoichi’s heart slammed painfully against his ribs, skin crawling at the desperate, cloying grip. His brother was breaking down, cracking beneath some internal pressure. It was a horrifying thing to witness - to feel. A madness revealed beneath the carefully constructed composure.

Yoichi stared helplessly into the void beyond his brother’s shoulder, choking silently on terrified sobs he refused to let loose. All For One rocked him slowly, fingers tangled roughly in his hair, bruising his skin in places hidden by clothing. That perverse tenderness returned swiftly, his brother’s voice smoothing into something gentler, more calculated, as though nothing had happened.

“There, there. Shh … you’re safe with me, Yoichi,” All For One whispered softly, disturbingly calm again. His lips brushed against Yoichi’s forehead, lingering as though comforting a frightened child. “You’ll always be safe … as long as you remember who you belong to.”

Yoichi didn’t speak again. There were no words left to say, nothing left to do but endure.

He lay perfectly still in his brother’s crushing embrace, feeling the bruises bloom beneath careful fingers, feeling the aching marks of ownership sink deeply into his soul. 

Just as suddenly, he was slammed brutally back onto the mattress, pain jolting through him, sharp and disorienting. All For One was standing above him again, chest heaving, eyes wide and glazed with dangerous instability.

Without another word, All For One turned sharply, stalking toward the door. The heavy vault slammed shut behind him, a deafening boom echoing with terrible finality.

Chapter Text

How delightful that his twenty-sixth birthday had begun with a mass execution.

The rebels had staged a coordinated ambush on one of his data couriers. Sloppy. Predictable. Still, the retaliation had been swift, efficient, and thoroughly cathartic. Blood on stone, cries in alleys - useless insects finally crushed beneath his heel. A symphony of precision. A birthday well spent.

By the time his car arrived to collect him for the gala, he was in fine spirits.

Still, he found it irksome - vulgar, even - that he had to change in the back of a moving vehicle. The car was sleek and luxurious, the windows tinted to perfection, the seats stitched from imported leather. But still… undignified.

But appearances mattered in these circles, and politicians preferred smiling gods over terrifying ones.

So he shrugged on the designer tuxedo - slim, tailored, midnight blue with black lapels. The cufflinks alone had cost enough to feed a city block for a month. He adjusted his tie without looking in the mirror.

No need. He already knew how perfection fit him.

The gala was banal.

Held in a glittering tower atop one of the city’s more respectable neighbourhoods - or as respectable as any neighbourhood in this city could be lately - it reeked of polished desperation. Politicians, shareholders, societal parasites - all clustered together beneath chandeliers and behind fragile smiles. The wine was passable. The music tolerable. The atmosphere unbearably false.

He shook hands. He lied through his teeth. He made promises he never intended to keep, offered alliances that would be strangled in their cradles the moment they became inconvenient. It was a parade of painted masks and empty laughter.

It was all so very dull.

That is, until he found Ichiru.

The politician was not interesting in himself. But he was tolerable - clean, well-spoken, and eager to please. His devotion was useful, his discretion more so. They exchanged meaningless small talk dressed in velvet language, smiled politely for photographers, and danced around the subject of power like two men standing on opposite sides of a loaded trap.

But Ichiru had a companion tonight - someone new.

“Allow me to introduce you to someone fascinating," he proclaimed eagerly, motioning toward an man standing quietly at his side. "This is Doctor Giraki."

The man - short, with thick glasses perched on a curious face - stepped forward. He regarded All For One carefully, nodding politely but not bowing too deeply. 
"Pleasure," he murmured calmly. There was intelligence behind those glasses - deep curiosity and calculation. It intrigued All For One instantly.

"Giraki specializes in meta-ability research," Ichiru continued, clearly eager to impress. "He's become rather prominent in academic circles."

"Interesting," All For One said, attention sharpening. "Doctor, what sort of research, precisely?"

Giraki adjusted his glasses, his eyes lighting up behind thick lenses. "Singularities, primarily. The merging and evolution of meta-abilities - potentials that exist beyond our current limitations."

All For One's interest sharpened further. He leaned in slightly, intrigued. "You have my attention."

Giraki smiled faintly, obviously pleased someone finally understood his work's potential. "Our current understandings of meta-abilities are too simplistic," he began animatedly, voice gaining enthusiasm. "I believe it's possible for certain quirks to combine into something … much greater. Evolutionary leaps. The human race itself fundamentally altered."

All For One found himself genuinely fascinated. The gala's superficial noise faded as he engaged with Giraki, the doctor's insights remarkably detailed, informed, and - most critically - not boring.
Ichiru hovered nearby, increasingly sidelined from their discussion. All For One noticed, though he found the young politician's discomfort entertaining rather than distracting. Finally, a conversation worthy of his attention.

So it was rather inconvenient and annoying when the explosion tore through the building with shocking force, shattering glass and splintering steel beams. 

Screams erupted, cutting violently through refined conversations and champagne-fueled laughter. The floor trembled beneath All For One’s feet, instinct instantly pulling him from casual interest into action.

A moment later, the floor began to tilt sickeningly beneath them, gravity pulling hungrily downward.

He saw it clearly - the entire apartment complex fracturing, floor by floor. An attack. 
Those rebellious cockroaches had grown bolder.

Ichiru screamed, his eyes wide with terror as he stumbled backwards, losing his balance as the floor heaved violently. He reached out desperately toward All For One, pleading for help.

All For One glanced calmly between the young politician and Giraki, the doctor gripping the edge of a table tightly, trying desperately to hold himself steady from falling into fiery pit below.

In an instant, he made his decision.

All For One’s hand shot out, gripping Giraki firmly by the arm. He pulled the stunned doctor toward him just as the floor collapsed completely. Ichiru’s screams echoed briefly, a fading plea of desperation that ended abruptly as he disappeared into the yawning void below, plummeting helplessly into oblivion.

Pity. Ichiru had been useful. But he found he doctor far more entertaining.

All For One stepped calmly forward, Giraki pressed securely against his side, as the building around them fell apart. He moved without panic, dodging falling debris with practised efficiency. Flames surged upward, smoke billowing thickly through the ruined corridors.

He held Giraki firmly, lifting them high with a flight ability, finally emerging into the open night air just as the building behind them crumbled completely, collapsing into rubble with a deafening roar.

All For One released Giraki when they landed, the doctor gasping in shock, legs shaking from adrenaline. The chaos behind them illuminated his glasses eerily in the firelight. He stared at All For One, face pale, utterly amazed.

“You … you saved me?” Giraki whispered hoarsely, incredulous.

“Of course,” All For One replied calmly, straightening his slightly dishevelled suit jacket. “I find your mind exceptionally valuable, Doctor Giraki. I'd hate to see it wasted.”

Giraki’s eyes gleamed, realization dawning swiftly. Gratitude and respect blossomed across his face instantly. “Well, you have my thanks for that. I owe you one”

All For One’s smile was razor-sharp, pleased. "I'm counting on it."

What a bothersome interruption. He would deal with those insolent rebels more efficiently in the future - purge their families as well as the cockroaches themselves. 
But tonight, despite its annoyances, had at least yielded something genuinely useful.

Finally, evening settled, and All For One descended to the vault, anticipation humming softly through his veins. He always looked forward to these quiet, intimate moments - especially on their birthday. 

Today had been particularly eventful, full of annoyances, attacks, and intrigues. Now, at last, he would be with his dear, beloved twin.

As the heavy steel door groaned open, he was pleased to see his brother awake, quiet, and calm.

Yoichi had become so docile recently; no longer combative or insolent. Removing his limbs had been an inspired decision, harsh but effective. It had taught Yoichi humility and gratitude. He had stopped arguing over every small detail, no longer flinched away from All For One’s touch, had even begun to accept being cared for without complaint.

It was rather delightful.

Yoichi glanced up from his pillow, expression softly dulled yet aware. His delicate features bore the resignation that All For One had carefully cultivated over these last months. He still wore a quiet sadness - one that suited him perfectly, that made him softer, more vulnerable, more appealing.

"Brother," Yoichi murmured, voice soft and gentle, eyes still wary. "You came."

All For One smiled fondly, stepping closer. "Of course, Yoichi. It’s our birthday. I've brought cake - your favourite, as is tradition."

He set the plate down, slicing the soft cake delicately, placing it carefully within Yoichi's easy reach. But today wasn't only about cake; today required something special.

"I have another gift for you," he said. 

Yoichi glanced at him, uncertainty flickering in his eyes, but wisely said nothing as All For One stepped back into the hallway, returning to hold something wrapped carefully in silk. 

Yoichi gasped softly, eyes wide with sudden, raw emotion as he eyed his brothers gift.

All For One knelt by the bed, slowly peeling back the fabric to reveal Yoichi’s arm - thin and pale, beautifully preserved, perfectly intact. The non-dominant one - he wasn’t foolish enough to risk returning Yoichi’s stronger hand quite yet - but it was Yoichi’s nonetheless. 
His property, carefully maintained, flawless.

All For One presented the limb  as he would any other gift. "You've been very good lately," he said quietly, affectionately. "I know when to reward good behaviour, and I am generous enough to provide what I know you’ve sorely missed."

He leaned closer, aligning the limb carefully with the empty space at Yoichi’s elbow. His twin shivered, staring intently, scarcely breathing, trembling with a fragile, desperate hope.

With effortless care, All For One activated the meta-ability, merging bone, muscle, and nerves seamlessly, perfectly restoring what he had once taken. It took mere moments, and he watched intently as sensation returned, fingers twitching gently, naturally.

Yoichi drew in a breath that shook violently, lifting his newly-restored arm slowly, tentatively, awe and overwhelming relief spilling openly from wide, tear-filled eyes.

"Brother," Yoichi choked out, voice cracking, shoulders trembling helplessly as tears ran freely down his cheeks. He lifted his restored arm with reverence, staring at it with such pitiful relief.

Such a fragile thing, his Yoichi was.

They shared cake quietly - Yoichi taking small, delicate bites, gaze occasionally flicking down in wonder to his newly-restored arm, as if scared to lose it again. Good, he’d learn to keep himself in line with that in mind.

After their overly-sweet confection, All For One perused Yoichi’s bookcase. The size of it’s collection correlated directly with how well his dearest possession behaved. It had grown into a sizeable collection as of late - a pleasing sight for both brothers.

He selected a rather invigorating historical text and placed it into Yoichi’s fingers, watching carefully as his brother took hold, gripping it carefully with his restored arm.

Yoichi hesitated briefly, struggling with manoeuvring with one limb that he was still getting used to again but he knew what was expected of him.

His voice was quiet, shaking a little as he began to read aloud, words soft, carrying through the quiet vault. All For One closed his eyes, leaning comfortably back against the wall, listening intently to the sound of Yoichi’s voice.

Yes, this was perfect. He'd taken from Yoichi, but now he’d given back - just a little - and that balance was powerful. There was no more fighting, no more silly protests and pitiful whining.

Tonight, as Yoichi’s gentle voice filled the quiet darkness, All For One allowed himself a small, pleased smile. Everything belonged precisely as it was - perfectly balanced, perfectly controlled, and exactly as he intended.

And as Yoichi read to him, obedient, docile, and beautifully grateful, All For One felt deeply, undeniably satisfied.

X

Giraki's initial laboratory was painfully mundane.

Sterile white walls, neatly ordered shelves, and clinical brightness that irritated All For One with its stubborn normalcy. It was disappointingly ordinary, tedious in its meticulous sterility. But beneath the surface of such careful neutrality, All For One sensed a hidden spark, something restrained and fascinatingly dark.

Indeed, Giraki himself embodied this deception perfectly. The man carried himself with the forced politeness of an accomplished doctor, moving with restrained elegance and speaking in gentle, controlled tones. All For One watched him closely as their conversation drifted pleasantly through surface topics - mundane inquiries into quirk transfers, longevity research, and theoretical applications of cellular regeneration. All meticulously clinical, all deliberately tame.

Giraki adjusted his glasses, offering a measured smile. "Of course, longevity is a mere stepping stone. True immortality, the perfection of physical preservation - it requires a deeper pursuit. Something society might misunderstand, perhaps even fear."

Ah, there it was. The faintest crack in the mask.

All For One smiled faintly, appreciating the subtle admission hidden in those carefully chosen words. "Fear is merely ignorance," he replied. "What society fails to comprehend, it seeks to destroy or dismiss. Boundaries and laws have no place in the pursuit of evolution, nor do I believe morality should hold back progress."

Giraki tilted his head, considering the weight behind All For One's statement. He met his gaze directly, his own subtly burning with interest. 
The doctor stood calmly, his movements deliberate as he approached a nearby panel disguised within the wall. With practised familiarity, he pressed lightly at its edge. 

A hidden doorway smoothly slid open, exposing a darkened staircase descending into obscurity.

All For One’s curiosity piqued immediately as the good doctor gestured for them to proceed. 

He followed Giraki downwards, footsteps measured yet eager, savouring the anticipation building with every step. As they reached the bottom, the room opened into a subterranean laboratory - a cramped , shadow-filled space illuminated faintly by a cold, sterile blue glow emanating from myriad containment tanks lining the walls.

Here, at last, was the hidden heart of Giraki’s true nature: rows of human specimens suspended in preservation fluid, ghostly pale forms frozen in eternal, silent torment. Surgical tables meticulously arrayed with instruments lay ready beneath bright lights, their reflective surfaces spotless. Machinery hummed quietly, maintaining the delicate conditions required for such gruesome art.

All For One moved forward slowly, silently appreciating Giraki’s craft. Each suspended form told a story - some whole, some dissected with clinical precision, their expressions locked into perpetual anguish. It was hauntingly beautiful, deeply satisfying.

"Now this," All For One remarked softly, genuine appreciation colouring his voice, "is indeed worthy of my time."

Giraki allowed himself a proud smile. "Few visitors possess the stomach for my research."

"Perhaps because most lack vision," All For One replied calmly, knocking on one of the glass vats before turning his attention back toward the doctor. "But I see the potential in your work."

Giraki inclined his head respectfully, gesturing towards a central worktable. "You mentioned bringing something rather intriguing yourself. I must admit, you've piqued my curiosity."

"Indeed." All For One's expression remained carefully neutral as he set down the sleek, black case he'd carried with him. His gloved fingers slowly unclasped it, savouring Giraki's attentive anticipation. Opening it, he revealed the neatly preserved human limbs resting carefully inside - one arm, two legs. Soft, delicate and well looked after.

Giraki's gaze sharpened, a flash of keen intrigue overcoming his usual detachment. "Fascinating. Severed with a meta-ability by the looks of it, no surgical markings or folding of the skin, no signs of deterioration. Whose limbs might these be?"

"My younger brother’s," All For One answered casually, tone serene, as though the limbs were merely amusing curiosities. "A sentimental choice, perhaps. He no longer needs them."

Giraki raised an eyebrow in thoughtful surprise. "A memorial, then?"

All For One chuckled softly. "Not at all. My brother remains very much alive, though undeserving of such gifts.Perhaps one day he may earn them back.In the meantime, I require preservation against atrophy. The meta-ability I used has its limits - I’m hoping your expertise does not."

A pause stretched delicately between them. Giraki stared at him, clearly calculating the implications. All For One allowed him time, appreciating Giraki’s intelligence and discretion when no further inquiries came.

Finally, Giraki nodded slowly, an understanding smile returning to his face. "Certainly. That can easily be arranged."

"Excellent," All For One murmured appreciatively, shifting his attention back towards the suspended specimens. He approached one particularly intriguing subject, its pale eyes open, vacant yet disturbingly aware. "Have your experiments yielded notable progress towards genuine immortality yet, Doctor?"

Giraki joined him, gazing at the specimen clinically. "Considerable longevity, yes. Cellular regeneration and enhanced meta merging are viable avenues. True immortality remains elusive, but I’m not one to give up."

All For One smiled, his voice soft and contemplative. "Perfection demands rigorous refinement. Perhaps your research simply lacks sufficient resources and ... appropriate partnership?"

Giraki eyed him carefully, sensing the proposal beneath the surface. "I admit, suitable collaboration would accelerate progress significantly."

"A partnership, then," All For One extended calmly, voice carrying an underlying firmness that left no doubt regarding the arrangement’s terms. "I can provide resources - subjects, funding, protection. In return, your genius will have no boundaries."

Giraki considered him silently, visibly intrigued by the implicit promise of limitless experimentation without societal constraint. Finally, he smiled darkly, extending his hand in agreement. "It seems, then, we understand each other perfectly."

All For One shook Giraki’s hand firmly, the subtle weight of their alliance satisfying. Here was someone who matched his own ambition, understood his desire for absolute control and the ruthless pursuit of eternal dominance. It was a comforting discovery.

"You have my full resources and support, Doctor," All For One confirmed softly, sincerity edged sharply in his voice. "Together, I trust we shall achieve extraordinary results."

Giraki’s smile broadened, eyes darkening with restrained excitement. "Undoubtedly."

X

There was always something pleasantly calming about listening to Yoichi read.

All For One sat quietly beside his younger twin on the thin mattress that served as Yoichi’s bed, idly observing as Yoichi struggled to manage the book in his singular, non-dominant hand. The clumsiness of the act held a strangely endearing quality - Yoichi's brow creasing with frustration, fingers trembling slightly as he tried turning each delicate page.

Yet, for all his pitiful fumbling, the voice that flowed from his lips remained quietly soothing, steady, and utterly familiar. It had remained unchanged since childhood; a soft, clear timbre, gentle yet filled with an emotional depth Yoichi had never managed to conceal. The way he lost himself entirely in the narrative, so thoroughly immersed that even his struggles briefly faded, captivated All For One.

Watching Yoichi wrestle with something as simple as turning a page amused him gently. It reminded him of their youth, when Yoichi would read aloud on cold nights to drown out the sounds of hunger and loneliness.  Even now, with Yoichi’s pathetic attempts to maintain some dignity despite his reduced circumstances, All For One found that same voice comforting - reminding him of simpler, days.

With a faint, barely perceptible smile, All For One leaned closer, allowing his eyes to drift shut momentarily, savoring the narrative Yoichi had begun to spin for him. Yoichi paused momentarily at his movement, tension stiffening his thin frame, but quickly resumed reading. His voice grew softer, more hesitant, as though fearful of making an error beneath his brother's scrutiny.

For a few quiet minutes, All For One allowed himself to drift, content simply to listen. Yet, gradually, a thought nagged at him, persistent and distracting. Yoichi's pitiful struggles, his quiet sighs of frustration, tugged at some impulse within him.

Without warning, All For One stood abruptly. Yoichi visibly flinched at his sudden motion, the soft, murmuring voice cutting off mid-sentence. The younger twin blinked rapidly, confused and wary.

"Brother?" Yoichi asked, voice tinged with anxiety as All For One moved purposefully towards the door, offering no immediate explanation.

"Stay there, I’ll return," he instructed softly, amused at his own unnecessary command. Yoichi certainly wasn’t going anywhere.

He returned a few moments later with a sleek black case carried in his hand. 

Yoichi's eyes instantly narrowed at it, body tensing as if anticipating something coiling out of the case and striking him. Such a child.

All For One returned calmly to the bedside, placing the case down carefully between them. He slowly opened it, revealing Yoichi's own neatly preserved left arm resting within, perfectly intact and immaculately kept, thanks to Giraki’s intervention that had prevented any unwanted decay.

"Brother -" Yoichi began, voice tight, his eyes fixated upon the limb.

"Tell me," All For One said conversationally, "what would you do to have this returned to you?"

Yoichi's eyes lifted slowly, wary, heavy suspicion immediately clouding his gaze. "What do you want?" he asked quietly, voice barely above a whisper, already braced for paying something his brother was owed.

"A simple token of appreciation, perhaps?" All For One suggested mildly and laughed when he saw Yoichi’s entire body tense. "Oh nothing too taxing, I promise. A 'thank you' will suffice."

Yoichi stared at him incredulously, a dull anger suddenly burning in his gaze. "You want me to thank you … for giving back my body parts?"

All For One smiled gently, reaching forward to softly stroke Yoichi’s pale cheek with a gloved finger. Oh he loved to see that defiance that rarely reared its pitiful head as of late. "They’re my body parts, brother. You’re a part of me and these limbs are merely pieces of my cells I gave to you."

Yoichi's expression twisted painfully, that defiance blooming stronger. His soft jaw clenched tightly as bitterness darkened his weary eyes. A tense silence stretched between them, broken finally by Yoichi's ungratefully resentful voice.

"Fine. Thank you."

All For One raised an eyebrow, clearly unsatisfied. "Now, now, that sounded hardly sincere, brother," he admonished softly. 

Still ungrateful, it seemed, even now.
All For One snapped  the case shut and removed it from the bed, much to Yoichi's immediate distress.

The pathetic thing struggled upright, desperation clear in his voice. "Wait! You can't - !"

Oh, he was sorry now, was he? All For One stood slowly, turning back towards the door. 

Instantly, Yoichi lunged forward, gripping the fabric of his shirt desperately with his solitary hand. The pathetic display, his limbless body helplessly stretching forward, tugged pleasurably at something within All For One’s chest. He paused, gazing down expectantly.

"Brother, please," Yoichi whispered, voice trembling now. He swallowed hard, humiliation painting his expression with exquisite vulnerability. " … thank you. Truly."

All For One lingered thoughtfully, savouring his brother’s desperation. Pity, he hadn't been this grateful thirty seconds ago.

He withdrew Yoichi’s shaking fingers from his shirt and stepped away with the case in hand, ignoring Yoichi’s voiced protests.

"I - I thanked you," his twin pleaded, voice breaking as All For One silently left the vault, closing the door firmly behind him.

He allowed Yoichi a few hours alone, knowing full well his brother would brood, likely turning bitter thoughts upon himself for his stubbornness. All For One had let him stew in his own failure, let him learn the lesson whilst the Older twin finished up some paperwork.

When he returned later, stepping silently into the room, Yoichi was struggling to massage the trembling stump where his left knee ended.

The Frail Thing startled at his reappearance, eyes wary but hopeful. Wordlessly, All For One crossed the room, bending down before his Yoichi to examine the knee himself, fingers lightly tracing the pristine stump, watching Yoichi flinch subtly at the touch.

"You must understand, little brother" All For One murmured, "I'm not cruel without cause. I love you dearly. You simply … test me too often."

Yoichi shivered slightly, meeting his eyes only briefly, shame deepening the flush on his pale skin. He remained stubbornly silent, the room thick with quiet tension.

With a sigh of patience, All For One spoke again. "I won't return your arm today. You’re far too ungrateful for that. But perhaps, if you prove more sincerely thankful, we might try another gift."

He reopened the case, revealing this time Yoichi’s neatly preserved left leg. Yoichi eyed it warily, so many mixed emotions crossing that expressive, delicate face of his.

"Do you understand, brother?" All For One prompted gently.

Yoichi hesitated only a moment longer before getting words out with a raw sincerity. "Thank you, brother. Thank you for your generosity."

There - that was sufficient enough this time - an appropriate gratitude, obedient and heartfelt. Smiling faintly in approval, All For One carefully positioned the limb, reattaching it with practised ease, as the two stump melded together once more. 

Yoichi gasped softly as sensation rushed back through restored nerves, relief trembling visibly through his thin frame.

All For One rose slowly, caressing Yoichi's hair, affectionate pride in his expression. "Good. That was better, Yoichi. You see? Gratitude isn't so difficult."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly and Yoichi lowered his gaze, shame colouring his cheeks, yet he whispered another soft "thank you" obediently, clearly not daring further defiance.

Satisfied, All For One stepped back, once more taking up the case, pausing momentarily at the doorway. He turned to watch his Younger twin quietly, a smile tugging his lips.
“Be certain,” he murmured, “that you keep deserving it, brother. I would hate to take it away again. Do not disappoint me again."

Yoichi nodded mutely, defeated. “… of course brother.”

X

At twenty-nine, time had become something flexible, malleable - obedient.

In his mind, his memories, All For One could stretch time as needed, bend it to suit the moment, compress the dull hours of governance into seconds, or let certain minutes lengthen like honey, slow and sweet and golden.

Friday afternoons in the vault were such moments.

He sat in the chair arranged for him, angled ever so slightly so the light hit only one side of his face. The chair itself was unremarkable, wooden and cushioned.  He said nothing at first. He simply sat, placed his hands neatly in his lap, and waited.

Yoichi came to him in silence and All For One tilted his head to the side, baring his neck like an offering. 

There was something deliciously vulnerable about it - this quiet submission, though entirely his own design. The feel of the razor's cold kiss against his skin was familiar now. A weekly caress. The press was light, precise.

Yoichi had grown skillful with his non-dominant hand. Almost on par with the barber assassin. None of the following tradesman had had quite the same hand for it. At least Yoichi could say he only had one arm to do it with. Truly - what’s the many other barbers excuse.

Well, All For One didn’t need them anymore. He had Yoichi, every friday like clockwork - and he didn’t even have to pay.

It had taken time to get to this. Years of waiting in order to trust his twin enough to allow such vulnerability. But All For One was a patient man, and his brother had always been such a quick learner when given the right ... motivation. 

He had earned his other leg back recently so Yoichi stood more steadily now, walked more fluidly, carried himself with the quiet dignity of someone who understood his place.

His left arm remained locked away, of course. He hadn’t earned that. Not yet.

“I met with the Minister of Border Security this morning,” All For One said conversationally, the soft scrape of the razor soothing against his jaw. “He’s terribly tedious, but I find the way he sweats through his collar amusing.”

A soft sound came from above him. A hum of acknowledgement.

“Then lunch. Dreadful food. You’d think people trying to stay in my good graces would offer something more palatable. You would have liked the little cakes though, I brought some back for you.”

Another hum, then a soft - “thank you, brother.”

All For One smiled.  

"Yes, brother," Yoichi murmured now, a bare whisper, as he carefully cleaned the blade between passes.
He leaned in close to finish the line down All For One’s neck. The heat of his breath brushed against skin, and All For One let his eyes flutter closed. Such quiet attentiveness. It pleased him in ways no accomplishment of state or conquest could match.

Perhaps it was the addition of that servant that smoothed out Yoichi’s more tiresome traits. 

At first, All For One had hesitated. The idea of another person entering his space, attending to his possession, had repulsed him. The very idea that he’d have to let this child even lay a hand on his first gift almost made All For One want to sever her hands like some common thief.

Necessity however, had forced the Older twins hand. He travelled more frequently now, and Yoichi, fragile as ever, could not be left unattended.

The girl was young - no older than sixteen. Too timid to pose any true threat and her family was pathetically grateful for the honour of serving him. All For One had made it abundantly clear that her usefulness was contingent on her obedience - and her silence. He kept her leashed with ease, and Yoichi had learned not to become... attached. Not when her life hung on the barest thread of his compliance. 

A good arrangement. Efficient. Effective. Because Yoichi knew now, that one step out of line too egregious would not end well for the poor useless serving girl.

He doubted such assurances were necessary anymore because this creature standing behind him, steadying the razor with perfect care...

This was the Older twin’s masterpiece.

All For One slowly opened his eyes and looked up.

Yoichi stood above him, lips drawn in a line, his face an unreadable mask of concentration. There was nothing in his eyes to read - no spark of resistance, no flicker of hope. Just resignation. A sort of calm that fascinated All For One more deeply than any lecture on immortality or quirk theory.

This was his gift. His treasure.

Then the razor hovered near his jugular, motionless.

All For One tilted his head back further, exposing more of his throat - bare, unguarded. 

Do you ever think about it, my Yoichi? 
The thought curled in his mind like incense smoke. Not fearful. Curious. 
Do you ever think about what would happen if you pressed just a little harder? If you slid it just the right way?

His lips parted, a smile ghosting at the corners. He imagined it - Yoichi’s fingers twitching, the blade dipping -

But no. It didn’t happen. Of course it didn’t.

Yoichi’s hand moved with robotic grace, guiding the blade upward in a final smooth stroke. No hesitation. No rebellion. Just another perfect shave.

All For One raised his hand, slow and deliberate, threading his fingers through Yoichi’s soft hair. The strands were still the same - finer than his own, just as pale, always slightly overgrown. He tugged his twin down, bringing their faces close.

Yoichi stared at him. Passive. Waiting.
Their eyes locked. Twin reflections - but only one of them was alive in the gaze.

“I’m proud of you,” All For One said softly. “My Yoichi.”

He meant it. There was no irony in the words. Only affection he allowed for his dearest gift.

“Yes, brother.”

Chapter Text

The resistance was dying.

Not with a scream, but a slow, bleeding silence.

Kudō had stopped counting the dead three skirmishes ago.

Keeping a ledger of names only made the nights longer, and there were never enough candles to honour everyone properly. Even so, when the smell of fresh wax drifted through the tunnels, he still found himself checking the supply crates - half-hoping, half-dreading - because if someone had packed more candles it meant they were preparing for more funerals.

Tonight the air smelled only of dust and cordite.

Their newest map room - located in the basement of a collapsed municipal archive repurposed into their war centre - was death-quiet except for the brittle scratch of chalk against slate. Bruce was at the far wall, methodically redrawing supply lines that no longer existed. Kudō watched his friend’s steady hand, admired the calm. They made an unlikely pair: Bruce all restraint and silence; Kudō a furnace that refused to burn out.

Kudō stood over the shattered remnants of a war table, hands braced against the edge as he stared at the makeshift map spread across its surface. Pins, wires, and notes had once mapped out entire networks - supply chains, safehouses, extraction zones. Now they marked graves.

Each red mark was a body they hadn’t recovered. Each blank corner was a sanctuary they’d lost.

"Twenty-eight gone," Bruce reported quietly from across the tent. His voice was low, heavy. "Six in the last week alone. That leaves us with thirty-seven combatants, at best."

Kudō didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. The weight in Bruce’s tone said enough.

Loss after loss, yet they still stood. What was left of them, that was.

“North flank is gone,” Bruce muttered, finally breaking the hush. He scrubbed at the arrow lines. “If the next convoy gets hit we’ll be starving by winter.”

“Won’t be a problem if we do this right,” Kudō replied absently. 

He tapped a finger on the parchment spread across the central table - the parchment, the one built from weeks of anonymous scraps. Patrol rotations, gate codes, sub-basement schematics scrawled in a shaky, untrained hand. Passed in pieces through underground runners, encrypted with precision, the sort of intel only someone close to All For One’s inner sanctum could have known. 

Whoever their informant was, whoever was passing these scraps of intel that kept the rebels’ heads barely above water and half a step ahead of the Tyrant, was risking a fate worse than death for every line of it.

A line at the bottom of a note read simply:
Cellar Level V – ‘Vault’ – personnel: zero. Entry requires master key.
Next to it, in a different hand, three words: “brother held here.”

Kudō rolled the word brother across his tongue like gravel.
He imagined another All For One - same blood, same cruelty - kept cloistered like some rotten heirloom. Better to cut the rot out in the first sweep.

 He’s heard the rumours - the brother was supposedly deranged and dangerous, locked away to prevent harm to others - or so the story went. Rumours painted him as volatile, violent, raving mad, someone All For One wouldn’t kill but didn’t trust to roam free. Dangerous by birth, like his brother. A curse of blood.

So the rebels would be doing everyone a favour by killing him.

Bruce turned from the chalkboard. “You’re sure the intel isn’t a trap?”

“Course it could be.” Kudō gave a thin, humourless smile. “But if the tyrant’s throwing bait, we bite hard enough to take the arm with it. Beside, it’s too detailed for bait. And look - these vents?” He tapped a circle. “Same pattern the salvage crew found on that scrap drone last month. Real.” His heart kicked harder - a familiar, reckless thrum. “We use it.”

Bruce grunted assent.

He traced the plan again:
First was the Diversion; Leak a fabricated coup in the western provinces. All For One loved spectacles; he would fly out personally to snuff dissent. And rebels would be lying in wait to keep him there as long as they could.
After would come the Insertion; While the stronghold scrambled, Kudō’s strike unit - thirty now, the best they could do - would breach the main gates as well as the eastern sewage outflow, slide into the sub-basements, and detonate shaped charges at every load-bearing pillar.
And finally; Exfiltration. They’d torch whatever remained, burn the Tyrant’s base to the ground and let the bastard know the rebels would not lay down like dogs and die quietly.

Bruce crossed the room and set a battered canteen beside Kudō’s elbow - silent reminder to drink, breathe, keep sharp.

Kudō uncapped the canteen, swallowed rust-warm water, and tried to answer the unspoken doubt. He pictured the smoking ruins of market towns, the rows of bodies All For One’s enforcers left strung from telegraph poles, and the fresh graves that kept stealing their candles. Justice demanded an equal weight on the other side of the scale.

He forced his focus back to the plan. “We move in one month from now. We’ll spread the rumour; let it tumble through the city tomorrow, let it burn slow among the Tyrant’s lower rankings to make it authentic. When he hears there’s strong meta-abilities involved, the Bastard will chase it like a hound. He always does.”

“And if he doesn’t take the bait?” Bruce asked.

Kudō’s grin bared teeth. “Then we’ll bury him inside the rubble of his own home .”

X

Patience.

It had never come naturally to him.

Even as children, his brother had chided him often for his impulsivity, his habit of letting emotions shape his actions. "Yoichi," he'd say, voice so frustratingly calm, "impatience will only lead you astray."

How bitterly ironic, then, that patience had become Yoichi's only weapon, especially when time was all he really had left of his own.

Years inside the vault had sharpened patience to something steady, quiet, and desperately necessary. 

He’s ashamed to admit that losing his limbs - pieces of himself stolen away one by one - had very nearly broken him. There was a period, shameful to recall, when Yoichi had teetered on the precipice of surrender. When his pride had eroded into numbness, and the constant need to rely on his brother’s humiliating acts had threatened to drown him in despair. 

He had almost let go entirely, almost allowed himself to become the broken thing his brother craved.

Yet he hadn't. He couldn't.

Buried deep within his heart, beneath the weight of shame and hopelessness, something stubbornly refused to die. A tiny spark, fragile but persistent. A quiet defiance that refused to extinguish, even beneath crushing despair.

He'd been so careful, protecting that spark until the return of his right arm had breathed quiet life back into it. From that moment, he had been patiently cultivating it, sheltering it within himself, hiding it behind hollow eyes and quiet submission.

Patience.

It had taught him how to bend without breaking, how to swallow his revulsion when his brother’s fingertips brushed his face or adjusted his clothing. Patience showed him how to conceal the tremble in his hand as he shaved his brother's jaw, how to mask disgust behind softly murmured agreements - yes, brother; I understand, brother - even as the words tasted bitter, like ashes on his tongue.

His brother had become complacent, convinced Yoichi was finally tamed, broken into perfect obedience. He'd grown careless, confident. His twin's arrogance had always been his greatest flaw, after all.

Yet Yoichi knew better than to let himself hope openly, even in the quiet safety of his own mind. His brother was a master at reading intentions, at peeling away masks and laying souls bare beneath his scrutiny. One careless thought, one slip, and everything would unravel.

Yoichi wasn't a skilled actor - he knew it. He walked a precarious line between real despair and feigned submission, always conscious that his brother’s sharp eyes searched hungrily for any hint of deception. And so, he'd taught himself to let despair remain close at hand, real enough to feel authentic, to allow his hopelessness to coat each quiet response and lingering glance.

The entry of Aiko into his world had been a test of patience in its own right - one of caution, risk, and carefully hidden hope. At first, he'd seen the girl as another cruel trick, a deliberate test from his brother. 

When she'd first entered, bringing food and water, Yoichi had watched her silently, his heart aching as the girl stared in shock at his ruined form.

Then she'd wept.

It had broken through every careful defence Yoichi had built around himself. For the first time in years, he'd felt seen - not as his brother's possession, but as himself - as human. As Yoichi. The sudden surge of emotions had nearly unravelled him.

Trusting Aiko had been dangerous, almost foolishly reckless - but patience had taught him to recognize genuine kindness beneath pain. They couldn’t speak often, not with the camera watching their every move, so they’d learn to speak in short burst and short-hand. The camera may not have audio but Yoichi was pretty certain his brother could read lips.

He’d learned over time of Aiko’s family's desperation to escape All For One’s grasp. She was a fearful young girl and yet so kind, so determined to help. All For One had a hold over everything she held dear, and that level of control bred desperation.

So much that Aiko, sweet and gentle, risked everything to feed information to ‘anti-Tyrant’ factions.

And for the first time in year - Yoichi had found a way to help. Even trapped beneath layers of despair, helplessness, and loss, he discovered he was capable of something beautiful and small: resistance.

His brother was arrogant - not careless, but given Yoichi was trapped in a concrete vault, buried feet underground, there wasn’t really much point with secrecy. And his twin did so like to boast about his conquests, his plans, his acquisitions. 

And Yoichi drip-fed the information to Aiko.
Together, they'd silently forged a fragile understanding, passing secrets in hurried whispers as she changed his bedding or set out food, both always terrified his brother might return early and overhear, always aware that one careless misstep could mean death for her. 

It wasn’t much - snippets of information quietly passed to Aiko, tiny details gleaned from his brother’s boasting and cruel stories. Movements of guards, habits of powerful allies, details of his brother’s routines. All insignificant alone, but when carefully pieced together, invaluable to the rebels desperately fighting his brother’s domination.

Yoichi lived every moment acutely conscious of the blade that hung above Aiko's throat. Her life was tied irrevocably to his obedience, and so he held himself carefully, always controlled, always quiet.

He would wake up sometimes in a cold sweat, shaking from terrified dreams that he’d slipped up in some way, that that poor child of only sixteen had been pulled apart like he’d been and her pieces left to rot.

Yet, when he tried to go back, to stop giving her the little snippets that made him feel useful and decent, all in the sake of making sure Aiko wasn’t put in any danger, the girl softly pressed, urged him on. She told Yoichi that his information was a god-send, had helped save people. 

That he was a hero for telling the faction where his brother was going to hit next, where he would be at certain times. 

Yoichi doubted that very much. The minimal scraps he provided had to remain anonymous for everyone’s sake. Still, it was nice to hear. 

Today, as he'd drawn the razor carefully along his brother's neck, he'd felt the familiar curiosity - the cold, tempting whisper that suggested one simple flick of his wrist could end it all. How easy it would have been, how satisfying in that brief, fleeting instant.

But patience had steadied him. Because this quiet resistance was far more potent, far more meaningful, than any impulsive act could ever be. So he had drawn the blade upward smoothly, meeting his brother’s gaze evenly, offering no hint of the turmoil inside.

Yoichi would continue, patient and careful. He would guard his defiance close to his chest, nurture that precious spark of rebellion until the day he could do no more.

X

Reading had always been his refuge.
He had taught himself with sun‑bleached comics scavenged from trash heaps, sounding out dialogue bubbles while his brother mocked the flimsy heroes, had picked it up faster than his twin who’d demanded to be taught like a spoiled child who’d expected to learn first because he was the eldest (by mere seconds).

Even here in the vault, books remained at the ‘mercy’ that All For One allowed him. Their spines lined a narrow shelf by the bed - fantasy sagas, philosophy treatises, cookbooks, strategy manuals - each volume a door he could slip through for an hour and forget the weight on his wrists and lungs.

He woke one morning to impossible quiet.

No click of the outer lock, no footfall of guards. Only the soft electric hum of ventilators. Light from the overhead bar was unchanged, yet something in the air felt wrong—loose, as though a screw had fallen out of reality.

The vault door stood ajar.

Not wide - just a handspan, enough to spill a wedge of light across the concrete. Yoichi’s breath stuttered. His legs - still weak despite months of secret exercise—carried him forward before thought could catch them. The surveillance lens in the ceiling followed, its crimson dot steady and unblinking.

Yet he stopped, just shy of freedom - because -
Was this a test?

Lately a new category had appeared had appeared in his reading arsenal.

Reports. Ledgers. Personnel rosters. Stacks of crisp dossiers stamped with the tyrant’s sigil. All For One would settle beside him on the mattress, shoulder pressed against his, and say - almost indulgently - “Read, little brother. I prefer the sound of knowledge when it’s in your voice.”

So Yoichi read. He watched ink become breath, names of outposts become syllables, casualty numbers turn to vibrations in his throat. 
Sometimes his voice cracked on the cruellest statistics; sometimes the razor‑edged silence afterward lasted longer than the reading itself. All For One would only smile, content, as though the data tasted sweeter spoken by a mouth he owned.

When the older twin finally rose and left on his business and menacing society trips, Aiko crept in with her food trays and cleaning supplies. 

Sometimes, she would receive information beneath the empty plate - just enough to matter, never enough to reveal a pattern. A guard rotation here, an ammunition shortage there. Yoichi rationed them like crumbs with the care of a starving man sharing bread.

His brother thrived on games. 

What if these dossiers were bait - numbers carefully altered, routes deliberately wrong? What if every slip of paper Yoichi hid beneath a plate had already been read by his brother who was lying in wait? On those nights he woke slick with sweat, heart galloping, convinced he smelled Aiko’s blood on the concrete.

The door wasn’t open by accident.

Yoichi pressed a shaking palm to the cold steel.
He didn’t dare peek out - though he could smell an air that was different to the one he was used to - like fresh air and disinfectant. Light bled in from the gap and freedom began exactly one step beyond the threshold. A single step. Then another. Then a run, however clumsy, until alarms shrieked and bullets sang.

He wouldn’t make it far. But to experience the outside even for a few brief seconds, no matter what was out there, made him ache so much that Yoichi wanted to cry. 

His pulse hammered. Every tendon begged him to move.

Even though it was a lie. Even though it was a trick to test him, a cruelty designed to push him. Yoichi still wanted it for a few mere moments.

So, slowly, deliberately, he drew the door shut, sealing himself back inside his own prison. 

The latches seated with loud, merciless clicks.

In the silence that followed, his knees trembled with exhaustion and something like grief. He slid down the panel until he was sitting on the floor, forehead against the steel, breath misting the surface.

Patience, he reminded himself, though it sounded thin, even as tears he couldn’t hold back dripped down his face.

He wouldn’t delude himself - he knew he would never leave the vault alive. 
His brother would never allow him the mercy of sunlight or fresh air again. His bones would likely crumble within these walls, his brother's twisted idea of eternal devotion keeping him alive just enough to continue suffering.

Yoichi would die in here without ever seeing the sky, or visit the ocean. He would never feel the breeze or the cold of winter ever again.

And yet, he would not let that defeat him.

Patience taught him resilience. It taught him that even a prisoner, even limbless and broken, could still fight quietly, could still contribute. Even without hope for himself, he could offer it to others, just as Aiko offered quiet compassion in return.

His brother had underestimated him, thinking his submissiveness total, that he had finally lost all fight. The realization was sharp, precious, and guarded tightly within Yoichi’s heart. 

It was his small secret, a gentle rebellion known only to himself and a frightened sixteen year old girl.

X

Yoichi heard the lock disengage before he saw her. That faint click was different than his brother’s - a gentler rhythm, less performative. He looked up and caught the soft sweep of Aiko’s pale skirt as she entered the vault.

It was expected. His brother had mentioned, in that maddeningly soft way of his, that he would be away for the next few days. “Important business, little brother. I’ll miss our reading.“ 
He always announced these departures like a parent warning a child not to misbehave in their absence. And yet, even in his absence, his presence lingered like damp in the stone - watchful, oppressive, inescapable in that small lens of the bookshelf camera.

Still, Yoichi always felt it: the tiniest sigh of relief when his twin wasn’t physically here.

Aiko's usual composure looked brittle today. Her steps were quiet, but not serene. There was a flicker in her posture, something tight about the way she clutched the tray. Her expression had always been solemn - how could it not be in a place like this? - but today, it seemed as though she'd barely held back tears before entering the room.

And when he looked - really looked - he saw it. Red-rimmed eyes, glistening lashes. The tilt of her mouth, trying so hard not to frown. His heart ached.

She said nothing at first, just walked across the room and placed the tray down on the low table near his cot. The smell hit him immediately: bland, thick, starchy porridge.

The same tasteless, textureless gruel he’d been force-fed in the earlier years of his imprisonment, the years when defiance had cost him everything. A single bowl. No fruit, no tea. Just beige paste and a wooden spoon.

“He said… to feed you this,” Aiko said softly. “Until he returns.”

Yoichi rose from the bed slowly, carefully - his legs stiff from the night. He moved toward the tray and peered down at it.
Aiko straightened the bedding behind him, clearly trying to keep her hands busy. She didn’t meet his eyes.

Yoichi said nothing at first. He knew why the food was lacklustre. He had been too careless - just a slip of the tongue in a moment of weakness, with a sharpness he’d bit his tongue on the moment it had slipped out. ‘Kindness doesn’t cost anything brother. Spite will only get you so far.’

“He said to remind you,” Aiko continued, her voice growing even quieter, “that your brother’s kindness has kept you safe all these years.”

Yoichi’s fingers curled faintly around the tray’s edge. He inhaled slowly, evenly.

Yoichi kept his expression gentle. “He’s being petty, that’s all,” he reassured her softly. 

His brother had certainly done far, far worse than this. Eating bland foods was a mild slap on the wrist in comparison. 

Aiko still didn’t turn around, but he could see her shoulders tighten. Her head dipped lower.
She  was wrong-shaped for this place - small, bird-boned, all cracked porcelain empathy. Her family’s debt had dropped her into the tyrant’s household like a lamb among carrion birds. 
Yoichi often wondered how long a heart that tender could survive here.

He stepped to the tray, fingers skimming the bowl as if inspecting it, masking his real question. “Have they searched you recently?”

Aiko folded the throw at the end of his bed. “Yesterday. Thoroughly.”

That decided it then. No note today. Yoichi left the napkin untouched, offered only a faint tilt of his chin - Understood. Passing nothing was safer than passing the wrong thing at the wrong moment.

While she dusted shelves and straightened folded clothes - an act for the camera’s lens - they exchanged scraps of talk in half-sentences as he turned his back to it so it couldn’t see his lips move:

New patrol route … four men down the eastern corridor … munitions stockpiled two levels below …

Each word sounded like a dropped pin. Aiko slipped them into memory with the same care she used to tuck sheets. It wasn’t as useful as notes or drawings on stray pieces of toilet paper slipped into the napkins folds, but it was safer for Aiko.

Time stretched thin. If she lingered too long, it would raise suspicion. At the door she paused, hands twisted in her apron.

“Please - eat something,” she whispered. “Even if it’s awful.”

Yoichi nodded, more grateful for the concern than the food. “I will.”

She vanished, and the room exhaled into silence.

Loneliness seeped from the stones after she left, a damp chill that settled in his chest. He forced down the porridge - each mouthful a bland reminder of who controlled the boundaries of mercy - then returned to his current book.

Eventually he turned off the lamp and lay on his side, back turned to the camera’s unblinking eye as he always did. 

His hand slid beneath the pillow, fingers brushing something crinkled.

His hand clenched around the tiny bundle - waxed paper knotted with thread. Inside: a handful of hard candies, bright shards of colour in the dimness.

Yoichi’s smile was small, even as it hurt his cheeks from disuse.

'Kindness survives even here', he thought, relishing the sharp tang of the apple flavoured gift. 

X

Time did not flow in the vault; it pooled.
Day, night - meaningless words. Light came from tubes in the ceiling, pale and constant. Sleep arrived only when his pulse allowed it.

They sat across from each other at the small table. The chessboard lay between them, perfectly set. Black and white pieces gleamed under fluorescent light, immobile and waiting. 

Yoichi’s fingers moved slowly, deliberately, guiding his bishop across the board with practiced grace. “Check.”

Across from him, All For One smiled faintly. “You’ve been watching my knight again.”

“You always use him too early,” Yoichi replied. “I don’t need to watch him. You always leaves the king exposed.”

His brother let out a soft chuckle - that familiar, irritating hum that seemed to live halfway between amusement and condescension. “Perhaps I do it on purpose. To give you a chance.”

They played in silence for a while. The board shifted, back and forth. Yoichi won one round. Lost the next. Then another draw. It didn’t matter. They were evenly matched. And tonight, like all others, Yoichi was careful - measured. He tried to smile when his brother made a joke about the rawness of the fish he was served the other night, offered dry, gentle comments he knew would make his brother’s mouth twist upward in that detached smirk.

He toed the tightrope that would keep his small rebellion secret and locked his heart tight.

Whatever fragment of personhood he was allowed to express lived in that delicate theatre of obedience and in that reality of ever lingering despair.

But what haunted him wasn’t the game - it was the ease. The illusion of normalcy. The way his brother poured tea into a second cup like it was the most natural thing in the world. The way he asked, almost conversationally, how Yoichi was sleeping. As if years of imprisonment and mutilation had somehow never happened.

It made Yoichi wonder if his brother’s cruelty came from the same place as his laughter.

And that… that thought made Yoichi ache. A slow, spreading sadness that sat in his chest like rot. It made him question everything - every memory of their shared childhood. Had any of it been real? Or had he simply written fiction in his own mind to survive?

He didn't have time to answer himself.

After the fourth game, his brother rose from the chair, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeves.

“It’s gotten long again,” he commented and touched Yoichi’s shoulder. “Come,” he said, the single word a soft command.

Yoichi moved to the straight-back chair. The ritual was older than the vault: his brother combed through the strands with deliberate care, always trimming to the same blunt line at his shoulders - exactly as it had been when they were boys scavenging riverbanks for coins. 

It used to be a comforting - Yoichi had always loved these moments as a child, felt soothed by the fingers that had comber through his hair and heard the quiet grumbles of it not being straight. It had made him feel safe with his brother - loved.

Now though, Yoichi always had to fight not to stiffen when those same fingers carded through his hair. Touch wasn’t safe anymore - not when it came to his twin.

The blades snipped rhythmically, strands fluttering to the floor like silent snow. It might have been soothing, had the hands belonged to anyone else.

“So,” All For One said lightly, “how is our little servant girl managing her duties?”

Yoichi’s heartbeat tripped. He forced his eyelids open, met his brother’s gaze in the mirror - casual, smiling.

“Aiko?” Yoichi’s tone aimed for mild surprise. “She… brings the meals. Cleans. Nothing more.”

Snip. Pale strands drifted to the floor.

“I see.” The tyrant’s voice stayed pleasant. “You converse?”

“Not much to say,” Yoichi lied, keeping his face placid. “We exchange some pleasantries. Nothing more than the bare minimum.”

The scissors paused, poised above his ear. “You have always been so naively gentle,” his brother said, fondly. “I’d hate for someone to take advantage of that. Was I not kind, to give her to you?”

Yoichi bit his tongue until he tasted blood. “Yes brother.”

Another lock fell. The scissors snipped in the ensuing quiet.

Yoichi fought the urge to swallow. “The camera sees everything,” he offered, hoping to sound helpful. “If anything were amiss, you’d know.”

All For One chuckled - a soft, approving sound. “Ah, the camera.” He gently brushed stray hair from Yoichi’s nape. “It’s getting old, you know. Can’t even capture audio. Rather disappointing.”

Relief fluttered - small, frantic wings in Yoichi’s chest. Good, it was good to hear the confirmation, just to be absolutely certain they weren’t -

“That’s why,” his brother continued, voice still velvet-smooth, “I had them upgraded a few weeks ago.”

Yoichi’s breath froze mid-inhalation.

In the mirror their gazes locked: Yoichi’s pupils blown wide with dawning horror, All For One’s eyes gleaming with quiet, boundless satisfaction.

Aiko crashed through his mind like a falling rook as the scissors hovered at his throat, the cloth tightening around his shoulders.

All For One’s reflection smiled softly. Then the flat, cold steel of the scissors pressed gently beneath Yoichi’s chin, lifting it, forcing his head back, forcing his gaze upward into those pale, amused eyes.

“Would you,” his brother murmured, “like to hear all the interesting things I’ve heard?”

Chapter Text

It was all so still at first.

The scissors nudged Yoichi’s chin higher, the cold metal pressing insistently against his skin and Yoichi’s vision was filled with his brother’s colourless eyes, boring into him like an endless abyss.

Yoichi couldn’t move. He was rooted to the chair, paralysed by that ever present survival instinct to stay still, don’t make any sudden movements, don’t fight - fighting makes it worse! as his brother’s face drew closer, the weight of his presence suffocating.

“Such a bold performance,” All For One murmured. “A surprise given your many weaknesses. I didn’t expect it to be so … believable.” 

Yoichi tensed as fingers that weren’t holding his chin with the scissors brushed along his neck, spanning across Yoichi’s pale skin almost absently but he didn’t move. He couldn’t, every nerve in his body was locked tight.

A shudder started low in his belly, radiating outward, but he fought to keep his limbs from trembling. He knew better. Fear was expected. Weakness was expected. But he couldn't afford to show anything else - not now. Not when Aiko's life was almost certainly hanging by a thread already fraying in his brother’s hands.

Please, please let her be alive. He’d long since stopped praying for any help for himself, but Aiko didn’t deserve any of this. Let him be the only one who suffered.

"Even when I learned all those little messages and whisper, I wanted to believe it," his brother commented, almost wistful. "Even when you were lying through your teeth. A shame really, I did so love how obedience looked on you.“

The fingers around Yoichi’s throat tightened and the heat of his brother’s breath on his temple sent the electric crackle of something wrong sparking down the small of his back.

Yoichi jerked violently to the side, shoving himself away from the chair. The sudden movement sent him sprawling gracelessly to the floor, where he landed hard on his hip and elbow.

Pain flared - but it was distant, secondary to the spike of panic. Above him, his brother exhaled a soft, almost pitying sigh. 

"So pathetic," he said, as if disappointed by a misbehaving dog. 

He set the scissors neatly on the table before stepping closer, each footfall deliberate. "You think your paltry scraps of information cost me anything? Barely a nuisance. I caught it quickly enough." he remarked, voice low and almost bored. "It’s not the damage that bothers me, Yoichi. It’s the fact you still haven’t learned."

Yoichi’s breath came fast and sharp “Where’s Aiko? What did you do to her?" he rasped, anger rising to mask the fear. Any pretence of docility crumbled under the sheer, blinding terror clawing through him.

All For One regarded him thoughtfully, tilting his head slightly, like a scholar examining a curious specimen. "You endangered your own brother’s life, foolish little thing, and yet all you think of is her."

He stood beside Yoichi’s crumpled form, his shadow swallowing Yoichi’s vision. All For One sighed, sounding almost … tired - or perhaps exasperated.

"What do I have to do, Yoichi?“ He mused more to himself than to his twin. "What must I do to make you love me the way you’re supposed to?"

The words hit Yoichi harder than any blow.

For a moment, there was only his own ragged breathing in the vault. He closed his eyes tightly,  opened them and found his brother still waiting.

“You … you can’t -” Yoichi’s voice cracked, but he forced the words out. "I hoped - for so long, that the brother who used to hold my hand, who used to shield me from the cold - who loved me -" his throat closed, but he pushed on, " - was still buried inside you somewhere."

His fists clenched on the floor, trembling. “I wanted to believe it, even when you took the sky and the air from me, I told myself you were the same brother who laughed not because you thought me stupid, but because I was funny.”

Tears burned against his cheeks before he could stop them. "But you’re gone," he whispered to the concrete beneath him. "The brother I loved is dead. You destroyed him. You ruined every memory we had, until there’s nothing left but this." 

He looked up to cold gaze of his twin and shook his head with heavy regret. "I can’t love you," he stated, voice broken and hoarse. "Not like you want. Not any way. I can't - "

The toe of his brother’s polished shoe suddenly pressed against his shoulder and it pressed until Yoichi fell onto his back. 

He stared up at All For One, chest heaving, heart hammering, trapped in the heavy, clinical stare of the man who wore his brother’s face like a mask.

All For One looked down at him. Distant and as cold as a glacier.

"Would you prefer my hatred then?" the older twin asked softly. "Because I promise you, my pathetic little brother - there is a difference. Maybe hatred, is the only way you’ll ever learn."

Yoichi gritted his teeth against the fear that coiled and spasmed in his gut. He forced himself to speak, to hold onto the shreds of whatever courage remained.

"You can do anything you want," Yoichi said, voice shaking. "You always have."

All For One watched him, silent and unblinking.

"You can take my limbs. You can use my body. You can sit there and pretend this is normal." His throat worked against the rising panic. "But it won’t change anything."

All For One lowered himself, knees trapping Yoichi’s legs between them, hemming him in like a wolf with cornered prey with one hand braced beside Yoichi’s head.

"You can break my mind," Yoichi said, more fiercely now, "turn me into a puppet, a doll, something that smiles when you say so. But you can’t change how I feel."

He stared up, trembling but defiant, into his brother’s cold, endless eyes. "You can’t take my heart."

For a moment, everything froze. A suspended, deadly hush.

Then the tension snapped.

With a sudden, brutal shove, All For One pushed him fully down, knocking the wind from his lungs. Hands tore at the collar of his shirt, ripping fabric, baring pale skin. Yoichi thrashed wildly, pure instinct, his single arm clawing, scratching, but it was useless.

All For One’s palm pressed flat and heavy over Yoichi’s bare chest.

Yoichi cried out, choking, as pain like a hook pierced his ribcage. He couldn’t breathe - his heart thudded desperately against his sternum, too fast, too strong, and then - wrong. Wrong.

"I can take it," his brother whispered coldly. "If you won't give it to me."

Yoichi’s back arched off the ground, mouth open in a silent scream as the sensation worsened - like his heart was being unmade, dragged outward through bone and flesh by unseen hands.

"We're twins," All For One said calmly. "You are an extension of me. Your heart... your soul... What will it take to make you understand that that you’re all mine."

Yoichi could feel it - the unbearable tearing sensation, the splitting, the destruction of self.

"I can carry it inside my chest," his brother murmured, almost tenderly. "Let it beat beside my own. Then you’ll finally understand. You'll know you're a part of me - the weak, stupid, pathetic part. But still... dear to me."

Blinded by pain and terror, Yoichi lashed out.

His fingernails caught skin, raking down across his brother’s face with every ounce of desperation he had left. He felt the skin break under his nails - felt blood warm and slick against his fingers.

All For One recoiled sharply.

The pull on Yoichi’s heart ceased abruptly, leaving him gasping, broken, splayed helplessly across the floor.

Silence fell, jagged and ragged between them.

The moment of surprise was brief - a sliver of opportunity - but Yoichi seized it. His body screamed in protest, every muscle trembling from adrenaline and terror, but he scrambled across the floor anyway, dragging himself toward the far wall.

Move. Move. Move -

An invisible force wrapped around his ankle mid-crawl, yanking hard. 

Yoichi cried out as he was dragged backward, scraping across the cold stone floor. His nails scrabbled uselessly against it, finding no purchase.

He twisted, kicked out with his free leg, but it was hopeless.

All For One stalked forward slowly, almost leisurely, as if Yoichi’s struggle was some pathetic, predictable performance. His expression was unreadable - no smirk, no lecture, just a grim focus that made Yoichi’s skin crawl.

They grappled.
Or at least - Yoichi fought, wild and frantic, and All For One waited him out like he usually did.

Yoichi’s single palm shoved at his brother’s chest, but the weight there didn’t budge. Familiar hands caught his wrist - the only one he had - and pinned it ruthlessly beside his head.

Still, he fought, reckless with terror, flailing with his one arm, nails catching at fabric, skin, anything he could reach. His legs kicked weakly against the strength pinning him. But it was hopeless - he was small, muscle starved, broken down over years. His brother had only grown stronger, more monstrous.

All For One’s body pressed down over his, heavy, suffocating and the nearness was wrong, so horribly wrong in its awful familiarity. 
Yoichi’s stomach churned violently with panic at the familiar suffocating presence, the unbearable heat of breath at his neck, the helpless frozen stillness he had learned for survival screaming at him to stop struggling, stop fighting, you don’t want to lose anything else!  

The floor was cold beneath his bare back. The air too warm against his exposed skin where the torn shirt gaped. His brother's presence filled the world as his hand went back to his chest and that awful - agonizing, tearing sensation rippled through Yoichi once more.

His mouth opened, a scream half-formed, but -

There came a knock as the steel door, barely heard through the screeching din of Yoichi’s panic.

Then a sharp, fearful voice called through the steel: "Sir?"

 And the brothers froze.

The pain vanished just as suddenly as it came. Yoichi could feel All For One’s heartbeat where their bodies pressed together. It was sharp, rapid thud that mirrored Yoichi’s own which battered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

A long moment passed.

And then came another knock. “"Forgive me, sir - it's urgent!"

Yoichi could hear the terror woven into that single syllable. Whoever dared interrupt knew the price of intrusion - and still, they had knocked. The two brothers stared at one another. Yoichi’s chest heaved, his face wet with fear, and for a moment he thought - he's going to ignore it. He's going to finish what he started.

The pressure pinning Yoichi down eased, just slightly and All For One’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer, calculating, before he stood, slowly, deliberately, and smoothed the creases from his immaculate jacket. 

He stood over Yoichi like a dark tower, blood streaked along his cheek, expression cold and unreadable and, without sparing another glance down, he turned and walked toward the vault door.

Left alone, Yoichi sat up shakily. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he pulled the torn fabric of his shirt back over his exposed shoulder, clutching it closed. Shame and terror bled into one another, indistinguishable.

Thank you, he thought helplessly to whatever god, whatever force had arranged this moment. Thank you thank you thank you.

He stared at the floor and fought to make his body stop shaking, fought to calm his screaming heart before it made him throw up

From the corner of his eye, he saw All For One reach the door, his silhouette framed by the narrow wedge of harsh hallway light. The steel barrier cracked open, muted words exchanged. 

Yoichi couldn’t hear what was said. Didn’t care. He just needed a few more seconds. Just to breathe.

The door closed again with a hollow finality.

All For One stood there for a moment, back to the door, breathing now slow and measured. Then he drew closer, approaching Yoichi where he still hunched defensively on the floor.

Yoichi flinched when he felt fingers stroke slowly across his head - not roughly, but not affectionately either. Possessive. Surveying.

He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing down the instinct to recoil. He clutched at his shirt as a useless barrier incase his twin tried to rip out his heart again.
All For One crouched again, slow and unhurried, his hand still resting on Yoichi’s head like he was some prize animal.

"You are hurting yourself," his brother said softly, almost regretfully. "And me."

Yoichi didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

"There are ways," All For One continued, his voice almost musing, as if speaking to himself. "Ways to repair the broken things inside you, brother. Meta-abilities - rare ones. Ones that can remould a mind, soften the stubbornness, heal the wounded heart that refuses to love properly."

Yoichi's stomach lurched violently. He wanted to shout, to scream, to demand news of Aiko, to demand why, why, why -
but terror clamped tight around his throat, left him mute and shaking.

"I must leave," All For One said after a beat, with a tone of grave disappointment, as if Yoichi himself had caused the inconvenience. "Business calls me away for now."

"But when I return," he said, standing and staring down at Yoichi with a terrible resolution, "we will fix this properly. I promise you that."

Yoichi shivered, bile rising in his throat.

And then All For One was gone. The door locked behind him with a final, echoing boom and Yoichi remained where he was, trembling, the taste of blood sharp on his tongue from biting down too hard. 

X

The vault was hollow now.

Every sound - each breath, each soft scrape of Yoichi’s body shifting on the floor - echoed back at him, lonely and sharp. There was nothing left inside the concrete tomb but him and the cold iron bucket in the corner, the humiliating final concession to his needs.

Yoichi sat hunched against the far wall, knees pulled tight to his chest, his thin shirt hanging off him in tatters. 

The heavy tread of boots approached, and he lifted his head, slow and aching, to watch his brother’s silhouette fill the doorway. Light from the hallway framed All For One’s figure like a cruel halo, bleaching out every detail except the inescapable truth of him.

All For One regarded him with that same detached calm. There was no anger now. No impatience. Only something colder - something already decided.

"You’ll be good while I’m gone," he said simply.
It wasn’t a question.

Yoichi dragged his body upright against the wall. "Where is Aiko?"

Silence.

The monster who wore his brother’s face tilted his head slightly, studying him with cool detachment.

"She's been dealt with," he said at last, his voice devoid of malice, devoid of anything human. "Her presence won’t poison you against me again."

The words hit harder than any blow as Yoichi’s breath caught in his throat, his heart hammering in fresh, panicked rhythm.

Dealt with.
It was said with the same casual disdain as clearing away a broken chess piece. A simple acknowledgement of the removal of an inconvenience.

Yoichi’s wanted to scream. To cry. To rage against the door, against the walls, against the universe that had allowed something so small and kind and good as Aiko to be destroyed.

But his body betrayed him. It remained curled tight, shaking quietly, his voice swallowed whole by the vast, cavernous dark.

Because it hadn’t been the universe who’d put that poor girl in harms way. 

It was Yoichi’s. He should have kept the information to himself, swallowed his own pathetic need to be useful and necessary in some paltry way. But no - he’d known the consequences and now he was facing them.

And Aiko had paid the higher price. 
As Tohru had all those years ago.

All For One lingered a moment longer, as if waiting for some final word, some apology, some plea. Yoichi gave him nothing.

"You’ll be good while I’m gone, won’t you?" It wasn’t a question - wasn’t even to mock him. It was simply dictation.

The door swung closed. The lock slid into place with a slow, final click.

And Yoichi was swallowed by the dark.

X

The jet touched down with a bump that was rougher than usual, a minor annoyance that further soured an already foul mood.

All For One rose smoothly from his seat, ignoring the faint pull at the scratches etched across his face. They stung still - tiny irritants, lingering reminders of a moment he would grudgingly admit had been... less than composed.

Unfortunate.

That was the proper word for it. Unfortunate.

All For One adjusted the cuffs of his immaculate coat as he descended the ramp, breathing in the humid, smoke-tainted air of the western provinces. Another tiresome rebellion. Another attempted "insurrection" he would dismantle without ceremony.
Normally, such insubordination would have thrilled him.
He enjoyed spectacles - the slow public ruin of dissenters, the artistry of fear carefully painted across the faces of those who dared to resist him.

But today, irritation gnawed at the edges of his focus.

Yoichi’s voice still echoed in his mind, unbidden, souring every thought:
’I can't love you. Not like you want.’

Such ungrateful words. Such foolish defiance.

No wonder All For One had acted rashly. No wonder his control had faltered for a moment, letting sentimentality and anger mix into something unbecoming.
He hated that. Hated the memory of it - the animal frenzy, the hunger to take what he could not command by will alone.

It was his fault, All For One thought coldly as he stepped onto the cracked pavement of the town square.
Always snubbing his nose at everything he’s given. Pitiful, weak thing.

Yoichi had never understood strength. He bent toward any hand offered with kindness, like a weed seeking sunlight. He was so very stupid sometimes.

All For One moved forward, senses sweeping the square. His presence alone made the few peasants lingering at the periphery scurry away, heads bowed.

The rebellion was supposed to be centred here - this provincial town, dusty and irrelevant. He would crush it easily. Efficiently, this time. No drawn-out punishments. No petty indulgences. He had more important things to return to.

Yoichi was waiting, after all.

A proper solution was already forming in his mind. There were meta-abilities out there, he was certain - ones that could reshape thoughts, soothe inconvenient emotions. Once the appropriate abilities were his, it would be a simple matter to dissolve the defective impulses in Yoichi’s mind.

All For One would erase that useless resistance, that stubborn belief in separation, and replace it with peace. With gratitude.
And this time, Yoichi would mean it.

All For One smiled faintly, the expression thin and hard. 
Yes. It would be better for both of them. No more wilful lies. No more denials and moral grandstanding. No more need for violence.

Yoichi would eb a part of him again. As he should be.

A flicker at the corner of his eye drew his attention.

Movement - figures stepping into the square. Hesitant at first, then emboldened. A cluster of them, faces hidden behind masks, crudely armed. Their abilities sparked like cheap fireworks - flashes of minor strength, minor speed, minor shields.

Pests.
Amusing, really.

All For One straightened his sleeves, utterly unconcerned as the first wave rushed him with a battle cry torn from desperate throats.
He caught the first man by the neck, crushing his larynx with a single contemptuous squeeze. The next he skewered with barely a glance, sending the rebel sprawling across the cobblestones with a wet thud.

They kept coming. Ten. Fifteen. More.

Paltry, all of them. Still, their persistence was novel.

All For One allowed them to swarm closer, striking when it amused him, moving with the slow, inevitable grace of a predator who knew he could not be touched.

Yet, his mind wandered even as he fought.

Yoichi was becoming a distraction even now. 
Why, even after all this time, could the Frail Thing not heel? Why couldn’t he simply heed his twin, obey, listen and understand that the world isn’t meant for pitiful, pathetic twins that bit the hand that fed it? Was it really so difficult to ask for complete loyalty and devotion from his own flesh and blood?

All For One moved through the attackers with detached precision, the way a sculptor might carve stone - methodical, deliberate, almost bored.

Still -

The ground rumbled beneath his feet - small tremors he registered only at the last second. A shimmer along the rooftops, too synchronized to be random.

Too late.

A series of detonations rippled through the square - strategic, calculated - timed not to kill, but to bury.

All For One turned sharply, extending a shield of stolen quirks, but even so, the old towering buildings groaned and sagged in on themselves. Masonry cracked. Support beams screamed as they split.

The world narrowed into a storm of debris and dust as a twenty-story façade collapsed into the square.

The last thing All For One saw before the rubble swallowed him was the smear of masked rebels sprinting away - vanishing into alleyways like smoke.

X

“Tyrant’s buried,” crackled through Kudō’s comm.

Kudo talk a deep, centering breath, blew it out and nodded.

“All teams move into position, breach on my mark,” he ordered back through his earpiece. “We’ll have ten minutes at most before the Tyrant’s alerted and mobilises nearby aid, but assume the call’s already been made the moment we strike so no lingering, no looting, nothing other than the mission.”

Sounds of affirmation were brief and Kudō turned to Bruce. 

“Ready?”

The stoic man looked to him, the faint glow of Fa-Jin already crackling in his arms.

The second Bruce nodded, Kudō gave the order.

“Leave no survivors.”

Chapter Text

The air was already thick with smoke by the time Kudō’s boots slammed against the stone courtyard.
Gunfire cracked from the walls above, frantic and disorganized - perfect.

The stronghold’s defenders had been caught flat-footed. Exactly as planned.

Phase One had worked: the tyrant had taken the bait, flown straight into the rebellion’s hands, and was now buried under half a city’s worth of rubble. Whether he was dead yet didn’t matter. Kudō would make sure he stayed dead when they were finished here.

For now, Phase Two was underway.

"Insertion team - move!" Kudō barked into his ear mic, even as he pivoted low behind the partial cover of a shattered stone planter.

The best fighters the rebellion had scraped together - thirty in all, battered veterans, half-starved resistance cells, a handful of former soldiers - split into their assigned units. Half raced for the crumbling main gates, laying down suppressive fire with battered rifles and honed meta-abilities. The others slipped like shadows through the eastern outflow - sewers too narrow for a full assault but perfect for the kind of work Kudō had in mind.

Detonations thudded through the foundation as shaped charges were slammed against every load-bearing pillar they could reach.

Good. Loud. Messy - Exactly how he wanted it.

Beside him, Bruce was a silent wall of muscle and calm efficiency, dragging an injured sentry out of their path and snapping his neck without slowing down.

Kudō didn’t flinch.
There was no room for mercy.

Not tonight.

The stronghold was a fortress even now - thick walls, layered defences, decades of cruelty packed into every brick. But under the right kind of pressure, even mountains cracked.

Kudō’s team cut through the chaos, a scalpel slicing toward the rotting heart.

They pushed deeper - vaulted barricades, wrenched open rusted gates, left bodies in their wake like broken dolls. Blood slicked the stones beneath their boots; shouts and screams reverberated through the crumbling halls.

Everywhere, the smell of smoke and blood. Everywhere, the end of an empire.

The lower levels were worse - choked corridors. Flickering lights. The stink of mildew and rot from half-collapsed catacombs.

They found it behind a heavy blast door.

Steel, at least a foot thick, latticed with security traps designed to fry, crush, or dismember anyone fool enough to tamper with it.

Kudō skidded to a halt, motioning Bruce to cover him. His heart pounded - not with fear, but anticipation.

This was it.

Some twisted weapon, some monstrous relic of blood and flesh that couldn’t be risked above ground - that was what cages like this were designed for. This level of security was to ensure nothing got in and got out.

They would bury it here.

Kudō's mind sharpened with cold certainty. ‘It doesn't matter who or what it is. If it shares blood with the tyrant, it has to die.’

He heard the others setting shaped charges along the structural beams, preparing to collapse this whole cursed place into itself. Good. No mercy. No survivors.

Kudō unslung the breaching kit, his fingers moving fast. One wire cut here, a disruptor node there. The locking mechanisms whined in protest as he overrode them. Sweat slicked his forehead. Time was running short - they needed to be gone before All For One crawled back from whatever rubble they'd dropped on him.

Behind him, Bruce's voice was steady, low.

"Ready?"

Kudō nodded once, grim. He pressed the final sequence.

Click.

The locks disengaged with a series of deep, shuddering thuds. The air rushed inward, stale and metallic, as the vault door creaked open an inch.

Kudō shouldered his weapon, stepped forward, and shoved the heavy steel aside.

The room beyond was dark. Not abandoned. Not empty.

There, curled defensively against the far wall, was a man.
Thin. Malnourished. A single arm hugging his knees. His hair hung in limp strands at his shoulders, framing a face that looked so weary for someone who couldn’t have been any older than Kudō .

He blinked against the sudden light, a pale creature thrown from deep water into violent air.

But Kudō didn't hesitate. He raised his weapon, locked eyes with the pale man.

And aimed for the heart.

Time froze within the walls of this cold, concrete prison and Kudō’s finger twitched, pressing the trigger’s edge, muscle memory locked into place. It would take only an ounce more pressure - barely even that - to end this threat forever.

Yet the pale figure did not move. Did not beg. Didn’t flinch or cry out. He simply… looked. Stared up from the shadows, green eyes wide, shimmering faintly in the dim, sickly light of the vault. And behind the clear glaze of fear, Kudō glimpsed something utterly alien in a place this cruel:

Kindness.

It was absurd. A twisted joke, a manipulation. It had to be. Because Kudō knew exactly whose blood ran through this man’s veins. He knew exactly what monstrous lineage he shared.

And yet -

The man was shaking, visibly shivering beneath clothing that hung off his thin frame, fresh handprint shaped bruises marring his pale wrist - his only wrist, Kudō noted numbly. One sleeve hung limp, hollow. Every detail screamed victimhood rather than threat. This fragile creature looked nothing like a monster. He looked like one of the refugees Kudō had rescued time and again from the wreckage of broken towns and burned villages.

Kudō swallowed, throat suddenly thick with uncertainty, his thoughts scattering in wild conflict.

Bruce’s voice cracked softly beside him, barely audible, urgent in its quiet confusion. “Orders?”

But Kudō couldn’t respond. Couldn’t tear his eyes away from the hollow gaze that stared into his own. A chill rose slowly from his gut, spreading into something colder and deeper - a shiver of intuition, an instinct too strong to ignore.

He tightened his grip, breath shallow, logic warring against instinct.

Killing him would send a message, Kudō reasoned silently. It would make the tyrant feel loss. Real loss. If he could feel anything at all.

But then, even as Kudō repeated the justification in his mind, doubt whispered louder. The tyrant had never cared for the thousands lost, never mourned innocent victims. Would he truly mourn even the loss of blood?

Would this death mean anything to the monster at all?

Kudō’s weapon lowered slowly, mechanically, as his eyes searched deeper into the haunted gaze across from him. The silent, shadowed space between them felt cavernous, impossibly wide, yet electrified with something raw, immediate, and terrifyingly human.

Because he recognized the emotion now -  an unmistakable flicker of hope. A quiet, pleading hope, as fragile as glass, reflected clearly in the stranger’s wide green eyes.

Bruce shifted anxiously, breath hitching in alarm. “Leader -”

“Stand down,” Kudō murmured, voice barely more than a rasp. He stepped forward slowly, deliberately, ignoring the pounding of his own heartbeat. 

He knew the risk. He knew exactly what he was doing, how dangerous trust could be. But something deeper than logic urged him forward - a raw instinct, born of compassion and unspoken recognition.

And he held out a hand.

For a moment, the pale man only stared. Eyes wide, flickering first in confusion, then in disbelief, and finally, in a devastating rush - gratitude. Raw, desperate, overwhelming gratitude spilled forth in sudden tears, catching Kudō utterly unprepared.

Kudō faltered, chest constricting painfully. He had never known such a look, never witnessed something so unbearably human in all the bitter years of warfare.

Slowly, shaking, the stranger reached out - hesitantly at first, terrified of some cruel trick - then grasped Kudō’s outstretched hand firmly.

His touch was icy, weak, yet fiercely resolute. Their eyes locked again, and Kudō felt a quiet certainty flood his chest, dispelling every shadow of doubt.
The pale man’s gaze flooded with tears, lips trembling with emotion he couldn’t voice, chest hitching silently.

“Th-thank you,” he whispered quietly, haltingly, as if the words hadn’t left his lips in years. “Thank you.”

Kudō only tightened his grip, rising carefully and pulling the shaking man to his feet.

X

The moment Yoichi stepped beyond the vault’s threshold, his body went numb.

It wasn't a gentle numbness, nor comforting. It was cold, brittle, thin as glass. A numbness born from disbelief, from shock deep enough to cut through bone. His mind couldn't quite grasp the reality of the situation. He expected at any moment to blink awake again, back in the cold, black quiet, counting breaths until the familiar dread of footsteps echoed down the hall.

He half-expected to see his brother’s patient smile again - so condescending and expectant for things Yoichi despised to give.

But as his foot met solid concrete beyond the vault door, Yoichi realized he wasn't dreaming.

His breath caught sharply, a tremor rippling down his spine.
Freedom tasted strange; bitter and metallic, threaded with disbelief. It didn't feel like victory - it felt impossible. A dream he didn't dare trust, fragile enough to shatter at any second.

Eyes widening slowly, he scanned the room. It was nothing like he'd imagined. Yoichi had expected darkness, narrow corridors - anything similar to his prison’s suffocating design. 

Instead, the space stretching before him was immense, clinical and sterile white, gleaming under stark artificial lighting. His heart stuttered painfully as he took in the scene - massive turrets disabled, security cameras shattered, traps dismantled and tossed aside. All this chaos and destruction -centred around a single concrete room.

All of this - for him.

He swallowed hard against the sudden thickness in his throat. It was surreal, dizzying, and terrifyingly intimate. He’d never comprehended just how elaborate, how utterly excessive his brother’s precautions had been.

"Come on," the man ordered, tugging Yoichi’s arm - snapping him from his stunned stupor. “We don’t have long.”

Yoichi followed numbly, bare feet stumbling on the cool, slick floor. They moved quickly, silently, threading carefully out of the vast space and through hallways marked by cracked walls and trails of blood, the air echoing faintly with shouts and gunfire.

Every step forward felt impossible, his mind slipping further into disbelief, half-convinced he would wake up gasping on the cold vault floor.

He blinked dazedly when the other man bent to unscrew a panel in the floor, ushering them down into a narrow tunnel. 

Water pooled beneath his feet, sending jolts of sensation up his legs. His breath caught, suddenly drowning beneath the shock of it - the world, the dirt, the cold filthy air. So different from the sterile prison. So vividly, shockingly real.

Voices echoed ahead, sharp and angry, punctuated by sudden bursts of gunfire. Panic bloomed within Yoichi’s chest, familiar dread rising. His rescuer reacted swiftly, pulling him and the other rebel sharply behind a crumbling pillar, bullets and meta-abilities ripping violently through the air where they'd just stood.

Yoichi flinched, heart hammering erratically in his chest, vision blurring at the edges.

“Hey -” his rescuer’s voice cut through, forcing Yoichi’s eyes up. “What's your name?”

“Yoichi,” he replied, throat aching around the sound. “My name...is Yoichi.”

A small nod, the stranger’s eyes sharp as he finished reloading his wrist-mounted gun.

“I’m Kudō,” he said quickly, almost gently. “That’s Bruce. Stay close, Yoichi. It’s not gonna’ get any easier from here.”

Kudō stood swiftly, activating a strange meta-ability; projectiles launched from his fingertips with impossible precision, neutralizing threats that appeared ahead. He moved with lethal grace - effortless, precise violence wrapped in focused calm. Yoichi watched, numbly awed, heart pounding painfully.

Kudō barked orders into an earpiece: “Collapse the whole place - leave nothing behind.”
Then they moved, slipping through tunnel. Yoichi stumbled after them, muscles burning, chest tight. Everything blurred into dreamlike chaos - the violence, the cries, the dizzying rush forward. He was panting, lungs already on fire, when abruptly, his breath caught in horror - he halted sharply, heart jolting painfully.

“Hey, we can’t hang around -” Kudo called back impatiently.

“My - my arm!” Yoichi gasped suddenly, panic slicing through his shock. “Wait!”

Kudō turned sharply, brow furrowing deeply in confusion. “Your what?”

“My arm,” Yoichi repeated urgently. “He took it - it's here, somewhere. He kept it -”

A sudden explosion echoed violently, vibrating through their bones, dust raining down around them.

“No time!” Bruce shouted desperately. “We have seconds!”

Kudō’s gaze flickered briefly toward the collapsing tunnel before settling firmly on Yoichi. His voice steadied instantly, solidifying into calm determination as he grasped Yoichi’s shoulder gently yet insistently.

“We'll find it later,” Kudō promised quickly, his voice quiet, urgent, unyielding. “Right now, we move. Stay alive first, everything else later.”

Yoichi’s chest twisted, conflicted, despair coiling sickeningly in his gut - but the determination in Kudō’s eyes held him firmly, grounded him in something shockingly new.

Trust.

“Alright,” Yoichi whispered shakily, surrendering to the strength in Kudō’s grip, trembling as he forced himself forward again.

Still, deep inside, an anxious part of Yoichi worried - feared - that leaving behind even this small fragment of himself would grant his brother a final, lasting victory. But Kudō’s presence anchored him, offering something Yoichi had long forgotten - hope.

Yoichi stumbled forward, following Kudō through dust, gunfire, and darkness. His mind raced with dread and relief, confusion and gratitude - but beneath it all, beneath the chaos, something quiet and resilient bloomed slowly, uncertainly, for the first time in years:
Hope.

The moment Yoichi emerged from the tunnels, the world itself came rushing toward him.

Wind - real wind, not the recycled stale air of the vault - brushed gently against his face, threading through the tangled strands of his hair, whispering across his battered skin. A soft gasp escaped his lips, caught between disbelief and wonder. The sensation felt foreign, startlingly gentle, impossibly real.

Yoichi closed his eyes instinctively, trembling softly as he drew in a long, deep breath. It felt cool, alive, filling him up with sharp clarity, and for one brief, precious moment, nothing else mattered. Not his brother, not the pain or the prison - just the tender caress of sunlight against his closed eyelids, the whispering promise of open air. Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, warm and gentle, trickling slowly down his cheeks.

He never thought he’d feel the wind again.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking against the gentle daylight. The sun hovered faintly behind clouds, diffusing pale rays that made him squint. For an instant, everything was peace, suspended between a breath and heartbeat.

Then that peace shattered like glass.
 
His breath faltered, catching sharply in his throat ans he stood frozen, eyes wide, pulse roaring, staring in stunned horror at the shattered landscape stretching endlessly before him.

Everything was gone. Buildings once gleaming steel and glass were now skeletal husks, stripped to blackened bones, empty and hollow. Twisted metal beams stretched skyward, scorched by fire and scars of meta-abilities run rampant, their surfaces blistered and torn. Roads - once bustling arteries of tepid life and frantic movement - lay fractured and cratered, broken open in violent fissures. Cars lay gutted, overturned, burned.

A world reduced to ash and rubble - yet somehow still working - the lights still on, the distant sound of yelling and alarms.

Kudō’s voice broke through the haze of horror. “We have to keep moving.”

But Yoichi couldn't move. He stood frozen, rooted in place, throat tight with shock, eyes drinking in the city he’d grown up in, somehow even worse off than he’d last seen it. Time was supposed to fix things, help people rebuild after the turmoil of meta-uncertainty. Yet, somehow, things had gotten worse.

“What ... happened?” he whispered. “How… how did everything - ?”

Kudō exchanged a confused glance with Bruce, their expressions shadowed with quiet questions. Yoichi’s disbelief was clearly not something they’d anticipated.

“It’s been like this for years,” Bruce muttered gently, cautious. “The whole country, since the tyrant rose.”

His brother had done this. Yoichi had heard his tales, listened to the boast of how things were under his thumb but Yoichi had never imagined … this.

“How long were you down there?”

Yoichi swallowed hard, vision swimming briefly, overwhelmed. He felt small, lost beneath the vast, unforgiving sky. His chest squeezed painfully around the truth he hardly dared voice. “A long time.”

Kudō stepped forward quickly, grasping Yoichi’s trembling hand firmly and urged him on. “We can’t linger, come on.”

Yoichi allowed himself to be guided forward, stumbling slightly as he navigated down the crumbling bank toward the ruined streets below. His mind spun, trying desperately to reconcile memory with reality. Everything he’d known was gone, eroded into ghostly echoes and scars he couldn’t comprehend.

He staggered slightly, leaning heavily on Kudō for support. Their path wound deeper into the broken cityscape, shadows lengthening around them. Kudō led the way expertly, moving swiftly through streets. Bruce flanked close behind, wary and tense, eyes scanning continually for threats.

He took a shaky breath as they continued on, drawing strength from Kudō’s steady presence beside him. 

His mind flashed briefly to his missing limbs, left behind, lingering somewhere beneath that crumbling stronghold - another stolen piece of himself. It felt painfully symbolic - a part forever trapped in darkness, left behind with his brother.

But Kudō’s fingers tightened around his, silently encouraging, pulling him forward step by step. Amid devastation, amid loss, Yoichi clung desperately to this strange, unexpected kindness.

He could worry about his arm later. For now, he was free -

And that was enough.

X

All For One stepped through the collapsed wreckage of the square with unhurried grace, boots pressing prints into ash. Stone cracked beneath his heels. Blood steamed from beneath slabs of broken concrete. Around him, what had once been a perimeter of ordered resistance now lay broken - bodies strewn like discarded dolls, the scent of charred flesh clinging to the wind.

The rebels had calculated the ambush with precision, designed the trap to collapse a city block on top of him.

And yet, here he stood. The weak, pathetic swine had failed. 
He breathed in the bitter taste of the battle’s aftermath, irritation simmering beneath the surface. Such tiresome defiance. Such pointless noise. Such pointless resistance.

He emerged from the rubble without so much as a scratch - his coat torn at the sleeve, perhaps, a touch of dried blood across his collar - but otherwise untouched.

All For One used a levitation ability to make the journey back home. It wasn’t the fastest, impatience niggling as hours dwindles by, yet considering those vermin had taken out his private jet, he was left with no other choice.

The sight that awaited him upon his return tightened the cold vise within his chest.

His home lay desecrated - walls shattered, rubble and debris littering the once fine grandeur, fires smouldering in twisted, blackened ruins. Scattered bodies, guards and intruders alike, littered the blood-stained pavement. 

All For One’s jaw tightened, slow rage simmering, icy and silent, behind his carefully maintained composure.

The audacity of these filth.

This place was not merely his fortress. It was sanctuary. It was home. And they had dared to trespass on it - desecrate what was his.

He moved deliberately, step by measured step, every fiber of his being tensed with controlled fury. A fleeing survivor dared raise trembling hands in some paltry act of defiance. All For One did not pause. 

With calm disdain, he ended the wretch’s cries with a single precise flick of his quirk, twisting bone and flesh into something unrecognisable, silencing the interruption permanently.

He swept forward, effortlessly destroying those few who foolishly lingered in futile defiance. There was satisfaction in the violence, each life snuffed swiftly, methodically, a mere nuisance erased from his path. Their blood was meaningless. A worthless currency spent on a hopeless cause.

His true concern lay deeper, beneath the surface.

Descending swiftly into the lower levels, his footsteps echoed heavily against cracked concrete. The corridor stretched before him, dimly illuminated, familiar in every sterile, precise line. Yet his pulse quickened dangerously as his gaze settled upon the vault door ahead.

He halted sharply, breath tightening painfully in his chest. His hands, calm and composed mere seconds before, clenched into trembling fists at his sides. A sickening chill twisted through his stomach, anger mingling with disbelief.

The door stood open.

He stepped forward, opening the steel door further. He stepped into the dark space, still expecting to find his twin inside, waiting as he was supposed to. Because surely Yoichi knew better than to leave. He knew that his brother was the only one who could take care of him. He wouldn’t leave. He would be there, as always - where he belonged.

The vault was empty.

The walls - every inch he’d memorized, every corner he knew intimately - mocked him in cold, hollow silence. 

There was no Yoichi.

There was nothing.

Gone. His Yoichi - his precious, carefully guarded possession - had been stolen.

A quiet, violent fury blossomed inside All For One, devouring everything in its path. He pivoted sharply, striding swiftly upward and back toward the surface. Blood thundered violently in his temples, eyes narrowing into ice-cold slits, control fraying at the edges of his flawless composure.

“Bring me one of them,” he commanded icily to a nearby guard, voice brittle and lethal, utterly devoid of mercy. “Alive.”

Back outside, in the ruined debris of his home, All For One watched and waited as a rebel was dragged toward him - bloodied, beaten, eyes wide with terror. 

“Where is he?” His voice, deceptively soft, sliced cleanly through the silence.

The filth spat at All For One’s once expensive shoes and All For One tilted his head slightly, eyes coldly assessing. He knelt slowly, hand reaching out to grip the rebel’s jaw, forcing the man’s defiant eyes upward.

“I do not repeat myself.” His voice was gentle, almost paternal - a blade cloaked in velvet.

Still the wretch remained wilful. “Go fuck yourself.”

A soft sigh escaped All For One’s lips. He reached out, fingers settling  upon the man’s forehead. Then, slowly, he pressed inward, power flowing relentlessly into fragile flesh.

The screams echoed satisfyingly through the night air - high, fractured notes of agony that made nearby guards flinch and step away, eyes averted in horror. All For One did not blink, watching dispassionately as blood and tears ran together down the rebel’s contorted face.

“You have taken something from me,” All For One murmured quietly, as the rebel shuddered violently beneath his hand. “My patience is finite, and my mercy non-existent. Tell me where my brother is, or your pain shall linger indefinitely.”

Blood bubbled from trembling lips, eyes rolling wildly. “Th-they took him - away - I d-don’t know wh-where -”

All For One released him abruptly, the man collapsing in agony at his feet. The cold rage inside him hardened, sharpening into something utterly monstrous, utterly relentless.

“You will find him,” All For One commanded softly to his remaining guards, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Bring him back to me. No mercy to anyone who stands in your way.”

He turned coldly, stepping over the broken, sobbing rebel beneath him without a glance. His gaze settled upon the cracked empire he commanded, a seething fury simmering dangerously in his chest.

They’d dared to take his own flesh and blood. HIs possession. HIs gift. 

The rebels had erred in the past but to take what wasn’t theirs and All For One wouldn’t let it stand. 
He’d sooner see this world crumble to the ground before he relinquished what was his by birth and flesh.

He would not surrender his heart so easily.

Chapter Text

Okey doke so I posted this on twitter but thought I'd give an official update on here just to keep posted. 

NLBM is going on an 10 day hold whilst I work on Ashes To Ashes because i really wasnt happy with that last chapter in A2A and you guys deserve the best content I can produce. 

I am NOT abandoning or giving up on either story, I'm having way too much fun with both, but my tiny brain has a tendency to short out at stupid times.

A big thanks to everyone who keeps reading. I'm excited for upcoming chapters since we're now in the Kudo era lol. Yoichi has some reprieve now :) 

Chapter Text

The rebel base was a skeleton of what had once been a place of learning.

The classroom windows were shattered, blackboards scorched, lockers warped by fire and time. Desks were overturned, chairs mismatched, floors cracked and scattered with dust and debris. But there was water - cold, running water - and in the twisted remnants of a student bathroom, Yoichi found something almost alien in its rarity.

Privacy.

He stared at the mirror above the chipped sink, water rushing over his single hand. The face looking back at him was gaunt and ghostly pale, eyes tired but alive.

Alive. Not being watched. No camera, no voice calling to him from the dark. Just the quiet hiss of water and the trembling sound of his own breath.

He pressed a damp cloth to his face, wincing slightly at the chill. But the cold felt real in a way nothing had for years - shocking, vivid, grounding. Steam rose as he poured warmer water from a cracked jug over his hair, catching droplets in his palm, scrubbing the dirt and memory from his skin. His remaining arm ached from the effort, but he didn’t care.

It wasn’t cleanliness he sought, not entirely - it was feeling.
And for the first time in years, he didn’t have to ask permission for it.

He turned the faucet off and stood quietly, listening. Nothing but his breath. His heartbeat. The distant murmurs of people far away who weren’t him.

Then, a knock at the door.

Yoichi stiffened. His heart lurched with a quiet, old tension - the kind that had been instilled into him over time, a reflex of the body even when the mind whispered you’re safe now.

Safety was a relative concept.
Nowhere was safe. Not with his brother around.

Yoichi reached with shaking fingers and turned the lock. 

And it opened - not automatically. Not from the outside. It yielded beneath his hand.

Just like that.

A rebel soldier waited in the hallway, a woman with a rough edge to her voice. “He’s ready for you.”

X

The classroom had once been a lounge, or maybe a teacher’s office. Now it housed a makeshift table and the thrum of low voices thick with tension. Kudō stood hunched over a map with four others - older men and women dressed in scavenged gear, their faces drawn from sleepless nights. They all fell silent the moment Yoichi entered.

Their eyes flicked over him - measuring, sceptical, a touch of pity, but mostly suspicion. One of them muttered something under their breath. Another simply turned and left without a word.

Bruce leaned against the wall beside the chalkboard, arms folded, expression set into granite. He didn’t hide the distrust in his eyes. Kudō, on the other hand, nodded to the others, dismissing them with a brief word.

Once the room emptied, he turned to Yoichi. “Sit.”

Yoichi moved stiffly, settling into the couch that sagged beneath his weight. It smelled of dust and mildew, but it was soft. Kudō dragged a chair across the floor, spinning it backward before straddling it, arms folded on the top rail. Bruce remained where he was - silent, still, a warning in the shape of a man.

“First,” Yoichi said quietly, voice steadier than he felt, “thank you. For saving me.”

Kudō nodded once. “Wasn’t the plan, at first. We were going to kill you,” he stated plainly. No apology. No venom. Just truth. “We thought you were his creature. Killing you was a way to send a message. Burn the house, and destroy the prize. Let the monster feel a fraction of what the rest of us have suffered.”

Yoichi nodded slowly. “But you didn’t.”

“No,” Kudō said. “Made a different decision.”

“So…” Yoichi looked between them, wary. “I’m your hostage now?”

Kudō's eyes narrowed, not unkindly. “We don’t take hostages.”

“Then what am I?”

Bruce answered this time, voice rough. “Collateral damage.”

Kudō shot him a look, then turned back to Yoichi. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re not leverage. We did what we came to do. The tyrant’s stronghold is ash, and we dealt a serious blow to him. That’s good enough for now.”

Yoichi fell silent, watching the way Kudō’s hands fidgeted briefly before stilling. There was weariness in his voice, but not resignation. These people - they hadn’t given up. Not yet.

Still, it didn’t ease the dread building in his chest.

“You’re not afraid he'll retaliate?” he asked quietly, voice barely audible. “He’ll come for me. He has to.”

“We know,” Bruce answered, flat and grim. “That’s why we’re not lingering here long.”

Yoichi rose on unsteady legs. The couch groaned. “Then you must leave me. I’m - dangerous to keep. He’ll track me down and when he comes … he’s not -” Yoichi swallowed heavily then tried again - “It’s safer, if I’m not around people.”

Kudō’s gaze was steady. “He’s coming whether you’re with us or not. That’s how tyrants work.” He tilted his head. “But I won’t chain you. Door’s there. But I’ll warn you - whatever world you remember, it doesn’t exist anymore. The cities are crumbling. The governments that do exist are puppets of corporate syndicates and militia lords. The rich wall themselves off while the rest of us starve. It's lawless.”

Yoichi’s voice was small. “How… how did it get so bad?”

Kudō didn’t answer right away. When he finally did, his voice was low, bitter. “No one acted when we should have. No one thought much of him until it was too late. Listen, I won't stop you leaving, but I recommend resting up first. one more mouth to feed isn't anything to us."

In retrospect, it was logical to stay, at least for the night. Yoichi was exhausted, his body was aching and there was still a sense of unrealism he didn't want to take onto the road. He needed to get his baring's, at least for a few hours.

So he nodded and gave thanks to the man who chose not to put a hole in his skull.

X

To feel fresh air again was indescribable.

The evening wind crept down cracked alleyways and kissed his skin with delicate chill, carrying the scent of rust, ash, and damp earth. It bit into him through his borrowed clothes - rough fabric, threadbare in places - but he didn’t mind. The cold was honest. It moved across his skin without cruelty, without expectation. It didn’t trap or command or touch him to remind him who he belonged to. It simply was.

Yoichi sat on an old couch dragged out onto what had once been a school balcony, overlooking the street below. The cushions were torn, stuffing peeking through the seams, but it held his weight. 

So he sat still, hands curled in his lap, and breathed.

The city before him lay in jagged ruins - crumbling buildings stabbed upward like broken teeth, roads split wide open by battle, hollow cars rusted into place. Distant lights flickered now and then, weak and inconsistent, barely enough to show that some people still tried to live.

From here, the world looked like a wound that had never stopped bleeding.
                     
Behind him, voices drifted through broken windows. He heard Bruce’s voice, low and firm, the words clipped with disapproval.

“…You should’ve killed him, Kudō. Just because he looks harmless -”

“I made a call,” Kudō replied, quieter, measured. “And I’m sticking to it.”

Yoichi didn’t strain to hear more. He didn’t need to. He could feel the suspicion like pressure on the back of his neck.

He didn’t resent Bruce for it. If he were in Bruce’s place, he wouldn’t trust himself either. Blood was blood - and his name had been buried under his brother’s shadow long ago.

He shifted slightly, gaze drifting to the street again. Somewhere far off, a child laughed - brief, brittle, fading quickly. The sound startled something warm and aching inside him.

He was still there when she approached.
The old woman moved slowly, her footsteps shuffling over the balcony’s rough concrete. Her frame was thin, hunched slightly with age, hair bound in a scarf faded with time and use. In her arms, she carried a folded wool blanket and a tin bowl that steamed faintly in the cold.

“Evenin’, dear,” she said, voice rasped but kind. “You one of the new ones?”

Yoichi turned to her, startled, but not afraid. He opened his mouth, then closed it, unsure how to explain himself.

She smiled as if she understood. “Don’t matter. Here, you look like you could use this.”

She handed him the blanket first, then offered the bowl - some kind of stew, simple but hot, the scent enough to make his empty stomach curl. Yoichi took them with both hands, eyes wide, and bowed his head deeply.

“Thank you,” he whispered, voice thick with quiet disbelief. “Truly. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, love.” Her smile deepened with a quiet wisdom. “You look half-frozen. Eat while it’s warm.”

She didn’t ask his name. Didn’t ask why he was here. Didn’t try to touch him. 

That last part mattered more than he expected. Her kindness didn’t come with fingers on his face, or hands in his hair, or arms around him, claiming affection he hadn’t asked for. It came with space.

He clutched the blanket around his shoulders and took a careful bite of the stew. It was too hot at first, but he didn’t care. It tasted delicious in the face of carefully controlled portions and treats dangled on strings.

The old woman gave a quiet nod, satisfied, and turned to go.

Before she disappeared down the hall, she paused. “There’s more where that came from. You come find me if you’re still hungry.”

Yoichi blinked. His eyes stung. “I will. Thank you.”

X

The cot creaked beneath him as he shifted, again. The thin blanket scratched against his skin. The pillow - if it could even be called that - felt like it had been stuffed with old newspapers. But it wasn’t the discomfort of the materials that kept Yoichi awake.

It was the room.

They had tried to be kind. He knew that. The supply closet was small, but it was private. A little battery lantern had been left beside him, its dim light casting soft shadows against the walls of the cramped space. A curtain hung in place of a door. He was grateful.

But not comfortable.

The quiet pressed against his ears like a vice. He curled tighter into himself, trying to tell his brain that it was fine - that he was fine - that the silence wasn’t dangerous anymore.

But it was too quiet.

His breath caught. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to sleep.
But in the dark, in the hush, he still felt it - phantom fingers brushing through his hair. Possessive. Entitled.

A chill raced down his spine. His entire body jerked in reflex, breath hitching into a short, sharp gasp. He shot upright, heart pounding like a war drum.

Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he hadn't escaped at all. Some stupid fairytale he'd told himself in the cold darkness to keep sane.

Maybe he was finally going mad.

Yoichi fumbled for the lantern, his hands trembling too hard to find the switch at first. When the warm light finally flared to life, it nearly blinded him. The shadows retreated. The hand vanished.

But the feeling lingered and the walls pressed closer.

He could hear the hum of the lights, the low thrum of pipes overhead, the weight of silence. His chest ached.

His fingers found the edge of the door and tore it open and he stumbled into the hallway, cradling the lantern close, its flickering beam catching peeling posters, cracks in the linoleum, graffiti scrawled in languages he didn’t know.

But it wasn’t the vault.

He was out. He was out.

Yoichi leaned heavily against the wall and took a breath. His lungs wheezed softly with the effort, but the air - blessedly real and cold - filled him anyway.

He needed to get out. Back to the air. Back to the sky.

He didn’t stop to think. He padded quietly down the corridor, careful not to wake anyone. The halls opened to the balcony where the couch still sat, abandoned and waiting, dark under the clouded night sky.

He stepped out, and the wind met him.

Yoichi took in a deep breath, letting the chill sweep away the same, recycled air he’d breathed for almost a decade. 

 He sat down on the same torn couch from earlier and let the night settle around him.

The city, even in its ruin, spoke softly to him. Car horns bleated somewhere far away. Dogs barked. Someone shouted at someone else in the distance, the echo distorted but unmistakably human.

It wasn’t peace. But it was life. It was messy and loud and chaotic and imperfect - and it wasn’t watching him.

Yoichi closed his eyes.

He didn’t realize he was falling asleep until he did. And when sleep came - slow, soft, without pain or dread - it was the most restful sleep he’d had in years.

X

Kudō had long since learned to live without sleep. It wasn’t as though sleep was a given in their situation anyway. There was always too much to do, too many loose ends that needed his attention.

The faintly flickering glow of battery lamps and desk lights illuminated the makeshift command room, the glow splashing softly over maps, notes, hastily scribbled intel. Kudō leaned forward against the worn table, palms braced flat, fingers tapping restlessly. He traced pathways, escape routes, safe houses. Mentally calculated provisions. Planned contingencies for contingencies.

Behind him, Bruce’s steady, rhythmic snores drifted from his desk, head resting atop a cluster of crumpled papers. Kudō glanced at him and shook his head slightly. Bruce had always been able to sleep anywhere, anytime, somehow finding rest even in the worst chaos. Kudō envied him for it - just a little.

Quietly, Kudō pushed himself upright, stretched, and turned to leave the room.

Then he tripped hard over something on the floor.

“Fuck!” Kudō hissed, tumbling gracelessly to the ground. 

The impact rattled his bones, pride bruised more than anything. Bruce’s boot lay innocently in his path, and Kudō cursed it furiously under his breath.

Bruce stirred at the noise, slowly lifting his head, blinking sleepily. “Watch where you’re walking,” he murmured, voice thick with exhaustion.

Kudō glared, pulling himself upright. “We talked about the boot thing. Repeatedly.”

Bruce simply grunted, unbothered. “Not all of us are anal-retentive neat freaks like you, Kudō.”

“I’ll throw them into a fire one of these days” Kudō muttered without venom. 
He dusted himself off, feeling a grudging fondness behind his irritation. Bruce watched him carefully, eyes gradually clearing from sleep. Kudō knew that look, it always preceded a question.

“So,” Bruce began slowly, shifting upright in his seat, papers crumpling softly under his elbow. “You’re really gonna let him stay?”

Kudō sighed, turning toward his friend. “If he wants to. Yeah, he can stay.”

Bruce’s brows knitted together, frowning deeply. “You know we can’t trust him, Kudō. Not with whose blood he shares.”

Kudō folded his arms, expression serious. “I know. I know who his brother is. I know better than anyone.”

Bruce shook his head slowly, thoughtful, expression tight with confusion. “That’s the thing. Of all the people in the world, I never expected you to spare the tyrant’s brother. You're not one to offer mercy. So why him?”

Kudō hesitated, eyes drifting to the window, the city stretched dark and broken beyond it. He pressed his lips together before finally speaking.

“I don't have an answer for you. I can’t even fully explain it to myself.” He exhaled quietly. “I went in there, intending to pull the trigger. But when I saw him in that place - locked away, broken, scared - killing him felt wrong. Felt … unjust.”

Bruce stared silently, digesting Kudō’s words carefully. “Unjust?”

Kudō nodded slowly. “Yeah. He looked like … like one of ours. Another victim. Another casualty. He didn’t look like a monster. Didn’t even feel like one.”

Bruce considered this quietly, fingers drumming softly on the desk before giving a resigned sigh. “I'll follow wherever you lead, you know that, but I'll be keeping an eye on him anyway if it’s all the same to you.”

Kudō smiled faintly, grateful, before turning to the door again. “Wouldn’t expect anything less. Go back to sleep.”

Bruce grumbled softly, already halfway back to unconsciousness. “Watch where you’re walking this time.”

Kudō chuckled dryly and stepped quietly into the hallway, climbing to the upper floors to make his usual rounds, to check the perimeter and ensure their safety. He stepped out onto the balcony, the cold night air greeting him sharply as he surveyed the darkened cityscape.

His eyes caught movement - a slow rise and fall, rhythmic, gentle. He startled slightly, squinting into the dimness.

The brother - Yoichi - lay curled on the old, battered couch, limbs pulled in close, breathing slow and steady. 
His expression was peaceful, not terrified or wary. Just peaceful. Innocent, almost.

Kudō considered waking him, urging him to find warmer shelter inside, but found himself hesitating. It had been so long, Kudō realized, since he'd seen someone look so genuinely at ease. It felt wrong to break that small, fragile peace.

So instead, Kudō quietly returned inside, fetching a spare blanket from one of the supply closets. It wasn’t much, stiff wool, stained at one corner but it would hold off the slight wind.

He returned to the balcony, slow and quiet, and draped it over Yoichi’s still form. The smaller man stirred faintly, but didn’t wake. Kudō lingered for a moment, watching his breathing even out again.

Then he stepped over to the shattered balcony rail and took his usual post as sentry.

The stars blinked faintly behind cloud cover. Distantly, he heard a drunk yell, a dog bark, a car start and stall.

Behind him, Yoichi snored.

It was a harsh sound, inconsistent and slightly nasal, and hilariously loud for someone his size.

Kudō huffed a quiet breath through his nose, amused despite himself.

“Figures,” he muttered, leaning his elbows on what was left of the cold metal railing. “Tiny guy's got thunder lungs.”

And he kept watch just as he always did. But this time, for once, the air didn’t feel quite so heavy.

X

The morning came with the scent of boiled oats and faint mist.

Someone - one of the rebels whose name Yoichi hadn’t caught - handed him a chipped bowl of porridge and a spoon. He thanked them softly, accepted it with his one hand, and sat back down on the couch outside beneath the rising sun. The porridge was lukewarm and bland, but it was food. It filled the hollow in his stomach, warmed his chest.

He’d slept better out in the cold air, on this lumpy couch, than he had in years. Maybe ever. 

But it didn’t change what he’d already decided -

He had to leave.

Not because they’d asked him to. Not because of suspicion or fear or the way Bruce still looked at him sideways. It was something else, he could feel it rising in him like a tide.

He was a danger to these people.

There were children here. Old people. Families too tired to keep running. Those who still believed in something, if only survival. Rebels who fought not for glory or revenge, but to hold onto some piece of a world that had slipped out from under them.

And Yoichi … he knew the kind of shadow that followed him.

Too long in one place and his brother would come. That was the truth of it. If Yoichi stayed, he would lead the storm here. He couldn’t let that happen.

If leaving meant All For One chased him instead of them, then it would be worth it. He could be useful in that way, be of help to these people who'd taken him in.

He took another spoonful of porridge, the weight of that quiet decision settling behind his ribs.

Before he left, however, he’d agreed to help. It felt like the smallest repayment he could offer.

Kudō found him soon after, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders still loose despite the tension Yoichi could see behind his eyes. He didn’t say much, just gave a small nod and gestured for Yoichi to follow.

They made their way through the quiet halls of the ruined school, up a narrow stairwell and past a reinforced doorway. Kudō stopped in front of a metal door hanging crooked on its hinges.

“This is Bruce’s station,” he said, pushing the door open with his foot.

Inside, the space was dim and cluttered, wires snaking across the floor and bundled at the walls. A cobbled-together lab setup took over one corner, surrounded by cracked monitors and scavenged tech. It smelled like metal and old solder.

Bruce sat at the table already. He glanced up at their entrance. 

“Sit.”

Yoichi obeyed on instinct more than anything, the chair cold beneath him. 

“We need a sample,” Bruce said plainly, already prepping a needle and tube. “As the Tyrant’s brother, it’s the closest we’ll ever get to a biological profile on him.”

Yoichi nodded silently. He didn’t flinch as the needle entered his arm.

Bruce worked quickly, efficiently. “Do you have a meta-ability?”

The question hung in the air for a moment.

Yoichi’s lips parted slightly, then closed again. He looked down at his hand as his voice came out slow and quiet.

“Years ago … he gave me something. Said it was a gift.”

Bruce paused briefly, then resumed the draw. “And? What does it do?”

“I don’t know.” Yoichi’s gaze didn’t lift. “I’ve never used it, never felt it stir. I don’t even know if it exists. I just remember the pain of him giving it to me.”

He remembered choking on his own breath, the way his brother’s fingers clamped on his head,  the pain of it, the pleading, the unrelenting pressure of something being forced onto - into - him. The initial violation of it. He remembered waking up hours - or days - later, sick and shaking, wracked with fever and illness because his body had been to weak to handle what had been done to it.

Bruce didn’t speak for a moment, then nodded once.

“Could be dormant,” he muttered. “Could be a seed. Could be a trap.”

Yoichi finally looked up. “A trap?”

Bruce met his gaze. “You don’t know what he gave you. For all we know, it’s a bomb he can detonate. Or a tracker. Or something that’ll hollow you out the second he’s close enough.”

Yoichi didn’t flinch. He just nodded. 

Bruce removed the needle, pressing a bit of cloth to the puncture. “We’ll test the DNA. If it’s spliced, I’ll find the graft. We’ll map the structure, try to isolate it.”

“I want to know,” Yoichi said, voice steadier than he expected. “Whatever it is. I want to know.”

Bruce gave a single nod. “Good.”

Yoichi rolled his sleeve back down, the silence between them no longer hostile, but quiet. Purposeful. Kudō, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, finally pushed off with a sigh.

“Don’t take it personal,” he said to Yoichi. “Bruce just doesn’t like puzzles with teeth.”

“I don’t like unknowns,” Bruce corrected. “Especially not ones that come from the tyrant.”

Yoichi offered a faint smile. “Then let’s find out what he left behind.”

X

By the end of it, Yoichi’s nerves were frayed thin from hours of questions, pricks, and drawn-out examinations.

Bruce had insisted on methodical precision: measurements, vitals, blood analysis, ocular response, reflexes - even the texture of Yoichi’s fingernails. Each time Bruce paused, it was only to scribble something illegible into a stained notebook or mutter under his breath about cell integrity and meta-compatibility.

The room felt smaller by the hour, warmer and more electric, until the only thing keeping Yoichi tethered was Kudō’s occasional sarcastic remarks whenever he checked in, and the distant hum of the city.

He sat now with both legs curled beneath him on the squeaky chair, blinking tiredly as Bruce hunched over his monitor, eyes flickering between lines of shifting data. Kudō was leaning against a shelf, arms folded, chewing on a protein bar he'd stolen from somewhere, watching the screens like he understood even a third of what was being said.

Yoichi didn’t. But he was listening.

“... Huh.”

Kudō looked up. “That’s your science noise. What’d you find?”

Yoichi didn’t lift his head, but his shoulders tensed slightly.

Bruce turned slowly, his expression unreadable “Well,” he said, sounding begrudgingly impressed, “you’re weirder than I thought.”

Yoichi blinked. “That’s… not very specific.”

Bruce gestured to the screen, then pointed toward Yoichi with his pen. “You’ve got two meta-abilities.”

Yoichi’s mouth parted slightly. “What?”

Bruce turned toward him fully now, serious. “You heard me. Two separate meta-ability markers.”

“But… I’ve never had one. My brother checked, said there was nothing there.” Yoichi stared, uncertain whether to be confused or horrified.

“It’s possible it laid dormant - you wouldn’t find it unless you were scouring every piece of your genome,” Bruce corrected. “It’s very weak, maybe even completely inactive until it was forcefully interacted with.”

Yoichi leaned forward, wary. “With the ability my brother gave to me? Can you tell what ... what it is?”

Bruce tapped the screen. “The one that’s always been there seems to be some kind of passive ability that seems to be able to be passed on.”

Yoichi’s breath caught. “Pass on …?”

Bruce nodded. “Yeah, a type of one-way transmission. No storage, no copying, just passing something on. It’s pretty redundant though, given there’s nothing to pass on.”

Yoichi was silent, the weight of the words settling in his chest like a stone.
He’d lived his entire life believing he had nothing. That his brother had given him the only meta-ability he’d known. And even that he knew nothing about. All For One had told him nothing about his ‘gift’, no matter how much Yoichi had pestered.

“But the second one, the one your brother forced on you? That’s harder to parse.” Bruce pointed again, this time with more interest. 

Yoichi tensed slightly.

“It doesn’t match your original genome, of course, given it’s a stolen power” Bruce continued. “It’s spliced in. Artificial, like it was shoved in at the root. Probably why you got so sick after - your body rejected it at first, then integrated it.”

Yoichi touched his forehead instinctively, remembering the days he couldn’t move, the fever dreams, the way his brother had sat beside him, speaking softly as if he'd done him a kindness.

Bruce continued. “From what I can tell … it’s an energy storage type. Like a reservoir. But without something to regulate or trigger it, it’s inert. Dead weight.”

“So,” Kudō drawled, shifting his stance, “that’s it? The Tyrant went through the trouble of handing an ability over, only for it to be completely useless?”

Bruce shrugged but Yoichi’s lips pursed. It made sense to him - a show of power so petty it wasn’t power at all. Of course his brother wouldn’t impart something worthwhile, not when he could keep it for himself - not when it would be wasted on Yoichi.

Two abilities. One inherited. One forced. Both merged.

Whatever he had done, whatever seed All For One had buried inside him, Yoichi would understand it now. And perhaps, someday, he would own it.

Not as a curse. But as something his.

X

He left that night.

The rain came steady, enough to soak through his threadbare jacket and the fraying shoulder of the bag he carried.

Yoichi walked with his head low, the blanket from the couch rolled tight and stuffed beside a few bottles of water, a can of food, and the remnants of his lunch - all tucked into one of the scavenged sacks he’d found near the mess. It wasn’t much. It wouldn’t last him long. But it would carry him far enough to not get these people killed.

That was all he needed.

The road stretched before him.

Every building he passed loomed with cracked facades, empty windows, old posters peeled to skin. The rain seeped into his clothes quickly, flattening his hair against his skull, chilling his skin through layers that had already seen better days.

He coughed before he even made it to the main road. Sharp, rattling. His lungs stung, every inhale scraping like sandpaper. He gritted his teeth and kept walking.

Just a little farther. Just to the next building. Just out of view.

He didn’t know if it would be enough. If his brother was already watching. If his absence would even matter. But some quiet part of him hoped - hoped that if he left, if he disappeared, then maybe the people back at the school could stay unnoticed. Maybe Kudō and Bruce and the old woman who brought him soup would never see the consequences meant for him.

That was what he had to believe in. That he was doing something right, finally.

He crossed a patch of collapsed asphalt, stepping carefully around exposed rebar and shattered glass. The cold crept deeper into him. His legs ached. His shoes - another kindness, barely his size - were soaked through.

He coughed again, harder this time, and had to stop for a moment, bracing one hand against a rusted mailbox. He doubled over slightly, blinking against the tears that welled from the strain.

The taste of blood was faint in his throat.

The rain kept falling.

He straightened again, clutching the strap of the bag close to his shoulder, and kept walking. The outline of a half-sunken building rose ahead, its entrance cracked open like a waiting mouth.

He didn’t know how far he’d get. But at least if he collapsed, it would be in motion and not in a cage.

"You're leaving earlier than I thought."

Yoichi froze. He didn't turn immediately, simply waited, listening to the soft crunch of footsteps against wet asphalt.

"I had a bet with Bruce," Kudō's voice continued, casual, steady despite the rain soaking him through. "I thought you'd at least wait till morning. He guessed you'd run tonight. Suppose I owe him a bottle now."

Slowly, Yoichi turned around.

Kudō stood there, rain streaming down his face, darkening his hair, but there was no anger or accusation in his eyes. Just quiet curiosity.

Yoichi took a shaky breath. "I can't stay."

Kudō stepped forward. "No one’s stopping you. You’re free now. But this city… it’s not kind, Yoichi."

Yoichi offered him a hollow smile, tasting bitter nostalgia. "I grew up in these streets. I know exactly how harsh they are." He lowered his gaze, voice quiet. "Though ... I suppose I've never had to defend myself. He always stepped in. Always protected me, back when he ... I was always weak, always useless. But I have to go, what else can I do?"

He swallowed the last word, hating how familiar it felt on his tongue.

Kudō moved a little closer. "Stay. Fight with us."

Yoichi shook his head, rain dripping from his hair. "What could I possibly offer? I've spent the last decade underground, living at the whim of my brother." His voice broke slightly, raw and quiet. “I’m nothing but -”

“Someone who survived,” Kudō cut in. “Ten years caged and you didn’t break. I’ve watched soldiers crack under much less.” He stepped closer, rain pattering off his shoulders. “That’s resilience you can’t buy or train. That’s yours.”

Yoichi looked up, rain streaking down his cheeks, mingling quietly with the tears he hadn't realized had begun to fall. "I haven't survived anything. There are people out there who have suffered so much more because of my brother. A few years locked away is nothing. There's people out there -“

"Who need you to help us stop him. You’ve seen the monster up close. You know his habits, his tells, how he thinks, acts - hell, even breaths. That’s intel I can’t buy with gold or blood. We need you. Because I won't lie to you Yoichi, we're dying out here.”

Yoichi closed his eyes briefly. He breathed in the scent of damp asphalt and rusted metal, the comforting, familiar smell of a world that felt long lost to him.

"I grew up reading comic books," he finally said, voice faint but clear. "You know, the kind with heroes saving people. Heroes who were kind. Who believed in helping others."

He opened his eyes slowly, fixing them upon Kudō’s calm, steady gaze. "I always thought the world could use a little more kindness. Just ... a little more. It would be a much better place, I thought ... Then I spent all those years in the dark, in that vault, and I - I almost gave up on that idea."

Kudō watched him silently, unwavering in the rain.

Yoichi took a breath, felt something deep inside himself begin to steady, begin to find a voice again. "But then you came. You opened that door and offered your hand."

Kudō blinked slowly, his expression faltering slightly, eyes widening with quiet, startled sincerity.
And then, silently, without another word, he stepped forward and extended his hand again, palm upturned, offering a quiet choice, an invitation.

Yoichi stood frozen for a brief moment, eyes fixed on it.

Then, quietly, almost timidly, he reached out and took it. 
He smiled softly, something brighter and warmer than he'd felt in years.

"Thank you," Yoichi whispered quietly, rain dripping softly from his hair. 
"My hero."

Chapter Text

Six months, and still no closer.

All For One stepped quietly into the plush conference room, his polished shoes silent against marble floors, his shadow falling long over the assembled group. They had been speaking in hushed tones before his arrival - politicians, businessmen, media executives, influencers of a dozen stripes, each and every one dressed impeccably, draped in designer silks, smiling at one another from behind veneers of flawless ivory teeth.

The voices hushed immediately, eyes turning eagerly toward him- some with cautious deference, others simpering with exaggerated warmth, others quietly fearful. He took his seat at the head of the long table, folding his hands neatly before him and smiling gently, silently granting permission for them to continue.

He listened patiently as they discussed the little things; commodity shortages, media spin, the delicate choreography of keeping the populace quiet yet just unsettled enough to remain dependent. His polite attention appeared unbroken, even as his thoughts drifted to more pressing matters.

His brother, still stolen from him, still hidden away.

Finally, as their petty topics dwindled, All For One gently cleared his throat. The room fell instantly silent, breath collectively held, waiting.

"My friends," he began softly, eyes calmly sweeping the room, voice low and magnanimous. "It warms my heart to see you all working so diligently to keep our great city prosperous."

There was a general murmur of agreement, a few tentative smiles. He allowed his gaze to linger briefly on each face, pressing gently. "And yet, despite my continued generosity. My protection, my assistance, I find myself still waiting on answers to matters that mean so very much to me."

The smiles faltered slightly, eyes darting anxiously around the table. He leaned forward, expression kindly sympathetic. "These rebels - these terrorists - have stolen something most precious to me. My dear brother, my poor, frail Yoichi. A harmless man, held hostage by their cruelty. I fear daily the awful indignities they must be subjecting him to."

He let the gentle sorrow settle, allowing it to press upon their consciences. "I have given much to you all, haven't I? A humble man like myself, one who desires only the betterment of this city and country - should surely be permitted a little aid in return?"

His gaze settled finally on a prominent government minister - a man who'd won power on All For One's discreet support. "After all, Minister Kobayashi, my support has been beneficial to you, has it not? I would hate to have to reconsider such friendships."

The minister paled, swallowing visibly. "N-no, certainly not. We - we are doing everything we can. Everything."

Another figure quickly stood; a slender woman with silk robes and a smile far too bright. "Sir, we do have something, actually."

His gaze turned slowly toward her, polite and expectant. She motioned quickly to her assistants. Moments later, the doors opened and a battered figure was hauled into the room by uniformed security.

Disappointing. Merely another rat from the gutters, bruised and bloodied. But perhaps this one might yield more fruit than the previous unfortunate souls they'd delivered him.

All For One rose slowly, calmly approaching the trembling figure. The captive rebel was young, eyes wide and defiant, mouth set into a thin line of anger.

"My friends," All For One began gently, turning to address the room once more, "have I not been generous? Have I not given you everything you've asked for? Food, safety, power, influence? Am I not kind?"

Nods around the room. Nervous, emphatic agreements.

He sighed sadly, turning back to the prisoner, gently cupping the man's trembling chin. "Yet, these rats continue to spread lies. They call me evil. They paint me as a monster, when all I've ever wished was to help this city. How deeply it wounds me."

He released the captive's chin and, with graceful ease, grabbed his throat instead, lifting him effortlessly from the ground. His voice softened further, gentle as if consoling a friend.

"Tell me, child. Why do your people continue to defy me? Why do you take from me that which I hold dear?"

The rebel gasped, clawing uselessly at All For One’s grip. No answer came.

A small, sad sigh escaped his lips.

With barely a thought, he activated an ability. The captive's lower half twisted violently, bones cracking, skin rupturing grotesquely, the man’s body suddenly mangled and shattered below the waist. He screamed - a desperate, raw sound echoing through the opulent room.

Nothing fatal. Merely a message.

Calmly, All For One dragged the broken rebel by the throat towards the grand doors, tossing him carelessly to the ground outside for his guards to collect and interrogate further.

Turning back to the room, he smiled softly. "You see, friends? All I desire is cooperation. So simple. So very reasonable."

Another sycophant rose timidly, hands clasped, expression wary. "Sir, intelligence suggests the rebels have left the city entirely."

All For One stilled, momentarily silent, the quiet stretching thickly through the air.

This, he didn't like.

"Then find where they have gone," he replied softly, with infinite patience. "My dear Yoichi must be frightened, cold, hurting. It pains me deeply. I know none of you would wish to fail me again."

Murmured assurances, frantic nods and All For One smiled  indulgently.

"Good," he said softly. "Then I shall continue to support your noble efforts in turn."

He returned to his seat, calm and composed, folding his hands again. Business as usual resumed, the rich whispering softly among themselves, smiles forced, laughter brittle, minds frantically calculating how to appease their generous benefactor.

Outside, somewhere in the grey-soaked streets, the masses starved and suffered. Inside this room, the powerful and wealthy thrived, sated on the scraps he fed them, smiling and eager, begging for another crumb from his table.

All For One closed his eyes briefly, quietly contemplating the small comforts he would indulge in once his dear brother was finally returned home.

He was, after all, a patient and kind man.

X

Dust sifted from the ceiling like grey snow as another shell detonated somewhere above the tunnel network. The boom rolled down the passage, rattling loose copper pipes and tugging at the makeshift canvas draped across the corridor lights.

Yoichi flinched only for a heartbeat, long enough to shield the unconscious woman on the cot with his single arm, then forced himself back to work.

The patient’s shoulder wound still seeped. He pressed fresh gauze against it, fingers clumsy but steady in practised rhythm. Six months of patch jobs had taught him how to tie knots one‑handed; still, he wished Bruce’s scavenged medkit held more than bruised antiseptic and thread thin as fishing line.

Outside the room, boots slapped fast against concrete.

“… Whose brilliant idea was it to hide in a war zone that already has a war going on?” Kudō’s voice echoed down the hall, pitched half in annoyance, half in disbelief. He stepped through the shredded curtain moments later, rain damp jacket slung over one shoulder, scowl firmly in place.

Bruce pointed to Yoichi.

Yoichi offered a thin smile without looking up from his own. “Technically I suggested an abandoned war zone. Bruce selected the location”

“I only found the tunnels,” Bruce called from behind Kudō, lugging a crate of scavenged batteries. “Not my fault the army on the surface decided to have target practice this week.”

Another rumble shook dirt from the ceiling. Kudō blew an exasperated breath, swiping dust from his hair. “Target practice? They’re dropping half the hillside on us.”

Yoichi knelt beside the cot, teeth clenched against the ache in his knees, and cinched the final knot. “There,” he murmured to the patient, brushing damp bangs from her brow. “You’re going to be alright.”

A cough rose in his chest from dust and exertion and he tried to stifle it. Kudō heard anyway. His frown deepened. “You shouldn’t be in here breathing powdered tunnel. Come on - door patrol can finish up.”

“I’m fine,” Yoichi insisted, though his lungs burned. “She needed stitching.”

“We’ll find her a real medic when the shelling slows.” Kudō’s tone softened, but the command remained. “Rest. That’s an order.”

Yoichi opened his mouth to protest. Bruce beat him to it, clattering the battery crate down with a shrug. “For once I agree with the loud one. If the ceiling actually comes down, one of us should be able to dig out the others. Hard with just one arm. That being said, I'm sure our fearless leader will be the first to offer you his help.”

Kudō shot Bruce a glare that landed somewhere between helpful and shut up. Yoichi’s cheeks warmed anyway. 

“You’re both impossible,” he muttered, but he wiped dust from his sleeve and rose. Kudō’s hand hovered near his elbow, not quite touching, never assuming - but close enough to guide. Yoichi felt the heat of it through threadbare fabric and, absurdly, found it steadied his breathing more than anything.

They stepped into the corridor. Electric lamps flickered overhead, their glow catching motes of drifting grit. The tunnels smelled of iron and wet stone, but at least out here the air moved.

They  stepped out into the tunnel hall. The walls flickered with the dying light of strung-up lamps, some sparking now with the tremors overhead. Pipes rattled. People yelled and talked down the corridors. 

As soon as they were clear, Kudō turned, expression shifting into something more serious.

“I got intel,” he said quietly. “About your arm.”

Yoichi froze, his heart suddenly thudding heavily in his chest. Without meaning to, he reached over and touched the empty space at his left elbow - the smooth fabric of his sleeve hiding the raw, aching reality beneath. Memory flared hotly; his brother's voice soft and calm, waking to the horror of empty limbs after a desperate attempt to end it all. 
He inhaled shakily, fighting the tremor in his voice.

“What about it?”

Kudō’s eyes softened briefly, concern flickering. “It’s not in All For One’s possession like we thought. At least, not anymore.”

Yoichi stared, confused, hope and dread twisting painfully inside him. “Then where …?”

“The Doctor has it,” Kudō clarified. “Preserved, at his main lab.”

Yoichi felt nausea rise. He looked down, trying to gather himself. “How sure are you?”

Kudō moved slightly closer, pulling out a slim tablet and handing it over. Yoichi accepted it cautiously, fingers trembling as he scrolled through the images. Cold dread pooled in his gut as he paused on a familiar limb - his limb - sealed in a tank, the familiar scars and scrapes mapped on it like constellations he’d known all his life.

Yoichi’s breath caught sharply, knuckles whitening around the tablet. He swallowed back bitterness. His voice came out raw, cracked. “You’re certain?”

“Verified multiple times,” Kudō assured him softly. “When we raid the lab, we can finally get it back. Maybe Bruce can even find a way to reattach it.”

Yoichi stared blankly at the screen, the idea almost too surreal to accept. Having his final limb back … his final piece restored - it was an ache that felt too painful, too hopeful to believe.

“No,” Yoichi murmured finally, shaking his head as he handed back the tablet. “I won’t have you and the resistance risking yourselves for me.”

Kudō’s expression tightened, determined. “You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t bother you. I see you every day. It hurts you, and  not just emotionally. I see how much you miss it.”

“It’s just a little tender,” Yoichi deflected weakly, averting his gaze.

“Yoichi.” Kudō’s voice softened further. “You deserve to have it back.”

Yoichi faltered at Kudō’s expression - earnest, warm, edged with something unspoken. He swallowed thickly, finally relenting.

“All right,” he whispered quietly, then raised his chin firmly. “But if you’re planning to dismantle Giraki’s lab, I’m coming.”

Kudō immediately frowned, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. You’ve been through enough -”

Yoichi met his eyes, defiance blazing quietly. “My whole life, Kudō, I’ve been at someone else’s mercy. Following orders, losing pieces of myself. First to my brother, then to the Vault. I refuse to sit safe while others put themselves in danger for me. I’m coming.”

They stood in silence, eyes locked - Yoichi’s stubbornness meeting Kudō’s resolve. After a long pause, Kudō exhaled sharply, a reluctant half-smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

Yoichi smiled faintly, the softest hint of teasing in his voice. “You’ve told me before.”

Another moment stretched between them, the silence filled with quiet things neither had dared say aloud. Kudō opened his mouth slightly, hesitating, then closed it again, looking away briefly. 

“You’re going to drive me insane, Yoichi,” Kudō finally muttered, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Someone has to,” Yoichi said gently, eyes warm.

Kudō’s cheeks flushed slightly, though he quickly hid it beneath a scowl. “Fine. You’re coming. But at the first sign of trouble -”

“I will call for my hero,” Yoichi ducked his head, smiling softly as warmth bloomed quietly within his chest. “Deal.”

X

Bruce finished pinning the last photo to the corkboard: a stately limestone mansion perched on a crumbling hillside, floodlit and flanked by black sedans. Beneath the printout he taped a cutaway sketch: hidden elevator, biometric locks, subbasement chambers. The heading read GIRAKI PRIMARY FACILITY in scarlet ink.

“Week from tonight,” Kudō began, sweeping the room with a crisp gaze, “Doctor ‘sick freak’ Giraki is hosting a private soirée. Rich sycophants, foreign ‘investors,’ a few government lapdogs - gossip columns say it’s a fundraiser for humanitarian tech. We know better.”

A murmur of bitter amusement rolled through the room.

Bruce tapped the blueprint with a pen. “The party’s our only unobstructed window. Security will be thinner topside - guards pulled outward to impress the guests and screen the entrance. Giraki’s private lab sits three floors below the east wing, accessible by a service lift keyed to his DNA and his alone. We get his blood, retina, or a fresh finger and we’re in.”

A lean man with silver‑grey eyes raised a hand. “And the front door?”

“That’s where I come in.” Tobi stepped forward, scarf pulled aside, revealing a nervous half smile and eyes that glimmered with refracted light. “Mirage: I overlay false images over real bodies within five meters of me. Five targets max. Lasts one hour before it needs a reset.”

He flicked his fingers and five hazy silhouettes shimmered into view: lacquered masks, tuxedos, evening gowns. An audible gasp rippled as the illusions sharpened - Yoichi could see every bead of faux diamond stitched into the projected gown.

Bruce, of course, couldn’t stop himself from examining each and every facet of the ability whilst it was on display as he spoke. “Invitations skimmed  last week give us five high profile placeholders. Kudō, Yoichi, Mara, Eldin, and Tobi will take on the guest identities. I’ll head the service crew - we’re in the middle of procuring wait staff uniforms, grafted RFID passes, hidden comms.”

Yoichi listened, pulse thrumming. The room’s lanternlight made hollow shadow of the stump of his arm. 

Bruce finished logistical notes. “Caveats: Mirage fails if Tobi loses consciousness or crosses twelve meters from any projected target. Lift corridor likely patrolled by auto‑turrets keyed to Giraki’s biometrics. We spoof them with his face or blow them - choice depends on speed.”

Mara, demolitions lead, patted her satchel. “Speed,” she decided.

Yoichi raised a question. “What about civilian fallout? Giraki’s guests may be opportunists, but they’re non-combatants.”

Kudō’s jaw flexed. “Considering these scumbags cosy up to the Doctor and the Tyrant, I’ve got no problem levelling the entire place, but,” he took one look at Yoichi’s disapproval and sighed. “Let’s try to keep civilian casualties to minimum. Can’t let out enemies turn us into them.”

That answer settled something in Yoichi’s chest. Power should protect, not destroy.

Bruce clicked off the lantern projector, plunging the room into half‑shadow. “Any questions?”

Silence. Determination thickened the air.

Kudō’s voice cut through, steady. “Then we gear in an hour for rehearsal. Tobi, try and train your mirage to matched height differentials.” He glanced to Yoichi - something warm, something undeniably proud. “And no one moves without the brother here. He’s mission asset and operative both.”

Yoichi inclined his head, cheeks warming. “I’ll be ready.”

X

The bus terminal the assigned rebels sheltered in temporarily back in the city smelled of rusted fuel lines and cold metal - echoes of journeys nobody made anymore.

Fluorescent fixtures flickered sporadically overhead, bathing rows of gutted ticket kiosks in uneasy light. Somewhere farther down the concourse, Mara’s demo squad laughed too loudly over a crate of shaped charges; farther still, Bruce argued with a malfunctioning comm pack.

Yoichi ignored the distant noise, wrestling instead with the tactical vest Kudō had shoved into his arms an hour earlier. Onehanded lacing he’d mastered. Bandaging, writing - he could manage those. But the vest’s stubborn side-tie insisted on slipping out of his grip, hanging half secure and wholly lopsided.

He exhaled, tried again, and nearly flinched when a quiet voice spoke from the doorway.

“Need a hand?”

Kudō leaned against the jamb. In the lantern glow he looked every bit the noble guerilla captain - a sight Yoichi still hadn’t tired of studying.

“I’m fine.” Yoichi tugged experimentally, making zero progress. “Just … adjusting tension.”

Kudō pushed off the frame, strolling closer. “If you don’t tighten that right, it won’t spread the impact. Whole thing’ll ride up and crack a rib.”

Yoichi opened his mouth to argue, but Kudō was already bending, gloved fingers skimming along the vest’s side panel. He found the dangling strap, threaded it with deft efficiency, then cinched it snug. The sudden pressure against Yoichi’s ribs stole a quick breath from his lungs.

“Comfortable?” Kudō murmured, voice lower now that they were only inches apart.

“Secure,” Yoichi managed, cheeks warming. He could feel the faint tremor in Kudō’s knuckles where they brushed fabric over his sternum. His touch always felt foreign - non-invasive, always silently asking for permission. 

Six months on and Yoichi still wasn't used to that.

But he wanted to be.

Kudō’s eyes tracked the line of the strap one more time before he spoke. “Listen … you don’t have to go down there. Let me grab the arm, blow the lab, we’re out.”

“No.” Yoichi shook his head, meeting Kudō’s gaze without flinching. “I’m tired of watching other people bleed for my sake.”

Kudō’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You’ll still be watching, just not anywhere in the firing line.”

“That’s my choice. I may be useless but I can pull my own weight - metaphorically that is”

Silence hummed between them, tension thick enough to taste. Kudō’s hand lingered at Yoichi’s side, thumb unconsciously stroking the edge of the vest as if memorizing the seam.

“You’re not useless,” Kudō said quietly. “Brave. Decent. One of the best people I’ve met in this hellscape.”

Yoichi’s heartbeat skittered. “Does that make me smarter than Bruce?” He half teased

A snort broke through Kudō’s composure. “Say that out loud and his ego’ll rupture like a bad seal.” He stepped back, grin fading into something softer, unreadable. “But … yes. Smarter in the ways that matter.”

Yoichi’s breath caught, then steadied. “Thank you.”

Kudō rolled his shoulders, trying, and failing, to look nonchalant. “Just facts.”

Beyond the doorway Bruce called, “Mirage team to staging in five!”

Kudō’s hand brushed Yoichi’s one-armed shoulder in passing - light, grounding, almost intimate. “Showtime, hero. Let’s get your arm back.”

Yoichi allowed himself one tiny smile, tightening fingers over the vest strap Kudō had secured. Outside, war waited. Inside, warmth flickered - brief, bright, enough to carry him into the masquerade of danger with a steadier heart.

X

The limousine glided up the long, lamp-lit drive like a shark beneath still water. Rain earlier in the evening had left the cobblestones slick; reflected light shimmered on every surface. Kudō sat behind the tinted window in an immaculate charcoal suit - an outfit he would normally scorn - while Yoichi, to his right, struggled to not stare to much at the marvellous ability.

Tobi’s Mirage danced over them both: the illusion of another man’s face hovering a hairsbreadth from Yoichi’s own, perfectly aligned to each shift and breath. Where Yoichi’s left arm stopped at the elbow, the mirage projected a slender gloved limb that hung in a black silk sling - the cover story being an unfortunate skiing accident. 

Kudō’s borrowed visage bore an easy, aloof grin. Yoichi secretly thought it looked nothing like him, yet Kudō wore it with unsettling ease. Better than Yoichi did with his own, with his shuffling and nervousness.

All that patience and stillness he’d learned in the Vault had been left at it’s threshold, it seemed.

The estate unfolded ahead - columns, marble balustrades, security drones humming on hidden rails. Twice as many guards as Bruce’s dossier had promised. Yoichi’s heart beat harder, but Mirage held; to the cameras they were simply late arriving benefactors.

Kudō muttered, low enough for only Yoichi to hear. “This car costs more than six months of tunnel food drops.”

Yoichi’s lips twitched downwards in an agreeing frown. “Could feed a whole district for a week.”

Tobi, opposite them, looking rather pretty as a wealthy heiress. “Try not to think about the price tag,” he whispered. “Think how nice it’ll look in flames when we leave.”

The car halted beneath the porte-cochère. A liveried attendant opened the door; Kudō stepped out first, adjusting a silver cufflink that wasn’t truly there. 

Yoichi followed, careful to mimic the haughty charisma of the man he was masquerading as. Hours spen observing footage had given him some help in that regard, as had the ‘life dossiers’ the rebels had compiled.

Cool night air carried a whiff of garden jasmine - and the ozone tang of high-voltage barrier grids.

More surveillance than planned, he noted. Drones nested under the roof eaves, small lenses pivoting to track every guest. 

Kudo touched his sub-ear mic. “Bruce? Update?”

Static, then Bruce’s soothing rasp from the caterers’ van two blocks away. “Front entrance scanners as expected. Extra drones are face-recognition only. Party line still: ‘A Celebration of Humanitarian Progress.’ Nothing on the underground message boards about a second agenda.”

Kudō ascended the wide steps, mirage coat tails swishing. “Copy. Everyone eyes up - first sign of problems, we pivot.”

Yoichi’s soles whispered over marble. Inside, the foyer dazzled - walls of backlit onyx, gilded moulding, tall floral sculptures dripping crystal dew. Servers in white carried silver trays; the low hum of polite society filled every corner. Beneath it Yoichi sensed something brittle - like a mirror stretched too far across a frame.

A manager in tails approached, scanning an invitation held by Tobi’s illusion. “Drs. Marrow and Vokholt - an honour. The benefactor’s hall is straight ahead.”

Yoichi bowed faintly, playing his part. Kudō offered a lazy aristocrat’s nod neither of them would ever truly master. They merged with the flow of gowns and tuxedos - and an undertow of sycophantic laughter that felt uncomfortably familiar to Yoichi. Rich men and women toasted to “medical miracles,” oblivious, or wilfully blind, to the cries outside these gates.

Kudō’s hand brushed his briefly - a silent check-in. Yoichi breathed out, steady. “I’m fine.”

Yet his gaze roved: exit doors, guard placement, Giraki himself nowhere visible, just wax-smiled diplomats and magnates eager to be seen funding “hope.” Hope bought at the price of bodies pickled in vats below.

Yoichi reached for the calm centre he had forged in darker days. 

For now he smiled the borrowed smile on a borrowed face and moved deeper into the glittering trap, Kudō at his side, heart beating time to the mission countdown already ticking in his ear.

The buffet stretched the length of an entire wall - an obscene parade of colour and scent under shimmering heat lamps. Roasted pheasant glazed in honey chilli lacquer. Miniature soufflés trembling in porcelain spoons. A fountain of imported chocolate bubbling beside pyramids of berries that would cost a tunnel family a month’s ration book.

Yoichi’s stomach clenched first with hunger, then with quiet shame. How many children in the drainage wards went to sleep hungry tonight? How many could this single table have fed the refugees back at the rebel base?

But he couldn’t deny the smell. Couldn’t deny the small, traitorous thrill when he tasted the tiniest sliver of seared venison slid deftly off a plate. It melted on his tongue - smoke, salt, life. 

He slipped pastries and fruit tarts into a linen napkin. Fold, tuck, hide beneath the jacket lining; refugee kids at base would devour crumbs most guests here would never notice missing.

Beside him, Kudō scanned the ballroom through half-lidded eyes. His champagne flute remained untouched, merely a prop for his restless fingers.

“Count the chandeliers,” Kudō muttered under his breath. “Each one’s a year of grain shipments.”

Yoichi hummed softly, non committal. He didn’t trust his voice not to crack with anger, or longing for simpler kindnesses.

Across the marble floor, orchestral strings swelled, almost drowning the undercurrent of polite bragging. Bankers praised Giraki’s “miracle work.” Socialites giggled about “rejuvenation regimens.” None spoke of bombed neighborhoods or the ration riots.

“Whole city’s on fire,” Kudō murmured, lips hardly moving. “And they’re toasting marshmallows.”

Yoichi offered a faint, ironic smile. “Even Nero needed an audience.”

Kudō’s eyes flicked to him, surprised amusement, then resumed their circuit.

A subtle hush rippled through nearby guests. Heads turned toward the grand staircase. Yoichi followed their gaze.

Doctor Giraki descended, flanked by two severe bodyguards. He wore a white dinner jacket stitched with platinum thread - a physician’s coat masquerading as formalwear. Thin spectacles glimmered; his smile was surgical, precise.

Yoichi felt Kudō stiffen gently beside him. The comm in Yoichi’s ear crackled: Bruce, from the service corridor. “Target on floor. Everyone hold positions.”

Giraki moved through admiring donors like a benign saint, touching shoulders, dispensing soft laughs. He stopped when his pale eyes settled upon Yoichi and Kudō.

“My friends,” he greeted, tone syrupy. “Doctor Marrow, if I recall the RSVP?” He extended a hand. Kudō, masking distaste, took it with a respectful dip of the head.

“Doctor,” Kudō answered, voice coated in aristocratic drawl.

Giraki turned to Yoichi, gaze skimming the sling. “And you must be Doctor Vokholt. I heard of your unfortunate slope mishap.”

The illusion required Yoichi to incline slightly, hiding the missing limb’s unreality. “A foolish tumble, Doctor. Your nano-regeneration lecture inspired me to schedule a consultation.” His voice held soft admiration with just a trace of vulnerability - a skill he wasn’t well versed in but knew well enough to fool Giraki. After all it had fooled his twin for a short time.

Giraki’s eyes sharpened - calculating donation potential no doubt. “I’d be delighted to assist. Accidents needn’t be permanent, not in this era of miracles.”

Yoichi swallowed bitterness. Miracles built on stolen lives of the more unfortunate.

“Ah, I'm afraid I must mingle. The trials of having so many friends, I'm afraid. Please, enjoy the evening,” Giraki said. 
He drifted onward toward a dais encircled by velvet rope.

Kudō exhaled quietly. Kudō squeezed Yoichi’s shoulder - real reassurance under false cloth. “Stay close. If things go sideways, we move early.”

Yoichi nodded, adjusting the hidden pouch of food. Around them the chandeliers glittered, music soared, laughter sparked like flint - and beneath every polish of silver lurked the stench of formal rot.

They had planned to move toward the end of the party, when wine dulled the edges of caution and fatigue loosened watchful eyes. For now, Yoichi remained carefully tucked away in a quieter corner near a pillar, unnoticed by the glittering crowd swirling beneath crystal chandeliers.

He watched the dancers swirl gracefully across polished floors, a spectacle he’d only ever read about in books or glimpsed through dim, half-forgotten broadcasts. Elegantly dressed couples floated as if on clouds, their faces lit by chandelier glow, laughter soft and musical.

Kudō leaned gently against the pillar next to him, gaze carefully scanning the crowd with practiced vigilance, even as his voice softened into curiosity. “You seem thoughtful.”

Yoichi smiled faintly, eyes still on the dancers. “It’s strange. I’ve never actually been to something like this before.”

“Never?”

Yoichi shook his head slowly, the music drifting softly around them, an unspoken ache in his voice. “No. I was a street kid. By the time my brother rose to power - by the time he could have actually afforded a life like this - I was already …”

“In the vault,” Kudō finished quietly.

“Yes.” Yoichi’s gaze followed the dancers, distant. “Nine years down there gave no opportunity for soirees.”

Kudō’s voice dropped, gentle but firm. “Did he never bring you out? Not once, in all that time?”

Yoichi paused, trying to choose the right words to explain it. “He made promises. Said I could earn things - walk in gardens, watch sunrises. Once, he said he’d take me to see the opera.” He turned to Kudō, voice almost a whisper. “But those were payments for things he wanted. Things I refused to give.”

“So, this is your first taste of the high life?” Kudō watched him closely, carefully. 

Yoichi nodded faintly, still thoughtful. “Strange, isn’t it? The dream of so many - glamour, beauty, decadence … but looking at it now, knowing how many others go hungry outside these walls … It feels hollow. Like something just … missing.”

Kudō gave a small, crooked smile. “A heart, maybe?”

Yoichi’s lips twitched. “Exactly.”

They stood quietly side by side, the waltz swirling gently around them. Kudō kept his eye on the room, murmuring small talk whenever a guest passed nearby. Yoichi listened, smiling politely, playing his part perfectly, though his mind stayed tethered to their mission.

Then the music slowed to silence. A hush rippled outward, gentle and reverent. Giraki stepped onto a low dais, his crisp black suit reflecting the golden chandelier glow, smile magnanimous and warm, voice pitched perfectly to draw every eye.

“My dear friends,” he began, “I can’t express what an honour it is to know each of you. To have you gather here tonight - not simply for my own humble achievements, but also for something far more important: the birthday of a dear, dear friend.”

A sudden twist of unease tightened Yoichi’s stomach. Kudō’s shoulders stiffened sharply beside him, breath catching in surprise. He tapped his comm quickly. “Everyone - eyes open. Be ready.”

“Allow me to welcome our esteemed guest of honour - my closest ally and friend …”

Yoichi felt dread rise sharply in his chest, cold and sickly, stealing his breath as Giraki smiled and gestured grandly to the ornate double doors behind him.

The doors opened smoothly, revealing a figure stepping through.

Tall, poised, the very air seeming to shift and tremble in submission.

The crowd gasped softly, applause rippling as recognition spread.

But for Yoichi, the world stopped.

His breath choked off sharply and Kudō’s hand brushed his elbow, tense and urgent, as the world tilted beneath Yoichi’s feet.

The game had suddenly, horrifyingly changed.

“Happy birthday, All For One.”

Chapter Text

The ballroom’s chandeliers glittered like an ice field - the light suddenly harsh, stabbing. Yoichi’s breath hitched. 

“It’s not our birthday.” The words tore from his throat in a paper thin whisper. “Our birthday,” Yoichi rasped, keeping his lips barely moving, eyes locked forward. “It’s a week from now.”

“We know,” Kudō reminded him softly.

Onstage, Giraki backed away with theatrical grace, and All For One accepted the mic. His smile - so charming it could burn - filled the giant screens flanking the dais.

“I must apologize for moving tonight’s celebration ahead of schedule,” he said, voice caressing the crowd. “But patience has never been my strongest virtue where dear friends are concerned. Doctor Giraki, your tireless work humbles me. These gathered patrons - your faith sustains me. Together we will elevate humanity.”

Polite laughter. Crystal clinks. Yoichi’s stomach churned.

Through the comm bead tucked in his ear, Bruce’s voice crackled, barely restrained.
“Change of plan? Do we abort?”

Kudō answered under his breath, lips to glass. “Stand by.” Then, quieter: “Yoichi?”

Yoichi forced himself to breathe. His brother’s presence pressed like gravity - an old, suffocating weight. One wrong twitch of Mirage, one wrong glance, and those eyes would pin him. Would the illusion fool a man who had memorized every inch of his twin? He prayed.

He leaned infinitesimally toward Kudō, voice a ghost in the din. “If we dash now, he’ll notice the movement. Twelve of us against him in this room … he’d slaughter everyone before Bruce and the others reach us. It could be best to wait him out He won’t stay until the end. He never does.”

A tremor ran through Kudō’s jaw. “You’re sure he’ll leave early?”

“He always does,” Yoichi said, certainty forged from decades of watching. “He gets bored - quickly. He’ll make a round of greetings, accept adoration, then slip out to somewhere quieter. Wait for that.”

Bruce again: “Copy. Servers holding. Detonation timers paused.”

Yoichi’s eyes stayed on the dais. All For One raised his glass; the crowd mirrored him with blind devotion. “To the promise of tomorrow,” he declared, “where suffering is but a distant memory.”

Yoichi’s skin crawled. 

Kudō’s hand brushed the small of his back - a silent anchor. Yoichi inhaled through his nose, forcing calm. They would finish this. They had to.

All For One concluded, stepping from the microphone, descending the stairs with measured poise. He drifted into the throng, patrons parting like water, eager for a word, a blessing. Giraki followed, basking in reflected aura.

The rebels held position. Yoichi’s heart thundered, but Mirage held. He kept his illusion steady, kept his smile mild. Inside, every nerve screamed.

Yoichi’s eyes didn’t leave him.

Not when All For One stepped off the dais. Not when the laughter started up again, hollow and soft. Not even as the music swelled and people began to drift toward the dance floor in pairs, the spell of the speech broken.

He couldn’t look away.

His brother moved with that same serene confidence Yoichi remembered all too well - his smile practised, his hands folded loosely behind his back, leaning in to greet a diplomat here, a patron there. The same false warmth. The same careful grace. A false god disguised as a benefactor, haloed in adoration.

Yoichi felt cold all over.

His skin prickled beneath Mirage’s projected layer. His legs wouldn’t obey. His breath came too fast, caught in the hollow of his chest. He was back in the vault. He was always back in the vault.

“Yoichi.” Kudō’s voice, low and sharp, beside him. “You’re staring.”

Yoichi didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

“Yoichi.”

A hand closed around his.

He startled, breath snapping in as Kudō’s real, warm fingers gripped his trembling ones. The touch was steady - not hard, not shoving - just there. Anchoring.

“Hey,” Kudō murmured, softer now. “The Mirage is holding. He doesn’t know. We chose the identities at random - he’s got no reason to look twice.”

Yoichi finally blinked, his gaze tearing away from the velvet line of All For One’s shoulders as the man passed out of view.

“I … I know,” he breathed, voice barely audible. “I just -”

“I get it,” Kudō said quietly. “But if you keep staring, he’ll get it too.”

Yoichi flinched, nodding. “Right. Right.”

There was a beat of awkward silence.

Then Kudō looked toward the dance floor. Yoichi followed his gaze and saw a couple twirl past in laughter. Another pair joined them - giggling, tipsy, clearly disinterested in anything but appearances.

Kudō’s eyes narrowed. Then widened, as if an idea had struck him. “... We need to move,” he muttered. “Keep cover. Blend in.”

“Blend -?” Yoichi glanced at him. 

Kudō cleared his throat, still holding Yoichi’s hand. “We’re a wealthy couple. Everyone else is dancing. If we stand here like statues it draws attention.”

Yoichi blinked, heat blooming up his neck. “You want us to dance?”

“We don’t have to be good at it. Just passable. It’s tactical.”

Kudō was already tugging him gently toward the floor, ears glowing red. 

Yoichi couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped him, shaky though it was. “Tactical.”

“You know what I mean.”

Their Mirage-disguised reflections passed them in the ballroom mirror - taller, glossier, strangers. But underneath it was Kudō, expression tight with focus, and Yoichi, pulse fluttering in his throat.

They stepped onto the floor. The quartet’s melody was soft and gliding, a piece Yoichi didn’t know, but his feet followed Kudō’s lead as if his body remembered how to move.

Kudō’s hand came to rest lightly at Yoichi’s waist, tentative and respectful. Their joined hands stayed high, their steps small.

“Sorry,” Kudō murmured. “Wasn’t trying to - uh - make this weird.”

“It’s not,” Yoichi whispered back. 

They swayed in slow, careful circles. Around them, laughter and conversation swelled, no one sparing them more than a glance. In this moment, they were just another rich couple in tailored suits, enjoying the music.

And if Yoichi leaned just a little closer into Kudō’s warmth…
Well. That was tactical, too.

His heart still beat like a war drum, even as Kudō’s thumb brushed gently over the back of his hand, reassurance without words.

The trap still waited. But for now, in the safety of the dance, Yoichi breathed. And let himself feel something other than fear.

They moved in slow, easy circles, the illusion of elegance woven over every step. Yoichi found his balance gradually, still adjusting to the rhythm, the closeness, the warmth of Kudō’s hand at his back.

He smiled - small, amused, a little disbelieving. “You’re … actually good at this.”

Kudō groaned under his breath, cheeks red enough to glow. “Blame my mom.”

Yoichi blinked. “Your mother taught you?”

“More like forced me. Used to stand me on her feet when I was a kid. Waltzed me around the living room any time a song played on the radio. Then when I got older, she just guilt-tripped me into it. Said I needed to know how to impress girls. Until she learned girls weren't realy .. uh, my thing ...” His voice dipped at that last word.

Yoichi went pink. "Oh?"

Kudō cleared his throat. "Yeah, uh ... that a problem."

"No - no, not at all," Yoichi rushed to say. "After all, I - girl's ... aren't my thing either ..."

Kudō blinked. "Huh." 

Yoichi cleared his throat and tried too laugh, the sound barely heard over the music. “That sounds lovely though - about your mom.”

Kudō shrugged. “It was… fine.”

Yoichi didn’t answer right away. His mind flickered with a memory, half-sweet/half-cruel. Of tugging a too-tall boy by the wrist, a cracked lullaby spinning from a battered radio in some forgotten alley corner. He remembered All For One smiling faintly, letting himself be dragged across gravel and broken brick, their steps clumsy.

Before their childhood rumbled under his brothers ambitions and endless hunger.

His chest ached with that panful melancholy.

“I wish …” he murmured, eyes lowered. “A mother sound lovely.”

Kudō didn’t reply, but his grip on Yoichi’s hand tightened slightly. Not out of  pity, just a comforting presence. Reassuring. Yoichi took it like a breath.

They turned again, gliding toward the edge of the dance floor, passing beneath a glittering chandelier. Like out of one of those cheesy romance novels Yoichi certainly didn’t like to read every now and then.

Kudō leaned in. “If you tell Bruce about this, I’m putting you on bandage rolling duties for the rest of the week.”

Yoichi chuckled, half-laughing/half-wheezing. “You think Bruce needs more blackmail material?”

“I’m serious,” Kudō grumbled. “He’ll never let it go. He’ll call me ‘ballroom boy’ till I die.”

Yoichi opened his mouth to reply - then felt it.

The room shifted. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up before he heard the voice.

“My apologies for interrupting,” came the smooth, amused purr. “But may I steal a dance?”

Yoichi froze.

His entire body went still, muscles locking as if caged. Kudō’s hand twitched near his side, and Yoichi felt the impulse before he saw it - Kudō’s shoulders tensing, weight shifting subtly like he might lunge.

All For One stood at their side.

Closer than Yoichi had expected. Too close.

The man wore his usual, disarmingly calm smile, hands clasped neatly before him, posture relaxed. His voice, as always, was gentle silk over something sharper.

“My dear doctors, I’m so glad you could make it to the evening. I was under the  impression we didn’t leave things well the last we spoke.” he continued, eyes gleaming beneath the chandeliers. 

Kudo made a noise somewhere between a small snort of disgust and derision.

“We’re - it’s water under the bridge between friends, right?” Yoichi tried to smooth, forcing a smile tha felt like it was going to crack his face with it’s brittleness.

“Of course it is. What’s a little espionage between friends. Though perhaps I could take payment in a dance.”

Kudō cleared his throat, setting his full wine glass down. “Abso-”

Yoichi forced his body to move before Kudō could. Stepping in front of the rebel leader before there could be a bloodbath on the dancefloor.

He wouldn’t risk Kudō . Not for anything.

He bowed slightly, the gesture graceful under Mirage. “It would be an honor,” he said, words steady despite the storm in his chest.

Kudō opened his mouth - likely to protest, or punch something - but Yoichi met his eyes with a look that said: please. Not now.

For one heartbeat, Kudō’s fury glowed through his Mirage-disguised features. But he took in the situation. Then stepped back. Reluctantly. Grudgingly.

And nodded.

All For One extended a hand.

Yoichi had no choice but to take it.

And with that, the room blurred around them. Yoichi moved into his brother’s arms for the first time months. The familiar, oppressive terror threatened to eat him alive.

A tremor gripped his slight frame, strong enough he was all but certain his brother could feel it where All For One’s hand pressed against his back. Whether he could or not, though, was left unspoken.

Each step felt like it echoed through his bones.

Yoichi moved stiffly within All For One’s grasp, his feet following the rhythm of the music while his mind screamed. The illusion held - thankfully - Tobi’s mirage cast like armour over every breath, every heartbeat. 

And still, he felt exposed.

Too close. Too near.

His brother’s hand rested at his waist, just as it had years ago in some sunlit ruin of their childhood, when Yoichi had pulled him into a silly, swaying dance among the broken glass.

This wasn’t that. 

Yoichi stumbled slightly. Only for a second. His shoulder twitched, muscle memory misfiring where no limb remained.

“Apologies,” he said quickly, forcing steadiness into his tone. “It’s harder to manage one-handed than I thought.”

All For One’s chuckle was soft, warm, and deeply cruel. “No need to apologize, Dr. Marrow. I’d heard you were something of an expert on the floor.”

Yoichi forced himself to smile - polite, distant, blameless. “Even experts have off days.”

A pause stretched between them, coiling like a wire. Then Yoichi, desperate to redirect, asked, “Do you dance often?”

All For One tilted his head slightly, lips curving. “Not often enough.”

He leaned in. Nothing too obvious, but the closeness had Yoichi inhaling sharply. The music seemed to dip, hush, become background noise to the unbearable closeness of breath against his ear.

“I used to,” All For One murmured. “With my little brother. We used to dance together often … though these past six months, I’ve been bereft of him.”

Yoichi’s heart slammed so violently against his ribs he thought the Mirage might flicker.

He couldn’t do this. This was … it was to much. Only minutes back in his presence and Yoichi was back there in that Vault, trapped and dependant of docility to earn even the most meagre scraps of self.

Back to that last day where his own brother had tried to rip his heart right out of his chest for no other reason than the sake of delusional possession.

Would Yoichi have lived afterwards? Kept alive by one of All For One’s abilities, like some sort of half-alive ghoul - or a puppet marionette hoisted on strings that connected his life to the heart that would have beat in someone else’s chest. 

Tied forever to the man who had taken everything else. 
 
He forced his burning, wet gaze somewhere, anywhere, away. Over the shoulder of the twin who unknowingly held him. The crowd continued to sway and drink and laugh, unaware that the noose had already closed.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, though the words almost choked him.

All For One sighed, the sound theatrical, wistful. “I miss him. My poor, sweet Yoichi. So fragile. So naïve. So lost out there in a merciless world, without my hand to help him. To guide him.”

Yoichi’s knees weakened slightly, and he nearly faltered again.

He could feel Kudō’s eyes from across the ballroom - could imagine Bruce already reaching for detonators, planning the backup plan’s backup plan.

He swallowed. “And … where did your brother go?”

All For One’s eyes gleamed. “Stolen.” His voice was low and lethal now, venom wrapped in velvet. “By filthy rebels. They took him from me. Ripped him from my loving arms. He must be so frightened. But no matter. I’ll have him back soon enough.”

Yoichi’s throat closed around a dozen things he couldn’t say. A dozen screams, a dozen pleas, a dozen carefully memorized escape routes.

The music soared again - and All For One drew him even closer, his breath a whisper just beneath the illusion.

“All I have to do,” he said, voice like silk drawn over broken glass, “is kill that irritating little rebel leader - Kudō - and then Yoichi will be where he belongs - with me.”

Each step felt like it echoed through Yoichi’s already brittle bones.

The hand at Yoichi’s waist tightened just slightly as All For One leaned close enough that Yoichi felt the words like knives. 

“Won’t I, Yoichi?”

Yoichi's heart stuttered, a deep pit dropping in his stomach large enough to make him feel sick.

Oh god ...

The ballroom was too warm.

Too loud. Too close. Yoichi could only hear his own heartbeat thrumming between his ears. His breath came tight and shallow, each step guided not by rhythm but by survival.

He tried to draw away, instinctual, just a little, just enough - but his brother’s hand remained like a clamp on his waist, firm and inescapable beneath the illusion. Yoichi barely felt the music anymore. Only the press of that grip. The weight of his brother’s full attention bearing down on him like a cage, invisible but suffocating.

“Careful, little brother,” All For One murmured with the smile of a man discussing nothing more serious than the weather. “You wouldn’t want to make a scene, would you? Not with so many of your new friends nearby.”

His voice oozed mockery. Honeyed poison.

Yoichi froze. His gaze darted over the floor - seeing not people, but targets. Rebels. Kudō. Bruce in disguise. All of them, unknowingly wrapped in the coils of a noose.

This had been a trap from the very beginning.

Of course it had.

His brother never celebrated early. He didn’t do spontaneous gestures or sentimental whims. He was methodical. Calculated.

Yoichi swallowed hard. “This was planned.”

“Obviously.” The laughter was low and soft. “A clever little ruse, wasn’t it? Dangle a sliver of access … a whisper of opportunity … and the rebels just couldn’t help themselves. So predictable. Though,” he tilted his head, eyes gleaming, “I’ll admit I hadn’t expected you to be here. Is that what they do now? Parade you around to help with their little errands? Helping them steal? How cruel of them.”

Yoichi’s jaw clenched. He forced steel into his spine. “I came willingly. I wanted to help the people who saved me.”

All For One’s smile didn’t falter, but something behind his eyes flickered. “Saved you?” he echoed, the word dripping disdain. “Is that what you believe, Yoichi?”

Those pale eyes, so searing in their intensity, their calculating hue laying Yoichi out to examine and pick apart layer by layer, until only something raw and trembling remained.

“Tell me,” All For One said softly, “how could they have possibly saved you from me?”

For a moment, Yoichi couldn’t speak. It was like staring into the mouth of a storm.

And then, with quiet, bitter clarity: “You locked me in a vault. You cut off my limbs. You made me believe there was no world beyond you. If you think that was love, then you're more deluded than I thought.”

The grip on his waist tightened - just barely - but enough to make his lungs stutter.

“You left willingly, then?” All For One asked, a lilt of false disbelief in his voice.

“Yes,” Yoichi said, firm and clear, “I left you.”

A beat.

Then a sigh, theatrical and dripping with indulgent cruelty. “Poor thing. The rebels have clearly confused you. Poisoned your mind. You were always too softhearted - too impressionable.” His voice dropped, dangerous and intimate. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Yoichi’s expression hardened. “Don’t speak to me like I’m broken. I’m not your fragile little invalid anymore. I know what I’ve gotten into. I know who I am. And I’d rather die with them than ever go back to you.”

All For One’s smile thinned.

“Well then,” he said, low and cold, “I suppose I’ll get to the point.”

He stopped moving. The music continued, but the dance had ended.

“I will be taking you home,” he said.

The words struck Yoichi like ice-water down his spine.

“Whether you come willingly …” A pause. A sharp smile showing too many teeth. “… is entirely up to you.”

Yoichi stared into his brother’s face. The man he once called family. The man who once danced with him in ruins and promised to keep him safe. The man who butchered him and called it affection.

And for a moment - just a moment - Yoichi wanted to scream, heart pounding like a drum against his ribs.

His brother’s hand was tight on his waist, too tight. Fingers curled like a chain he couldn’t see, couldn’t break. And yet, Yoichi smiled. A soft, sad thing.

“Do you remember the comics we used to read?” he asked, voice low but clear.

All For One blinked. He did not answer at once. Then: “Of course I do.”

There was amusement there, somewhere beneath the surface. Yoichi had learned to hear the undercurrents. His brother was indulging him. Letting the conversation play out like a child humouring a pet’s dying whine.

Yoichi pressed on. “Do you remember who taught you how to read them?”

A flicker. That was all, but Yoichi felt it like a tremor beneath his feet.

“I taught you,” he said. “I taught both of us.”

All For One made a sound, not quite a laugh - more a scoff. “Is this meant to shame me?” he asked, eyes glinting. “I allowed myself to be taught. I could’ve learned alone.”

“Maybe,” Yoichi said softly. “But you didn’t. I taught you how to read, how to write - even how to speak, what the words meant.”

He shifted slightly in their hold, carefully, keeping up the illusion of dancing. “You had the strength, the power. You always have. But I was the one who knew how to barter first. The one who learned that kindness could go further than cruelty.”

“Kindness,” All For One said flatly. “You always did like your fairy tales.”

“My body’s weak,” Yoichi continued, “because you stole everything in the womb. But our minds?”

His eyes rose - met his brother’s without fear this time.

“They’re equal,” he all but rasped in the crushing hold. “It took me so long to realise that. Didn’t even occur to me until these past six months and it’s thanks to them - those people you look down on so much. People who are kind and want to do the right thing for no other reason than because it’s right.”

The grip around his waist turned brutal. Fingers dug in so tight Yoichi felt the ache begin to bloom beneath his ribs. His brother didn’t speak, just squeezed, as if to crush the breath from him. A silent warning. A threat.

And yet Yoichi, trembling inside, felt something spark. Something stronger than fear, keeping Kudo’s face in his mind - the rebels strong determination and staunch resolve lending him strength..

“You think you know everything about me,” he said gently. “But I’ve learned so much about you, too.” He leaned in. He had to reach on his tiptoes to whisper; “Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

All For One didn’t answer and Yoichi smiled.

“Because I knew your attention would be on me.”

And then - darkness.

The lights above shuttered into black.

A sharp, confused murmur rippled through the ballroom. The music stopped. The guests began to stir, some alarmed, others muttering about power outages or blown fuses.

All For One stiffened, but his grip didn’t loosen.

Yoichi’s voice was a whisper in the shadows between them.

“You weren’t watching the person who mattered.”

There was movement now. Gasps. Questions. Security trying to maintain order.

Yoichi’s heart pounded, but his voice was steady. “You weren’t watching Giraki.”

There was silence. A pause.
And then he felt it: the jolt through his brother’s muscles. The calculation. The slow, dawning realization.

Giraki wasn’t in the room anymore.

And neither was Kudō.

Chapter Text

Yoichi’s fingers found the wafer-thin disk tucked in his sleeve cuff. Mara’s emergency gate: twin tagged devices whose paired metafield let her teleport one to the other, if she charged it with a touch of her meta ability.

All For One’s grip crushed like iron around Yoichi’s ribs; the rooms lights sputtered back in ragged flickers - and Yoichi pressed the trigger pad.

Sound folded in on itself, a silent implosion of space. Cold air vanished; sour chemical musk mushed in with fluorescents buzzing overhead. Yoichi staggered, materializing beside Kudō and a bound, gagged Doctor Giraki in a concrete corridor deep beneath the building.

Kudō’s eyes widened. “You good?”

Yoichi nodded once. Heart hammering but limbs intact, lungs burning. “Minutes,” he rasped. “That’s all we bought.”

Giraki whimpered in protest as Kudō dragged him to the lab’s biometric ID scanner, shoving his face roughly against it. The doctor sputtered, resisting, but Kudō tightened his grip.

“You can open it nicely, or I can remove your head. Pick one.”

The scanner beeped in almost reluctant approval.

Above, a thunderous crack split the sub-basement ceiling - All For One tearing through layers of stone and rebar as if it were plaster. Dust showered down. 

Yoichi twisted just in time to see Mara skid around the corner, hair crackling with static, a second paired disk glowing in her gloved palm.

“Hey, monster!” she barked, hurling it skyward.

A jagged cone of violet light swallowed All For One’s torso - then blink. The tyrant vanished, yanked along the tether same as Yoichi had been. Silence fell, broken only by the patter of debris.

Yoichi spun to Mara. “Where?”

“Utility tunnel six blocks east,” she panted, sparks dancing off her fingertips. “That’s as far as I can throw him. Won’t hold long but the few little traps I set up there should keep him busy for a minute or two.”

Metal chirped; the biometric lock cycled green as Kudo forced Giraki’s eyelid wide for the retinal lens. Door vaults thumped and slid open, revealing the main lab.

They shoved the doctor through first.

Rows of stasis columns glowed pallid blue. Suspended bodies - some whole, others limbless - floated in nutrient gel like grotesque embryos. Data banks hummed, fans whirring. Kudō unlatched explosives from his belt and riffled through his flak jacket, planting shaped charges along support rails. 

Mara jammed a pistol between Giraki’s shoulders, forcing his trembling hands across console keys.
“Full data dump,” she ordered. “Cryo logs, organ maps. All of it.”

Yoichi moved down an aisle, bile rising. Inside one thick cylinder, a headless torso still twitched - nerve loops firing endlessly. Another tank held a partial child-sized skeleton plated in chrome. Horror pressed close, but he kept walking.

Half-way down the third row, his breath cut short.

There.

A single adult arm, pale and slender, floated pristine in its canister. Fingers half-curled in eternal ache; scar at the wrist he recognized like his own name.

A placard beneath the glass read:

SPECIMEN A-01 (YOICHI SHIGARAKI)  
PRESERVATION PRIORITY: ABSOLUTE  
ORDERS BY: SUPREME DONOR. PRESERVE AT ALL COST.

Yoichi’s throat tightened.

“Kudō.” The word escaped as a rasp.

Kudō jogged over, boot soles scraping tile, eyes flicking from arm to Yoichi’s stump. “We’ll get it out. Quickly now.”

They moved with urgency. Kudō unlatched the stasis tank’s control panel, fingers flying across its keypad. Fluid drained away, the arm gently lowered to a sterile tray. Yoichi held his breath, reverently gathering his stolen limb with shaking fingers.

“Thank you,” Yoichi murmured, overcome with emotion as he settled the limb into a nearby case.

Kudō’s gaze softened, fierce protectiveness lingering. “We’re not done yet.” He turned abruptly to Mara, voice sharp. “Take Giraki. Bruce is waiting above.”

Mara nodded, grabbing the terrified doctor’s arm. Giraki protested weakly, “You’re dead. You were dead the moment he announced the celebration -”

“Shut up,” Mara growled, dragging him out into the corridor so Yoichi could only hear the tale end of the doctor’s words -

“ - I’ll make sure of it.”

Kudō lifted his comm. “Bruce, extraction of your team. Prepare now.”

“Copy”

A strange sound - like the whirring, then a clang came from behind Yoichi.

His breath caught, nerves raw, adrenaline spiking - and then, from behind them, came a wet, sloshing sound. A hiss of pressurized air.

His spine chilled. He spun back, eyes locking onto one of the tanks at the far end of the lab. Its hatch creaked slowly open, fluid slopping to the floor. A pale, misshapen figure began to emerge, skin dripping, eyes hollow and sunken in confusion and agony.

 It wasn’t even fully assembled. Half of it’s head was gone, it’s skin not even fully patched back together. An abomination of amalgamated tissue, unfinished and untested. 
 
“Kudō -” Yoichi rasped, terror ringing sharp in his voice.

Kudō turned swiftly, his expression a mirror of Yoichi’s own shock. The experiment’s half-head rose jerkily, limbs twitching grotesquely as it stepped onto the cold laboratory tiles, wet breathing rattling from ruined lungs that sounded worse than Yoichi’s.

“Oh. Fuck,” Kudō whispered, face pale.

Yoichi backed closer, clutching his severed arm protectively, heart hammering.

The experiment’s glazed eyes fixed blankly upon them, a tortured whimper rising from its malformed mouth as it took its first, shambling step forward.

The lab door sealed automatically with a chilling hiss, locking them in.

“Yoichi,” Kudō murmured fiercely, stepping protectively in front. “Stay behind me.”

Yoichi swallowed, lifting his chin, tightening his hold upon his arm. Fear pressed upon him, terror he knew all too intimately, but he stood firm, ready. Yoichi tightened arms around the case. Inside his head only two thoughts pounded:

Keep the arm safe.
Keep Kudō alive.

Alarms screamed, their red strobes flashing. 

There had been no intel the specimens were alive.

Bruce’s schematics, Giraki’s stolen rosters - everything said preserved, inert, suspended.

“Kudō - ”

“No time!”

Kudō seized Yoichi’s elbow and hauled him into a side chamber as alarms began to warble across red-lit rafters. 

“Wait, Kudō- !”

Kudō slammed his palm down on the control, the door sealing shut with a harsh mechanical click. Yoichi flung himself against the glass, panic rising in his chest.

“Kudō, open this right now!”

But Kudō’s gaze was determined, fierce, full of protective desperation. “Stay in there. Don’t move.”

“Ku-”

“You live,” Kudo all but seethed through the glass. “You hear me? You live, Yoichi. If I do anything with the rest of my life - it’ll be to make sure of that. Because that’s what you deserve.”

Yoichi watched helplessly, horror freezing him in place. Kudō spun, immediately forced into combat. His movements swift, brutal, precise - dodging blows, rolling under the creature’s powerful lunges, fighting to survive.

Yoichi’s fist hammered uselessly against the reinforced glass, his cries muted by the thick barrier. All he could do was watch as Kudō dodged desperately, using his small, focused Gearshift to fling sharp scalpels and surgical implements at the creature.

The monster flinched but didn’t slow, barely registering pain.

“Kudō!” Yoichi’s voice cracked with terror.

He forced himself to breathe, to turn, to look for something, anything, that might help. The small room was painfully barren, lined only with steel shelves bearing tranquillizers, sedatives, immobilization compounds. Nothing remotely helpful. Nothing strong enough to penetrate the barrier.

His eyes darted across a cluttered desk to scattered papers - hasty, scrawled notes in Giraki’s hand. Fragments caught Yoichi’s eyes, chilling him further:

"... could change the function to heighten docility … he requested changes to certain mood states - emotional responses and triggers to be more receptive … induced complacency has its merits … heightened emotionality …"

Yoichi’s heart pounded harder, his blood running cold. The implications sickened him, dread pooling deep in his stomach.

A sudden, awful crash whipped his attention back to the fight.

Kudō  - already bloodied, exhausted, visibly slowing - collided violently against the edge of the steel examination table. A sharp cry escaped his throat as he crumpled, breathing raggedly, shoulder twisted at a painful angle.

Then he fell, unmoving.

“Kudō!” Yoichi slammed against the glass, his chest aching, vision swimming with horror.

The creature snarled, attention swivelling from Kudō’s prone form to Yoichi trapped helplessly behind glass.

It lurched toward him, pressing its misshapen hands to the barrier. It began to pound violently, screaming with unbridled fury, cracks spiderwebbing across the surface of the glass.

Yoichi stumbled back instinctively, heart racing in terror and helpless frustration. He had nowhere to go, nowhere to run - trapped, forced again into passivity, watching helplessly as everything unravelled before him.

Kudō, please get up. Please.

He couldn’t die here - not Kudō - not Yoichi’s hero.

The pounding grew louder, the cracks spread wider. Yoichi held his breath, clutching the container with his severed arm like a lifeline, eyes fixed desperately on Kudō’s collapsed figure.

Then -  everything worsened.

Yoichi’s chest seized painfully. He turned, breath hitching, eyes wide in disbelief and terror.

Standing framed in the ruined doorway, surveying the chaos of his laboratory with calm, measured satisfaction -

- stood his brother.

His gaze slid from the monster pounding furiously at the glass - and finally, inevitably, to Yoichi.

X

All For One stepped lightly across the broken threshold of the lab, boots clicking against the slick, debris-littered floor. His expression was unreadable, but his mind brimmed with a curdled cocktail of irritation and curiosity.

“Giraki,” he mused aloud, glancing about the wreckage. “Will be simply devastated. He was always so precious about his equipment.”

Pipes hissed steam and lights sputtered overhead, casting long flickering shadows against glass chambers that now leaked foul-smelling chemicals. The claw marks on the floor, the burst tanks - it was all so … inelegant. And the stench. 

Had the rebels truly allowed one of the unfinished experiments to wake? Absolute stupidity. As expected.

His gaze swept across the room and settled, at last, on the familiar silhouette trembling behind cracked containment glass.

Ah. Yoichi.

Locked away, trembling, alone. How delightfully poetic. How very Yoichi - to think a pane of reinforced glass could keep him from his brother.

And yet … that thing. That thing was pounding on the glass, so near to his twin. So close to marking him, harming him.

All For One frowned.

No. Unacceptable.

With a flick of his fingers, the creature’s body twisted mid-scream and collapsed in a heap - skewered through it’s useless, unfinished form, then discarded like butchered meat.

Only then did he turn his full attention to Yoichi.

What a sight - Bruised but upright, his brother looked like a wilted leaf trying to hold steady against a storm. All For One’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, then scanned the rest of the room.

 Curiously, it appeared they were alone. The other rebels - gone? Or hiding?

He tutted. “You’ve really ruined another birthday, haven’t you.”

Yoichi’s voice came back cracked but defiant. “It’s not our birthday.”

All For One chuckled, low and indulgent. “Not yet, no. But I thought we could begin celebrations early. A private prelude before the real thing. And look - you’ve come dressed for it.”

His smile widened, all teeth and shadow.

“But I think it’s time to stop pretending, little brother. You’ve had your fun playing war with the dregs of the street. But it’s time to come home.”

Yoichi’s eyes were wide, but not with fear. Not just. “You can’t possibly believe I’d go back to the Vault.”

All For One stepped forward. And with one gesture, the fractured glass between them shattered into harmless shards.

Air rushed in and the distance closed.

“There’s nowhere you can go where I won’t follow,” he said, his voice almost tender. “You know that. You always knew that.”

Yoichi stepped back, clenching a metal case to his chest. His voice trembled, but his words did not.
“You tried to rip my heart out,” he said. “To put it beside yours.”

All For One paused. A breath. A flicker of something unreadable.

“You’d betrayed me,” he replied evenly. “Those messages you passed to the rats. Secrets you gave away. After all I did for you … But I will admit, our last meeting turned ... unfortunate. I regret how I handled your deceit.”

He sighed, softly. In truth, the real fault lay in circumstance and not in himself. His reaction had been unfortunate - but understandable at the time.

“But I’m willing to make concessions. You’ll have your own rooms. You’ll be free to walk the grounds, go out into the city even. No restraints. No Vault.” His eyes flicked to the sleek case Yoichi clutched. “I’ll even reattach your arm. Perfectly preserved, just for you. If only you’ll return.”

He took another step, smile still thin and sweet. “I’ll even let the rats scurry back to their holes. No punishment. They just need to return Giraki to me. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

He tilted his head, mock curiosity glinting in his eyes.

“And where are they, by the way?” he added, voice cooling. “That one you were dancing with ... the two of you seemed awfully close.”

Yoichi’s jaw tightened. “It was nothing. Just to maintain our cover.”

All For One’s expression didn’t change, but his body stiffened, the edges of his silence sharpening.

Nothing? Yoichi thought that man touching him was nothing?

That rebel had touched him. Had dared to hold him - his twin - like some equal. Like a partner. A man without power, without claim. And Yoichi had let him.

He pushed the thought aside. He would not name it. Would not give jealousy a voice.
It meant nothing. Yet still. That look. That softness in Yoichi’s tone.

That rebel is nothing, he told himself. A parasite. An inconvenience.

And yet …

“Where are they?” he asked, glancing about the lab in all of its disarray to find it empty, save the twins and the dead failure.

"I sent them away." Yoichi met his eyes. “To save them.”

All For One stared and a flicker of something slow and simmering slid behind his gaze. Not fury. Not yet.

Disappointment.

Betrayal.

Yoichi, his beloved weaker half, was protecting others from him. Again.

So painfully treacherous. Always so eager to place himself in danger for those who didn’t deserve him. So quick to abandon what mattered. 

It was maddening. It would have to be corrected. Painfully, if need be.

Around them, the ruined lab sparked and hissed, wires dangling like vines above pools of foul liquid. The lights flickered once. Then again.

The shadows deepened around All For One’s shoulders.

He was growing tired of this.

Tired of Yoichi’s trembling mouth and darting eyes, tired of the way his dear twin still dared to defy him when there was nowhere left to run. The glass was gone. The door was gone. The rebels were gone. All that remained was the truth of things -

He stepped forward. And this time, his voice was no longer indulgent.

“We're going home, little brother.”

Them, together, as it always should have been.

All For One stepped forward, no longer approaching this as a wounded bird he intended to mend but with the truth of demand.

“Enough,” he murmured, his voice like smoke curling beneath a door. “I’ve had enough of this little tantrum. Come with me now.”

Yoichi flinched backward instinctively - silly, pointless, there was nowhere left to go. The edge of the ruined lab loomed behind him like a cliff into shadow. But still he resisted. Still he stood like something caged too long.

Spiteful little thing.

All For One’s jaw twitched.

He reached out and grasped Yoichi’s face in both hands, ignoring the way his brother stiffened beneath his touch. His thumbs pressed into the softness of his cheeks, sooth fingers not as harsh as they could be. Not yet. 

“Why do you insists on resistance? I have only ever protected you,” he said, his tone edged with strain now. “I have kept you safe. I have loved you.”

Yoichi’s expression shifted, the terror in his eyes eclipsed by something deeper, older. Anger. Righteous and trembling. His voice, when it came, was hoarse from use, but steady. And sharp.

“Love?” The syllable cracked in the air.
“You think what you did to me in that Vault was love?”

All For One narrowed his eyes. “Mind your tone, Yoichi - ”

“You murdered Tohru out of jealousy. You imprisoned me,” Yoichi spat. “You humiliated me. You starved me when I didn’t follow your precious rules. When I didn’t smile the right way. When I didn’t bow like a dog. You maimed me when I disobeyed - took my legs, my arms, like I was your doll, like pain would make me more obedient. You forced me to -”

He faltered. Swallowed.

But All For One already knew what had hovered on the edge of Yoichi’s tongue. Knew what Yoichi could still never quite say aloud.

The Older twin felt a flicker of cold fury, but disguised it behind a placid mask. 

Was that what Yoichi still thought - that what they shared - those moments in the dark, the warmth of skin pressed against skin in the only kind of closeness left to them - was filth, something so wrong that he couldn’t even speak it outloud?

As if All For One were some monster for indulging in their connection in every way he could.

They were twins.

No one in the world were closer. Who better than each other? Who else could ever understand? Yoichi was his. The extension of himself he could hold and trap and keep nd slake every need he's ever had.

There was nothing wrong in that. Nothing.

Still, All For One didn't say this. Yoichi wouldn’t listen. He never did when his emotions were this tangled. His stubborn, pitiful, willful little twin.

But, fine. There were other ways.

Afterall, you caught a fly better with honey than with vinegar.

He softened his gaze. Loosened his grip - barely - but enough for Yoichi to notice.

He put on the gentler voice, the one Yoichi had once leaned into as a child. The one that said, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm your brother. Your protector. Guide and Guardian.

“Some things … got out of hand. I’ll admit it,” he said, carefully. “I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted to keep you safe. You were fragile, Yoichi. Still are. And I was scared you would be taken away. Used against me.”

He let the moment sit. Let the lie root.

“I can make it better this time,” he promised. “No vault. No rules. Just home. You’ll have your own room. No bars. I’ll listen. You can teach me to be better - like you always did. Like when you taught me to read. When you held my hand and showed me how to speak, how to write.”

He leaned forward, forehead brushing against Yoichi’s with a terrible reverence.

“You complete me,” he whispered. “We’re twins, Yoichi. You’re my other half. We were never meant to be apart.”

All For One could feel Yoichi shaking beneath his hands. And then - yes - there. A choked sob. He was breaking. His precious little brother, always so fragile beneath the surface, so easily unravelled by memory.

Good.

All For One exhaled softly through his nose, his voice warm now, coaxing.

“You can love me,” he said. “You do. You always have. Just come home.”

Silence came, stretching between them all pulled so taught it could snap at any moment beneath it’s tension.

Yoichi pulled back slightly, and All For One allowed the small amount of space under the guise of concession.

Yoichi held out the case between them - the case. His arm that All For One had so lovingly kept safe - sealed, pristine, like some grotesque gift. 

“All right,” Yoichi said hoarsely. “I’ll go with you.”

All For One blinked.

Yoichi continued, steadier now. “But first, prove it’ll be different. Prove you can be decent. Reattach it here and I’ll believe you. I’ll come home without a fight and it will be just the way you want - the two us, the way we’re meant to be. I won’t fight you. Not on … not on anything you want. So long as you let the rebels go.”

There was more silence as All For One stared.

He almost laughed. Yoichi was negotiating. As if he had power - as if he were something more than a kitten clawing at thunderclouds.

Yet … it was almost sweet. And truthfully, All For One was amused.

So fragile. So hopeful. Still believing in promises and conditions. As if he wouldn’t ensure Yoichi would be shackled the moment they were away from this place.

Oh Yoichi …

Always so gullible.

But All For One smiled, indulgent. “Of course, Yoichi.”

He reached for the case.

“All you had to do,” he murmured, “was ask.”

X

Yoichi didn’t dare look.

Not toward the splintered desk. Not toward the vague silhouette he knew was Kudō, stirring weakly behind cover. Not toward the ruined lab or the bloodied glass or the broken world around him.

Only forward.

Only at him.

He hadn’t seen Kudō yet, not with the position he’d crumpled behind the desk - a huge blessing that Yoichi prayed would remain.
 
All For One’s hands moved with eerie calm, fingers brushing the preservation seals of the case, unlocking the clasps with the grace of routine.

Yoichi’s heart pounded so loudly it drowned out the rest of the world. It throbbed in his ears, his throat, behind his eyes. Every instinct screamed to run - to scream - but he stood still.

Because that was all he could do.

He had to stand. He had to see this through.

“All right,” All For One said softly. “Hold still.”

The voice, honeyed as always. He might as well have asked him to roll up his sleeve for a vaccination and not the reapplication of a body part he had no rights to in the first place.

Yoichi obeyed, numb. He peeled the sleeve back, exposing the place where his elbow ended in a stump - cleanly severed, no hint of ever having one in the first. So unnatural in it’s smooth flat end. 

He had long since stopped flinching at the sight of it. But this was different.

Because the prospect of having his final remaining limb was just with reach of a snake infested pit, venomous and one wrong move could result in poison and failure.

The same ability that had removed it, like a limb plucked from a mannequin, was used now in reverse. The stolen met-ability snared with invisible precision in the second the flat end of his arm and the end of severed portion met. 

Yoichi felt it, the tug of nerves and tissue, the unnatural warmth as the limb fused with a seamlessness that defied biology.

There was no ceremony. No fanfare. No pain. No knitting together or gross fusion.

Just two ends pressed together and like his other arm and his legs, it was as though he’d never been without it. As if all those month of phantom aches and tender muscle had been a nightmare.

Yoichi flexed both his hands.

Both obeyed. The newer one weaker, slower, but working. His again. Every part of himself was his own again - none of him belonged to his twin anymore. 

The realisation, the freedom, almost knocked Yoichi’s breath from his already weak lungs.
A wave of something swelled inside him. Not joy - no, never that. But something close to disbelief, close to breathless relief. He curled the fingers of his returned hand. The sensation was dizzying. Strange. Good.

All For One had stepped back, watching him with that ever-patient smile.

Waiting.

And Yoichi understood, too clearly, what that silence demanded.

All For One wasn’t really expecting it, was he?

Surely he wasn’t expecting Yoichi to say thank you.

Yoichi’s stomach twisted.

… Of course he did. 

How could Yoichi expect anything else?

He wouldn’t say it. Couldn’t. He’d had to in the Vault, when there was nothing else. When anything and everything was reliant on his twin’s ‘benevolence’. When shame and pride and everything Yoichi had of himself meant little in the face of the consequences.

But it was different now.

He couldn’t say thank you.

So he gave his brother something else.

He moved forward, stepped into his brother’s space with careful steps. Raised both arms - both, now - and wrapped them around All For One’s broad frame. He had to lift onto the balls of his feet to do it properly. 

It made him feel childish. Small.

He could feel the faint jolt of surprise in his brother’s body, the way All For One stiffened just slightly - as he always did. There was something about hugs that always seemed to scramble him. Yoichi never knew whether he disliked them or simply didn’t understand them.

But, as always, All For One returned the embrace. Moved by ritual or nostalgia or some flicker of affection warped by time.

Predictable. After all these years.

That’s what made it easy.

His left hand - his new hand - plunged the needle into the side of All For One’s neck.

There was barely a gasp.

Just a twitch.

And then -

All For One recoiled instinctively, hand brushing the small puncture as he staggered backward. He hit a tray cart, sent metal clattering across the ruined floor. His balance shifted awkwardly as the sedative surged into his bloodstream.

Yoichi held his ground, breathing hard, tears already stinging his eyes.

“I spent ten years,” he whispered, voice trembling, “in that Vault.”

All For One blinked at him. The pupils in his stolen eyes were already dilating unevenly, the threat already filling them.

“Ten years,” Yoichi said again, more hoarse now. “Locked in the dark. Alone. With you. Day after day, telling myself that I deserved it, that I was the broken one. That maybe if I was good enough - if I was sweet enough - you’d stop hurting me.”

All For One swayed. 

Yoichi’s voice cracked. “But you never stopped.”

His brother’s legs buckled slightly beneath him.

Still, Yoichi didn’t move. “I still feel it all, late in the night when all I want is sleep. I drift away and I can feel you there. Everywhere. And I can’t … ” He swallowed, tears clogging him. “I wish it was different. Everyday I wish we aren’t who we are. That you … that you loved me - the way a brother's supposed to. Not this … not this -”

The moment stretched. The ruined lab was dead silent but for the rasp of All For One’s struggling breath.

“Sleep, please,” Yoichi whispered. “Just sleep, big brother.”

All For One’s knees gave out.

He crumpled to the floor like a collapsing statue - elegant, silent, terrible.

Yoichi stared at him. Then, shaking, he turned away for the first time in his life. He turned his back to his twin, brother, caretaker, captor, jailor, tormentor. 

He turned. And he walked away.

He walked toward his hero. His friend. His … 

X

Kudō had known broken bones before. 
The cracking, splintering agony wasn’t new. But even he had to admit - lying there, breathing ragged and hitching through a jagged pain in his hip that was probably fractured - this was bad.

Very, very bad.

His left leg didn’t move right. The hip screamed molten agony when he tried even the smallest shift. He wasn’t getting up anytime soon. At least, not on his own.

He blinked through swimming vision and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. Consciousness like fire and agony and bitter adrenalin. His ribs burned; his lungs felt bruised and raw. He blinked again, clung to that consciousness stubbornly.

And through the blur, he saw Yoichi.

Yoichi, running toward him with eyes wide and frantic, a strange new symmetry to his body - two intact again. Kudō’s stomach lurched with quiet relief; at least something had gone right today.

Yoichi deserved to be whole. Yoichi deserved the whole damn world.

But behind Yoichi, Kudō saw the Tyrant struggling. All For One’s eyes were already flickering open, his hands fumbling uselessly, dragging himself upwards despite whatever Yoichi had done to him.

Kudō  would admit - he was impressed Yoichi had managed to fell the monster - but, damn. They’d run out of time before they’d even begun.

“Kudō -” Yoichi’s voice cracked, terrified and raw. “God, you’re -”

The voice - high, trembling - was a balm and a blade all at once. Yoichi, eyes huge and wet, hands flying to his own chest like he didn’t know where to start. A flash of relief. Then horror. Then frantic purpose.

“I - I’ll help you, okay? We’ll - we’ll get out together, just hold onto me, please -”

Yoichi bent, tried to hook Kudo’s arm over his shoulder. He was so warm. So solid and whole. Kudo could feel the tremble in him - fear, exhaustion, grief - but he was still trying.

And it wasn’t working.

Kudo didn’t even get halfway off the floor before the fire in his hip lanced through his spine, forcing a grunt from between clenched teeth. He crumpled again, dragging Yoichi down with him.

Still, Yoichi tried. Because of course he did.

‘You stubborn, stupid miracle,’ Kudo thought.

But time was up.

Even from the ground, Kudo could see the twitch in that bastard’s fingers. All For One’s chest was rising now, deeper, slower. The trembling was stopping.

Kudo made his decision.

He fished into the inside of his scorched jacket, fingers clumsy with pain. The last teleportation node Mara had slipped him. His hand trembled as he pulled it free. He didn’t look at it. Just looked at Yoichi who saw his intention immediately.

“No,” Yoichi snapped. “I’m not leaving you -”

“You’re going,” Kudō growled, suddenly sharp, suddenly fierce. “Right now.”

Yoichi shook his head, eyes wide with horrified understanding. “Don’t do this. We still have time -”

But Kudō already knew how this played out.

So he took what could be his last chance, and took Yoichi face in his hands.

“Live,” he pressed urgently. “You get out of this damn country. Find a cottage, a farm. Something quiet and still and live.”

Yoichi struggled, gaping, protesting but Kudō  was already pressing the small silver device firmly against Yoichi’s bare wrist. 

Yoichi’s eyes widened as realization crashed through him.

“Kudō, no - ”

 Kudō activated it. A quick, firm click. 

Yoichi’s  vanished, protest dying mid-word, leaving nothing but empty air and the faint scent of antiseptic behind.

Kudō exhaled, closing his eyes briefly, relieved.

The silence afterward was crushing.

Kudō inhaled sharply, bracing against the cold lab floor. He lifted trembling fingers to his earpiece, the words heavy and final.

“Bruce,” he ordered roughly, voice barely recognizable. “Blow it. I’m clear.”

There was a pause. Bruce’s voice was sharp, suspicious. “Kudō, confirm your location. Are you at extraction?”

Kudō didn’t hesitate. “I’m out,” he lied evenly, forcing his tone steady. “Clear of the blast zone. Blow it. That’s an order.”

Another long pause. He could hear Bruce’s hesitation, his doubt, the silent understanding passing between them in that one terrible second.

Then, Bruce spoke quietly, his voice heavy, knowing. “Understood.”

The line clicked off and Kudo snapped the comm in two.

Behind him, laboured breathing became louder, rougher. He forced himself to turn his head slightly, to meet the gaze he knew was there.

All For One was already standing, looming like a dark specter - his cold gaze piercing, the sedative now barely a hindrance. Kudō’s heart hammered painfully. 

The mask had slipped, and what remained was nothing human, nothing restrained.

Pure, unfiltered fury.

He was certain he’d never seen such profound, searing rage. Eyes glittering darkly, All For One stepped forward, the shadows framing him like a cloak of darkness.

And yet - Kudō felt his own mouth curl upward, lips pulling into a smirk despite everything. Through cracked lips, he managed a broken, defiant chuckle.

“You …” the Tyrant seethed like the petty bitch he was. He stepped forward, hands flexing at his sides, the remnants of the sedative still leaving him slightly unsteady. “You took him from me.”

Kudō smirk deepened, bloody and defiant, unable to resist the reckless urge to goad the beast one last time.

“Aw,” he rasped with mock sympathy, choking on a bitter laugh. “What’s wrong? Lose something?”

All For One’s eyes burned like twin coals. His voice was venomous and cold, even as his fists clenched tight, an invisible force already coiling around Kudō’s limbs.

“Nothing compared to what you’ll lose.”

Kudō braced himself, activating Gearshift one last desperate time, but his strength was fading too quickly. His meta-ability barely managed one pathetic, half-formed attack before an unseen hand slammed him viciously to the cold laboratory floor.

He coughed harshly, breath forced out in a violent wheeze. Vision blurred, lights dancing at the edges.

All For One loomed over him, his expression chillingly devoid of his usual veneer of civility. He’d always appeared so calmly monstrous, so effortlessly cruel, but this -

This was rage. Pure and consuming.

Kudō had never seen anyone look so deadly.

He lifted his head weakly from the floor, blood dripping from his lip, as he mustered one last defiant smirk.

But All For One didn’t bother with all those stolen abilities. No invisible force this time. No powers.

Just  human brutality.

His shoe came down hard, heavy, and mercilessly slammed against Kudō’s face.

And everything went black.

Chapter Text

Yoichi had hidden himself in what passed for a storeroom: a windowless cube of concrete and splintering shelves, the air stinking of bleach, gun-oil, and ripening fruit the quartermaster had forgotten. Fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead - too bright, too clinical - so he clicked them off, letting the dark press in until the only light was the thin blue glow of a failing emergency lamp by the door.

It wasn’t enough to quiet his lungs.
Not enough to stop the shiver in his newly reattached arm.
Not enough to dam the frantic chant spiralling through his skull:
Kudō should have left me -  Kudō should have left me - Kudō…

The shelves bit cold into his palms when he gripped them, harder, harder, until the joints in his fingers screamed.

A sob tore out before he could choke it down. He curled inward - forehead banging the shelf - and let it tear: guttural, raw, ugly. He stayed there until his ribs ached from shuddering, until the panic exhausted itself into silence.

Then - because self-pity didn’t help anyone - he forced himself upright. Wiped his face on his sleeve. Inhaled, slow, through the tremor and when his vision steadied, Yoichi drew another breath, tasted blood and chemical dust, and exhaled the apology no one could hear. Then he turned the lights back on and left the storeroom.

 Rebels darted like nervous birds: gear tossed into crates, med-kits snapped shut, whispers sharp as broken glass.

At the hub stood Bruce, sleeves rolled, headset hanging at his throat, barking coordinates to three different teams at once. His eyes flicked up when Yoichi approached, then swept back to the field reports. He didn’t waste words on sympathy; Bruce rationed softness the way surgeons ration morphine - only when bleeding wouldn’t stop on its own.

“Status?” Yoichi asked, voice hoarse.

Bruce finished relaying an extraction route before he answered. “We lost seven on the perimeter sweep. Kamo’s unit is still dark. Giraki’s sedated in containment; Mara’s with him. City-wide curfew coming in under half an hour.” He studied Yoichi’s face a beat longer than necessary, reading fractures. “You should be in the infirmary.”

“Kudō.”

Bruce’s mouth pressed thin. He gestured Yoichi closer, lowering his voice while chaos churned around them. “Yoichi, listen: we cannot mount a recovery op inside the lockdown window. We’re pulling south tonight, regrouping at the farmsteads. That was Kudō’s standing order if anything went to hell - ”

“Then it went to hell,” Yoichi snapped, louder than intended. Heads turned. He swallowed the echo. “Which is why we have to go back.”

“Not with half our scouts dead,” Bruce said, tone as unyielding as steel plating. “Not while the Tyrant could rip secrets out of Kudō’s skull.  We don’t know what kind of meta-abilities he could have picked up in you absence, or if he has any he never told you about. If we stay, we risk the entire network.”

“He won’t kill Kudō.” Yoichi stepped in, refusing to break Bruce’s gaze. “He’ll want a spectacle. If Kudō were dead, the body would be hanging from the river bridge already. He’s alive, which means we have time.”

“Time to do what?” Bruce countered. “Storm the inner city with twelve fatigued rebels and a medic who’s running on adrenaline fumes? If we throw everyone at a rescue and fail, there won’t be a rebellion or Kudō.”

Silence swelled. Around them, crates clamped shut; boots thundered down metal stairs. Radios hissed evacuation codes. Yoichi felt the world narrowing to the beat of his pulse.

“At least,” Bruce added, softer now, “let us get the civilians out first. The doctor is ours - that hurts him. We can press that leverage once we’re safe.”

“You’ll never be safe,” Yoichi said. “Not while he has Kudō.”

Bruce scrubbed a palm over his jaw. Exhaled through clenched teeth. “I’m not leaving my commander in that monster’s hands, Yoichi. I’m asking for time. Once the non-combatants are clear, we plan - we do this - but we do it with a chance of winning.”

Yoichi’s shoulders slumped. But Bruce’s logic was iron, and Yoichi - damn him - understood the calculus. Not sacrifice one for many. Save one by keeping many alive long enough to fight.

He managed a nod. “Ok,” he agreed, voice hollow. “Then we go back.”

Bruce clasped his wrist, brief but firm. “Get checked over, get fed, get your head clear. Mara’s pulling Giraki’s data dump; we’ll know what we’re up against by the time you’re done.”

Yoichi watched him stride away, barking for medics, for routes, for silence on the goddamn comms. The rebels moved like organs in a single wounded beast - bleeding, but alive because Kudō had taught them how to keep a heart beating under fire.

Yoichi would not let that heart stop.

X

Kudō floated three hand-spans above a damp, rotting cell floor - cradled by force he couldn’t see, bent backward until every breath felt like a pry bar in his ribs. Fractured hip, shattered femur: none of it mattered as much as the smug, velvet purr echoing through the wreckage.

“…a rebellion built on sentiment. Admirable, in a child’s drawing sort of way,” the Tyrant mused, strolling a lazy circle around him. “But sentiment snaps. Power bends the world; idealism only bends you.”

Kudō let his head loll so a strand of red hair fell across his eyes. A chuckle rattled out, raw. “You rehearsed that line, didn’t you? Should’ve tried a mirror first - might’ve heard how desperate it sounds.”

The invisible strings cinched tighter and vertebrae ground like gravel. Kudō’s vision fuzzed, but he forced the corners of his mouth higher. No way was he going to give this bastard the satisfaction.

All For One’s smile sharpened. “Oh, we’re merely warming up.” A flick of two fingers twisted Kudō’s right arm until the ligaments sang. “Tell me - how many bones and muscles will I have to break before bravery curdles into begging? Shall we find out?”

“Sure,” Kudō rasped. “Start with your own neck. I’ll count.”

A ripple of amusement - cold as liquid nitrogen - rolled off the Tyrant. “Still charming. Still deluded.” He tipped his head, studying Kudō the way a collector judges a cracked vase. “Curious thing, loyalty. You barter your life for a man you barely know.”

“I know enough about Yoichi.” Kudō’s tongue felt thick, mouth metal-dry. “Knew it the moment I opened that piece of shit cell you called a Vault and saw what you call love.”

At the word Vault, pressure stabbed his jaw - an unseen spike beneath the tongue. Needlepoints blossomed across every taste bud. Kudō grunted; copper flooded his mouth. The strings tightened, forcing his torso into a deeper arch that set broken bone grinding.

All For One’s voice thinned. “Keep my brother’s name out of that foul mouth.”

“So you do hate when I say it.” Kudō swallowed blood and grinned red. “Yoichi.”

Agony knifed through his tongue like hot wire. Tears pricked, but he barked a laugh anyway. “Yoichi, Yoichi, Yoichi -”

The pain vanished; the strings relaxed just enough to let him breathe. All For One approached, hands clasped behind his back, expression placid but eyes volcanic in the creepy opaqueness.

“Thieves shouldn’t speak about treasures they tried to steal.”

“Steal?” Kudō spat a pink arc to the floor. “I freed him, you psycho. He was glad to see the sun without your shadow on it.”

A crack of energy, soundless yet deafening, slammed Kudō’s body upright, then flung him down. He landed on his broken leg; white heat detonated behind his eyes. The force pinned him kneeling, spine arched, arms splayed like a crucifixion puppet.

All For One bent to meet him eye to eye. “Listen, you meaningless speck of dirt. You are no hero, no saviour - not even a footnote in our lives. And when I’m finished, the rebellion will watch you die inch by inch.” His gloved fingertips brushed Kudō’s cheek almost tenderly. “Mercy is for lesser men and children. I am the Demon Lord.”

Kudō drew a breath that whistled through cracked ribs, but there was no need to force the derisive laugh he barked out with. “That’s a lot of pageantry for a smear on your boot. What’s wrong demon lord - feeling threatened?”

The tyrant’s hand closed over Kudō’s jaw, thumb forcing his lips apart with pincered, digging fingers that clenched hard enough to bruise. “Not even handsome,” he murmured, as he catalogued flaws, lip curling in disdain. “Yoichi was always led astray by the pretty ones. So you certainly don’t register.”

Kudō’s split mouth curved. “Funny - you sound jealous. For the record -” he whispered “- he called me handsome while we danced.”

The lie fell out of his mouth with the smirk. As if Yoichi would ever think that about him.

But it worked.

The bastard’s mask shattered.

Pure, incandescent rage rippled across All For One’s features - there and gone, like lightning behind glass. His left hand rose, fingers crooking as though plucking invisible threads.

Pressure sheared across Kudō’s face - ice first, then liquid fire. 
Skin split open from temple to cheek in a single, perfect line as blood, hot and sudden, poured down his neck. 

He didn’t scream; the sound stuck in his throat, a strangled hiss he turned into a laugh.

All For One leaned close, breath cool against the new wound. “Not so pretty now.”

Black stars swarmed Kudō’s vision. He tasted dust and iron and victory in the flicker of fury he’d coaxed into those abyssal eyes before darkness folded over him before he saw whether the tyrant’s smile faltered.

X

Bruce, all bruised knuckles and focus, closed the crate with a satisfying snap of the latch. “Last load,” he muttered, nodding for Yoichi to help haul it to the door.

They didn’t get the chance.

Tobi came sprinting down the hallway, half-tripping over a coil of wires, face pale enough to show every freckle like stars in a winter sky. “Turn on the news,” he gasped, stumbling to a stop in front of them.

“What channel?” Bruce demanded instantly.

Tobi didn’t answer - just named a number. His voice cracked on it.

Bruce shoved a stool aside and switched on the corner television, the ancient flat-screen flickering to life with a distorted hum. The rebels around them slowed, turned, began to gather.

“Breaking news: the leader of the domestic terrorist cell responsible for the attack on celebrated benefactor and philanthropist Zen Shigaraki has been apprehended. Authorities confirm the man, known publicly by the alias ‘Kudō,’ was captured in the aftermath of a coordinated attack at the private residence of renowned geneticist Doctor Kyudai Giraki.”

Yoichi’s breath left him in a single, shuddering exhale.

“The court convened in emergency session this morning and reached a unanimous verdict. Guilty on all charges. Execution is scheduled for twenty-four hours from now on the front steps of the Justice Building in Central City. Authorities state this will be a closed event for security reasons. Citizens are advised to stay home and remain calm as the proceedings are carried out.”

The screen shifted to a serene image of All For One smiling benevolently at some charity gala. A scrolling banner at the bottom read:

PEACE RESTORED: PHILANTHROPIST SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT BY DOMESTIC RADICALS.

Yoichi couldn’t breathe.

The voices around him rose all at once - swearing, shouting, someone overturning a crate. Tobi muttered prayers or curses or both, while two others pulled up maps on their tablets. The depot flared with heat and panic. Someone shouted that it was a bluff. Someone else shouted for calm. No one had it.

Bruce stood still. His face had gone blank - still and calculating like a bomb just before detonation.

“He’s alive,” Yoichi managed. “He’s still -”

“We need a plan,” Bruce cut in, voice cold enough to slice steel. “Now.”

He barked for communications, for maps, for team leads. The warehouse transformed into a war room in under thirty seconds. Screens were dragged in. Radios crackled. Men and women with half-healed wounds and dark-ringed eyes snapped to formation.

Yoichi's gaze kept sliding back toward the flickering glow of the television, the screen buzzing faintly as the anchor continued in that polished, detached voice.

“ - joining us live now, benefactor and philanthropist Zen Shigaraki, who survived last night's devastating attack. Mr. Shigaraki, thank you for being here in this difficult time.”

The screen shifted to an elegant studio bathed in gentle light. Yoichi’s gut twisted sharply, nails biting crescents into his palms. The sight of his brother sitting poised and impeccable under the spotlight, a polite expression masking any hint of cruelty, made bile rise in Yoichi’s throat.

All For One’s voice came velvet-smooth, precisely modulated - gentle, paternal even - as he addressed the interviewer. “Thank you, Akari-san. While these circumstances are indeed tragic, I remain hopeful for a peaceful resolution.”

“Mr. Shigaraki, many viewers at home may feel fearful after this recent attack. What can you tell us about these rebels?”

All For One sighed softly, a practised sorrow carefully placed in the gentle creases of his eyes. “These people call themselves a resistance - but they are little more than criminals, I'm afraid. Misguided individuals who resort to violence and murder under the guise of lofty ideals.”

The interviewer nodded, sympathetic. “It must be difficult, given your reputation as such a generous benefactor.”

“Yes.” All For One smiled sadly, a perfect mask of restrained humility. “I have always tried to help those less fortunate. But the rebels seem intent on destruction, rather than dialogue. They attacked the good doctor’s home, where we were celebrating quietly among friends, intending to murder innocent lives simply to make a point.”

The interviewer’s expression softened further, her gaze intent with a well-feigned seriousness. “And we understand there was a more personal tragedy as well, involving your brother, Yoichi Shigaraki?”

The world stilled. Yoichi’s heart seized, blood pulsing loud enough he could barely hear anything else. The rebels around him seemed distant, voices muffled, irrelevant.

All For One’s composure shifted, becoming just perceptibly fragile. He nodded, his eyes momentarily cast downward - an actor’s masterful portrait of quiet grief. “Yes. Six months ago, during a similar attack on my home, my dear brother Yoichi was abducted by these rebels.”

An image filled the screen - Yoichi’s photograph. He was standing nervously at All For One’s side, taken years ago, his expression nervous and far more naïve. His brother was smiling so easily. Yoichi had tried to but the cracks in their had already began to show. It was a face from a lifetime before the Vault, before Kudō, before any hint of freedom.

The anchor’s gentle voice-over cut in. “Yoichi Shigaraki, long reported to suffer from severe mental illness, has been missing since the insurgent group forcibly removed him from his brother’s care.”

Yoichi’s breathing sharpened into a silent rasp. The same old lies, expertly woven - his brother's narrative spread long ago to preemptively poison any credibility Yoichi might find in warning people about All For One. He felt again the old nausea, the suffocating helplessness.

All For One’s voice drew him sharply back. “My brother is gentle, vulnerable - someone who needs much care and protection. He’s never known violence. And now he’s trapped, undoubtedly frightened, being forced to do things he would never choose.” 

His gaze lifted, dark and earnest as he spoke directly into the camera. Directly to Yoichi. “Yoichi, if you’re watching this - I am not angry with you. I understand you must be confused and scared. Whatever these terrorists have compelled you to do, I forgive you. All that matters is your safety. Please - come home.”

The anchor’s voice softened further. “Remarkably generous, Mr. Shigaraki. Do you have any final words for the rebels?”

“Yes.” All For One leaned forward slightly, voice steady and low, every syllable a careful brushstroke on a painting of perfect sincerity. “I implore you - if you truly wish for peace, release my brother and Dr. Giraki. Return them to safety. If you do this, perhaps some good can come of this tragedy. I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure a peaceful negotiation.”

The anchor bowed slightly, deeply touched. “Thank you, Mr. Shigaraki, for your bravery and compassion. And to our viewers: we will continue to bring you updates on this developing story -”

Someone abruptly switched the television off. The screen snapped black, plunging Yoichi into ringing silence.

X

The plan came together in fragments - scribbles on crate lids, breathless radio calls, half-torn maps taped to the metal walls of the depot. There was no time for polish; they were shaping desperation into strategy and praying it would hold an hour.

Yoichi hovered at the edge of every knot of rebels, listening, offering a detail, a route, anything. Each time he spoke, Bruce redirected him with a brisk nod, an I-need-you-elsewhere tone that rasped across Yoichi’s nerves like sandpaper.

Finally Yoichi cornered him beside the weapons cage.

“Stop pretending,” he said, voice low. “You mean to leave me behind.”

Bruce snapped a magazine into a rifle, checked the chamber, didn’t look up. “Yes.”

“Then you’re doing exactly what he wants.” Yoichi’s pulse pounded in his neck. “All For One will expect me to stay safe. If I’m not there -”

“He expects you either way.” Bruce lifted his gaze at last - stern and unblinking. “We take you, you’re a beacon. All For One’s entire security grid will pivot the second it sniffs you. We lose stealth, we lose our margin, and Kudō dies on those steps while you’re dragged back in chains.”

Yoichi tasted bile. “I can fight.”

“You can,” Bruce agreed. “But you’re more valuable alive, coordinating. We need supply drops, fallback tunnels, comms routing. You know the rural network better than anyone else now.” He gentled, fractionally. “Kudō trusted me to command. Trust me to use my assets.”

Assets.
Yoichi hated the word, hated how accurate it was. Still, he felt his resistance crumble under the weight of logic. He forced himself to breathe - counting, like Kudō had taught him: one, two, three -release.

“Fine,” he said, though the syllable cut. 

The evac column assembled in the alley at dawn’s smear of grey. Box trucks, panel vans, their sides hastily spray painted with farm co-op logos. Tech they’d brought with them were loaded first, then med cases, then the remaining archive drives. Yoichi moved through the bustle, checking straps, counting heads - anything to keep from looking at the empty slot where Kudō should have paced, barking last second orders.

When his own turn came to climb aboard, he hesitated at the ramp. Bruce strode up, rifle slung, dust-streaked coat flapping in the exhaust wash.

“I’ll bring him back,” he said, as though it were simply another logistics task.

Yoichi’s throat tightened. “Be safe,” he managed. “It’s not only Kudō I’m worried for.”

For a heartbeat Bruce’s mask cracked - weariness, affection, something quickly tucked away. He gave a two-finger salute and thumped the side of the truck.

Roll-out. Engines growled. Yoichi settled on a crate between two elderly farmers clutching datapads and tried not to count the street corners sliding past. Every metre felt like cowardice stretched taut.

Trust them, he told himself. They did this before you. They’ll do it after you. But the words rang hollow, tin on stone, and the guilt sat in his gut like swallowed lead.

X

Morning cracked open above Central City like a bruise - grey clouds breaking into sickly streaks of sunlight.

The wind held a bitter chill, threading through Kudō’s torn clothes as he was dragged roughly from the armoured van and forced onto his knees. His bones protested, injuries flaring into fresh agony, muscles trembling beneath their bindings.

Marble stairs sprawled before him, the stark white of the Justice Building looming overhead, blank and cold as a gravestone. Drones hummed softly above, camera lenses glinting like polished black eyes. Around him, an ocean of citizens stood silent, pressed into rigid formation by unmoving patrols and hovering drones. Hundreds of eyes watched him, waiting for blood, for spectacle.

It all felt surreal - eerily quiet, voices subdued by fear or anticipation. 

Kudō’s gaze scanned the anonymous faces in the front rows, each expression starkly expectant or deliberately blank. 

Kudō closed his eyes briefly, breathing through cracked ribs. He steadied his heartbeat, focusing only on that small anchor of calm. 

This wasn’t how he wanted to end. He wanted to see Yoichi free, truly free, wanted to know Bruce and the others would live to fight beyond this morning. He forced the air into his lungs, slow and measured, even as his limbs shivered in their bonds.

To his right, beyond a row of neatly seated government officials, All For One sat watching. 

Calm, neat, his tailored suit impeccably pressed. His expression was soft, a mask perfected by decades of careful manipulation. When he caught Kudō’s gaze, the corner of his lips lifted slightly - a mocking, knowing look.

The memory of their conversation returned like the prick of a blade:
“It doesn’t have to end this way, you know.” All For One’s voice had been smooth, velvet wrapped around a knife. “Just give me Yoichi’s location, and I can grant you mercy. There is no need for martyrdom.”

Kudō had said nothing then, merely stared. All For One had sighed, as though deeply disappointed, shaking his head.

Now, seated comfortably amidst his fellow vipers, the Tyrant rose gracefully. He stepped forward, shoes echoing softly against the polished stone, approaching Kudō slowly, deliberately, savouring every tense breath of silence.

He leaned close, voice low and mild, soft as a friend’s whisper. “I’m giving you one last chance. Tell me where he is, and you can still walk away. You can still live, Kudō. It needn’t end like this.”

Kudō tilted his head upward, forcing a brittle smirk. “Does it hurt?”

All For One’s expression shifted subtly. “What?”

“That he’d rather be anywhere else than with you?” Kudō murmured, voice rough but firm. “That he chose us over you?”

He saw it - the flicker of controlled rage, the narrowing eyes behind that polished mask. A tiny fracture, easily hidden again, but visible. Satisfaction surged through Kudō’s veins like fire.

“Careful,” All For One murmured, voice tight as a wire. “This ends poorly for you. Badly enough that even you may beg me to stop.”

Kudō smiled, bloodied teeth bared, looked up into that evil, spiteful face.

And spat in it.

All For One’s eyes narrowed, calm returning like a wave. He reached up and wiped the spit away with a pristine white handkerchief, never breaking eye contact.

“I warned you,” the Tyrant said softly.

Retaliation was instant. 

Agony exploded from his shattered leg, invisible tendrils of power twisting and ripping muscle fibres apart beneath his skin. He unwillingly released an agonized hiss through gritted teeth, body seizing as white hot pain obliterated thought, a tooth chipping under the strain. 

X

Miles away, hidden in the damp, dark mouth of the tunnel base, the rebels clustered around a small television set. Static flickered briefly, the feed stabilizing to show the brutal clarity of the execution scene. Faces paled, silence thickened until it felt suffocating.

Yoichi stood rigid, muscles tensed as if bracing for the same agony Kudō endured. He pressed a shaking hand to his mouth, barely daring to breathe, refusing to let tears escape, eyes fixed on Kudō’s bowed figure on screen.

“Come on, Bruce,” he whispered, a ragged prayer that scraped against his throat like broken glass. “Please - please get him out.”

Around him, fists clenched, whispered curses and muffled sobs echoed quietly. The rebels who had stayed behind - non-combatants, children, those too wounded to fight - watched their commander suffer, a helpless fury burning through their silence.

Yoichi’s heart battered against his ribs, every fibre of his being screaming at him to run, to fight, to do anything but stand still. But he couldn’t move. All he could do was watch Kudō struggle to breathe, body trembling visibly, blood trickling down bruised lips.

X

On the Justice Building’s steps, Kudō’s vision blurred, waves of blackness lapping at the edges of consciousness. He fought to steady himself, eyes narrowing against the swimming nausea.

Yoichi, he thought, the name a grounding tether amid the pain. If you’re safe, this is worth it.

As the agony eased slightly, he tilted his head back up, eyes finding a familiar face in the crowd.

They were here - his people.

Bruce’s tense form was a beacon amidst the assembled people. There was movement - a tiny nod from the crowd, the faintest twitch of fingers signalling readiness.

He forced his breathing calm, face set in defiance despite every screaming nerve. The pain was meaningless; it couldn’t steal what mattered. Not if it meant Yoichi was free, far from these marble steps, these monsters in suits.

All For One stepped back, turning with composed elegance to address the assembled crowd.

“Citizens,” he said, clear voice ringing out gently, a man disappointed but merciful. “Today we put an end to senseless terror, to needless suffering. Justice demands consequences. Our city deserves peace, and we shall have it.”

The cheers that met him were hesitant, uncertain. Fear hung thick over the crowd.

Kudō inhaled sharply, jaw locked tight. He met Bruce’s eyes again, clear and fierce beneath the shadows of the cap, the message between them silent but unmistakable:

Now.

Kudō braced himself, steadying what little strength remained in his battered frame. He had accepted his death the moment he spat in All For One’s face. But maybe, just maybe, Bruce could change that fate.

And even if he didn’t - even if Kudō fell here, bloody and broken on these cold marble steps - Yoichi would live. Would be free.

And that alone made every last second of agony worth it.

Somewhere behind his eyelids, the world was bright - too bright - but sound had narrowed to a single ringing note in his skull. Then all at once the note cut out.

The giant screens ringing the plaza, every public holo-panel, every drone feed, blinked white, hissed, and went dark.

For a heartbeat, the Justice Building steps were a stage with the lights yanked. Crowds muttered, baffled patrol dogs barked, camera drones hovered mid-air like insects that had forgotten how to fly. In that hush Kudō felt, absurdly, the breeze on his lips for the first time since the lab.

The pain was a wire threaded through his nerves, pulled taut and burning.

Kudō’s body bucked against the invisible tension curling his limbs inward, his leg screaming beneath fresh stress, his back a series of sparks and spasms. The stone beneath his knees bit deep through cloth, but the agony was elsewhere - everywhere - crawling along his spine, pushing into the marrow of his bones. He ground his teeth until he tasted iron. He wouldn’t give the bastard a scream.

Above him, the sky bloomed pale with morning. Thin sunlight struck the side of the Justice Building like a spotlight - too bright, too sterile for the execution it framed.

Then came the sound: movement. Boots scrambling. A gasp from the crowd, sharp as glass shattering.

Someone shoved forward through the spectators, dragging a struggling figure whose hood had fallen askew - revealing wisps of thinning hair, wire-rim glasses knocked askance, and a rapidly purpling bruise across one temple.

Giraki.

The crowd parted, murmurs cresting into frightened static. Parents pulled children close. Guards fumbled for position. Camera drones reoriented like vultures circling fresh meat.

Through the rising tension, Bruce’s voice cut clear - amplified by the hijacked loud-hailers the rebels had hidden beneath park benches and traffic poles the night before.

“One for one, Tyrant! Kudō lives, your pet butcher lives.”

His voice was hoarse, like he'd swallowed smoke and gravel - but steady. Kudō lifted his head slightly, just enough to see Bruce’s silhouette at the heart of the crowd, Giraki zip-cuffed and held by the collar. The doctor’s lips moved, but no sound reached them.

And then All For One stepped forward.

The polite, mild mask he wore for cameras slid into place: soft smile, slight incline of the head, theatrical concern radiating from every carefully trained movement. His voice, when it came, echoed with that same unnatural calm, now amplified for the square.

“Release my friend, and perhaps we can discuss leniency.”

Kudō snorted, bloodied lips twitching. “Bruce,” he rasped, “the man doesn’t do leniency.”

Bruce’s eyes never left All For One. “Kudō walks to the van. You get Giraki after he’s clear. You’ve got sixty seconds.”

For a heartbeat, everything held still.

Then All For One lifted one hand.

The same moment, Kudō’s shackles snapped apart with a sharp crack - a sniper’s round severing the lock in one clean shot. Kudō barely stayed upright, limbs jelly, head swimming.

Simultaneously, Giraki was yanked from Bruce’s grip by invisible force, lifted bodily through the air like a puppet. All For One’s hand completed its slow arc - and the doctor collided against his side, caught and curled behind a flickering meta-shield.

“Shit,” Kudō muttered, the adrenaline catching up with his broken ribs.

Bruce didn’t hesitate. White-phosphor smoke erupted across the marble steps - pre-placed charges buried in trash bins and beneath power conduits. The square vanished into choking light and heat. A second wave of rebels tossed tear-gas marbles into the outer edges of the crowd, forcing civilians into retreat corridors.

The world exploded into chaos.

All For One reached out - not with words, but with force - and ripped the steel door off a nearby SWAT van. With the same motion, he hurled it across the plaza like shrapnel toward the sniper’s nest.

Gunfire cracked - sharp, rapid bursts. The security teams opened fire blindly into the smoke, their panic fanned by the riot of movement and voices. Rebels returned fire only where necessary: tight, precise shots aimed at knees, spotlight rigs, guard drones.

Through the curtain of white, Red Cell emerged - four rebels bearing a collapsible riot shield wall. Kudō barely felt their hands as they hauled him to his feet and dragged him behind cover. His knees buckled. He stumbled twice. Each breath felt like a blade.

Above, Blue Cell opened fire on the drone relay tower. One of the cameras spiralled from the sky in a trail of fire, crashing into the fountain in front of the courthouse steps. The footage blinked and fuzzed out, only to be picked up again from a different angle by a network drone still broadcasting live.

Kudō heard the crowd stampeding before he saw it - screams, shouts, orders shouted over comms. Rebels shouting for the civilians to go, pushing non-combatants through alley exits. The van roared from a side street like a hunting beast - Mara, at the wheel, fishtailing into place with a screech of tires. The side door slid open before the brakes finished catching.

Bruce was the last through the smoke.

He fired two tight shotgun blasts over his shoulder - slugs, not scatter - supercharged with Fa-Jin - before dragging Kudō bodily toward the van.

 A grazing round tore a line across Bruce’s bicep, blood blooming through the fabric. He didn’t react, didn’t falter, just threw Kudō through the side door with one brutal shove and dove in after.

The van peeled away as flashbangs popped behind them. Someone dropped an old city barricade behind the van’s wheels, buying them seconds.

X

Back in the tunnels, Yoichi sat frozen, eyes locked on the feed as it struggled to stabilize. Static danced across the monitor.

The feed cut to emergency coverage.

Yoichi exhaled a trembling breath that caught in his throat and turned into a choked sound - half-sob, half-laugh. Kudō lived.

 For now.

But Giraki was gone.

And All For One had lost nothing in these last six months.

X

Inside the van, every second rattled like a gunshot.
Mara shouted directions over the comms, the wheel jerking with every swerve. The van’s undercarriage groaned over potholes and cracked pavement.

Kudō, crumpled against the inner wall, forced his eyes open.

His voice was barely a whisper. “Yoichi... Is he safe?”

Bruce, still clutching the shotgun, reached over and pressed a gloved hand to Kudō’s forehead. “He’s safe,” he said, quietly but with iron certainty.

Kudō nodded. Tried to sit up.

Collapsed again.

“Make sure the rookies got out,” he rasped. “Casualty counts. You promise me.”

“Shut up and bleed later, Captain,” Bruce muttered, steadying him against the wall. “We’re taking you home.”

Kudō let his eyes close. The drone of the engine replaced the screams in his ears. His face burned from the fresh tear in his cheek. Blood stuck warm against his collar. But Yoichi was safe. The rebels were alive. And if this was the cost -

He’d pay it again.

No hesitation.

X

He surfaced to pain - clean, white hot, purposeful.

Overhead a cracked fluorescent tube buzzed like an angry insect. Someone’s gloved fingers pressed hard into the meat of his thigh while another pair forced his knee flat against creaking plywood.

 Kudō tried to twist away; new agony lit up his hip, and a half-strangled shout punched out of him.

“Hold him,” a medic barked.

He blinked, vision swimming: tarpaulin ceiling, sawn off table legs, a stainless tray slick with iodine. Diesel fumes mixed with coppery blood and the mildew stink of the drainage tunnels beneath the depot.

“Stitch it,” Kudō hissed, jaw clenched. “Staple it. Just - just close me and move.”

A shadow leaned in - Bruce, sweat tracing soot streaks down his cheek. “You want that leg in working order again, Captain, you let the medics set the pins.”

“How long?” Kudō ignored him, focusing on the medic. His voice ground out, edged sharp with agony and urgency. “What are my chances at full function?”

Silence. Eyes flickered between one another - an entire argument conveyed without words.

Finally, the senior medic stepped forward, swallowing nervously. “Sir, it’s … not good. The damage is severe. Tendons and muscles shredded, nerves compromised. The way that bastard twisted you -” He trailed off helplessly, eyes dropping to the floor.

A heartbeat passed, agony screaming in the space between. Kudō clenched his jaw, nodding tightly. His gaze hardened, tone final. “Then amputate.”

Stunned silence fractured the room. Bruce straightened abruptly, eyes narrowing. “Captain -”

“I said amputate it,” Kudō snapped, voice rising to a hoarse bark of command. “I can handle a prosthetic. But if you stitch this mess back together, it’s dead weight. I can’t afford to be slowed down - not now. Not ever.”

Protests rose weakly around him, medics hesitating, looking desperately to Bruce for confirmation. Bruce met Kudō’s glare, silent understanding passing between them. 

Finally, Bruce sighed and nodded sharply. “Do as he says.”

Before Kudō could brace himself, a cold pinch burned through his upper arm - a syringe puncturing skin, injecting oblivion. Kudō’s eyes fluttered shut, protests dying on numb lips, consciousness dissolving into merciful blackness.

X

When Kudō woke again, awareness returned slowly - filtered and dull beneath the fog of anaesthetics. But clarity came quickly enough as he shifted against sweat-damp sheets, fingers drifting down the length of his leg.

Gone.

Where muscle and bone had once carried him, only thick layers of surgical dressing remained. He paused, staring numbly at the empty space below his knee. He gave himself one moment - one single heartbeat - to mourn it. 

He closed his eyes, inhaling deep, steadying breaths.

A leg was a small price. There were others who’d lost far more.

He pushed upright, biting his cheek against the sharp pain in his hip, testing movement. The joint shifted smoothly, a steady ache beneath fresh stitches, but nothing shattered or slipped out of alignment.

Good enough.

Kudō grabbed a crutch resting beside his cot and levered himself upright, muscles trembling, sweat breaking across his brow. Voices rose immediately, protests and orders to stay put, sit back, rest. He waved them all off, eyes flinty and unyielding.

“We need to leave. All For One will descend soon,” he gritted through his teeth, carefully taking his weight on the crutch, hips aching but holding. “My hip. Will the function stay stable?”

The medic who’d argued before stepped up, meeting his stare evenly. “Yes. We had a healer use their meta-ability during surgery. Hip joint’s intact. It’ll hold and long-term functionality should be fully restored.”

“Good,” Kudō exhaled sharply, swaying slightly before catching his balance. His head spun momentarily, vision darkening at the edges.

Bruce appeared at his side, grip steadying but gentle, voice firm. “Sit back down, Captain. You want updates? You’ll get them. But stay put, or I’ll tie you down myself.”

Kudō huffed a breathless laugh. “Fine. But you better talk fast.”

Bruce nodded, helping ease Kudō back onto the cot edge. As the medics gave them space, Bruce began detailing rapid-fire: the situation at the square, the aftermath of the exchange, troop morale, civilian evacuations, rebel casualties. Kudō listened intently, ignoring the renewed ache in his chest as Bruce listed off wounded and missing rebels.

When Bruce finished, Kudō took a steadying breath. Only then did he ask quietly, “And Yoichi? Is he safe?”

Bruce’s eyes softened slightly, the rigid lines of his face relaxing for a split second. “He’s safe. Back at the tunnels, coordinating refugees and logistics. He wanted to come after you, but I ordered him not to.”

Kudō exhaled shakily, nodding once in weary acceptance. He ran a hand over his face, slick with sweat and blood.

“Good,” he murmured, voice almost lost beneath the distant rumble of engines and activity beyond the depot walls. 

 “He’ll be waiting for you when we get there,” Bruce replied quietly.

Kudō’s jaw tightened briefly, emotions raw and near the surface. But he smoothed them back behind a commander’s mask and forced himself straighter. “Then let’s get moving. I refuse to lose anyone else today.”

Bruce’s expression sharpened again, nodding firmly. “Transport’s prepping now. We’ll be clear of the city inside an hour.”

“Good,” Kudō murmured, eyes sliding shut briefly. Pain lapped at the edges of his consciousness like waves eroding stone. But beneath that exhaustion simmered resolve - steadfast and stronger than ever.

This was war. He’d known the risks. He’d pay the cost. And if All For One thought a lack of a leg would break him, he was dead wrong.

Kudō reopened his eyes, gaze flinty, hand tightening around the crutch at his side.

“We’re not done yet,” he whispered fiercely. “Not by a damn sight.”

X

Days dragged like shadows in the underground tunnels. Above, the distant crack and rumble of an unrelated battle leaked through the thick stone ceiling - bombs vibrating the walls just enough to stir up restless anxiety. 

Yoichi kept his hands busy, moving relentlessly among crates stacked high with supplies, counting rations, checking bandages, quietly noting medical inventory. He moved like a ghost through the maze of makeshift shelters, offering quiet reassurance to refugees, forcing himself to appear composed.

Inside, he frayed. Each passing hour without proper news clawed at his already shredded nerves.

It took just a handful of hours to reach the tunnels from the city. Yet Bruce's sparse communications indicated they'd been forced to divert, choosing slower, winding roads to throw off pursuit. "Avoiding detection," Bruce had explained through the scratchy radio connection. "Keep everyone ready. We're coming home."

But home had felt impossibly far away. Yoichi’s lungs burned, breath coming in short, shallow pulls.
 Eventually, one of the senior medics had pressed a gentle but firm hand to his shoulder, quietly instructing him to rest. When Yoichi had protested weakly, the medic had simply folded their arms, levelling a stare stern enough to make him relent.

Thus Yoichi found himself alone, pacing restlessly in the dimly-lit makeshift command room. Maps cluttered tables, pinned hastily with notes of positions and supplies. Static hummed softly from the battered comm units; the patchy updates from Bruce were barely coherent.

Fatigue finally overtook him as he curled stiffly onto the worn sofa, eyes drifting shut despite his stubborn resistance.

X

Noise jolted him awake.

Yoichi bolted upright, heart racing, ears ringing. The tunnel outside buzzed with a swell of sudden voices. Panic surged cold through his veins. He stumbled to his feet, chest heaving painfully, and nearly collided with the door frame as he rushed into the corridor.

There - limping slowly into the main chamber, leaning heavily against a crutch, was Kudō.

His breath froze.

Kudō's eyes locked on Yoichi, weariness and relief both unmistakable. Bruce hovered just behind, a careful hand gripping Kudō’s jacket to steady him. Kudō tried to step forward, tried to smile reassuringly. But Yoichi’s vision blurred with tears he’d refused to let fall for days.

“Kudō -” His voice cracked, a strangled whisper. 

Before he could even think, Yoichi ran forward, almost stumbling as he reached Kudō and wrapped desperate arms around him. The crutch clattered softly, nearly falling. Bruce’s grip tightened briefly, holding Kudō steady.

Kudō’s free arm wound around Yoichi’s waist, pulling him closer. Yoichi shuddered, the relief of feeling Kudō safe in his arms almost crippling. His heart hammered, all the emotions he’d buried beneath duty and desperation surging suddenly, raw and undeniable. 

Kudō was alive. Bruised, broken - but warm and breathing and here.

It was only as he stepped back slightly, breathing steadier, that Yoichi truly saw Kudō. He blinked down at the space where a limb should have supported Kudō’s weight. He froze, heart jolting painfully.

The fresh, stark scar cleaving his left cheekbone.

“Oh - ” The word collapsed into a tremor. His fingers hovered over the jagged line, then slipped lower to squeeze Kudō’s forearm as if simple contact could knit bone. “Kudo -”

“Yeah I know,” Kudō remarked with grim humour. “Haven’t seen it yet but I bet it’s not a pretty sight.”

Yoichi couldn’t voice his words. He could only glance down, swallowing back tears as he took in the missing limb.

Kudō grimaced faintly, awkwardly adjusting his balance. "It's fine. Just a leg."

Yoichi’s fingers trembled as they reached out reflexively. “It’s gone,” he whispered, horrified.

Kudō squeezed Yoichi’s shoulder softly, attempting nonchalance. "Really, Yoichi. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Bruce cleared his throat, arms folded sternly. “It’s exactly as bad as it looks. He decided to amputate. Stubborn bastard insisted -”

“I can manage,” Kudō growled quietly, eyes flashing defiance despite the exhaustion in his voice. “The medic on hand had an acceleration ability specifically for this kind of shit. I’m weeks ahead in healing  instead of days, and with full hip function. I’m good.”

Bruce sighed heavily, giving Yoichi a pointed look. “He’s your problem now. Don’t let him move.”

Yoichi straightened, nodding quickly, determination rising to match his concern. “I’ll look after him.”

“I don’t need -”

“You do,” Yoichi cut Kudō off firmly, voice shaking but resolute. “Let me.”

Bruce gave a small, satisfied grunt. He clapped Kudō once on the shoulder, grip lingering briefly. “Behave. We’ll talk logistics later.” He turned, disappearing into the bustling tunnels beyond.

Silence settled around them and, slowly, Kudō’s bravado crumbled. 

His shoulders sagged slightly, weariness dragging through every line of his body. Yoichi stepped closer, gently pulling Kudō’s arm around his shoulders. Kudō sagged willingly into him, face buried against Yoichi’s neck.

Yoichi’s breath hitched softly at the raw vulnerability in that gesture. His own arms tightened, holding Kudō with gentle firmness. 

“It’s okay,” he whispered against Kudō’s ear. “It’s okay to mourn it. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

For a moment, Kudō trembled. His breathing shuddered, ragged and pained. He buried his face deeper, inhaling sharply, silently grieving all he'd lost. Yoichi’s fingers brushed slow, comforting patterns along Kudō’s back, grounding him, giving him space to accept the truth of what had been taken.

Eventually, after a long while, Kudō’s breathing steadied again. His tension softened into a quiet stillness. 

In the charged silence that followed, Yoichi became acutely aware of their closeness - warmth mingling, breath brushing softly against his skin.

He felt Kudō shift slowly, face pulling away just enough to gaze into Yoichi’s eyes. The exhaustion and grief were still there, but something else kindled slowly - deeper, intense, electric. 

Yoichi’s pulse quickened; surely Kudō felt it where their bodies pressed together.

Kudō’s hand rose gently, brushing Yoichi’s hair from his eyes. The movements was slow, careful, silently asking for permission. Yoichi felt the hesitation, felt Kudō’s cautious respect.

Without thinking, without doubting himself, Yoichi tilted forward, his heart thundering as his lips brushed tentatively against Kudō’s. 

The kiss was gentle at first, tremblingly hesitant, but Kudō responded immediately, warmth blooming beneath the softness.

It deepened swiftly, hesitation slipping away. Kudō’s arm tightened around Yoichi’s waist, pulling him close and Yoichi gasped softly, lips parting instinctively, head tilting to deepen the contact. Everything beyond them faded - no tunnels, no war, no aching losses.

Only Kudō, warm and alive in his arms, sharing breath, tension sparking into something fierce and achingly tender.

And Yoichi couldn’t ask for anything more.

How could he - when his heart was so full for the first time in his life?

Chapter Text

The kiss lingered in Yoichi’s memory long after they parted.

Kudō stayed close, his palm still steady at the nape of Yoichi’s neck, grounding them both. The rumble of movement outside - the low clang of tools, boots on concrete, the occasional barked command - faded beneath the hum of something heavier and far more personal.

Six months of silence, aching glances, and breath held between words.
Now, nothing stood between them.

Yoichi’s fingers slipped beneath Kudō’s coat, curling against the fabric of his shirt. He waited for the other man to tense, to pull back, to stammer something about timing - but Kudō only watched him, eyes dark and unreadable. Still. Waiting.

“You sure?” he whispered against Yoichi’s lips. 

Yoichi nodded, fighting not to seem to eager.

Kudō exhaled slowly. “Then I need to ask - Yoichi, have you ever ...”

Yoichi swallowed. He knew what he meant. And the truth sat cold on his tongue before he made it real.

“I have,” he said. “Just… not like this. Not... willingly.”

Kudō stilled completely.

Yoichi didn’t flinch. He wasn’t a boy anymore. And he wouldn’t lie about what had been taken from him in the Vault. His voice stayed steady. “It was never my choice. But this is.”

Something in Kudō’s throat clicked - rage or grief, Yoichi couldn’t tell. Maybe both. But when he touched Yoichi’s face again, it was impossibly gentle. “You can stop me at any time. Say the word and I’ll back off. No questions.”

“I know.” Yoichi smiled faintly, not from comfort, but clarity. “You’re not him.”

The shadows in Kudō’s face eased - just a little - and with that permission, Yoichi eased Kudō back onto the narrow cot, careful of bandages. 

The rooms meagre light painted their shadows in wavering gold across the cracked concrete walls, but neither of them looked away long enough to notice. Not when Yoichi’s attention was on something far more important.

His fingers skimmed Kudō’s freshly scarred face, careful not to press the torn and stitched flesh. “For what it's worth - I like the scar. It makes you look ...” He searched for a word that captured the thrill tightening in his chest. 

“Fucked up?”

“Rugged. Daring. Dangerously appealing.”

“I am dangerous,” Kudō muttered, but there was a grin behind it.

“In all honesty, I’m extremely attracted to it,” Yoichi confessed, pointedly.

Kudō flushed to the tips of his ears. “That’s not fair,” he muttered. “You can’t just say that and then -”

Yoichi kissed him again, harder this time. Kudō responded immediately, hands fisting in Yoichi’s shirt. The kiss deepened fast - hungry, messy. Kudō tugged Yoichi closer until their hips met, until breath hitched in both their chests.

It was Yoichi who pushed Kudō gently back against the thin mattress, crawling atop him and straddling his hips with aching need. Kudō let him, breath shaky, hands staying low at Yoichi’s waist as if to keep him from vanishing and Yoichi, ever careful of Kudō’s healing leg, adjusted instinctively, the crutch clattering softly to the floor. 

Kudō hissed once in pain, but shook his head when Yoichi started to lift off.
“Don’t stop,” he said, hand cupping the back of Yoichi’s head. “Please.”

The hunger between them sharpened into something frantic. Months of want boiled over: Kudō’s mouth trailing open kisses down Yoichi’s throat; Yoichi’s hands trembling as they fumbled beneath Kudō’s shirt, tracing every scar, every worn patch of skin. His slipped his fingers under the waistband of Kudō's trousers and his hero groaned, low and harsh, pulling Yoichi tighter against him.

The urgency returned - frantic, frenzied. as large hands peeled away Yoichi’s shirt, smoothing over the plain expanse of his chest. At this, Yoichi couldn’t help but look away, trying for a mild grin that came of more like a grimace as he felt the top of his ears burn with embarrassment. 

“I know I’m not … much to look at. Scrawny I suppose,” he pointed out, thankful for the low light. It did nothing to conceal the jut of his hip bones or the indent of his ribs.

“Are you kidding me? Yoichi, you’re beautiful.”

Yoichi balked at Kudo, with a sputtering, disbelieving “Don’t - not the time for jokes.”

“Not joking. Goddammit Yoichi, you’re perfect.” 

A thumb brushed over Yoichi’s nipple, then joined a finger to give a gentle tug that had Yoichi gasping and arching into the sensation. 

A mouth came next, wet and warm and almost too much, but Yoichi wouldn’t surrender, wouldn’t shy away from it. He embraced it in the arms of this man, the hero who’d set this fire in Yoichi since the very moment he took his hand in the Vault. 

His palms traced the lines of muscle along Kudō’s own chest, drifting downwards and lingering over the raised edge of stitches, the dip at his waist where flesh ended and bandage began. Kudō tensed - but Yoichi’s gaze held steady, warm, admiring and careful.

He lost his pants somewhere along the way and laying flush against the bed, Kudō’s good leg bent to anchor their balance before Yoichi’s hips pressed down with enough pressure to get just the right amount of friction.

Kudō’s voice broke on Yoichi’s name - half warning, half plea and Yoichi answered by shifting his hips, pressing and moving with pressure that had him releasing a breathy gasp. The air between them sparked. Kudō’s head tipped back, breath uneven as Yoichi undid his belt and slipped down the last of his clothing until there was nothing between them, just hot flesh and pounding hearts and ragged breath.

Yoichi bent, prepared himself with unpractised fingers and pressed his lips to the hollow of his hero’s throat, tasting salt and pulse, before lifting up and when he sank down onto Kudō - 

Kudō’s answering swear fractured into something raw and wanting. They both took a moment to steady, to ease and calm and take a breath, until Yoichi took in a deep shuddering inhale and began to move. He guided the pace, gentle at first, learning the angles and the right rhythm, and then let it surge with a fierce, bottled heat.

The cot creaked, metal frame protesting beneath new weight.  Yoichi’s hesitant strokes grew sure, bold, as if each movement rewrote the memory of forced hands and lightless rooms. The sound of their bodies filled the cramped space more vividly than any artillery above. He rode the wave, feeling his control slipping. Heat rose up his spine, his thighs shaking with the effort to keep going.

Kudō watched him with rapt attention. He shifted, the angle changing, his hand smoothing over Yoichi’s waist and down toward the centre of all that aching, desperate need of molten fire inside.

The touch became his everything, the only thing that could never be enough. He chased it, thighs shaking as they lifted and dropped with rapid urgency, wanting nothing more than to keep Kudō buried inside him for the rest of his life, to keep this connection and bury it safe and deep in his chest where nothing could ruin it.

Yoichi cried out, his rhythm faltering as he felt the coil of pleasure tighten. He was so close, so damned close, and -

Kudō bucked, arching his back, his hand moving faster, tighter, and the dam burst.

A strangled gasp rose in Yoichi’s throat as his hips stuttered. His fingers tightened on the metal frame, anchoring them both as his vision went white and the pleasure peaked.

When he came to, Kudō was still hard, and Yoichi took in a deep, ragged breath before resuming his pace, intent on not letting this go, each thrust a bright flare behind his eyes. Time stretched, boundaries dissolved into a shared, breathless need until Kudō reached his own peak.

It was messy and graceless but oh so very perfect, and in the end, it was the sight of his hero losing himself beneath him, with a shout and a curse and a name that sounded like a prayer, that made the fire in Yoichi burn brighter until the world narrowed to pulse and friction, to the slick slide of skin, to hands clenching and releasing in perfect, wordless sync. 

Silence bloomed in the aftermath. Only the sound of their hearts, the rush of breath, the faintest creak of shifting blankets. Yoichi rested his forehead to Kudō’s, resting lightly ontop of him curled up on his chest, lungs aching in the still, thick air. Kudō’s palm curved around the back of Yoichi’s neck, thumb brushing perspiration at his hairline before bending to press a soft kiss into his pale hair.

For the first time in ten years, Yoichi didn’t feel taken. He felt chosen - and safe in the arms of this man he'd only known for six months, yet couldn't deny the tender warmth that leaned dangerously into the territory of love.

And for once, it felt like a good thing - special in a way Yoichi would treasure until the day he died.

Chapter Text

The dim lamplight in the barracks cast soft gold along the curve of Kudō’s chest, illuminating sweat-damp bandages, healing skin, and the shallow rise and fall of his breath. The cot beneath him creaked softly as Yoichi leaned in to check the dressing on his leg - what was left of it.

Yoichi’s fingers were precise, methodical. He unwrapped the bandage slowly, careful not to tug too hard where the edge had caught. The stump was clean, the wound pink and beginning to seal. Still raw, still angry looking - but healing.

“You missed your calling,” Kudō murmured, watching him from beneath half-lowered lashes. “You’d have made a hell of a nurse.”

Yoichi gave a soft huff of amusement. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve had enough of blood and needles to last two lifetimes.”

Kudō lay quiet under his hand, eyes tracking Yoichi’s face with something close to softness. His fingers brushed lightly along Yoichi’s arm, just once, like the gentlest of checks.

After a moment, Kudō’s fingers brushed Yoichi’s arm - light, uncertain. “Does it feel strange?” he asked softly. “Having it again?”

Yoichi paused. His eyes flicked down to his his returned arm. Still pale from preservation, still aching like it didn’t entirely belong.

“It always does,” he said quietly. “I’ve had it back before. All of them, actually.” He rotated his wrist, as if to prove it still worked. “He’d … take them. Sometimes reattach them, depending on how cooperative I was. So I’m used to the sensation. Or I thought I was.”

He cleared his throat, forced a crooked smile, and smoothed fresh gauze over Kudō’s stump. “Still. I’m glad to have them all back. For now.”

Kudō watched him in the silence that followed, something unreadable in his gaze. Yoichi’s smile wavered, just slightly, as he looked down - down to where Kudō’s leg wasn’t.

“I wish you hadn’t had to lose yours,” he whispered.

Kudō exhaled slowly. “Others have lost worse to that bastard.”

Yoichi said nothing, but nodded as he secured the bandage with practised hands. The silence grew heavy again - not uncomfortable, just filled with too much left unsaid.
Kudō shifted slightly, a strain of effort visible in his jaw. “Before ... You mentioned it was your first time - like that.”

Yoichi stilled, eyes lowered.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Kudō said quickly, softly. “I just want you to know … whatever happens going forward - whether we do anything or nothing - you’ll always have the lead. It’s yours. I’ll take whatever you give. Or don’t.”

The words were gentle, but they landed with the weight of something far deeper than just reassurance. Yoichi looked up slowly, eyes wide and unreadable.

“My brother,” he said, after a long pause. “He’s always been hungry. Ever since we were born. I don’t think it’s ever stopped.”

Kudō didn’t interrupt.

“At first, it was food, because we had none. Then it was power. Then … acknowledgement. He wanted people to look at him like he mattered, like he was more than some gutter-bred freak. And once he had that, it turned into something else.”

Yoichi swallowed hard. “He was hungry for love too. But he never learned what love was. Just… possession. Consumption. Everything he touched, he hoarded like it might vanish if he didn’t hold it close enough.”

Yoichi’s fingers curled unconsciously around the blanket edge.

“I was no different,” he whispered. “We’re twins. To him, I was just … him. A lesser extension. His narcissism wouldn’t let him love anything else - if he was able to love anything at all.”

Kudō’s hand found his again - careful, slow. Yoichi hesitated, then laced their fingers. His voice dropped.

“There was a man when I was nineteen. Tohru. He was a baker, who had this awful apron and always smelled like cinnamon. He made me laugh. He was … kind.”

Yoichi’s jaw clenched.

“The moment my brother found out … something in him changed. I don’t think he knew what it was yet, but even the idea of someone else … it woke something in him. Something sick. He killed Tohru.”

Yoichi exhaled shakily. “And the years after… especially once I was in the Vault… it was like that gave him permission. He didn’t even need to justify it. I was his. That was all he needed.”

He didn’t cry. Not this time. The words came hollow and tired, but clear.

“It didn’t even surprise me,” he said. “The first time. It should have.”

Kudō’s thumb traced over Yoichi’s knuckles.

“I want you to know,” Yoichi said, eyes rising, “you make me feel seen. Not as an extension of someone else. Not as a possession. As me. You … respect me. And last night - what we did - it made me feel alive. Safe. Thank you for that.”

Kudō didn’t speak right away. When he did, it came low and almost uncertain. “If you’ll have me, Yoichi … I want to stay. Beside you - as long as you’ll let me.”

Yoichi’s heart tripped, a quiet thrum in his chest.

He leaned down and kissed him - soft, but sure. Kudō’s hand rose to rest lightly against his waist, grounding him there in the moment. When they parted, Yoichi’s cheeks were warm, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’d like that very much.”

X

The charred remains of Giraki’s lab still hissed with residual heat. Slabs of fractured steel lay bent around scorched equipment; vitrified patches of chemical-soaked concrete glinted beneath ash. The air stank of burnt plastics and formaldehyde, the scent of decades of progress blackened to rot.

All For One stepped lightly across the ruin. 

There was a peculiar elegance to catastrophe - so much easier to see the bones of something once it had been gutted. Debris crunched underfoot. A shredded case of failed experiments steamed in one corner, their tanks cracked, wiring exposed like veins.

He let the silence linger, breathing in the aftermath.

Beside him, Doctor Giraki grunted, hunched over a collapsed refrigeration case, bony shoulders shaking with fatigue and fury. His lab coat hung limp and stained, one lens of his glasses long since cracked.

"Years of work," the doctor muttered. "Gone because of sentimental children and their idiot crusade."

All For One did not reply. He moved with idle steps through the ruin, not so much inspecting as absorbing. He’d visited once already - days ago, in the night after the rebellion had scurried back into their holes. Now he had returned, not to mourn but to make clear in his mind the scale of what had been taken from him.

Yoichi had stood here. Had spat venom into the air, clung to that rat like a saviour, and fled as if his brother - the one who had taken care of him since birth, was the enemy.

All For One's fingers twitched. 

Little brothers should not be out in the world.

Not his Yoichi - not his sickly, fragile twin with his too big heart and his idiotic notions of justice. Not his pitiful other half, who had been cared for, cherished, kept - only to betray everything for the affections of vermin.

Kudō.

The name burned in the hollow of All For One’s chest. The rebel. The liar. The filth who dared dance with Yoichi. Who touched him - put hands on what belonged to him. Who no doubt fed Yoichi sweet-tasting poison about being loved and wanted, about being safe among killers and scavengers.

Yoichi had chosen him.

Chosen Kudō. Over family.  Over the one person who had always seen him clearly -as the imperfect, beloved possession he was.

All For One’s lip curled.

He closed his hand slowly, imagined it wrapped around Yoichi’s throat.

He’d been lenient. So very patient. Understanding, even when Yoichi had spat and struggled and mewled like some kicked dog. He’d fed him. Read to him. Loved him. He had forgiven Yoichi for so much - his whining, his soft heart, his endless attempts at rebellion. He had understood. And what had he received in return?

Desertion.

…

Fine.

If Yoichi wishes to make me the villain - 

Then let the play begin.

He would burn their little rebellion to the marrow. He would rip Kudō’s spine from his body and hang him alive for a month, if need be - leave him conscious and burning, so Yoichi could see what disobedience cost. He would crush every rebel from the smallest child to the oldest crone, leave only ash and silence.

And when Yoichi was alone again - broken, weeping - he would come crawling back. Crawling into his brother’s arms. Begging to go home, back to the Vault.

And All For One - gracious, loving - would take him in.

He would take his legs again. He would take his sight, his hearing, his speech. Strip him down to the perfect silence of belonging. Lock him so deep beneath the earth that even time would forget his name. 

And when the wrath burned out - when Yoichi was too empty to scream - then All For One would show him love again. He would love him back into obedience. Into stillness.

Yoichi was his first gift. His first possession.

“Fortunately,” the doctor said, voice cutting through the gloom, “not everything is lost.”

All For One turned, watching as Giraki bent to a half collapsed drawer and produced a narrow vial inside a sealed container. It shimmered faintly in the dim light, a translucent opalescence catching the firelight like it was alive.

“Seal-proof casing held,” Giraki announced, triumphant. “The early formula survived intact. I had a feeling someone - not naming names - might bring trouble to my doorstep, So I made sure the most important projects survived. You’re in luck.”

All For One accepted the object with slow, reverent precision. His gloved thumb traced the lip of the seal, inspecting the weight of it. The contents pulsed faintly, a liquid with just enough shimmer to catch light.

Ah, yes.

This would do nicely.

A slow, blooming satisfaction swelled behind his ribs. The formula inside this sealed canister was not complete, not refined. But it was enough. Enough to tear down resistance. Enough to dull thought into something soft and warm and obedient.

Enough to make Yoichi behave properly.

In time, All For One would refine it, tailor it perfectly to his brother’s delicate physiology. He would let him feel the fear first - the punishment, the consequences - and when the screaming and the pleading had dulled to a whimper, he would give Yoichi this gift.

A new truth.

A new mind, unburdened.

And Yoichi would smile again, bright-eyed and grateful, unclouded by Kudō’s lies or the rebels’ poison. He would thank his brother for the clarity, for the devotion, for the safety.

He would love him, at last, as he was meant to.

X

After six months and some change, the war above them had finally gone still.

Not over - never that clean - but quiet. A ceasefire, temporary and precarious, signed with exhausted hands and brittle promises. The tunnels beneath no-man’s land had grown quiet too. No more tremors from artillery. No distant hum of jets. Just dripping pipes, echoing footfalls, and the dry shuffle of tired people who no longer flinched at every sound.

Yoichi sat beside Bruce and Kudō in what had once been a disused storage alcove - now Bruce’s impromptu research den. Makeshift shelves leaned under the weight of salvaged books, notes, radio schematics, and half-deconstructed tech. An overhead bulb flickered, casting a gold haze across the table where Bruce was soldering something incomprehensible to anyone but himself.

Kudō leaned against the edge of the table, his prosthetic leg locked in place, one hand absently rubbing the socket below his thigh. He still walked with a slight favour, but less than he used to. He was stronger now, sharper, more at ease in his body. Yoichi watched the motion, fondness catching quietly in his throat.

“It’s too quiet,” Kudō muttered at last, breaking the silence.

Bruce grunted. “That a complaint?”

Kudō’s mouth quirked. “Observation. You know as well as I do - we can’t stay. The fighting’s eased. That means scavengers, surveyors, bored kids with too much curiosity. Someone’s going to stumble on us.”

Bruce wiped his hands on a cloth and nodded grimly. “We’ve got two, maybe three weeks. After that, this place stops being a ghost town.”

Yoichi ran his fingers over the rim of his mug - lukewarm tea, long since forgotten.

“So where do we go next?” he asked.

Bruce shrugged. “Someplace where they don’t shoot rebels on sight would be nice. I wouldn’t mind going home. Back to China. I used to hate the humidity, but now I miss it. Got a sister up north. Haven’t seen her in ten years. I bet her boys are taller than me by now.”

Kudō scoffed. “Unlikely.”

Bruce threw a pen at him. “You’re one to talk. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Any plans for the future?”

Kudō made a face. “I don’t think about the future that far out.”

Yoichi blinked, looking up from his tea. “Why not?”

“Seems like tempting fate.”

Yoichi’s smile faded just slightly. “That’s sad.”

Kudōlooked over. “What is?”

“Everyone should have a dream,” Yoichi said, glancing down at his mug. He felt oddly shy admitting it, but the quiet safety of this room made honesty easier. “Mine’s nothing fancy. A little house. Somewhere quiet. A garden. Maybe some bees.”

Bruce blinked. “Bees?”

Yoichi laughed. “They’re important. And if I had bees, I’d have fresh honey. I think I’d like that.”

Kudo’s voice was softer now. “Where would this house be?”

Yoichi looked up toward the stone ceiling, eyes unfocused as he smiled wistfully. “By the sea, maybe. I’ve never seen it in person. Only in books or screens. I bet it’s beautiful.”

There was a pause. Kudō looked at him, something soft flickering behind his eyes.

“If you’re alright with it,” he said, his voice low and careful, “maybe I could visit your little house. Sometimes.”

Yoichi blinked up at him. His heart beat a little faster, the way it always did when Kudō spoke like that - quietly, carefully, like every word was something he hadn’t dared hope he’d get to say.

He turned his head slowly, smile returning - this time more certain, even as his heart still did that odd fluttering thing.

“I’d probably need help with the bees,” he said, tone mock-innocent. “And heavy lifting. I doubt I’ll be much good at carrying fertilizer bags on my own.”

“Harvesting honey and lifting heavy objects huh. Busy things to do all in one day,” Kudō said with a huff of laughter.

Yoichi hesitated, then tilted his head. “Then … you could stay - if you wanted.”

Kudō blinked.

“You could stay,” Yoichi added softly. “For as long as you wanted.”

Kudō looked at him for a long moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile but lived in the same neighborhood. His hand brushed against Yoichi’s without quite taking it.

In the background, Bruce made a strangled noise.

He had been politely ignoring the exchange with all the grace of a man used to third-wheeling, groaned loudly. “For god’s sake,” he muttered, standing. “I’m going for a walk.”

He snagged his coat and muttered something about being forced to watch a bad sappy romance movie as he disappeared down the tunnel.

Yoichi laughed under his breath. The kind of laugh he hadn’t had in years - quiet and real and a little overwhelmed but Kudō didn’t stop looking at him. Their hands found each other in the quiet again, no fanfare - just a simple, steady warmth.

X

Kudō spread the battered road atlas across the planning table and weighted the curling corners with spent shell casings. 

The pages were foxed and sun-bleached, but the coastline of Honshū still gleamed in faint, hopeful blue. Around the map he arranged six wooden pawns - each one carved from scrap and numbered on the bottom. Every pawn matched a pre-vetted fallback site: empty farmsteads, shuttered factories, an old Shinto retreat buried in cedar. Places with water, arable soil, and just enough ruin to make officials overlook them.

Bruce leaned on a crate nearby, arms folded, watching Kudō settle the last piece. “Random draw again?”

“Best hedge against leaks,” Kudō said. “Nobody can betray what they don’t know.” He flicked a glance toward the tunnel entrance, where Yoichi’s footsteps approached. “Thought we’d let him pick.”

Bruce’s mouth quirked - the half-smile he wore when amusement outweighed exasperation. “You’re transparent.”

“Only to you,” Kudō muttered.

Yoichi stepped in, wiping ink smears from his fingers. The low lantern light caught the soft gold in his hair; Kudō felt a ridiculous warmth bloom behind his ribs.

“What’s all this?” Yoichi asked.

“Options,” Kudō said, tapping the pawns. “Six safe sites. You close your eyes, pluck one. Fate takes the blame.”

He cleared his throat and motioned Yoichi closer, until Yoichi stood at the table’s edge, eyelids fluttering shut.

Kudō shifted the map slightly beneath Yoichi’s hovering hand, a faint grin tugging at the edge of his mouth. He didn’t cheat, not really. All the locations were good options. 

But when he moved the map, he angled it just enough so that if Yoichi’s fingers dropped straight down, they’d land on the one marked closest to the coast - a quiet patch of farmland gone to seed, within earshot of the sea.

Yoichi’s hand lowered.
When his fingers brushed the paper, Kudō tapped beside it and murmured, “That one.”

Yoichi opened his eyes, blinking at the marker - then looking closer.

“It’s by the ocean…” he whispered.

Kudō only nodded, watching the expression spread across Yoichi’s face. Surprise first. Then something deeper. A quiet joy, unguarded and almost hopeful.

Behind them, Bruce made a low groaning noise, muttering something in exasperated Mandarin.
He shot a knowing look to Kudōwho shrugged nonchalantly. “ What? We already had the location.”

And maybe he’d bent the rules a little. But rules broke under the weight of war all the time.

So if he’d tilted the world slightly to give Yoichi his first glimpse of the sea - well. That wasn’t a betrayal of logic.

It was just that Yoichi’s smile factored into logic these days.

X

The convoy rolled like a weary river across northern Honshu - trucks rattling over cracked asphalt, canvas flapping, radios murmuring checkpoints in clipped code. After a week of packing, dismantling, and double checking every hideout trap, the rebels were finally on the move. Dawn bled across empty paddies, painting the world in bleak gold, and Yoichi found himself leaning out the window of the lead truck, letting cold air sting his cheeks.

He tried not to count the kilometres. Tried, too, not to think about how exposed they felt aboveground, every kilometre another chance for a drone scan or a highway ambush. Instead, he watched kudzu-choked fields drift by and let the vibration of the engine blur his thoughts.

Around noon, they reached a half-collapsed steel factory  - one of the Resistance’s hidden stock points. 

As Kudō’s truck slowed through the gate, Yoichi could already see other rebel vehicles lining the yard - an entire cell pausing here on their own trek north.

Inside, children’s laughter echoed against metal walls. Someone had strung a clothesline between industrial sized machines that had gone to rust and blankets draped over rebar. Yoichi’s chest loosened. Refugees reunited, Bruce had said on the radio. Families collecting fresh rations. It felt like a tiny, stubborn promise that life still grew in the cracks of war and cruelty.

Yoichi hopped down, joining the organized chaos of unloading crates: dried noodles, medical kits, seed stock, water filters. He passed boxes along, shoulders warm from a winter sun trying its best, and let the low thrum of relief settle over him.

Then - out of the corner of his eye - he caught a face he never expected to see again.

Petite. Dark hair cropped shorter than he remembered, but the same wary eyes. A mismatched coat too large for her shoulders. She stood half-turned, handing a thermos to an older woman, and for a heartbeat Yoichi’s pulse stalled.

His breath left him, and before thought caught up he was weaving through the crowd, crates and greetings blurring around him.

“Aiko!” The name broke from him half-shouted, half-gasped.

She spun, hesitation flashing into stunned recognition. “Master Y-Yoichi?” The honorific seemed to slip out before she could stop it, older habit overwhelming caution.

They met halfway, arms colliding. Aiko was seventeen now, taller by a few centimetres, still bird-boned beneath too-thin layers. She clutched him with surprising strength, trembling.

“I thought - you were dead,” Yoichi whispered, voice cracking against her hair. “He said you -” Wouldn’t be a problem anymore, Yoichi finished in his head.

They broke apart just enough for her to wipe her cheeks.

“One of the upstairs servants,” Aiko stammered, tears still bright in her eyes. “My keycard had been stripped, so … well, it only meant one thing. She hid me in a laundry van. I joined with the northern cell ever since. They’ve kept me safe - though we ran into a little trouble last year with Meta Cleanses happening east of the country.”

 Her gaze dropped - and widened at his left forearm, the sleeve pushed up from lifting crates.

“You have -” Her fingers hovered. “He gave it back?”

Yoichi flexed the wrist, a soft, incredulous smile blooming. “We retrieved it, actually. Kudō and I.”

Before she could respond, footfalls clicked behind them. Kudō approached, his prosthetic boot thumping a slight half-beat against the concrete. He stopped a respectful distance away, eyeing Aiko with polite curiosity.

Yoichi turned, drawing breath to introduce them, but Aiko beat him to it - straightening, dipping her head in the timid nod he remembered from the vault.

“Captain Kudō, sir. This is the informant I spoke of - the one who passed messages through me.” She glanced at Yoichi with shy pride. “He was my … friend.”

Surprise flickered across Kudō’s face. A small, wry smile followed - less at the revelation and more at Yoichi’s half-embarrassed flush.

Kudō’s brows lifted faintly. “You left that part out.”

Yoichi offered an embarrassed shrug. “Didn’t seem important at the time. I didn’t know it wa you she was passing the information on to.”

Kudō chuckled and ruffled Yoichi’s hair - gentle but teasing. “You’re full of surprises.”

Yoichi laughed and turned back to his old companion, resting a hand on Aiko’s shoulder. “We’ll be at the coast soon,” he told her. “You’re welcome to travel with us if you like. There’s room in the southbound trucks.”

Aiko shook her head, biting her lip. “My family is heading up north - Mother and my sisters are all what’s left of them, after my father and his family …” Aiko swallowed heavily, ducking her head. “They need me. My sisters are only little so Mama needs all the help she can get - and I -.”

Yoichi’s heart pinched, but he nodded with soft assurance. “You don’t need to explain. I’m just glad you’re safe. We’ll get you stocked before you leave.”

She gave a small, watery smile. “I’m just … I’m so happy you’re free.”

They fell into easy conversation while unloading the last truck. Yoichi told her about the tunnels, about Bruce’s endless schematics and Mara’s reckless driving. She shared bits of her trek - nights hiding in river culverts, kind strangers who offered bread and silence, sleeping with sheep in a field. When Kudō was called away to check tire repairs, Yoichi lingered with Aiko beneath the factory’s broken skylight.

Later, as dusk pooled in the corners of the yard and cooks called meals ready, Yoichi watched Aiko return to her mother and two small girls clutching her skirt. Aiko waved him over; introductions blurred into laughter and shared bowls of stew.

For one evening, the factory felt like a village at festival: lanterns strung between rusted beams, music coaxed from a battered radio, children giggling past curfew. Yoichi glanced across the firelight toward Kudō - who was trading intel with Bruce and leader of the the north cell - and felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the flames.

He saw Aiko and her family off the next morning, them heading out with a small group ahead of the northern rebels. 

Yoichi helped load her sisters into the truck before he embraced Aiko with all the love and gratitude for helping him so much in the Vault, before giving her a burner phone. Aiko tearfully promised to be in touch once they got to their destination.

They parted with one last hug and Yoichi watched the small convoy disappear into the distance, his heart content and with a wish Aiko lived a long and peaceful life.

X

From his high-rise perch, the city below spread like a glimmering tapestry of flickering lights and crawling traffic.

 All For One liked it here - above it all, where the chaotic rhythm of human lives fell silent behind the panelled glass walls of his office. Order could always be found, when one knew where to look and how to wield it.

A snivelling sound interrupted his quiet reflection.

He turned slowly from the window, gaze fixing on the young man standing before his desk, head bowed, shoulders trembling. It was an unseemly display. But All For One was patient, after all. He could forgive such weakness when it came bearing gifts.

The pitiful rebel turncoat was sobbing quietly as he recounted details in rapid, stumbling breaths.

"The - the temporary base is in Osaka," Tobi said, voice quivering. "An abandoned factory, near the old rail lines. They're only staying briefly before moving on, but - but I - I don’t know where they're going next."

All For One leaned back casually against his desk, fingers drumming in quiet contemplation. His patience, though strained, remained intact.

"Very good, Tobi," he murmured, as though praising a frightened animal. "Your loyalty impresses me."

The boy jerked his head up, tears streaking his pale cheeks. "Please," he whispered desperately. "My father's debts. You promised to clear them if - if I told you everything."

All For One smiled mildly, tilting his head. "Oh, of course. Such a dutiful son deserves reward, doesn't he? Your parents will find themselves very well compensated indeed."

The boy sagged visibly in relief, shoulders shaking harder.

"However," All For One continued, his tone sliding silkily into something darker, colder, "let us not forget, dear Tobi, how very forgiving I've been with you. After all, you were party to that little … unfortunate incident at Doctor Giraki’s estate. Infiltrating my celebrations, conspiring with traitors and terrorists - it’s all rather severe."

Tobi flinched visibly. His breathing hitched again, tears sliding faster. "I - I never meant -"

"Shh," All For One soothed. "It is forgiven. Because you are a generous young man. And you have something very valuable to offer, don't you?"

Tobi fell silent, eyes wide and terrified.

"Your little burden," All For One said gently. "Your Mirage."

Tobi swallowed thickly, a fresh sob trapped in his throat. Slowly, tremblingly, he nodded.

"Then come," All For One beckoned softly, holding out a gloved hand. "I'll ease you of your heavy load."

Hesitantly, Tobi stepped forward. He didn't resist when All For One’s palm settled against his forehead, nor when the surge of something immense and terrible rushed inward, plucking away what made him special, taking it as if it were nothing more than a stray feather caught in the breeze.

It was a useful ability indeed. To create illusions - to show the world precisely what one desired it to see - was a power All For One found especially compelling.

"Excellent," All For One murmured as he released the boy, "Your cooperation will save many, Tobi. You've done well."

The pitiful wreck curled in on himself said nothing. Such a weak thing. And now utterly useless.

Turning away, All For One returned to the window, the stolen ability humming faintly in his veins. Below him, the city hummed as well.

At last - he had the location he needed.

Yoichi.

His foolish little brother had run far and hidden himself well. But now the chase was finally ending. All For One would find him, would reach into the darkness and pull him out again - would break apart that rebellious resolve, would tear away the lies and manipulations Kudō and his verminous rebels had twisted into Yoichi’s mind.

Yes, soon enough everything would be restored to its proper order. 

X

Yoichi couldn’t move. His body lay unresponsive - limbless and crumpled against the soot-caked concrete as the echo of screams rang out overhead. All around him the air stank of scorched ozone and ruptured flesh, blood misting the distant lights like a broken filter. He knew this place. He knew this moment.

He clawed forward, fingers raw, dragging his body through smoke and ruin.

“Kudō.”

He could see him now - caught in his brother’s grip, muscles twisting, pulled apart inch by inch. Kudō’s eyes found his, wide and red and resigned. He mouthed something. Yoichi didn’t hear it. He didn’t care. He kept crawling, bones splintering beneath him.

“Kudō, please -”

The body sagged suddenly.

Still. Silent. Broken.

“KUDŌ -!”

Yoichi jolted upright, air ripping in and out of his lungs like a wire garrotte. His heart was hammering so violently it drowned out everything.

Everything -

Except the heartbeat under his cheek.

Yoichi blinked, disoriented. The room was dark - quiet, except for distant murmurs of late-night shifts and wind curling through the busted seams of the factory walls. Kudō lay beside him, arms wrapped around him without tension or fear, breath soft against Yoichi’s hair.

He wasn’t dead.

Yoichi pressed his ear more firmly to Kudō’s chest. Closed his eyes. Counted the beats. One-two, one-two - slow and steady.
 
Relief crashed over him, as dizzying as pain. He curled in tighter, pulling the blanket up over them, fingers brushing across the jagged lines of Kudō’s torso. That scar down his face still made Yoichi’s heart ache and stutter with heat. Kudō always teased that it made him look ‘worse than a disgruntled villain,’ but Yoichi thought it made him look rugged. Daring. Unflinchingly real.

But he hadn’t said it yet.

Six months together. A year since Kudō had held out his hand to him that Vault and refused to let go.

And Yoichi still hadn’t said it.

Not because he didn’t feel it - he lived it, in every cautious touch, every moment Kudō winced but smiled through it, every quiet night spent planning dreams neither of them thought they’d live long enough to reach.

He was in love with Kudō. Had been for longer than he wanted to admit.

But saying it aloud - so soon, so boldly - felt like tempting fate. Like asking too much from a world that had already taken so much from them.

So he didn’t. Instead, he kissed Kudō’s collarbone, so gently it barely counted as contact.

Kudō stirred a little, but didn’t wake as Yoichi slipped out from under the blanket with practised care, pulling on his clothes and tugging the sleeves tighter around his arms. He wasn’t going back to sleep.

The factory groaned faintly as he wandered its halls. Metal floor, the click of his steps echoing into the dark. Somewhere far off, wind gusted through shattered skylights. He passed by one of the refugee rooms and paused at the corner when he caught the soft sound of someone crying.

Tobi.

The boy was hunched against the wall, shoulders shaking. Yoichi stepped closer, quiet as snowfall, and crouched a little ways away - not too close.

“Tobi?” he asked gently.

The teen jerked upright, eyes wide and raw. “I - I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be,” Yoichi said, voice low. “It’s ok to be upset.”

But Tobi was already scrambling to his feet, wiping his eyes with a shaky hand. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean -”

He ran off before Yoichi could offer more.

Yoichi stood alone in the hall for a moment longer, wondering what had Tobi so upset. Maybe that visit with his family this morning hadn’t gone so well. He wondered about finding him, offering help, but thought better of it. Tobi had been so closed off about his troubles and Yoichi didn’t want to pry.

So Yoichi turned and headed for the west wing - where he knew Bruce would be.

Sure enough, the man was at his makeshift desk: blueprints spread, two radios crackling quietly, a familiar tension in his shoulders. Yoichi didn’t announce himself - just walked up with a mug of stale carafe coffee and set it down in front of him.

Bruce grunted, barely looking up. “You trying to poison me?”

“It’s drinkable,” Yoichi said, sitting down. “Barely.”

Bruce took the mug anyway. “You should be sleeping.”

“So should you.”

They shared a quiet look. The same exhausted stubbornness lived in both their bones.

“I had a dream,” Yoichi murmured.

Bruce didn’t ask. Didn’t need to. They sat there in the low glow of a salvaged lamp, quiet between them thick with unspoken thoughts. Bruce sipped the coffee, winced, sipped again.

Bruce was a good companion to sit with in the dark and quiet. Yoichi like to watch him work, the blue light of the screen enough to lull Yoichi back to a dreamless sleep.

X

The sewer tunnels beneath the old factory had the stink of standing water and rusted iron, but they were dry where it mattered.

Kudō crouched near the old sewer junction, flicking a small light over the crumbling brick, taking mental measurements in that precise, quiet way of his. He didn't need to say it aloud for Yoichi to follow the rhythm of his thoughts - Kudō was already planning for the next cell who might pass through, the next band of weary survivors who’d need a safe place to breathe.

Yoichi leaned against the damp stone wall behind him, arms loosely folded, hiding how much his lungs ached from the morning's exertion. The chill of the underground pressed into his bones, and he shivered faintly, breath catching in his chest.

Kudō glanced back immediately. “You're breathing too hard.”

“I’m fine,” Yoichi said, the lie practised but tender. “I’m not as fragile as everyone keeps thinking.”

“You’re so stubborn,” Kudōmuttered, coming close enough to murmur by his ear. “Maybe if we hadn’t overdone things this morning -”

Yoichi snorted, flushing as he swatted weakly at him. “You started it.” He huffed a sigh that burned his lungs and surrendered. “All right, I’ll rest - so long as you promise to eat something.”

Kudō nodded, looking far too satisfied. “Promise.”

Yoichi turned to head up toward the storage loft they’d turned into a makeshift bedroom. The thought of leaving tomorrow gave him an odd ache in his chest - like a child who’d just packed their things for the first day of school, torn between nerves and yearning.

 He wondered if he sunbathed - would he tan or just turn into a lobster. He had a running bet with Bruce on that. Yoichi would have to slather himself with suntan lotion - especially with the days warming up. 

He lay down with his back curled toward the dim light peeking through the tarp-draped rafters, letting his aching lungs and worn limbs coax him toward sleep.

It was a brush of fingers in his hair that woke him.

Yoichi blinked blearily, lids heavy from half-sleep. A callused hand stroked through the strands at his temple, soft and rhythmic. He inhaled and smiled before he opened his eyes.

Kudōsat beside him, expression unreadable. His face hovered too still above Yoichi’s, his eyes pinned in place with the intensity of a blade held just above skin.

“Kudo,” Yoichi said softly, blinking up. “Did you eat yet? Or am I going to have to bribe you again?”

No smile came. Only silence. A stillness too deep. Those eyes stayed locked on his face, searching.

Yoichi reached up, fingers brushing against Kudo’s cheek.

The skin was warm. The stubble rough. But -

“What's wrong?” Yoichi asked, his voice quieter now, a whisper beginning to fray at the edges.

Kudo’s eyes didn’t soften. He took Yoichi’s hand instead - held it out as if examining something alien, something curious.

Yoichi sat up, a slow ripple of unease tugging at his gut. 

He reached out with his other hand, intending to brush his palm against Kudo’s prosthetic - not for any reason, just a grounding gesture. A touch of reassurance.

But when his fingers met the leg beneath the cuff of Kudo’s pants … he didn’t feel synthetic plating. He didn’t feel the ridged joint of the prosthesis.

He felt flesh.

Cold, smooth, living flesh.

Yoichi’s breath stuttered.

He looked down, trembling hand slowly lifting the cuff of the pant leg. Enough to see the line of an ankle. Skin. Not plastic. Not steel. 

Skin.

His gaze shot up, heart thudding too loud in his chest. ‘Kudo’s’ eyes met his own.

The warmth was gone. The spark. The stormcloud humour. These eyes were empty and flat and endless, filled with something far colder.

“Why are you touching me so familiarly?” the thing that wore Kudo’s face asked, voice still perfectly shaped - but familiar in way that wasn’t Kudō’s.

“My Yoichi.”

Chapter Text

Two cries pierced the wind. Thin, ragged, and desperate.

The elder newborn moved first. His limbs twitched with animal instinct, fists clenching and unclenching in the dark. His face turned toward the sound of the Weaker Thing’s cries - not from love, but because it was louder than the wind. 

When the river came for them, there was no resistance. The dead woman did not rise. The infants were swept up, soft skulls knocking against one another, one cry becoming two and then none at all as the river carried them.

And later, when the current grew bored and the  world gave way to roots and rock, they washed up together on a shallow bank of cracked stone. The elder moved first again, spitting up water he did not know he had swallowed. His body turned instinctively toward the smaller one.

The younger lay still.

There was no grace in what followed. No tenderness. Just the grotesque will to survive. The older twin grabbed at his brother’s arm with tiny, wrinkled fingers and pulled. Dragged him like driftwood. Hitched and gasped as the weight resisted.

His grip never loosened.

For hours - or days, in the way time means nothing to creatures newly born - he huddled there, shivering, curled around the possession he’d pulled from death. When the younger began to cry again, thin and hoarse and wet with breath, the older did not respond. He only curled tighter.

X

A single naked bulb swung above the iron-framed bed, its light a slow pendulum between wariness and warmth. Yoichi’s breathing rattled - too quick, too loud. All For One sat at the mattress edge, hand still clasping the smaller hand.

“I asked you a question,” he murmured, voice brokering no argument.

The moment broke.

Recognition flashed in Yoichi’s gaze - first disbelief, then terror. He twisted free, miraculously, feet skidding across the planked floor, and fled the makeshift room. His warning shout ricocheted down concrete halls: “He’s here - run!”

Wait - why are you leaving?

All For One watched the empty doorway, head tilted. Footsteps, voices, hurried metal scraping against metal - an anthill disturbed. Still he did not rise. His pulse tapped calmly in his throat, slower than the swaying bulb.

Of course Yoichi had run. Yoichi always ran. But where did he imagine safety existed? Among crates of contraband, under leaking rafters, inside the arms of desperate children playing at soldiers?

He stood at last, smoothing the crease in his coat. Anger came, not as a blaze but as winter wind: clear, slicing, inevitable.

A beaming smile - a genuine, untainted joy - spread across Yoichi’s features, making him look far younger than his ten years. He scrambled to his feet, nearly stumbling as he rushed to the crate. “It’s so big! Are we - are we really going to eat it?”

A fuse snapped somewhere distant; lights died row by row, plunging the corridor into gloom. Someone shouted orders - so much scurrying and screaming. It did not matter.

All For One stepped into the dark.

His boots rang once on the catwalk grille. Below, silhouettes scattered - rifles cocked, meta-abilities flickering like fireflies in a bottle. He pictured their throats closing, bones folding, hearts stilling -thirty ways to silence thirty men - and felt no stir of bloodlust, only the mild irritation of houseflies in summer.

“Yoichi,” he called, voice echoing through ducts and stairwells, gentle as lullaby. “Why are you running?”

No answer - only the scurry of rebellion, nuisances that meant nothing to him beyond what little power some could provide.

He rolled a shoulder, feeling power coil through stolen nerves. The warehouse walls seemed to lean inward, aware of their own fragility. 

If the factory must drown in rubble for Yoichi to learn stillness, so be it. His kindness, like everything else, was his to bestow - or withdraw.

He started forward, each step deliberate. No matter how much his ire grew.

X

The street smelled of urine and stale oil, of too many feet and not enough space. Yoichi’s tiny hands trembled. Tears clung to his lashes as he cried.

He had wandered too far. The crowd had swept him like water, and now he couldn’t breathe. Every passing coat felt like drowning.

Then a shout. A shove.

The older twin broke through the sea of bodies like a knife. His face was flushed, his eyes too wide. He seized Yoichi’s shoulders - hard, too hard - and stared down at him as if trying to confirm he was real.

Yoichi blinked. His big brother’s mouth was trembling.

“You said you’d stay,” the older rasped. “You said -”

“I - I got lost,” Yoichi sniffled.

Silence. Then a rough inhale.

The grip on his shoulders tightened. “Promise me you won’t leave again.”

Yoichi nodded - solemn and sincere.

“I promise.”

The older twin didn’t smile. He only pulled Yoichi close, arms fierce and trembling.

X

Chaos erupted around them like an explosion, violent and overwhelming. Yoichi stumbled forward, eyes desperately searching until he found Kudō through the swirling dust. The rebels shouted orders above the din, directing frightened refugees toward the tunnels.

"Kudō!" Yoichi called out, voice hoarse from smoke and the strain in his lungs.

Kudō whipped around, eyes flashing with momentary relief. Before Yoichi could speak, the ceiling above groaned dangerously, dust cascading in ominous waves.

"Yoichi - move!" Kudō shouted sharply without realising the danger he was also in.

Instinct surged within Yoichi, visceral and immediate. Without hesitation, he lunged forward, throwing his arms desperately around Kudō’s head and shoulders. 

Rubble crashed violently around them, showering sparks and sharp stones. Pain flared along Yoichi’s back, white-hot, but he gritted his teeth, refusing to let go.

Breathing heavily, Kudō pulled Yoichi close against his chest, fingers tightening protectively on Yoichi’s sleeve.

"You idiot," Kudō murmured roughly. "You idiot…"

Yoichi didn’t answer, merely clutching Kudō tighter. Around them, terrified cries mingled with the roar of falling debris, echoing down toward the tunnels in desperate waves.

X

Yoichi’s thin hands, scraped and raw, clutched the collar of his brother’s shirt and pulled with every ounce of strength his tiny frame could muster. The elder twin’s body- usually so proud, so certain even at the tender age of five - hung limp, knees scraping stone, face a swollen mask of purple and red. Each drag left a dark smear along the cracked pavement.

Yoichi’s heart rattled against his ribs. He could hardly breathe for the iron taste of fear and strain on his frail body, yet he did not stop. Never once. 

When they reached the overturned dustbin that served as shelter, he wedged his shoulder beneath his brother’s arm and half-rolled, half-heaved him inside. Metal groaned; rubbish shifted.

The older twin groaned faintly. One eye opened, unfocused and shining with humiliated tears. Yoichi knelt beside him, trembling hard enough that his teeth clicked. A small, uncertain hand found a strand of sweat-matted hair and smoothed it back - again, and again - slow, rhythmic motions meant for lullabies. 

“There,” Yoichi whispered, voice too soft for the night to overhear. “Safe now. You’re safe.”

X

In the tunnels, Yoichi's thin shoes splashed in murky water.

Dust rained from the rafters as another tremor rocked the factory. Yoichi tasted plaster on his tongue while shouts ricocheted through smoke-choked corridors.

“Move! Down the slope, single file!” Kudō’s voice - sharp, authoritative - cut through the confusion.

 Refugees stumbled toward the yawning service hatch at the floor’s edge, one hand clasping children, the other shielding their heads. Bruce knelt by a crate of jury-rigged mines, fingers flying across the detonator’s interface; each soft click was a promise of delayed violence. His legs glowed faintly with the stored up energy of Fa-Jin

“Yoichi!” Kudō caught his wrist, eyes blazing. “Go with them. We’ll hold him off.”

Yoichi shook his head, indignant at the very idea. “I’m not leaving.”

“Your brother is coming,” Kudō hissed. “You can’t - ”

A thunderous crack split the ceiling. Steel beams bent. Concrete flowered open, pouring daylight and ruin in equal measure.

Bodies scattered. Yoichi’s ears rang. Through the rolling dust he saw a silhouette descend - graceful, terrible, untouched by falling debris. Polished shoes sunk beneath the ankle deep water as though the chaos existed solely to frame his arrival.

All For One straightened slowly, head turning until his masked gaze found Yoichi across the broken floor.

X

The world rang like struck glass. Dust curled through fractured light; each mote suspended, waiting for his permission to fall. Across the ruin, Yoichi sprawled, his eyes guarded and afraid.

Why are you looking at me like that? 

A pulse of white noise surged behind All For One’s eyes. 

Stop it.

A hand pulled Yoichi to his feet, thumb brushing  over Yoichi’s knuckles - casual, intimate - and not All For One’s. The hand pulled as the Younger twin, turned his body until Yoichi no longer looked at him. Until he was running away. Again.

Hey who are you!? - He couldn’t make them out fully at first, not through this odd haze bleeding his vision red with rage. But when he focused - when he saw that scar of the rat’s face -

 "They’re pretty, aren’t they?" Yoichi commented, voice almost bashful as he watched the fool on a display T.V.
All For One turned his head sharply.
"Pretty?" he echoed, suspicion rising like bile.
"I just meant - they have got a nice face. And their glow is … pretty to look at. That’s all."

Not so pretty now are you?

Kudo.

That filthy, disgusting rat who had poisoned Yoichi against his own brother.

Get away from him - that one’s mine! 

Rage rose, vast and tidal, but he held it inside - silent, controlled. Power gathered beneath his skin, pulsing like a second heart. 

"I hoped - for so long, that the brother who used to hold my hand, who used to shield me from the cold - who loved me was still buried inside you somewhere. I wanted to believe it, even when you took the sky and the air from me …“

SHUT UP!

He couldn't breathe.

Not from exertion - his body required no such trivialities -- but from something else. Something tightening, invisible and unbearable, coiling around his chest with every step Yoichi took away from him.

The light shifted oddly in the tunnels as something inside All For One tore cleanly, like silk split by a blade.

Every footfall Yoichi took away from him pulled a seam deeper in All For One’s thoughts. Threads of memory tangled with fury, with need. The riverbank. The bruises. The promises. The shaking fingers that once clung to him. It all shattered and reassembled, rearranging itself into something sharp and writhing.

“ - But you’re gone. The brother I loved is dead. You destroyed him. You ruined every memory we had, until there’s nothing left but this." 

His teeth pressed together hard enough to crack. Energy began to pool at the base of his skull, hot and suffocating. He could feel it gathering - like breath drawn for a scream.

Look at me.

Yoichi didn’t. His entire being was facing away from his brother, his saviour, his own twin! His body angling away, eyes set on the passage ahead.

Look at me.

The words never left his lips. They didn’t need to. They were a scream inside his mind, a cry from some earlier life, some smaller self still curled beneath a blanket in the freezing dark.

“Think about it,” Yoichi said, voice trembling with excitement. “You give what you have and help people get stronger, and -”

Look at me!

The world collapsed forward with him.

If you refuse to be mine, then -

No. Enough of this!

X

Yoichi felt it before he saw it.

The shift in pressure. The silence that spread like oil across the air. The pull of something ancient and final rushing toward him with the force of gravity let loose.

Time fractured.

He didn’t feel fear when the sensation began to unravel him. Not really. There was only an ache, somewhere deep in his chest where hope lived. Not for himself - never for himself - but for what he had to lose.

There was a rush of heat and light, and then - 

Nothing but Kudō’s face, the last thing he would ever see. Not All For One. Not the hand that took everything. Only Kudō.

HIs last thought was only for his hero. ‘Please … please let me help him. One last time -’

Yoichi didn’t cry. He didn’t scream.

He just was.

And then he wasn’t.

X

The blast hurled Kudō backward, spine scraping stone, ears roaring with blood. The impact tore the breath from his lungs. He hit the ground hard with a splash and didn’t move.

Smoke clawed at the ceiling. Stone crumbled like wet paper. But Yoichi - 

Where -?

The world had narrowed to a single point.

There, near the centre of the collapse, dust still thick in the air, something lay amid the broken floor.

A hand.

Small. Familiar. Limp.

From across the debris, the Tyrant stood utterly still.

Both of them did not move, did not speak. The silence between them throbbed like a wound that couldn’t bleed.

“It could be the kindest thing in the world.”

Chapter Text

The sole light came from a flickering bulb above, casting a cold, sterile illumination that barely touched the edges of the shadows. 

Kudō sat unmoving, his posture rigid in the uncomfortable chair, fingers tapping almost lazily against his gauntlet. His kept his expression unreadable - a mask of quiet, cold authority, a carefully maintained barrier against the flurry of emotion beneath.

Across from him, Tobi's voice trembled, cracking with each word. His hands shook visibly, pale fingers clasped together as though pleading for absolution he knew would never come.

"I didn't - I didn't think it'd come to this," Tobi murmured brokenly. "Please believe me, Kudō, I never wanted -"

"Tell me exactly what you gave to All For One," Kudō said quietly, slicing through Tobi’s pleading like a knife. 

Tobi flinched, his shoulders hunching defensively as though expecting a physical blow. "The - the safe houses. Routes through the tunnels. I swear, nothing more."

Kudō's jaw tightened imperceptibly. "Nothing more," he echoed softly, eyes hard and unblinking. "And yet half our forces are gone. Massacred."

"I swear," Tobi whispered, desperate, eyes wide and glistening. "You have my word - I never gave him the next base location - I wouldn’t betray -"

"Your words mean nothing now," Kudō cut him off, cold and precise. He regarded Tobi silently, letting the quiet stretch until the younger man trembled. In that silence, the weight of loss pressed down on them both, crushing the air from their lungs.

At last, Tobi spoke again, voice cracking and barely audible. "I didn’t know Yoichi would die."

The name was a raw wound reopened, and for a brief instant, Kudō’s careful mask cracked. His gaze wavered, only slightly, revealing a flicker of pain too deep and dark to articulate. Then, swiftly, the expression smoothed back into icy detachment.

"Everybody dies someday,"

X

The water fell in heavy sheets, steam billowing gently around Kudō’s battered body as he stood motionless in the narrow shower. The faint sting of half-healed wounds barely registered; the heat was distant, a vague sensation against numb skin. Everything felt muted, dulled beneath the aching emptiness that had settled deep in his bones.

He lifted his gaze, droplets cascading down the angles of his face. Behind closed eyes, the image surfaced unbidden, brutally vivid in its clarity.

In the sewers, shadows stretched endlessly. Bruce’s grip was tight, insistent, nearly bruising as he pulled Kudō backward through the darkness, away from the horror etched in front of them. Kudō fought him instinctively, eyes wide and fixed, unable to tear away from the figure standing motionless in the dim tunnel.

All For One stood as if carved from stone, unmoving, unblinking. His expression was empty, utterly alien from the monster Kudō despised. For an impossibly long moment, neither moved; there was only the slow drip of filthy water echoing in the dark, a muted punctuation to their shared, stunned disbelief.

When All For One finally stepped forward, Kudō jolted involuntarily, expecting violence, rage -imminent death - something. But it was as if he, Bruce and the rebels weren’t even there, utterly beneath notice.

Instead, All For One bent down carefully, reverently almost, and lifted something small from the sodden ground

Yoichi’s hand.

Severed, pale beneath the shadows, lifeless yet somehow still so painfully familiar. All For One stared down at it, as though puzzled, uncomprehending, unable to reconcile the broken reality before him. The image burned itself into Kudō’s mind, seared deeper than any physical wound ever could.

Kudō opened his eyes slowly, hands trembling against slick tile. Breaths came raggedly now, catching in his throat as reality slammed through the numbness, fierce and merciless.

He reached up, fingers closing around the thin chain around his neck. The metal tags were cold and slick, dangling there heavily. The engraved letters brushed against his thumb, spelling out a name that felt like a knife in his heart:

Yoichi Shigaraki.

The dogtags had been Kudō’s gift, made in the early weeks after Yoichi had joined the rebels. At the time, they'd seemed like a quiet reassurance, a promise that Yoichi had somewhere he belonged, someone who would always remember his name. They'd exchanged tags when they got together - a promise - a symbol more powerful than any spoken vow.

But now Kudō’s own dogtags were destroyed, lost with Yoichi himself, scattered in dust beneath twisted steel and rubble. All he had left was this single set - the memory of Yoichi's ecstatic grin as he accepted them, carefully slipping them over his neck with quiet pride.

Pain erupted suddenly, sharply in Kudō’s chest. A sob tore free from his throat, guttural and raw, echoing against the tile walls. 

His knees buckled, sending him slowly sliding down until he was curled against the cold tile floor, water raining down relentlessly.

All at once, that maelstrom of emotion he’d tried so hard to hold back, consumed him entirely, the carefully built wall of numbness crashing down around him. The reality he’d held at bay with an iron grip now overwhelmed him, relentless and suffocating, finally claiming what little strength he had left.

Kudō shuddered violently, clutching the tags against his chest, weeping openly for the first time since Yoichi’s death.

X

The river was gone.

Where once water had churned and hissed around the bends of the bank, only cracked mud remained - pale, like a dried wound. Dead reeds rustled against each other with brittle insistence. The land was bare, stripped of anything soft.

All For One stood on the river’s edge, shoes motionless on the baked clay. The sky above him was grey, low and without distinction. He did not know how many days had passed. Time had grown vague since the tunnels. Since -

His hand shifted. In his palm, Yoichi’s severed hand lay curled in unnatural stillness. Rigor had stiffened the fingers into a loose arc, just enough that his own could slip between them.

It wasn’t like Yoichi. Not really. His brother’s hands had always been warm, expressive, fluttering or fidgeting or clenched with defiance. This was none of those things. This was cold. And quiet.

He curled his fingers tighter through the gaps. The flesh no longer resisted.

He looked at the sky.

The feeling had crept in slowly - first as a silence in the back of his mind, then a stillness in his chest. It was not guilt. Couldn’t be. He’d done nothing wrong. Yoichi had chosen to run - again. Yoichi had forced his hand. Again.

He hadn't meant to destroy him. He’d only meant to stop him, to pull his twin back, to remind him. But the power had surged, the light had come, and when it cleared - 

It wasn’t his fault. 

... So why?

Why this feeling, like something had been peeled out from inside him? Why did everything else - the empire he had built, the arsenal he commanded, the country he could bend with a whisper - suddenly weigh so little?

The rain came quietly. It started as a patter against the dry earth, then gathered until it slicked his coat, softened the brittle reeds. Still, he did not move.

All For One tipped his head back, letting the water run over his face, drip through the seams of his mask. It blurred the sky, made it feel farther away. In his palm, Yoichi’s fingers gleamed wet and pale.

So many plans. So many perfect, precise dreams. He had imagined a world rebuilt in his image - with Yoichi at his side. Yoichi would have been happy - All For One would have made sure of that, even if it had meant manually altering every little flaw that made his Lesser Half turn away from him. 

Now the world lay stretched before him, exactly as he intended - and the shape of it brought no satisfaction.

He looked up, unmoving, rain trailing down unfeeling skin.

Was this what losing a heart did to someone?

How pathetic.

He stood on the riverbank for a long time, staring at nothing, fingers still curled through the hand that had once clung to his in birth.

And when the light dimmed and the sky turned black, he did not leave their birthplace.

X

The city was half-ash, half-rubble, and entirely silent past midnight.

They had taken shelter in a ruined hotel, a carcass of elegance left behind when the law stopped mattering this far west. Faded velvet curtains still hung limp in the windless dark, and the chandelier in the lobby remained miraculously whole, though no one dared turn the power on. Kudō‘s resistance cell - what was left of it - had found corners to sleep in, stairwells to lean against. What had once been twenty-four was now eleven. Some were dead. Others had simply walked away.

Kudō hadn’t asked where they were going.

He sat in a broken armchair beside the cracked wall of a suite that might once have belonged to someone rich, staring at a cold teacup in his hands. He hadn't touched the tea. The cup just gave him something to hold.

Yoichi would have insisted on boiling it fresh, smiling and pushing it toward him with those fragile, stubborn hands. Kudō didn’t want the tea - he wanted those warm hands - that easy smile.

Instead, there was silence. 

And something else.

He hadn’t noticed it much upon Yoichi’s death, but it had been there ever since -  a sensation deep in his chest. It was faint - almost imperceptible but low and pulsing - like a second breath that wasn’t his. It wasn’t painful, not exactly. But it wasn’t natural. It stirred at odd times, like a shadow shifting just beneath the ribs.

Kudō had known grief would leave marks. But this felt like something living.

Without a word, he left the suite and made his way down the stairwell, silent as ash. Bruce was where he always was: hunched over a scavenged medkit at a table in the lower ballroom, lit only by a single hanging lamp. He didn’t look up when Kudō entered.

“Something wrong?” Bruce asked without preamble. “Aside from … I guess - the obvious?”

Kudō didn’t answer immediately. He stepped forward, pulled the collar of his shirt down and placed his hand over his heart. “There’s something,” he said, voice flat. “Inside. Something that doesn’t belong to me.”

Bruce blinked and finally looked at him. And slowly, a frown began to form.

X

The tower was silent at night.

Far below, the city pulsed - machines humming, lives flickering. But up here, the world was still. No screens. No guards. Only the sound of rain whispering against the glass.

All For One sat in the dark, his spine straight, hands folded on his lap. The lights outside traced faint gold patterns over the wall. 

He did not move. Hadn’t moved in hours. Content to simply watch the world go on - all it’s denizens somehow not experiencing what All For One was. 

He watched them distantly going about their existence without a care for what had been lost. Did they not know their lives were worthless now - that they meant nothing - that without Yoichi to speak out and chastise and judge then they were nothing but empty things who had no purpose?

The door opened with a mechanical sigh. Giraki stepped inside, slow and composed as always. He crossed the room, stopping beside the side table to set a narrow metal case down.

“As requested,” Giraki said softly. “It’s stable now. No sign of decomposition.”

He undid the latch and opened the lid.

Inside, nestled against dark silk lining, lay the Hand. Preserved in a slight curl, its joints relaxed, its colour healthy even in its familiar pale hue. Where the wrist had ended, Giraki had affixed a small metallic seal.

“I used the old alloy chamber method,” Giraki continued, voice academic. “Infused with the adrenal deceleration formula I used on his limbs. It won’t ever decay now. It’s … preserved. Permanently.”

All For One said nothing.

Giraki lingered a moment longer, then added, quieter, “I’m sorry for your loss, my friend.”

Then he left.

Silence reclaimed the room. Outside, the sky had turned dark, a deep navy ink swallowing the city lights.

All For One reached out slowly and lifted the Hand from its cradle. The weight of it surprised him - soft, balanced, with just enough warmth from the preservation system to feel dead.

His fingers curled through Yoichi’s as they once had when they were small, when the world was cold and hunger had carved their bones. It felt closer now. More like him. Not like in the tunnels. Not like when it had gone still.

He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. The Hand rested lightly in his palm, unmoving but familiar.

Sleep pulled at him like a tide.

-

And the world was gone.

There was no ground, no wind, no shape. Only dark - soft and fathomless. It stretched around All For One like smoke without scent. He was not afraid. Fear had long been wrung out of him.

But he was alone.

Until a flicker came. Just a faint spark in the dark. A warm point of colour, like a match struck too far away to light anything except the eye.

He took a step forward. Another.

The spark pulsed once, like a heartbeat. It took a shape - not fully formed, just enough to remember what it once was. A curve of a shoulder. A turn of a head. And then -

It looked at him - with the eyes of his Yoichi.

X

Dinner was laid out with delicate symmetry. Silver utensils glinted beside fine ceramic, a seared fillet resting in a shallow pool of reduction. Steam curled upward, fragrant and clean.

All For One did not touch it.

Instead, he held Yoichi’s Hand in his palm, his thumb slowly brushing the knuckles. A gesture more habitual than affectionate.

The thought came softly, like breath against glass;
The power I gave him is gone.

He’d confirmed it himself days ago - on that day. Scanned the hand with his own abilities, reached into the dormant tissues, searching for traces of the meta-ability he’d forcefully implanted so long ago. There was nothing left. Not a flicker.

At first, he assumed the Meta-Ability had simply withered. That Yoichi’s frail body, never made for power, had allowed the energy to deteriorate. But that didn’t satisfy him. That answer tasted wrong.

Long ago, when he’d learned the utilities of his ability as a boy, he had searched Yoichi’s body - internally, cell by cell. He had found nothing then. No latent potential. No ability.

All For One had assumed he’d taken everything before birth. That Yoichi had been born empty because All For One had already consumed what was his in the womb.

But his research over the last couple decades had suggested a more banal truth - that Yoichi had been born with something. A meta-ability so faint, so biologically insignificant, that All For One’s detection never registered it as power.

Not theft, then. Just neglect. The womb had been starvation - Yoichi’s small flame never had the fuel to burn, even after birth into their childhood, his frail body was likely never able to form it fully.

All For One turned the hand over slowly, watching the way the preserved joints held their shape.

And now, even the Meta-Ability he’d given Yoichi - his benevolent gift to urge his brother’s gratitude - was gone.

It was so strange - All For One had never seen such a thing. Yoichi’s Hand should have still contained the abilities for All For One to absorb. Yet … there were none.

X

The room buzzed with quiet machinery, a dull blue glow bouncing off dented walls and rusted monitors. Kudō sat on the edge of the exam table, shirt half-unbuttoned, blood already drawn, a lingering needle mark pressed with gauze.

He’d been poked, scanned, imaged, and measured. Bruce had worked in brisk silence, lips pursed, eyes unreadable. Kudō hadn’t asked questions. He didn’t need to.

Whatever was happening inside him, he already knew it wasn’t his.

“Are you sure he didn’t touch you?” Bruce asked at last, glancing up from the monitor. “During the attack?”

Kudō shook his head. “Not once.”

Bruce frowned, eyes narrowing at the screen. “That can’t be right.”

“Then maybe you’ve made a mistake.”

“I don’t make these kinds of mistakes.” Bruce leaned forward, tapping a section of the display. “You said you’ve been feeling strange. Like there’s something inside you that doesn’t belong.”

“Yeah,” Kudō murmured.

“Well. There’s a reason for that.”

He paused. The monitor’s light flickered across Bruce’s face. “You have two meta factors.”

Kudō blinked.

Bruce pointed. “This is yours - Gearshift. It’s normal, stable. But this - ” he isolated a smaller signal, fainter, buried in the chart’s underlay “ - this one’s new. And it’s not yours. It's like a candle burning next to a furnace - weak, but distinct.”

Kudō let out a breath. Not surprised. Not exactly.

“So I’m not just going crazy then. There is something there?”

He stared down at his hands - scarred, calloused, trembling faintly. His body didn’t feel heavier. It just felt … different. As if carrying a memory not his own.

Some part of Yoichi hadn’t died in those tunnels.

X

It was possible perhaps, that the Meta-Ability All For One had so kindly granted Yoichi had been absorbed by his twin’s own measly trash ability to make up for what it lacked.

Did it … somehow activate itself?

And if it was gone - had some stolen it?

X

Kudo released a heavy breath, his hand pressing against the thrumming rapidness of his heart. 

Some part of Yoichi still lived on.

Inside of him.

X

All For One’s thoughts crystallized sharply - every soft and drifting emotion turned suddenly into jagged clarity. His fingertips tensed against the polished tabletop, the thrum of contemplation giving way to a sudden, precise hunger.

Yoichi’s power had been stolen. 

Not extinguished. Stolen. 

A bitter fire surged through his chest, bringing his numb, strange stupor abruptly into blazing consciousness.

Only one individual could possibly have taken that spark. Only one had stood close enough, had held Yoichi at the last breath, had dared - bloodied and shaking - to seize what belonged irrevocably to him.

Toshitsugu Kudō.

A wave of raw, disgusted, blazingly enraged possession curled inside All For One’s chest. 

That …

Animal.

It did not matter whether he believed in souls. Whatever Yoichi had left behind, it belonged to him. They were twins, linked by blood and bone, life and death. Yoichi’s soul - if that was indeed what this essence was - was the piece of All For One’s. 

No other had the right to it. No other would keep it.

How dare this pitiful waste of nothing think he could steal a piece of All For One. How dare that bastard contain his twin with that filthy body that had already no doubt sullied and used Yoichi even before death.

With decisive precision, All For One rose from the untouched meal. 

He settled Yoichi’s Hand back in its case, stepping swiftly toward the communications panel embedded in the apartment wall. He keyed the controls, feeling purpose and intent burn through his veins with a clarity he had sorely lacked these past few days.

Within minutes, the screens before him flickered and multiplied, lighting up one by one - faces of powerful politicians, shadowy crime lords, trembling bureaucrats, military leaders, informants, indebted fools who had long since pledged themselves to his service. All waited silently, uneasily, for his command.

He stood silently at first, gaze piercing each individual face, allowing their discomfort to simmer. The room around him seemed to darken subtly, as if reacting to the magnitude of his restrained wrath.

Finally, he spoke, voice low and controlled.

“This paltry rebellion ends tonight.”

Every screen flickered faintly, faces paling further. He felt their fear ripple like a quiet symphony beneath his fingertips. It pleased him.

“Burn them from their hiding places,” he continued calmly. “No stone unturned, no mercy given. Eradicate them completely.”

He paused, letting his words settle heavily in each ear before continuing, even quieter, the edges of his voice sharpened to a razor-thin precision.

“Except for one. Toshitsugu Kudō is mine. Do whatever you like to the rest - but that rat remains alive. He is to be brought directly to me.”

He allowed a brief silence, felt their collective anxiety coil deliciously.

“Furthermore - find every blood tie Kudō has. Every connection, no matter how distant and wipe his bloodline from existence - completely.”

He ended the transmission abruptly, plunging the room into silence.

All For One stood quietly for a moment, breathing in the weight of his fury. 

He felt centred again, aligned, the hollowness inside briefly forgotten, filled instead by something simpler - anger, retribution, purpose.

He returned slowly to the table, gaze drifting back to the case containing Yoichi’s hand. He lifted it once more, fingers entwining with cold, preserved skin. This fragment alone was not enough. He needed more.

Needed all of Yoichi - every echo, every spark, every piece that remained. And he would reclaim it from Kudō’s bleeding, helpless form if he had to.

Yes, he could see it so very clearly now - Yoichi's death had not been All For One's fault. Of course it hadn't.

Yoichi leaving. His defiance and betrayal of his own brother. Yoichi's death. Kudō was too blame for all of it.

It was Kudō's fault.

A seething, bitter thing coiled inside of All For One. What was it - this burning, writhing sensation that yearned to raze entire continents to ash just so he pull that filthy degenerate apart?

Was this ... hatred?

If it was - All For One would put it to good use.

“If he thinks to steal what belongs to me, I will return the favor," he promised to his detached Hand. "I will eradicate everything you have and are, Toshitsugu Kudō.”

X

Two weeks. That was all it had taken

Two weeks for everything they’d built to collapse like rotten scaffolding.

In every region, rebel outposts flickered and died. Bases were raided before dawn, leaders strung up in alleys, safe houses burned with people still inside. Intel leaked faster than they could move. Contacts turned cold, then silent.

Kudō stood on the deck of the gutted boat they now called home for the next couple days, staring out at the grey tide slapping gently at rusted hulls. 

Around thirty of them remained now - thirty survivors across three scattered cells out of what had been three hundred strong from seven separate units. And his own group, huddled in the skeleton of this abandoned freighter, felt more like a ghost story than a rebellion.

They argued behind him - again. 

Tobi was at the center of it, again.

“I say we put a bullet in his skull and leave him in the sea,” Orin’s voice snarled.

“He didn’t intend for this to happen,” Mara countered, her voice strained but holding. “All For One used his family - I’d doubt any of us could say we’d do differently.”

“Speak for yourself!”

The voices collided like waves against metal. Kudō said nothing. He didn’t even turn. He watched the horizon instead, watched it not move.

Footsteps approached. He didn’t look up.

Bruce’s voice was low.  His face was stoic - unreadable. Kudō didn’t like that. 

“You got a second?”

Kudō nodded once and followed, away from the bickering voices and into the narrow hall just past the makeshift infirmary. The air smelled like salt and metal and old gauze. Bruce stopped and turned slowly. His eyes were darker than usual. He didn’t speak right away.

“I didn’t want to tell you this here,” he said, voice rough. “But there’s nowhere else. And there’s no way to break this gently.”

Kudō felt it before it was said. The way one feels the storm before the thunder.

He knew that look in Bruce’s eye - that dash of sympathy. He knew it as a man who had to wear it.

“Who died?” Kudō’s words came out cold and grim, combating the dread building inside of him.

“Kudō -”

“Who?”

Bruce looked at him carefully. “It was your mother.”

The dread turned to ice.

She’d smiled when he’d left for the army. Had wished him the best. Kudō had sent a care package not a month ago. Had written about his relationship with Yoichi, his hopes they would meet one day.

She’d written back that she was already planning their wedding.

“… And your aunt. The twins, too.”

Kudō stared. Didn’t blink. Just… stared.

That was it then … Kudō’s whole family.

No one left.

“How?”

The words left his mouth but Kudō observed them as a spectator. He felt oddly adrift in that moment. Or maybe . He didn’t feel much of anything right then.

Bruce hesitated. “Someone leaked their names when a bounty hit the network. Your mom’s farm was swarmed before we could even mobilize to get them relocated. I’m sorry.”

Kudō didn’t move. His eyes drifted to the cracked wall. His arms stayed at his sides. His throat closed around a thousand unsaid things.

Gone. Just like Yoichi.

The grief came then - welled up like fire, but he shoved it down so hard it left a crater.

He nodded once. “Thanks,” he said, and walked away before the shape of the words could shatter in his mouth.

The days that followed were no better.

Every contact they reached out to had disappeared, flipped, or died. The few who answered did so in fear, their voices trembling like leaves about to fall. One safe house turned out to be a trap. They lost four more in that fire.

And then came the bounty.

Every screen on the boat lit up with it: WANTED – ALIVE

Kudō’s name and face. The numbers beside it were obscene. A fortune that could rebuild cities. And the instruction clear as blood:
Deliver him to All For One.

They didn’t say it aloud, but everyone on board knew: no one was coming to save them. The world wanted the reward, not the justice.

Kudō hadn’t slept. Not in any way that mattered. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Yoichi’s hand hit the ground. Every time he blinked, he saw his mother’s smile. His nephews - Kuro and Yuri - playing with plastic soldiers whilst aunt Yui scammed totalitarian party members over the phone in a kitchen now turned to ash.

His hands didn’t shake. His body didn’t collapse.

But something inside had turned sharp and mean.

Kudō  stalked from his sleeping space and stormed down below deck, kicking in the door to the storage cabin they’d turned into a makeshift cell. The hinges groaned, and a weak flashlight beam swung toward him.

Tobi blinked blearily up from his cot, startled. “Kudō?”

Kudō said nothing. He walked in, grabbed the collar of Tobi’s shirt, and yanked him upright like dead weight. Tobi flailed.

“H - Hey - wait, what are you - ?!”

Kudō shoved him up the galley and out onto the shipyard. The dark hues of pre-dawn barely made the car ahead noticeable.

“Kudō, stop!” Mara shouted, storming in behind him, Bruce close on her heels. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Kudō!” Bruce stepped between them, trying to block his path. Kudō shoved past him like he wasn’t even there, dragging Tobi through the hall by the shirt. Tobi stumbled, nearly fell. His lip was bleeding from where he’d bitten it trying not to scream.

“Kudō, think - ” Mara started again.

“I am thinking,” he snapped. His voice cracked through the hull like a gunshot. “I’ve been thinking for days.”

He bundled Tobi into the driver’s side of the battered van they kept beneath tarp and wire. The door slammed shut. Kudō climbed in beside him.

Then they were gone - engine sputtering, wheels spitting gravel behind them as the freighter vanished into darkness.

X

The drive was long and silent.

Nothing but the hum of the engine, the gravel crunching beneath wheels, and the quiet sobs from the passenger seat. Tobi had stopped trying to speak. Kudō hadn’t looked at him once since they left the boat.

The field stretched endlessly beneath a steel grey sky of early morning, wind flattening tall grass into rippling patterns. It was the kind of place people forgot - no buildings, no tracks, no names. Just emptiness.

With no one around to hear what came next.

Kudō parked without a word. He stepped out first and opened the passenger door. 

Tobi hesitated. “Please,” he whispered, voice raw. “Kudō, I - please don’t - ”

Kudō grabbed him by the arm and pulled.

The teenager stumbled into the open, trying to keep pace, but Kudō said nothing, eyes fixed ahead as they walked farther and farther from the road. The grass whispered against their legs.

“I’m sorry,” Tobi choked out. “I never - I didn’t mean for any of this. I thought -  I thought if I gave him something - you don’t know how deep my family is with him - my mom - I swear I didn’t know it’d be Yoichi - I didn’t know - ”

Kudō kept walking, dragging him forward, grip unrelenting.

When they stopped, it was near the center of the field. No landmarks. No cover. Just sky above and earth below.

He let go of Tobi’s arm.

Tobi stumbled back a step. “W-wait,” he gasped. “Please, if you kill me - my siblings - they won’t be protected. I’m the only thing standing between them and him. You know what he does to families - please - my mom will make them serve him - I need to protect them - Kudō  -”

Kudō drew the handgun from his coat.

“… turn around.”

Tobi trembled violently. “Oh god. Kudō - please, please, I’m begging you - ”

“Turn around.”

Sobbing, Tobi obeyed. His shoulders hunched. Hands raised slightly, uncertain. 

The wind hissed through the grass as Kudō exhaled, slow and steady. 

He raised the gun, his finger hovering over the trigger. 

One pull. That’s all it would take. A clean shot.

This traitor deserved deserved it, didn’t he? For the warehouse. For all those people All For One slaughtered that day.

For Yoichi.

And yet -

Something resisted. A small, sharp tug beneath the surface. Not instinct. Not guilt.

Something gentler.

A voice, half-memory, drifted from a tremultuous moment - when ideologies had clashed over how best to get information out of a captured spy. Yoichi’s eyes had been fierce with earnest conviction, his words as firm and resolute;
"Mercy isn’t a weakness. It’s a kindness. And the world would be a better place if we were all a little kinder."

Kudō had scoffed then. He didn’t believe in kindness. He had made choices - sent people to die, burned bridges and names alike. Heroes didn’t do that. Good men didn’t do that.

But looking at Tobi’s shoulders shake as he whispered prayers under his breath … it didn’t feel right.

Looking at it now, Kudō couldn’t say this was a mission. This wasn’t a decision for the cause.

This was personal.

This was revenge.

The gun stayed raised. Tobi hadn’t moved, still crying softly into the wind.

Kudō closed his eyes. 

Yoichi had believed in him. Had trusted him with something fragile and unspoken, passed down in a breath and a touch and blood on his face.

Yoichi had believed him to be better than this. A good man. He’d died with the belief that mercy was worth fighting for.

He’d died dreaming of a better, kinder world.

A world where good men didn’t kill teenagers.

Kudō lowered the gun.

“Go.”

There was a long, trembling silence as Tobi slowly turned, his tear streaked face stunned.

“What …?”

“Leave. Now.”

Tobi turned, eyes red and wide. “You’re … letting me go?”

Kudō gave a single, tired nod as he re-holstered his gun.

Relief collapsed over Tobi like a wave. “Th-thank you. Kudō - thank you - ”

“Don’t thank me.”

Tobi blinked.

“Thank Yoichi,” Kudō said quietly. “You live because of him.”

Tobi covered his face with both hands, voice breaking. “The warehouse - what happened - it was my fault. I know that. I know nothing I do will ever make up for it.”

Kudō didn’t reply.

“Thank you,” Tobi said again. 

Then he turned and started walking. He didn’t run. Almost as if he’d forgotten how to.

Kudō stood alone for a long while, wind threading through the field like breath held too long.

Eventually, he walked back to the car, and slid into the driver’s seat.

He started the engine and turned toward the coast.

X

The sea was louder than he expected. It rolled in slow and heavy, the kind of sound that filled the silence between thoughts. 

Kudō stood with his boots half-buried in wet sand, arms loose at his sides, the cold bite of salt air threading through the seams of his coat.

In his hand, he held Yoichi’s dog tags. He turned them over once. Then again. The chain hung loose between his fingers.

The surf came in, kissed the shore, withdrew.

Kudō exhaled, long and silent.

He knew how this ended. Had known for some time now. So long as he was alive, All For One would keep hunting the rebels. It didn’t matter where they ran or how far. They weren’t fighting a war anymore - they were running from a storm.

And he was the lightning rod.

The thought of dying didn’t bother him. Not really. He’d already lost everything that tethered him to the world. Yoichi. His mother. His aunt and nephews. He was the reason they were gone.

He wouldn’t call it regret. Just ... recognition.

With slow, measured steps, he left the shoreline behind and crossed to where a crooked tree stood back from the dunes. The sand here was dry and loose. 

He knelt, brushing away the top layer with steady hands, then dug a shallow hole with his fingers.

Yoichi’s tags rested at the bottom. He stared at them for a long time before covering them with careful, even handfuls of earth. He found a driftwood branch nearby and jammed it upright into the sand, then another beside it. Two markers.

He paused, then added a third - smaller, angled slightly. No names. No words. Just presence.

He stood again, brushing the grit from his palms.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and even. “I couldn’t keep you safe. Couldn’t show you the sea. But at least … some part of you is close to it now.”

The breeze carried salt across his lips. He didn’t move.

“My mother wouldn’t have wanted a marker, she told me to just burn some incense when she died,” he added after a beat. “But I hope you won’t mind my aunt being next to you. Or the boys.”

He looked down at his hands. The knuckles were still scraped from driving his fist into a wall three nights ago. The blood under his nails was dried, flaking.

“I don’t have anything of theirs,” he murmured. “Other than their blood on my hands - and I doubt I’d find anything other than a trap if I went back home, so …”

He rleased a breath, then turned to look out at the ocean. It was calm, the waves gently brushing the shore.

“I was never a good man. Not the way you saw me. The things I’ve done for the cause … I thought them necessary at the time., but … the way you looked at me - it made me want to be better. I thought I could be, but … guess we’ll never know now, will we? Because I know what has to happen next. If my death keeps Bruce alive, keeps Mara and the rest safe … if it keeps your dream alive by letting those that resist escape -  I’ll pay that price.”

He let the silence fall again.

“But I’ll keep what you gave me safe,” he said after a pause. “Whatever it is. You passed it to me, so maybe … maybe I can give it to someone else.”

Kudō didn’t waver. He stood like stone, like something built to endure everything except peace.

The waves filled the quiet. For a long time, he stayed that way - watching the three markers, wind cutting across the open sand. And then, something shifted.

A weight. Not heavy - just real. A warmth on his shoulder, brief as breath. No breeze, no movement. Just presence. As if someone had placed their hand there with care.

He didn’t move. Didn’t dare.

The sensation held for a second longer. Familiar and warm.

Yoichi. 

Kudō could feel it. Not a thought or a sound. Just … him. So vivid he almost turned.

But he didn’t. Instead, Kudō closed his eyes and stood still, listening to the water roll in and out.

Then, soft as light, something brushed against his cheek. Not wind. Not memory.

A kiss, weightless and gone.

Kudō didn’t speak for a while.

When he finally did, it was a whisper to the graves. “I’m sorry you never got to see the sea.”

The tide murmured its answer, and Kudō stayed until the sun came out.

Chapter Text

He stood calmly at the head of the rust-stained table in the freighter's worn mess hall, palms flat against weathered metal. Around him, a dozen exhausted, hollow-eyed faces stared back - eyes dark and silent, their anger too raw and quiet to break yet.

“As your leader,” Kudō said, quieter now, voice steel beneath the calm, “I’m ordering this faction to disband. Destroy every document, every file. Erase all traces and go to ground. Protect yourselves. Someday, someone else will pick up this fight.”

His eyes hardened. “But it can’t be us. Not anymore.”

“You can’t be serious -?” Bruce began.

“I am - and what’s more; I’ll be giving up this location to the Tyrant in just under six hours so I’d advise everyone to start packing.”

There was silence when Kudō finished speaking. 

Then the protests, the arguing, the shouting came, filling the room. He'd known it would be like this. Anger was easier than acceptance; protest simpler than grief.

“You can’t,” Mara said finally, voice tight, fists white-knuckled at her sides. “You can’t just hand yourself over.”

“I’m not debating this,” Kudō replied, firm and steady. “This isn’t a democracy.”

“You’re throwing your life away!” another voice shouted from the back. “You’ll doom everything we’ve fought for!”

“No.” Kudō’s voice cut sharply across the room, silencing them. “It’s already over. We’re outmatched, and the Tyrant will tear apart this entire country to get what he wants. I’m not letting you go down with me.”

“But - ”

“He has a point -”

“Oh shut up Claude -”

“The Tyrant will smear us across the walls, we -”

“We can still fight this -”

He stood still a moment longer, watching these people he’d fought beside for years squabble and argue, herd their protests, allowed them to say their very understandable peace. 

Then, without another word, he turned and walked from the room.

Only one set of footsteps followed him.

“Kudō,” Bruce’s voice came from behind, low and rough, “this is a mistake. You’re letting your grief do the thinking for you.”

“I’m not,” Kudō answered softly, moving down the cramped corridor. “You know me better than that.”

Bruce caught his shoulder and turned him roughly. Kudō paused, not resisting.

“So, what? You’ll just hand it over - the thing he wants? That’s it?” Bruce growled, his face tight and drawn in the flickering half-light.

“No,” Kudō replied firmly, eyes unyielding. “That’s the one thing I won’t surrender. Yoichi passed it to me, so that must mean I can pass it on too. Someone else can carry it and the Tyrant will never get his hands on it. Not ever.”

Bruce’s jaw clenched, eyes blazing. “This is suicide, Kudō.”

Kudō exhaled slowly. “Maybe. But there’s no other way. We both know the longer we wait the more people will die because that bastard and won’t let us rest. Ever.”

He paused, meeting Bruce’s stubborn glare. “Go home, Bruce. Go back to Shanghai. Back to your research.”

Bruce cut him a harsh glare. “You’re insane if you think I’ll leave now. I’m seeing this through. We started this together; we finish it together.”

Kudō gave a faint smile, humourless but understanding. “Yeah, figured you’d say something like that … guess there’s only one way to get you out of this huh?””

He reached calmly into his pocket, pulling out a small folding knife. Bruce watched warily, but before he could step back, Kudō quickly sliced a clean, shallow line across his own palm. Bruce cursed sharply as Kudō grasped his wrist, cutting swiftly and lightly across the other man’s hand too.

“Kudō - what the hell -”

Pressing their bleeding palms firmly together, Kudō met his best friend’s eyes steadily. “Now you don’t have a choice. Keep yourself safe. For Yoichi, if not for yourself.”

He didn’t know how it worked, or how Yoichi had passed it to him but Kudō willed that special gift Yoichi had given him into Bruce’s veins, trusting no one else with but his best friend - the man who’s began this journey with him from that sticky booth in seediest bar they’d found one another in.

Bruce’s throat worked silently, frustration and sorrow battling on his face. “You bastard,” he muttered.

They gripped hands tightly for a long moment, warm blood mingling. Kudō felt a deep ache blossom in his chest - that sense of other that had been inside since Yoichi’s death - that seemingly loosened and quietly departed, warmth fading like a last breath, leaving him empty, bereft.

He’d done it. He’d passed it on - the last piece of Yoichi he could hold.

Swallowing hard, Kudō gave Bruce’s hand one last firm shake. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For everything. Live long, Bruce. Live better than we did.”

Bruce’s eyes shone, furious and grieving. “You too, idiot.”

They shared a brief, rough embrace. It was tight and fierce and too quick, ending before the grief could spill over, before either man could fully break.

Kudō stepped back, straightening himself, the warmth of their mingled blood cooling against his palm. Mara appeared silently behind Bruce, face pale with resignation with what he’d asked her the second he’d gotten back from the beach.

Kudō nodded to her. “Do it.”

She hesitated briefly, then placed a hand gently on Bruce’s shoulder.

Bruce never looked away, eyes locked on Kudō until the very last instant, bitter yet understanding. 

Then with the activation of one of Mara’s devices, they were gone, leaving only empty air and silence behind.

Kudō stood still for a long moment in the empty hall, eyes closing briefly against the rush of loss and exhaustion. For the first time, alone and unseen, he allowed his shoulders to slump, breath leaving him in a slow, heavy sigh.

In the stillness, he thought again of Yoichi, of the promise he’d silently made on that distant shoreline.

“He’ll keep it safe,” he murmured to no one but the quiet shadows. “I promise.”

And with steady footsteps, he began walking toward the final meeting with fate, heart worn but resolute, ready to pay the price.

X

True to his words, Kudō leaked his location exactly six hours later. He used backchannels, made it seem like a mistake, a slip up. At least then, the bastard might not suspect a trap.

To much to hope maybe. But he’d heard somewhere that rebellions were built on hope.

The rebels around him moved in grim silence - packing crates, burning maps, wiping drives with shaking hands. 

Kudō passed them wordlessly, boots heavy against rusted grates and salt-damp boards. The cold morning stung his face. Somewhere in the distance, a gull screamed - sharp and grating.

The old boatyard was half-rotted, half-collapsing, and still the best ground they had left. Kudō worked methodically, hands steady as he set trip lines between shipping containers, rigged shrapnel in gutters, buried charges beneath the road’s gravel edge. Every corner became a snare. Every alley a coffin.

The Tyrant would come - and Kudō intended to make him pay for every inch.

The sun was just beginning to rise, low and pale and by the time he returned to the freighter’s broken flank, he expected to find it emptied. Rebels scattered, maps gone, plans erased.

Instead, he found them waiting.

Three dozen figures stood loosely clustered in the boatyard - dirty, tired, patched together in mismatched gear and their shared green armor, with seemingly no indication they were on their way. Hell, they should have been by now - gone back to their families and their homes and their lives. But they were here.

Still here.

Kudō stopped short.

A familiar figure stepped forward - Hanabusa, second in command of the northern cell. His jacket was torn at the shoulder, his face unreadable.

“You really thought we were just going to abandon ship like that?” he asked, quiet but sure.

Kudō blinked once. Then again.
“You’re all disobeying a direct order,” he muttered, voice low.

“We know,” Eren said, stepping up beside Hanabusa, hands in her pockets. “But the mission’s not done. Not until the last one of us is dead.”

Kudō looked at them - and  at the people behind them. At the battered flags some still wore on their arms. At the fire that hadn’t gone out in their eyes.

Something in him pulled tight.

He laughed softly. It was a strange sound, dry and quiet, half-choked by dust. “You know this is mutiny,” he said, a faint curve at the edge of his mouth.

Hanabusa shrugged. “You’ll have to court-martial us after.”

There wouldn’t be any need for that.

There was no need for speeches either. No need for a rally. They all knew what this was.

Kudō opened his mouth to speak when another voice cut in - softer, hesitant, but steady.

“We won’t back down,” it said. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

Tobi stepped out from the crowd, all tires looking and worn out. He carried no weapon - just bruises on his face and a hollow look in his eyes that Kudō  has seen before when Tobi returned home from one of his mother’s ‘chastisements’. 

Still, he met Kudō’s gaze without flinching and for a moment, neither spoke until Kudō gave a short nod. The smallest motion - but it carried something final.

“All right,” he said at last. His voice was low, but it carried to every ear. “Then let’s give him hell.”

X

How dare he.

That thief. That insect. That vermin masquerading as something noble. 

Toshitsugu Kudō had always been a wretched little creature - sharp-jawed and glowering, all righteous silence and clenched fists. A boy who mistook stubbornness for strength.

 Who dared to look at his Yoichi - his twin - and presume to matter. And now? Now that insect had stolen something of far more worth than data or paltry intelligence.

He had Yoichi’s spirit, that pathetic spark of power.

All For One pressed a hand to his coat pocket, fingers brushing the soft silk-wrapped weight hidden there. Yoichi’s hand, still warm and preserved. 

He would be there when All For One reclaimed what was his. He would see.

And that last part of him would feel that disgusting vermin die.

Let Kudō pretend the surrender of his location was anything more than theatre, when they both knew better. All For One would indulge him. He’d tearup every obstacle, rip apart every rebel standing at the filth’s side, and when there was nothing left but blood and bone, he would prise Yoichi’s essence free from the thief’s wretched hold with his own hands.

And oh, how he would make Toshitsugu Kudō  scream.

X

The air changed before sound did. Before footsteps. Before breath.

Kudō  felt his presence in air first

He looked up just as the wind shifted.

There the Tyrant was.

All For One landed from the air, the air crackling as the ground cracked beneath his shiny, way too expensive shoes. His coat settled slowly as the bastard stood only meters away, the night thick around him, suffocating in its silence.

Kudō didn’t move.

“Everyone brace themselves,” he said flatly though his earpiece, voice cutting through the stillness. The rebels snapped to attention around him, weapons and meta-abilities drawn. 

But Kudō didn’t look away from All For One.

The Tyrant stared at him like Kudō was a stain. Like Kudō was dirt beneath his boots, an afterthought - an errant fly needed to be swatted. Those matte pale eyes of his bore into Kudō as if they could kill him with just a thought.

Thankfully, the asshole had yet to obtain that sort of ability.

The moment All For One took a step - just one, Kudō knew it was time. 

“Give him no quarter,” he told his comrades, his allies, his friends. His people. “Throw everything you’ve got at the bastard.”

And throw everything they did.

At least they could say they did all they could.

It just wasn’t enough.

X

The hit came like a battering ram.

One moment Kudō stood braced, the next he was airborne, spine arching in a whipcrack of force as the world twisted sickeningly beneath him. The ground met him hard, sharp rubble punching through his palms as he skidded, back-first, across pulverized stone and twisted rebar.

A wet cough tore loose from his throat. Something small and hard rattled against his tongue- one of his back teeth, spit out with a thread of blood.

Wasn’t the first - he’d lost one of his front ones sometime around when Eren was cut in half.

He broke his right wrist under rubble when Hanabusa got crushed. 

Kudō‘s ribs felt wrong. His shoulder wouldn’t lift. His leg - he wasn’t thinking about his leg yet. Prosthetic at least was still in place. If there had been any chance of surviving, likely he’d need to amputate the other leg as well. 

Around him, the shipyard and its adjoining street were in ruins.

Walls blown out into skeleton frames, rusted containers split open like fruit, the bodies of rebels -  his friends - half-buried in the wreckage. 

They had fought like hell. Given everything they had, burned it all down to try to drag the Tyrant into the dirt with them.

But they’d all known - they’d never stood a chance.

With a breath pulled sharp through his teeth, Kudō shoved himself upright, biting down hard on the pain as his vision swam. His fingers scraped through grit and glass, pushing off the ruins for what felt like the thousandth time. His knees almost buckled; he locked them stiff.
 
Over the rise of collapsed stone, his eyes caught movement.

All For One - unscathed, patient, almost casual - held Tobi aloft like a ragged puppet, fingers fisted cruelly into the boy’s collar. Tobi thrashed weakly, feet scraping uselessly at air, mouth open in soundless panic.

“…betrayal,” the Tyrant was murmuring, voice honeyed and cold, “ -isn’t it funny, little thing, how easily the one you fed turns to gnaw your hands -”

Kudō stumbled forward, rage clawing up through his ribs.

The yell built up in his chest and he released in a bellow that echoed across the ruins. The voice tore from him hoarse, cracked - more fury than sound.

“I AM STILL HERE!”

And like a moth sensing heat, the Tyrant’s head snapped toward him.

Their eyes locked across the ruin.

And just like the rabid dog he was, unable to release the scent of his intended prey, with a small flick, All For One tossed Tobi aside - effortless. The boy crumpled against stone, injured but alive.

“Did you enjoy your little gift?” All For One called, voice carrying through the crumbled yard like silk on steel. “I’d meant to send you the heads of those I took from you, you know. I thought you might appreciate the sentiment of having a part of them - given what you’ve stolen from me. But alas … bounty hunters can be such vile beasts. I heard there wasn’t even that left.”

Kudō didn’t rise to the bait. He tasted iron on his tongue. Swallowed it.

He got laboriously to his feet and  flicked his wrist - the gauntlet on his forearm whirred, firing a Gearshift projectile with a snap of compressed force.

All For One’s hand swatted it from the air with insulting ease.

The next wave hit Kudō like a freight train. 

He felt it before it landed, a swell in the air, the scrape of stone trembling underfoot - then the blast slammed him backward, the ground falling out from under as his body twisted hard, and this time the landing was wrong, sickeningly wrong.

His leg folded beneath him at a vicious angle; the crack was loud and sharp, joining the already mangled mess.
For a breath, there was no sound, no pain - just the strange dissonance of his body no longer lining up where it should.

Kudō’s hand closed around the knife at his belt.

He dragged himself upright, one knee screaming, the prosthetic taking weight. Fingers locked white on the blade’s hilt.

If All For One wanted the thing Yoichi had passed on, the last trace, the last echo - 

The bastard would have to pry it from his cold dead chest and realise -

Kudō  didn’t have it anymore.

X

It would be an insult to say All For One struggled against this wretch.

Toshitsugu Kudō was nothing - barely worth notice.

All For One reached him in a simple stride, filthying his hands further by curling one around the vermin’s throat and lifting until the worthless man’s useless body was left to dangle.

Weak. Pathetic. Less than nothing.

The rebel twisted under his grip, a shattered thing of bone and sweat, coughing red against the hand clamped around him. 

Insect. That was the word. This creature, this rebel scum, this rat who had dared to crawl into All For One and Yoichi’s life - he was an insect, a grub squirming beneath the heel of inevitability.

It was laughable. This entire farce.

All For One’s fingers tightened at the rebel’s throat and the worthless man spat blood and teeth, eyes alight with a quiet fury that stung at the edge of All For One’s patience.

Enough.

The very sight of this man set All For One’s teeth on edge. He couldn’t stand to look at him a moment more - because he wasn’t what truly mattered. He was nothing, certainly not in the face of what he’d stolen and had the sheer audacity to keep inside himself.

So All For One let his ability sink into this wretched man, the power sifting through muscle, through nerve, through marrow itself. He pushed eagerly into the rebel’s core, ready to feel it, to find it -

Ah, Yoichi.

Dear little brother. Come to me, return where you belong.

Yes - here it came. All this time waiting, wanting, searching. To gain back what was rightfully his, to tear it out and keep it where it was always supposed to be - his - his possession - his self - his heart - his dear, dear -

Yet, All For One found … 

nothing

Not there.

Not hidden.

Not his.

He stilled, fingers clamped so hard the rebel choked on a soundless gasp.

Strange.

What was this?

The rat’s own quirk was a pitiful flicker - frayed, unstable, barely there. 

What -

The bastard coughed wetly as his lip curled.

“You didn’t really think  … I’d let you get your filthy hands on it, did you?”

The words crawled under his skin, sharp as barbed wire. All For One’s grip drew blood. “What did you do,” he hissed, voice dropping low, guttural, “where is Yoichi?”

Kudō’s brow raised, eyes fever-bright and searing. “Yoichi’s gone,” he said softly. “You killed him, remember? and that precious spark he gave me … it’s far away now. Somewhere you’ll never find.”

For a moment, All For One’s body didn’t seem to register the world. Noise blurred at the edges; light skewed at strange angles. And on his cheeks - something hot, sharp, unfamiliar seeped down his face.

Gone.

Yoichi. His weaker half. His first, dearest possession.

Gone.

A flicker at the edge of his senses - something flying, a sharp edge cutting through air. Instinct caught it: the knife froze mid-flight, suspended inches from the back of his head. With a small twist of thought and hand, he crushed it midair, metal crumpling like paper.

But the weight was still there.

The hollow.

Gone.

And all because …  of this rat.

X

Kudō tasted copper on his tongue ash world blurred at the edges.

he didn’t fight it anymore. His body was done for, twitching faintly as the last of his strength unraveled through his skin.

He knew what was coming.

He knew it wouldn’t be quick. 

All For One didn’t believe in quick.

And yet - despite the crackling hum of pressure tightening, despite the ache shuddering up through his spine, despite the dark blooming at the corners of his vision - Kudō felt something strange settle inside him.

Peace.

He had done his work, afterall. In a way. It might not have been finished. He might not have done everything he wanted. But when all was said and done - Kudō had lived a life well lived. He could see that now.

He had known Yoichi - known his kindness, his stubborn hope, his quiet, impossible heart. Kudō had held that light in his hands, even if only for a little while. He had carried it when no one else could, passed it on when the world tried to tear it from him.
He’d fought with friends and fought for a cause that had meant something. 

He’d lived. And someone - someday - would end this Tyrant.

That was enough.

The corner of Kudō’s mouth tugged faintly upward. A flicker of a smile. Quiet. 

The smile of a man satisfied.

A smile perhaps - for Yoichi. 

A smile he kept in place even when his body was slammed to the rubbled ground.

A smile that held as long as it could - until his mouth was too ruined to make the gesture.

All For One didn’t use abilities. 

He used fists and nails, elbows, knees, his heel driving into Kudō’s spine, his hands snapping bone, splitting skin. Kudō’s body jerked under each hit, nerves firing wild until they simply burned out.

He tried to fend him off but the Tyrant was never known for playing fair and a Meta-Ability slammed Kudō back into the concrete, took off one of his arms and that was that.

Somewhere, Kudō felt his jaw snap. His hand crushed. His  other shoulder torn from its socket. Beaten and biit and torn into with teeth and nails and violence so human in its ferocity, it felt strangely like a child’s tantrum trapped inside the body of a man with far too much power. A man who had never grown out of the emotional range of a spoilt brat. 

Or a rabid animal.

Kudō bit down so hard at one point that he felt his tongue split, tasted the burst of iron flood his mouth as something cracked behind his eyes.

His world narrowed, pulsed. The sky reeled above him like a dying light.

Kudō’s one working eye flickered up, watching this rabid thing baring down on him, and for the first time -  he saw All For One.

Not as the shadow. Right at this moment, he was no monster, no unrelenting force that had shattered cities and crumpled armies.

Just - 

a man.

A man, clutching desperately at something so spitefully and desperately it had warped everything around him.

A man, hollowed out by his own grasping hands.

A man, small.

And so very alone.

The pain stopped at some point - or maybe Kudo had moved beyond such feeling. 

He lay there, a mangled lump of flesh pressed into the ground and listened to his own wheezing gasps of life left to him.

"It was never really about defiance, you know."

…

Kudō didn’t know if it was a thought, a memory of their talks in bed, or something slipping through from wherever Yoichi was now. But it was there.

"When I fought him … it wasn’t just to rebel, not entirely. I loved my brother, as pathetic as that is. No, I ... I wanted to leave something better behind. Just a little kindness. The world could use more kindness"

He wanted to answer, wanted to tell him he understood, but his mouth only made a faint, rattling noise, blood frothing weakly at his lips.

"You told me once you weren’t a kind man."
A faint laugh. Soft, like a breath against his ear.
"But that’s not true, Kudō. Kindness isn’t in grand gestures or performances. It’s in what makes a life a little brighter. You gave that to me."

Kudō’s chest jolted faintly. His fingers scraped at the dirt, weak, clumsy. He wanted - he wanted so badly to answer.

"Maybe a year is all we get."

Yoichi’s voice sounded near. So near.

"But it was more than I ever expected. And I’m grateful, Kudō."

A pause, soft as a heartbeat.

"You don’t know what that means. What you gave me, after so long in the dark. You’re my hero, Kudō. You saved me."

A breath, weightless, like a hand at his hair.

"It was the kindest thing in my world."

Kudō’s mouth moved - just a twitch, just the faintest press of soundless words.

‘I love you,’ he wanted to say.

I love you, I love you, I love you - 

The night faded at the edges, light bleeding out from the world like the tide pulling back. 

His body no longer hurt. His chest no longer burned. There was no breath to carry the words.

But in that last flicker, just before the dark took him, Kudō thought -

Yoichi… you - 

-

-

The world fell to black -

-

- and then there was light.

It wasn’t harsh, not blinding, but soft and golden. The kind of light that warmed the skin without burning, like the sun through half-closed eyes on the first morning of spring.

Kudō breathed in. The air was clean, filled with the faint salt of the sea. Wheatgrass brushed at his knees that swayed in a breeze he could feel along his jaw, through his hair.

He stood in a wide, open field with a sky so bright it blurred at the edges.

Ahead, nestled against a rise, was a small cottage. Weathered stone, pale wood, smoke curling faintly from the chimney. 

Something settled low in his chest, a kind of pull, so he moved toward it - slow steps, one after the other, through the brushing grass.

Inside, the air was cool, touched with the scent of herbs and woodsmoke. The flicker of a small stove fire warmed the room. Someone stood there, back half-turned, humming softly to himself as he moved a spoon through a pot.

The sound hit Kudō like a fist to the ribs - except the pain never came, only a breathless, aching swell.

His mouth opened before he knew it.

“… Yoichi.”

The figure stilled.

Slowly, Yoichi turned. His eyes softened, mouth curving up in that quiet, patient way Kudō knew too well.

“You took your time,” Yoichi murmured, a faint teasing laugh threading through the words.

Kudō exhaled shakily, a hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he mumbled, voice rougher than he meant.

Yoichi shook his head, stepping forward, eyes crinkling at the corners as his smile edged with sadness. “I wish you’d taken longer.”

Kudō  wanted to apologise for that too, but Yoichi only reached out, his thin familiar fingers curling into Kudo’s sleeve and guided him toward the worn wooden table by the window.

“I made food,” Yoichi said, gesturing gently. “Sit with me a while?”

Kudō sank into the chair, hands loose on his knees, breath unsteady as he looked - really looked - as Yoichi came to sit beside him. That pale soft hair, those worn sleeves always too long for him, the  faint burn mark on his thumb. It was Yoichi - real. Here. Close.

A quiet moment passed.

Then Yoichi leaned in, resting his head lightly against Kudō’s shoulder. Kudō let his eyes fall shut, his own head tilting to rest over Yoichi’s hair, a slow breath easing from his chest.

They sat like that, quietly, as the sunlight curled gently across the table, the fire crackling low, the wind moving soft and slow against the windowpanes.

And in that small, quiet room, where nothing hurt, and nothing chased, and nothing needed to be carried anymore -

They both just simply … drifted away.

X

The battlefield was silent now.

Wind pulled through the wreckage, soft as breath, dragging ash across shattered stone and twisted metal. The last flames guttered in their husks, throwing faint light onto broken walls and crumpled bodies. Nothing stirred. Nothing wept.

And All For One stood alone, bloodied and still.

He glance down at the lump of flesh on the ground, its limbs folding in wrong directions, head tilting loosely. Not really recognisable anymore.

And All For One waited.

For triumph.
For satisfaction.
For something.

But there was only the wind.

He stared down at Kudō’s body and felt … nothing. No rush of conquest, no flicker of pleasure. 

Only absence.

Odd.

The quiet crept in at the edges, too heavy to brush aside.

Power flickered from his fingertips as he touched the lump of meat, sweeping through the broken body once more, through the skin, the marrow, the splintered nerves. It searched, pulled, demanded.

And still - nothing.

No echo.
No spark.
No Yoichi.

Gone.

His breath left him - not sharp, not ragged, just … there, and then not.

Slowly, his hand drifted to his coat pocket. 

All For One felt the shape: the silk-wrapped weight, soft, delicate, perfectly preserved. 

He touched it now, lightly, skimming the fabric as if his fingertips could coax a heartbeat awake. As if, somehow, his own pulse could be answered.

The world felt … strange. Odd. Distant. Muted. He could see the faint scrape of ash against his boots, hear the sigh of the wind between fractured beams. But it all seemed to hover just beyond reach.

A thin, unwelcome voice rose in the back of his mind - quiet, traitorous, undeniable, to explain perhaps as to why he felt so … strange:

He’d won.

Not All For One  - but him - the rat -

Kudō 

That strange sensation of something black and serpentine coiled low in his chest.

Was it hatred? It was raw, ripping, violent. 

Yet, now the sensation felt so far away. As though he was witnessing it after the fact.

An oddity to be sure.

All For One felt himself adrift. No plan. No purpose. No Yoichi.

Only the silence.

And it was unbearable.

Chapter Text

It was Kudō’s fault.

Yoichi’s distance. His rebellion. His quiet, insidious betrayal. His death.

All of it.

Kudō - that parasite. That smirking little cockroach who'd dared to think he could deserve Yoichi. Who’d stolen from All For One his first ever and dearest possession. 

There was no greater offense. 

So Kudō would be scrubbed from existence.

It began with the obvious - his friends, his comrades, those ragged rebels who’d stood beside him in the dirt and dared to draw weapons against a god. They were not soldiers. They were gnats. And now they were gone by All For One’s hand - or his instruction.

But that wasn’t enough. No. Kudō had infected too much. Too many. So it spread - like fire through dry grass to relatives. Distant cousins. Family by marriage. The man’s history was dismantled, piece by piece. Birth records erased, childhood homes reduced to dust. Memorials defaced. Possessions incinerated.

All For One’s orders were clear:
No photograph. No fingerprint. No grave.

Nothing must remain.

Kudō’s bloodline and every influence in the world would be eradicated.

No one he’d spoken to. No one he’d trusted. No one who’d spoken his name with affection in their voice. They were hunted with precision, each one interrogated. Thoroughly. Painfully.
All For One used his own hands when necessary. He was not above dirt if it meant peeling back layers in search of the only thing that mattered - 

The Spark.

It was still out there, that much he knew. The power Yoichi had - whatever shape it had taken in those final moments - had been passed on. Kudō had said as much before All For One broke him like a doll.

But to whom? To whom did that bastard entrust the last flicker of Yoichi?

All For One searched. Through networks of spies, through his puppets in government, through the splintered remains of the resistance. The hunt was relentless, spanning months. A slow and righteous fire that lit the continent one name at a time.

And yet …

One man eluded him.

Bruce Lee.

That quiet, watchful one with the worn face and sharp eyes. Kudō’s shadow. Kudō’s friend. He had vanished without a trace.

How clever.

How infuriating.

All For One stood in the ruins of yet another safehouse, smoke curling off the charred bodies of those foolish enough to shelter the only possible candidate for his stolen possession. His hand curled around the edge of a table, splintering it with a single twitch of his fingers.

The silence mocked him.

Where are you hiding, Bruce Lee? How many do I have to go through to hunt you down?

He reached again for the silk-wrapped hand in his coat pocket, thumb ghosting over the knuckles as though it might whisper something back. It didn’t.

Only Yoichi’s still fingers.
Only silence.

X

Three months had passed since Kudō died. Since the resistance fell and there were no one left but a few scattered remains in hiding.

And still, Bruce lived.

He had buried the name he was born with somewhere in the underground registry of a ghost town in northern Guangdong. Bought a new one. Falsified papers. Changed his accent. 

Changed everything except the thing that mattered most - the foreign weight he now carried in his chest.

For his friends, Bruce had to keep it safe. Kudō  had entrusted it to him, and even now he could feel a lingering sensation just beneath his sternum, faint but there. An echo of something that wasn't his.

He felt it when he dreamt. When he bled. When his hands shook after too many hours spent combing through genetic drift data or arcane cellular breakdowns or meaningless, hopeful threads.

It wasn’t his, but it lived in him now. So Bruce stayed alive.

He didn’t contact his sister or distant relations. He ignored the encrypted messages he knew were probably traps. He didn’t mourn. Not openly. Not where anyone could see.

He simply committed to researching what had been given to him.

But Shanghai was a powder keg.

The Meta Purge had escalated - state-sponsored roundups, disappearances, sterilizations in the name of national sanctity. Bruce watched bodies dragged through alleys on his way to his hideout. He heard children scream behind concrete walls and told himself to keep walking.

Every part of Bruce screamed to help - to defy tyranny as he’d done in Japan. But Bruce wasn’t stupid - he knew he was on borrowed time. All For One had to know by now who Kudō gave the Yoichi’s Meta Ability to. And Kudō had trusted him. Kudō, that damn stubborn bastard, had trusted him.

Bruce didn’t have the luxury of outrage. Just data, tools, and silence.

But it seemed karma sought to punish his inaction against injustice.

When the fire came, it was most likely not even for him - the family above him in the apartment building had a son who’s Meta Factor displayed openly on his body. The smell of kerosene had covered the hallway above and burned so hot it collapsed the ceiling and engulfed the building. 

There was no saving the family - or anyone on else in residence. Not with how hot those flames burned, despite his attempts.

Bruce barely had time to save himself. He took the portable drives, notebooks, a sealed canister of tissue samples, and the long coat that made him look unremarkable. He ran through a service exit, past the charred remains of the grocer who’d sold him rice for weeks, and didn’t look back.

By the time he boarded the night train to the north, smoke clung to him like a second skin.

X

Bruce hated the outdoors.

He hated the dirt, the noise, the stinging cold that made his fingers stiff and useless. He hated the way every sound in the dark made him tense like a hunted thing. 

Kudō would’ve laughed; “City boy like you? You won’t last a day.”

He lasted five.

Every footstep took him further into the mountains. Into colder winds and thinner air and thinning patience every moment that passed living like a nomad.

It was late afternoon when Bruce spotted a nearby river to replenish his water bottle. 

Only to find the damn thing occupied. 

A man stood waist-deep in the stream, running fingers through long, pale hair as he washed the grime from his face.

Even from a distance, Bruce recognized him.

And worse, when he turned, the man recognized Bruce.

They stared at each other across the water. The silence between them was palpable.

The man’s jaw tightened. He stood, water trailing down his scarred torso, and began to gather his clothes.

Bruce raised a hand in greeting.

“Shinomori,” he greeted.

The man didn’t respond. He pulled his tunic over his head and turned, walking away with deliberate steps.

Bruce didn’t move. He just stood there in the quiet rustling of trees, staring at the place where the river still ran, took in a deep exasperated breath.

Then gave chase.

He’d lost the path three times - once to a hidden ravine, twice to thin mountain air that made every breath knife-sharp - before the ragged line of footprints finally led him to the cabin.

A low structure, rough-hewn timbers perched on a ledge overlooking a valley of wind-torn pines. Smoke drifted only faintly from a vent in the roof. 

Shinomori stood near the threshold, arms folded, eyes cool as river stones.

“You chased me for an hour,” he said, voice clipped. “Thought you city folk didn’t like the exercise.”

Bruce caught the doorframe to steady himself, lungs burning. “Not as a hobby,” he managed, straightening. "It's more .. of a necessity.”

Shinomori’s gaze flicked over Bruce’s mud-spattered shoes, the bruises beneath one eye, the shoulder of his coat torn where the escape-fire’s embers had caught him. A long exhale, half disapproval, half resignation. Then he stepped aside.

“Inside.”

The cabin was dark and spare. Tatami mats patched with burlap, a single low table, cast-iron kettle suspended above a small hearth. No electricity, no clutter - nothing but discipline. Bruce’s fingers twitched, aching for a switch, a charger, a screen. He forced them still.

“A far cry,” he said softly, “from the man who couldn’t go a minute without his laptop and ergonomic bed.”

Shinomori knelt by the kettle, adding a sliver of pine to the coals. The fire snapped softly. “Luxury is bait,” he said without looking up. “Out here, I don’t need comfort. I need quiet.”
He turned, settling on his heels. “So. Why bring the noise?”

Bruce removed his pack, setting it by the wall. “Would you believe I’m not here for you and our meeting was chance?” he asked, voice measured. “I needed distance. This seemed far enough.”

Shinomori’s brow creased. “You’re saying you ran to be alone - nearby the area I told you I would be living?”

“Stranger coincidences have happened.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences, Bruce. You look terrible by the way. Is the university not treating you well?”

“Left there years ago,” Bruce replied as he stretched out his aching muscles. “The university found out I was a Meta and kicked me out - still wanted my research though - turn it against us, weaponize it. So I wiped every server and burned every note before I left the country.” He smiled without humor. “Self-preservation isn’t as easy in practice.”

Only the hiss of the kettle filled the ensuing silence as Shinomori’s narrowed eyes scanned Bruce, shrewdly assessing in a way Bruce could never really decipher. He’d always been difficult to read and age hadn’t made it any easier. It was clear Shinomori was more comfortable with the silence than Bruce was.

“Alright, I admit it - I was a colossal ass back then,” Bruce eventually broke. “Obsessed. Blind. I didn’t see it back then - the prejudice and injustice you faced when they found out you were a Meta.”

A soft scoff. “You saw,” Shinomori replied coldly. “But you chose silence to save your skin. At least own it if you’re going to apologise.”

“I am,” Bruce answered, accepting the blow. “I’m sorry. I was a stupid kid back then.”

The kettle began to steam and Shinomori poured out two cups of a light, fragrant tea. He held one out to Bruce who took it only to be polite.

“Now you’ve seen me,” Shinomori said, voice flat. “You can leave. I won’t begrudge you the mountain - it’s not mine to own, but this is my home. You may drink your drink and then I want you to leave. I don’t want any part in what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Bruce wrapped his hands around the clay cup, letting the heat seep into chilled fingers. “I don’t blame you. They way everything is … living the hermit lifestyle might just be the best way to go.”

Shinomori studied him, expression unreadable. Outside, wind slipped beneath the eaves, rattling loose bark against the walls.

“Choose your ridge,” he said at last. “Mind the cougars. And the night falls quick.” He rose, collecting his own cup, turning toward the narrow alcove that served as his sleeping space.

Bruce drank the tea. It tasted floral and fragrant and pretty damn good for the middle of nowhere.

The spark below his sternum fluttered once, warm but restless. He pressed a hand to his chest.

He was far enough, for now. At least out in this wilderness, he could focus on his research until the search for him waned sightly and he could set about searching for someone to pass the borrowed power onto.

Bruce stood, offered a bow and thanked Shinomori for his hospitality.

X

He hated camping.

The nights were too long, the earth too damp, the insects far too aggressive for anything resembling peace. His tent sagged in the wrong places no matter how often he adjusted it. Every berry bush seemed suspicious; every mushroom looked like death in disguise. Foraging would be a complete deathtrap for him without the blessed relief of working internet even so far up the mountain.

Still, his city-born stomach growled with resentment everytime he ate any types of berries. Fishing was an experience he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

“Some genius,” he muttered, eyeing a cluster of red berries warily. “Top of his class and probably about to die of food poisoning.”

Still, he endured. Because that was what he did now. 

Endure.

The brook beside his camp offered clean water at least, and its gurgling song became a sort of comfort as the days bled together. Insects droned. 

Research kept him grounded. The notebooks had become his sanctuary. Page after page filled with formulas, hypotheses, tests. No devices other than his phone he kept turned off to conserve battery, as he scrawled in the awful handwriting that had driven half his professors to the brink.

Fa-Jin was stronger now. Easier to handle, more efficient. It took less out of him to use and delivered more back in return. That strange “other” Kudō had spoken of - Bruce could feel it under his skin, twitching, coiling. A living echo beneath his ribs. He tracked its patterns with an obsessive clarity, trying to coax out its secrets before the Tyrant found him.

There were downsides - his body ached when using the power, Fa-Jin was less controlled in how he directed it’s power. Little issues, but noticeable in difference to how it used to be.

Days passed like this. Writing. Testing. Withstanding the forest.

Then one afternoon, as sunlight angled sharp between the trees, Bruce looked up - and nearly jumped out of his skin.

Shinomori sat cross-legged across the thin mat outside the ten, one of Bruce’s notebooks open in his lap.

“You still write like a lunatic,” Shinomori observed without looking up. “Looks like a bird ran across the page in ink.”

Bruce blinked, heart thudding. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“You’re a fugitive now, apparently,” Shinomori reminded him, flipping a page. “You should be used to sudden upstarts.”

Bruce settled his notebook aside, exhaling. “You come all this way to critique my handwriting?”

Shinomori gave him a sidelong glance. “What are you running from?”

The question was quiet but direct - like everything Shinomori did. Bruce felt his back stiffen.

He drew his knees up, resting his arms across them. “When I was kicked out of the University, I went to Japan - apparently things were calmer there for Meta’s. But… the country has issues of its own. There’s a man there, worse than anything I’ve ever known. He’s got the whole country under his leash and most of them don’t even know it. Long story short, I met this other guy - Toshitsugu Kudō and we … guess we thought we should do something about this Tyrant, so we got people together and fought back.” 

He swallowed. “In the end though, I guess we lost, because I’m of only a few left.”

Shinomori didn’t speak.

“Truth is, I’m only alive because Kudō ordered me to run. Ordered me to keep safe this thing he and our friend Yoichi passed on.” He tapped his chest. “He want me to keep it safe. It’s … I don’t know its true importance. It acts as some sort of amplifier. Nothing much, yet I … feel as if its growing. Not fat, more at the pace of a glacier but it is growing and its my job to make sure it does. And I think - maybe they did too -that it might be the key to destroying All For One for good.”

Shinomori closed the notebook.

“Same old Bruce,” he said mildly, as Bruce had just listed the items of a takeout menu. “Always about the research.”

Bruce laughed, bitterly. “Used to be. But the rebels changed that. Being a part of that group - it opened my eyes to a lot of things I couldn’t see for so many years.” His voice dropped. “Now I can’t stop thinking about the people in Shanghai - the Meta’s all over the country - how the purge is spreading. Every Meta hunted, every gifted kid dragged into the street and shot like an animal. And I just sit here. Safe. Watching. Waiting. And it makes me sick”

He glared out over the brook.

“I have to find someone to pass this power to. Someone All For One would never think to look for. I’ll have to go back down at some point so I can find the best person to carry on my friends wishes. After I have - I’ll throw all I have left to fight for those people I’ve let down. I’ll let All For One believe the power died with me.”

Shinomori watched him. His face gave little away, but something in his posture softened.

The silence that followed stretched long.

Then Shinomori sighed, standing up and handing Bruce his notebook back. “You’re a fool.”

Bruce looked up.

“But you’re trying,” Shinomori continued, turning toward the brook. “Which is new. You can stay with me  - only for a few days whilst you’re up here. My food tastes like bark, and the cabin smells like smoke. But you won’t die of poisonous berries.”

Bruce blinked, surprised. “You sure?”

Shinomori didn’t look back. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Then he disappeared down a rocky pathway, and Bruce, stunned, stared after him - until he finally allowed himself a small smile.

X

All For One adjusted his cuffs, fingers brushing lightly over crisp fabric as the private jet slowed, tires humming along the runway. Outside, Hong Kong sprawled beneath a smoky dawn, neon lights washed dull by morning’s gray chill.

It reminded him of home - he loud busy streets, the distant sounds of screams and gunfire.

Such familiarity.

Stepping into the Government House, he smiled broadly as he was led up to the Incumbent President’s office, affixing the mask of Zen Shigaraki; diligent businessman, generous benefactor and well-meaning philanthropist, for the flash of press cameras and eager, sycophantic reporters already awaiting him inside.

He could see the discomfort radiating from President Gui Zhào even at a distance; the man’s mouth tightening almost imperceptibly at All For One’s arrival. Almost out of … oh - was that disgust, he detected? How droll.

“A pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Shigaraki,” President Zhào greeted stiffly as All For One approached, offering a short, formal nod rather than a handshake. 

His gaze flickered pointedly away from All For One’s outstretched hand. “Ah, you understand I cannot. You’re … ‘affliction’ - we must take every precaution.”

‘Affliction’ - ah yes, that utterly stupid superstition that Meta abilities could be passed like an infection. As if any other than All For One himself had that sort of power.

All For One found it utterly pathetic even as Zen Shigaraki withdrew his hand, the genial smile fixed firmly in place.

“Of course, Your Excellency,” he said benevolently. “It’s a true pleasure that the nature of this Meta issue is seen by such a powerful leader. We can never be too careful with how it spreads.”

The amusement in him didn’t last long. In truth, irritation began to prickle beneath his skin. 

This charade had grown tiresome; playing the polite, understated businessman had its moments, certainly - yet of late, those moments felt increasingly empty. There was no thrill, no spark. Nothing but the drudgery of dealing with lesser beings whose ignorance was surpassed only by their arrogance.

President Zhào’s discomfort wasn’t surprising. Ever since humanity’s fumbling discovery of Meta Abilities, the world had twisted in fear. Paranoia bloomed swiftly into violence, even decades on, and from that bitter seed, the Meta Purges sprouted across every continent - a systematic annihilation of humanity’s own potential.

How short-sighted these fools were.

Yoichi had never understood this side of his idealistic dreams, of course, blind and foolish as he was. Yet, even locked behind thick walls, secured beneath layers of concrete and steel, All For One had once told him of these purges - explaining to his lesser, weaker twin how kind and merciful All For One’s own methods truly were, compared to these hateful fools.

You see, Yoichi, how benevolent your Older Twin truly is? How can you fear me when this world does far worse?

Yet Yoichi, weak-hearted and obstinate, never relented, never saw the truth. 

Stubborn to the bitter end.

All For One would correct that.
 
Fortunately, his dear friend Giraki was a true asset in this current situation and All For One had been fortunate enough to bring his friend along to smooth these simmering tensions - by dangling a shiny little smokescreen in the chinese government’s face. 

Together they presented a most convincing show: brilliant minds seeking a compassionate cure for this problematic Meta “disease.” President Zhào’s wary gaze had begun to thaw slightly when Zen smiled reassuringly, promising his own burdensome gift could help rid people of their troublesome abilities.

A gracious offer, indeed.

But all of this was merely setting the stage, spinning the web of influence tighter around these puppets. President Zhào, blind with ambition and paranoia, would soon dance to whatever tune All For One hummed.

Yet All For One’s true goal was not solely for politics. Not truly.

 The slippery, insignificant man who must carry the last fragile ember of Yoichi’s soul was.

For it was a soul, All For One was certain. Or at least Yoichi’s spirit. The spark he’d inadvertently lost - the essence of Yoichi himself - hidden, now so close to his grasp once more.

Yoichi’s death was no permanent thing. Merely a temporary inconvenience - a setback. With that stolen spark safely reclaimed, he could restore it into the preserved hand. Rebuild Yoichi, rebuild everything. Put it all back exactly where it belonged - at All For One’s side.

To draw Bruce out, he would amplify the chaos. Push this “Meta Purge” into greater extremes, stoke the fires of paranoia until Bruce could no longer hide, until that precious spark returned to him, pulled inevitably back into All For One’s waiting hand.

President Zhào nodded stiffly to conclude their meeting. Camera’s flashed once more. Interviews and pleasentries proceeded whilst Zen Shigaraki smiled pleasantly, bowing slightly with pale eyes glittering with purpose beneath a carefully constructed mask.

“Together,” he murmured warmly, “we’ll put an end to this terrible affliction.”

The fools believed him. Of course they did.

And when he had reclaimed Yoichi’s stolen soul, they would understand - every last one of them - that they had merely been pieces upon his board, toys beneath his fingers, puppets in the palms of the one who would remake the world in his own perfect image.

And then there would be no need for this alien sensation of hollow nothing inside of him

X

For a week, Bruce and Shinomori had worked quietly, methodically - scribbling notes by dim lamplight, testing the limits of the strange spark nestled within Bruce’s chest. They traced lines of power, recorded surges of energy, documented everything.

Still, Bruce’s mind drifted more often to the phone buried deep in his pocket. When Shinomori’s back was turned, he’d catch glimpses of new horrors on the screen  - the rising death tolls, the riots, the footage of innocents hunted down like vermin throughout the major cities in the country. 

Each day, the purge grew crueller, more ruthless, and each day Bruce’s silence felt more complicit.

Finally, at the end of that restless week, the inevitable arrived. He stared at the headline that flashed across his phone screen:

"Philanthropist Zen Shigaraki Meets Chinese President in Hong Kong for Historic Cooperation on Meta Problem."

His breath stalled, lungs tight. He knew precisely what that monster had come here for.

The time had come.

That night, as moonlight crept softly across Shinomori’s quiet form, Bruce sat hunched by a low-burning lamp, carefully composing the letter he’d leave behind. The words came haltingly, clumsily, ink blotting the page.

He folded the letter neatly, placing it atop the notebook of data and research they’d amassed. His heart felt heavy, tight.

Bruce looked back only once as dawn broke gray and cold. The cabin behind him was quiet, smoke rising from the hearth. He felt a small, aching pang for the friendship he’d damaged long ago and the new chance he’d barely had time to appreciate.

But he forced himself onward. Down through rocky trails, past wind-bent trees, into the shadow of the world he’d once known.

He carried almost nothing. Just water, a few scraps of food, the clothes on his back.

And as the mountains began to give way to civilization’s ragged edges, Bruce’s heart hardened with quiet resolve.

X

Hong Kong was burning by the time he arrived a week later than he’d planned.

Bruce’s heart plummeted at the scenes unfolding before him, something broken twisting deeper with each step forward. Fires raged from overturned vehicles, and screams tore through the smoke-choked air. Soldiers dragged sobbing people into armoured trucks. Families were torn apart with bullets and handcuffs, parents fighting hopelessly against superior force as their children cried out helplessly.

Martial law had torn away every fragile pretence of civility, baring teeth and hatred openly on the streets.

A strangled cry seized Bruce’s attention. 

A mother was pleading, desperately clawing at the armed men who tore a small horned faced girl from her arms. 

Bruce moved before thought caught up, the depleted force of his Fa-Jin flaring like embers inside him. He surged forward, its power shattering through aching bones, tackling the soldiers hard enough to knock them sprawling. 

He scooped the sobbing child into his arms and moved quickly, dodging blind punches and gunfire. Bullets scattered wildly around him, and he ducked his head, pulse roaring in his ears.

One bullet hit him in the gut, white-hot pain radiating from his side, spreading darkly through his jacket. He stumbled into a grimy alleyway, breath hitching as he set the trembling child back into her mother’s frantic embrace. His vision swam dizzyingly, and he pressed his hand against the seeping blood.

"You’ll be alright," he rasped, trying to convince himself as much as them. 

He turned back, bracing himself against the wall, breathing through the agony. But there was no time to rest - no time to recover. He had to go straight to the source, had to stop the madness before it consumed them all.

He took out the lighter he was meant to throw away with his persistent secret smoking habit, checked and found an exit wound and took a deep breath before cauterising the wound with the closest bit of metal he could find.

The pain came. It ebbed, but it didn’t dissuade him. He’d stayed idle long enough. Now was the time for action.

Bruce had to face the Tyrant - and the government who were destroying his homeland..

He would be idle no longer.

His footsteps echoed sharply as he entered the central district, the city Government House looming like a pale monolith. Military checkpoints had tried to block his path, but he slipped around them, the chaos providing distraction enough.

His legs shook from exhaustion, his lungs burning with smoke and blood loss. The wound in his side throbbed painfully, black spots flickering in his vision, but he forced himself forward, one step at a time.

Every broken body in the street was another debt laid at his feet, another reason he could never forgive himself for complacency - even if that complacency had been in the aid of duty to what his leader and friend had entrusted to him.

Bruce wondered, bitterly, how many more lives would be ripped apart, how many more people would suffer because of others’ narrow-minded pride and greed. 

Breath misted raggedly in the cold air, his grip tightening around his wound. His steps slowed as he faced the looming building. Behind those walls, behind those heavy gates, sat All For One - broadcasting himself as though for Bruce himself on live television in an interview with the orchestrator of the Meta Purge. 

The monsters waited calmly, comfortably, untouched by the carnage they’d caused.

Rage ignited in Bruce’s heart, blistering away pain, fear, exhaustion. Kudō’s sacrifice, Yoichi’s courage - all of it resonated through his weary bones, steadying his heart even though he longer bore their gift.

Bruce took one long, steadying breath, lifted his head, and stepped resolutely towards the heart of the storm.

For Yoichi. For Kudō. For that pitiful university he used to be who’d turned his head away from cruelty for the sake of ‘progress’. 

His boots struck wet marble as he pushed through the government building’s pristine glass doors, slipping in past the smoke and ruin of Hong Kong’s burning skyline. Sirens still echoed behind him, muffled now by the thick concrete walls. 

No alarms blared within. No guards waited at the entrance. That told him enough.

All For One would never leave the ground floor unguarded unless he wanted Bruce to come inside.

He needed to touch Bruce to retrieve the spark that had once twined within Bruce’s body like a second heartbeat. All For One couldn’t risk destroying that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

That gave Bruce a chance. Got him within arms reach to perhaps put a bullet in either monster who set his country on fire.

Bruce braced his weight against a marble column, blood still seeping warmly down his ribs. Every motion jarred the wound. 

He kept moving.

The first stairwell was abandoned, walls marked by recent footsteps - military boots. They hadn’t expected him to arrive so quickly. Or maybe they were clearing the upper levels, herding him where they wanted him.

He made it one flight up before it came.

Fzzt - THUNK.

The cannon fired from somewhere to his left - low whine, compressed air - and Bruce threw himself back, shoulder slamming into the papered wall just as the net tore through the hallway and crackled in a glowing arc into the floor.

Electric net. Nonlethal. Just like he thought.

The soldier rounded the corner - young, nervous, wrong-footed - and Bruce didn’t hesitate. A flick of the stolen sidearm and the soldier dropped, his body seizing once before going still. Bruce let out a shuddering breath, watching the smoke curl from the barrel of the gun.

He hadn't wanted to kill anyone. But mercy wasn’t being shown to those outside these walls. Why should it be shown to those within them?

The corridors above were tighter, newer, sleek and institutional. He advanced in a crouch, back pressed to the walls, eyes always scanning, adrenalin keeping the pain in check. 

His Fa-Jin reserves were nearly empty, but muscle memory carried him, instincts honed through hardship and rebellion. He hit three guards before they even saw him coming, disarming one and turning their weapon back on them in the same breath. Clean shots. He left them where they fell.

Not bad for a medical biology researcher from Shanghai’s slums.

The sixth floor was silent. The seventh less so. He earned a few broken bones, a dislocated shoulder and missing the tip of his left index finger for the trouble.

Bruce’s heart pounded as he climbed. Each floor blurred into the next, an ugly rhythm of gunfire, smoke, and blood. He lost track of the bodies. They didn’t matter. Only the next step. Only higher.

At floor eleven, he paused behind a pillar, hand trembling as he reloaded the rifle with his last clip.

 Sweat stung his eyes. He pressed the heel of his palm hard against the wound in his stomach. It didn’t feel so good. Internal bleeding likely. Puncturing of something vital.

He hit floor twelve.

And immediately knew his luck had run out.

Rows of armoured soldiers blocked the corridor like a wall of steel. Tactical armour, visors down, gloves crackling with static. Bruce froze - counted maybe twenty in total, with more flanking in the shadows behind them.

For a second, neither side moved.

Then the net cannon fired.

Bruce dove, shoulder hitting tile hard as the net scorched past again. He rolled, drew the rifle, and fired blindly. The hallway exploded into motion - shouts, concussive blasts, the shriek of suppressing fire. 

He leapt from cover, adrenaline overriding pain. One shot - headshot. Another - knee, then throat in another. He ducked a stun baton to catch it with his shoulder in a moment of seized muscles before he drove his elbow into the soldier’s faceplate, and turned the stolen baton on another. They kept coming. Endless. Inhuman.

Electricity surged through his body at every angles, locking muscles in place, fire tearing through every nerve. With every jab and swipe of batons, Bruce lost more of his baring. He hit the ground hard, the world shattering into white static.

One shock flowed millimetres from the gunshot. His legs gave out on that. Managed to get a knife into someone’s ankle, at least. Another in a femoral artery.

One government stooge kicked the knife from Bruce’s limp hand. 

Bruce stared up at the ceiling, his mouth twitching in something between a grimace and a smile.

It was over. He could do nothing but let them cuff him. He’d gotten this far at least, he only hoped to spit in the eye of the ones who had  killed so many for their own gains.

That would be his final defiance.

Let All For One come down and look him in the eye and realise that thing he had hunted so relentlessly was nowhere to be found.

X

All For One watched the security feed whilst the interview was on commercial break, a smile curling up his mouth that had no place on Zen Shigaraki.

Yoichi was close. His dearest possession within his reach. 

The thought coiled through him like warmth, like sickness. His fingers itched to seize it, to consume it. The very thing Kudō had dared to carry away and pass on to this insignificant little ant who’d certainly made a show of proving how pathetic none-Meta militaries were.

All For One stood by the podium with impeccable posture for the photographs. One hand loosely clasped over the other in the epitome of grandstanding grace. The stage lights bleached the room sterile white, painting him noble and benign. 

Cameras flashed. Hands shook. Polite applause given.

Beside him, President Zhào continued to drone.

“… the cooperation between our great nation and the lucrative ventures of Chairman Shigaraki will usher in a new era of meta-human management and medical intervention,” the man declared, full of pomp and purpose, voice too loud and too proud. “With Chairman Shigaraki’s assistance, we will secure a future where the purity of human genetics will be preserved and maintained across Asia and beyond.”

Self-righteous idiot. All For One smiled graciously, as though moved. He even nodded once for the benefit of the reporters lining the stage’s edge.

President Zhào was insufferable. All For One had tolerated many worms throughout the years - sycophants, moguls, generals - but there was something particularly grating about this one. His self-importance was suffocating, his deluded moralism cloying. 

The man looked at All For One as if All For One was of lesser standing. As though All For One wasn’t a titan - a god - compare to this genocidal weakling.

He imagined putting his hand through the man’s chest.

Still, it would be unwise to eliminate the pathetic fool here. Not yet. The man had standing right now and removing him prematurely would stir too much noise. But oh, it would be better when All For One when he could install someone more pliable. Someone with a back as soft as the silk strings All For One would use to puppeteer them. He already had a few good candidates in mind for when Zhao met his untimely end to the very people he sought to be rid off. 

A keycard to the right angry family member would lead a mob to the Presidents home sometime next month.

He turned slightly, just enough for the cameras to catch his thoughtful smile. “With unity,” he said smoothly, “comes great possibility.”

The audience clapped again. The press snapped more photos. Interviewers asked their banal questions. 

And somewhere down in the streets, a mother screamed as her child was pulled from her arms. Somewhere, a meta-human begged for mercy before being silenced by sanctioned fire.

Funny, wasn’t it?

That when he killed - he was labelled a monster - a Tyrant. That he was condemned when a life ended beneath his hand. Yet here, under bright lights and legalities, death was a lawful act of preserving the country.

If he killed a man, it was villainy.

If a uniform did it, it was policy.

How very odd. 

Let them cheer. Let them smile and sign and pose. Let them celebrate order as the city bled around them.

They had no idea what true order was.

His order.

The only true law in this world was the hand that held the leash. And All For One had leashes coiled around every major medical and military institution in the city now, hidden neatly behind layers of business and philanthropy. His investments were a virus. Slow, deliberate, incurable.

His smile sharpened slightly.

This fool of a President had offered him the keys without even realizing it. All For One would walk back into Japan not merely with a new country in his grasp, but with the prize in hand.

Yoichi.

Now All For On was here, standing amidst one of these so called Meta Purge’s - perhaps ... keeping Yoichi in the Vault all those years had been a misstep. He could admit that now, in retrospect. Isolation bred defiance in some people. It certainly hadn’t drained Yoichi’s any. Perhaps All For One should have shown him the world for what it truly was. The mob beatings. The infant drownings. The Purges. The culling of those who dared to be born wrong. 

Maybe if he’d forced Yoichi to see them firsthand instead of hearing them filtered through All For One’s voice, perhaps then - 

Yoichi wouldn’t have let that filthy thief steal him away.

All For One’s gaze darkened slightly behind the practiced warmth of his smile.

And now that spark - what remained of Kudo’s crime - lived within another thief.

The applause was waning now. The speeches reaching their end. Reporters were beginning to pack up, murmuring in satisfied tones. President Zhào turned, bowing graciously to the press, his arm gesturing toward All For One.

All For One dipped his head.

And the doors at the rear of the hall swung open.

The clatter of movement. The hush of whispers. All cameras turned to the new event unfolding.

And here he was - the second thief.

Bruce Lee was dragged into the chamber between two armoured soldiers, his shirt torn, face bloodied, side soaked in red. Metal cuffs dug into his wrists behind his back. 

One of the soldiers adjusted their grip, trying to keep him upright, but Bruce’s eyes were sharp - burning with defiance.

The thief’s body was thrown onto the grand rug, just as All For One had requested should such a man find his way into the hands of the law.

All For One smiled, approaching Bruce Lee with gracious thanks to the President and harmless body gestures that lied to those around him that he wasn’t the real threat in the room..

It was strange, really.

All For One stared down at the man sprawled across the ornate rug like a tense ragdoll. 

The thief coughed, a thin stripe of blood streaking his chin, the metallic scent already rising sharp in the sterile air. 

Soldiers shifted around them, awaiting instruction. Reporters leaned forward from the fringes like vultures at a feast. President Zhào dabbed at his forehead, glancing between Bruce and the cameras, no doubt inventing the acceptable fiction he would lie to the masses with - as though they weren’t otherwise occupied with their dying and captured family members and burned down homes.

Yet … as he looked at Bruce Lee, All For One found it strange.

There was no surge of hatred. No furious storm, no tidal loathing like he had with the previous thief. The man lay before him - bruised, bloodied, breathing ragged - and yet, All For One felt only a proprietary sort of irritation. An deep inconvenience, not a rival. A thief, yes, but not that thief. Bruce Lee hadn’t stolen in the way his predecessor had.

Toshitsugu Kudō.

The name rang like a blade drawn too quickly, scraping the inside of All For One’s skull.

Kudō, with that despicable smirk. 

Bruce … Bruce Lee was merely a clay vessel compared to Kudō .

All For One adjusted his lapel and stepped forward with practised concern. His mask of Zen Shigaraki was securely fastened, every line of his expression arranged for maximum sympathy.

“How fortunate we are,” he declared smoothly to President Zhào, “that your brave security detail apprehended this dangerous criminal before he caused unspeakable damage. I must thank you, truly. It appears he only wishes to sow more chaos - likely with intent to assassinate us both for our diligent work to protect the Chinese people.”

President Zhào’s eyes widened, the weight of international importance settling into his spine. Cameras clicked wildly, capturing their posed gravitas. The press would eat it alive.

All For One gestured toward Bruce with manufactured gravity. “And yet, look - how desperate he became. Poor thing. Bleeding out already. We must show mercy so that these diseased ridden creatures know we will not stoop to their level.”

That’s when he noticed the spreading stain.

The blood was pooling faster now, soaking richly into the rug beneath Bruce’s hip. The soldiers hadn't noticed - or didn’t care. Typical. They’d caught the prey but aimed their weapons poorly, fired too soon.

 All For One’s smile remained placid, but a quiet, precise fury began to stir beneath it.

Idiots. Did they not realize what could have been lost? What fragile flame risked being snuffed out before he could reclaim it?

He crouched, ignoring the murmurs around the room. From behind, the cameras would see only concern, a benevolent gesture from an esteemed philanthropist tending to a wounded madman. 

All For One laid a beneath Bruce Lee’s chin, and tilted the man upright despite the fool’s useless struggles, careful not to jostle the worst of the damage. The other hand brushed the entry wound lightly, as if to inspect it.

“A stomach shot,” he murmured, voice pitched for sympathy. “Unfortunate. Painful. But survivable, if we’re swift.”

His palm settled just over the bullet’s entry point and allowed the might of All For One scour every fibre of the thief’s being with satisfied eagerness. 

Yes, Yoichi - no more running.. No more theft. Finally -

No.

Not possible.

Not again.

He found nothing.

Nothing.

The spark - 

Yoichi -

Was gone.

He did it again, reaching deeper, more exact. A scowl creased his lips now. Still nothing. No flicker of the passed-on power, no resonance of the meta factor that bore his dearest possession. No warmth. No echo. 

Just void.

Just Bruce Lee and the faint flicker of his own dying Meta-Ability.
A very fragile, very mortal husk.

The moment cracked open like glass under boot. History repeated itself in silence.

He remembered Kudō’s smirk, filthy disgusting eyes that still sparkled with defiance. 

He remembered the sick horror of feeling power slip through his fingers.

Happening again.

Bruce shifted faintly, tipped his head back.

And smiled that smile. That same insufferable, infernal smile.

No, not the same - not fully. Not quite. But there was something in his eyes. That look. Like he knew. Like he’d won something All For One couldn’t even name.

The same insolent mockery Kudō had worn.

All For One’s hand tightened slowly as he rose, pulling Bruce up with him and roiling violence curled under his skin. His other arm rose as mutation curled from beneath his suit sleeve in answer to his rising ... Dissatisfaction. 

A spiraling black drill  burst from the ground beneath them and without another word, without conscious thought, it pierced flesh, burrowing into Bruce Lee’s sternum and stomach in the same breath. 

The wet crack of bone split the silence like a dropped stone into still water.

Bruce gasped, body arching once, blood foaming between his lips as he bent back, impaled and almost bisected by the depths of All For One’s palpable displeasure.

The reporters screamed. President Zhào shouted something behind him. All For One didn’t hear.

His world had narrowed to the ragged breath in his throat and the gaping hole in his chest that was not abated by the rightful return of his first and most precious possession.

Yoichi was gone.

Gone.

Again.

All For One stared down at Bruce. And Bruce - bleeding, broken, dying - smiled back.

“You think this is a victory?” All For One’s voice sounded hollow, barely human in timbre even to his own ringing ears. “Where is it?”

Bruce didn’t respond. He simply wheezed, another stream of red catching at the corner of his mouth. His silence was deliberate. Strategic.

Then he spat a bloody mouthful right into All For One’s eye.

A final insult.

No time for that. The sack of meat was spoiling. Dying right before his eyes.

All For One’s fingers curled into the rebel’s flak vest - green, scorched, pathetically symbolic - and yanked him forward, using strength to drag the drill like structure up the chest cavity so he could bring the thief closer. No matter - there was still life in it, still time. 

He pressed a palm against Bruce’s skin, forcing pain into it. A sharp, cruel meta-ability surged forth -  Amplification. Every nerve ending Bruce possessed lit up, every signal sent screaming into his brain.

Bruce convulsed, jaw clenching, neck corded with strain.

Still, he did not speak.

Time was thinning - All For One could feel it, not just in Bruce’s ebbing pulse but in the sparkless void that still mocked him. 

Yoichi was not here. But Bruce knew where he had gone. He was hiding him.

“You don’t understand what you’re keeping from me,” he hissed. “It’s mine. You cannot steal what belongs to me!”

Bruce's head lolled back slightly. His eyes were glassy, blood matting his hair. He looked at All For One with something too tired to be hatred - something heavier, crueller.

Triumph.

Then came the rasp of his voice, soaked in blood and bile.

“Your mask …  it’s slipping ... All For One.”

For a moment, All For One heard only static in his skull, the buzzing roar of ancient rage throttled by sudden clarity.

He turned his head. 

And there it was.

The world watching.

The lenses of cameras - rows of them, some knocked askew but still intact - flickered with red lights. The reporters had not run. The press were still recording. Flashes burst from the far end of the room. 

President Zhào was backing away, pale, appalled. Soldiers looked frozen, unsure whether to intervene or simply bear witness to the god before them - revealed.

His genial smile was gone. His sleeves had split open from the summoned drills, gnarled and spiralling from wrist to ground, blood-spattered and black. His hands were stained. His voice had risen.

He had forgotten himself in front of these insignificant worms.

Bruce choked, laughed, winced. The movement made more blood bubble up. Still he had just enough life to meet All For One’s eye with the last flicker of mortal defiance.

“I thought of a name for it,” he rasped. “The thing … passed on. A name … that honours what you… you could never understand. A name for … thing that links us all. Me. Kudō. Yoichi.”

He was almost gone. His heartbeat fluttered. His body sagged - but his voice cut clear.

“One …”

A breath.

“For …”

A pause.

“All.”

And then thief stilled. The final breath left him on the end of the drill, limp and ruined and still.

X

Sunlight warmed Bruce’s eyelids before awareness found him. 

He opened his eyes to a sky so blue it felt freshly painted - bluer than any dawn could ever be. Wind moved gently over water, stirring mirrored clouds on the surface of a familiar lake.

Home, he realized. The lake where he had skipped stones as a boy stretched out exactly as memory kept it - smooth shale, wild reeds, the leaning cedar that had once cradled his first fishing line.

“Up, soldier.”

The voice, roughened by humor, tugged Bruce back to his feet before he’d fully sat up. 

Kudō stood above him, hand extended, grin canted in that effortless way Bruce had missed every day since the tunnels. Bruce grasped the calloused palm; strength hummed through the contact, both real and impossible.

No sooner had he steadied himself than smaller arms wrapped around his ribs. Yoichi pressed in, clinging tight despite the height difference. The hug was warm, tangible.

“I’m sorry,” Yoichi murmured against his shoulder. “That you had to bare this weight. That you had to die for it”

Bruce shook his head, swallowing the ache in his throat. “I died for a cause I believed in, Yoichi. That’s more than most people ever get.”

He turned, searching the horizon for logic. “Though I never put stock in an afterlife. So … where exactly are we?”

Yoichi pulled back, eyes bright but solemn. “We’re not sure,” he said. “We’re not whole - more like echoes tethered to the power you named. Spectres, maybe. Perhaps … vestiges of who we were. Whatever we are, we show up in brief moments inside … well, inside One For All.”

Kudō crossed his arms, still half-smiling yet measuring the sky as though it might change at any moment. “Is it safe, where you left it?”

Bruce nodded. “It is. He won’t find it with Shinomori.”

Kudō arched an eyebrow toward Bruce. “So … 'One For All', huh? Kind of on the nose.”

Before Bruce could defend the choice, Yoichi’s smile flickered, hopeful and deeply wistful. 

“I like it,” he said. “Maybe, one day, it really will be a tool for peace.” His smile turned sad and mournful. 

“We should greet our new wielder, I suppose.”

The lake blurred, colours draining into grey. The world around the melted away and when they solidified again, they stood in a stark, empty chamber of poured concrete. 

Its walls were featureless, ceiling lost in shadow. In the centre waited three throne-like chairs.

“Wait - Yoichi, is this -?” Kudo began as he shrewdly examined their surroundings.

Yoichi nodded. “It started here. Not with our deaths - but here in this place, where a hero came and proved hope comes no matter the circumstance. This is One For All - it’s origin. A formation of hope that will continue with him -”

A fourth chair sat slightly apart, faintly luminous, and before it stood a translucent silhouette: tall, broad-shouldered, hair tied back in a rough tail.

Shinomori.

But not wholly Shinomori - just a glowing vestige, unmoving, a statue carved of slow light.

Yoichi approached first. He took the vestige’s unresponsive hands and bowed his head. “Thank you very much, Hikage Shinomori” he whispered. “For baring this burden.” 

He shared a look with Kudo before claiming the central seat. He rested his head under a balled up fist and closed his eyes, drifting away to wherever they drifted when they weren’t conscious.

Kudō eyed Shinomori’s outline with the judging eye of a commander examining a new recruit. “Hope he knows the mess he’s inheriting.” 

He stationed himself in the chair on Yoichi’s right, stared wistfully at the pale haired man for a moment before leaning his head back for his own rest.

Bruce stepped forward last. The spectre of his old friend glowed faintly, undefined features shifting in and out of focus. Bruce laid a hand against that shimmering chest. 

“Sorry I dragged you into this, Hikage Shinomori. Sorry I forced this on you without you even knowing,” he said softly. “But you were the only one I thought should have it. Grow it well. Turn One For All into the blade we never had - and gut the Tyrant with it.” 

He swallowed, released his living self’s guilt over the next wielder and lowered himself into his own chair.

Silence settled, gentle as snow.

Bruce leaned back, exhaling the weight of gunfire and sirens, of guilt and dying. They all seemed to far away now.

The concrete room dimmed at its edges, he closed his eyes, and for the first time since the tunnels he allowed himself to rest. 

The chair welcomed him and sleep came quietly, carrying him deeper into the fire that could not be stolen.

Chapter Text

All For One stared. 

Not at the corpse. Not at the blood. Not even at the cameras.

But at the emptiness behind his ribs.

At the echo of a name that belonged only to him and his Yoichi.

‘You could be a hero! And ... And even have a cool name! How about … One For All. The single hero who gives to everyone.’

Yoichi bore the name at last - the one All For One would bestow upon him once he’d joined his Older Twin, so that their symbiosis was knows to the world. 

All For One and One For All. One in the same. The same entity separated. One Greater, one Lesser.

And Kudo had stolen even that.

His first possession - his gift - it was gone.

Again.

The word rattled inside All For One’s skull like a nail in glass - shrill, relentless, impossible. He stared at the body crumpled beneath him. Bruce’s blood still steamed on the drill that pierced his chest, and yet he was worthless now. Hollow. Dead. Useless.

He had nothing left to offer. No answers. No spark.

What belonged to All For One had vanished.

Yoichi was gone.

The public fallout, the shattered facade, the gasps of the press - it all meant nothing in the face of that truth. Let them watch. Let them tremble. Let their tiny lives unravel like threads beneath his heel. The spark was gone, and the only one who knew where it had gone now lay impaled like meat.

All because of him.

Kudō.

That damnable, filthy thief.

It had always been Kudō. The rot began with him, with his smile, his touch, his hand taking hold of Yoichi’s in that filthy sewer, forcing All For One to kill - 

Kudō had turned Yoichi against him. Kudō had taken the first breath of resistance and whispered it into Yoichi’s ear like poison.

He should have burned the man’s bones to ash the very first time All For One had come into contact with him. He should have kept Yoichi deaf, blind, sealed instead of leaving him whole the last time they’d seen one another in the Vault.

Kudō had poisoned everything he touched, and even in death, his influence spread like a disease through the world.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

That grating tone - that damned fool, who spoke to him as though he was worthy.

All For One turned his head slowly, letting the motion carry weight.

President Zhào’s face was pinched with outrage, but beneath it quivered a deep, unabating fear. His words were still spilling out, a pathetic attempt to wrestle the moment back under his control.

It was almost too easy.

The frustration boiling inside found its vent in a single, precise movement. 

One flicker of telekinetic force - controlled, directed - and Zhào hit the wall hard enough to crack both plaster and bone. The sound was satisfying: a wet, dull crunch followed by a wheezing gasp. He slid down the wall like a discarded doll, legs crumpled at unnatural angles, eyes wide and unfocused.

All For One stepped toward him, shoes clicking on marble gone red in places.

“Pathetic,” he murmured, voice silken and contemptuous as he stared at the utterly pathetic mound of flesh that had once thought itself so in control. “So desperate to keep your fragile seat of power. Did you think one such as I wouldn’t recognise what lurks inside you? Did you really think I wouldn't notice? That pathetic little ability of yours - what is it? Enhanced memory? Perfect recall? Very useful for a politician, I imagine. All those names to remember, all those faces to catalog. ”

He crouched beside Zhào's broken form, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the room.

"Hypocrite. Coward. You orchestrated the deaths of thousands of people like yourself to maintain your grip on power, and you call me a monster?"

The man tried to speak, a bubbling noise rising in his throat.

Zhào's mouth worked soundlessly, blood frothing between his lips as he tried to form words. All For One leaned closer, as if straining to hear some final confession.

"What's that? I'm sorry, I can't quite - oh." He straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeves. "My mistake. I forgot that your larynx is currently positioned somewhere near your left kidney. How thoughtless of me."

He straightened, letting his voice carry through the hall, addressing soldiers, ministers, and reporters alike.

"Do any of you truly understand the statistics?" he asked, his voice carrying easily through the chamber's acoustics. "The fact is, with how rampant Meta Abilities have grown - more than half of the population now posses some sort of factor. Which means that even those participating in your precious Meta Purge, possess the Meta factor themselves. I’ve observed the results myself in other Purges.  Military commanders who can predict enemy movements. Politicians who can sense lies. Reporters who can compel people to speak truthfully.“

All FOr One glanced back the the chines president, his lip curling derisively. “You and half of your loyal executioners, as pathetic and cowardly as you are, should be executed under your own law. Does that irony sting, I wonder?"

He gestured broadly, power rippling through the air like heat waves.

"Meta-abilities are nothing to fear or hide. They are the future - humanity's next evolutionary step. And I am  more than happy to demonstrate the pinnacle it can achieve."

The walls began to crack.

Not from impact or explosion, but from the simple application of overwhelming force. Stone crumbled, steel bent, reinforced concrete split apart as if it were made of paper. The ceiling sagged, chunks of debris raining down as the very structure of the building warped under the pressure of his unleashed power.

Movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention. Military personnel were filing into the room, weapons raised, faces hidden behind tactical visors. As if steel and gunpowder could somehow bridge the gap between mortal ambition and divine authority.

All For One stood slowly, spreading his arms in a gesture of welcome.

"Please," he said, his voice carrying easily over the sound of safeties clicking off and orders being barked. "Allow me to show you the difference between a Meta ability and Meta abilities."

He raised his arms, and the air thickened with power. Abilities layered over one another, a symphony of stolen gifts - telekinesis ripping down chandeliers, shattering walls; kinetic redirection bending rifle barrels into molten curls; pressurized bursts of air hurling marble columns aside like children’s toys. The ceiling peeled open in sections, dust and concrete snowing down on the stunned crowd to allow in the brightness of the sky. 

Weapons clattered from limp hands, stripped away before their owners realized they’d lost them.

Bullets struck him, or rather, struck the space where he had been a microsecond before. His body flickered, bending light and space around himself, each shot passing harmlessly through empty air. When he reappeared, it was behind the nearest soldier, close enough to place a gentle hand on the man's shoulder.

The security officer's scream was cut short as his body began to wither, life force draining away like water from a broken vessel. In seconds, he was nothing but desiccated skin and brittle bone, his life added to All For One's vast collection.

The others tried to run then, but the exits were blocked by twisted metal and fallen stone. They were trapped in a cage with a monster who had decided to stop pretending to be human.

One soldier, braver or stupider than the rest, fired.

A single gunshot rang out - louder than the others, closer and All For One felt the bullet tear through his coat, through the fabric of his breast pocket.

And something inside him went utterly still.

These paltry ants didn’t matter in that moment. Nothing did as his hand moved slowly to the torn pocket.

When he withdrew the silk-covered dismembered hand of his twin, it was covered in blood - not his own, but something infinitely more precious.

The preserved flesh had been punctured clean through, a bullet lodged in the delicate bones of what had once been his brother's palm. The careful preservation was compromised, preservation fluid seeping from the wound like tears.

They had damaged him. These insects, these worthless specks of humanity had dared to harm the only part of Yoichi he had left.

Gone.

The world went silent.

His thumb traced the torn skin with something almost gentle. This hand had once rested in his own, unblemished, alive. Now it was damaged. Desecrated. His possession - his Yoichi - harmed by a hand that wasn’t All For One’s.

He was gone. Taken.

Lost.

Forever.

A coldness spread outward from his chest, so deep it felt bottomless.

Without conscious thought, All For One lifted the hand of his other half and let the severed appendage  settle over his face, the delicate fingers splaying across his features. It was warm - almost as though he could close his eye and simply imagine Yoichi was there, pushing him away - or simply lending touch to soothe, as he’d done when they were children.

An old ability, one he rarely used, flowed through him. Cellular adhesion, biological grafting - techniques he had perfected long ago when he still experimented with the more artistic applications of his power. 

Yoichi’s hand fused against All For One’s face with seamless precision, becoming part of him as it should always have been.

When he finally looked back at them - soldiers, ministers, press - their fear was no longer tinged with confusion.

Now it was pure.

Unadulterated 

Fear.

He stepped forward.

The drills burst from the floor first, black spirals punching through stone to skewer those closest. Tendrils of muscle and bone coiled from the walls, seizing throats and crushing ribcages. A concussive blast flattened the front row of seats, turning bodies into formless pulp. Fire licked upward from split marble, fed by ruptured gas lines he’d torn open himself.

Someone screamed. Someone else prayed. Both ended mid-breath.

He didn’t stop until there was no one left standing. Until every floor beneath was slick and the air choked with dust and iron.

The building itself began to collapse around him, structural supports failing under the assault of his abilities. Through the gaping holes in what had once been walls, he could see military aircraft circling like metal vultures, their pilots no doubt receiving increasingly frantic orders from commanders who had no idea what they were dealing with.

All For One rose into the air, ascending through the ruins of diplomacy and pretence until he hung suspended against the Hong Kong skyline. 

Below him, the full might of China's military was mobilizing - tanks rolling through streets, helicopters converging from all directions, soldiers taking positions on rooftops and in windows.

All of it so very, very small.

The first helicopter exploded in a brilliant fireball, torn apart by forces its pilot never saw coming. Then the second. Then the third.

And All For One smiled beneath his brother's dead fingers, finally free to be exactly what the world had always feared he was.

Zen Shigaraki was a mask he wore perfectly, but shedding it in such a grand, memorable way was worth any fallout, because Zen Shigaraki was a lie.

He was and always would be the future Demon Lord.

All For One.

X

Shinomori was not happy.

Not that he had ever been the type to bubble with joy - he had always found cheer a brittle thing, prone to shattering under the strain of reality - but this was different. This was a low, grinding fury, the kind that sat heavy behind the ribs and refused to fade.

The note had been short. Practical. Infuriating.

Hikage,
I’m sorry I had to do this to you. It’s yours now. The borrowed power I named ‘One For All’, I’ve left everything you need to keep it safe. Don’t let him have it.
Don’t come after me.
 - Bruce

Shinomori had stared at it until the words blurred. He didn’t need to read between the lines to know what it meant. He’d seen the tightness in Bruce’s shoulders in their last conversations, the way his friend had been watching the news with that grim, calculating look. Bruce had always been the type to set himself on fire if it lit the path for others.

And now… Bruce was dead.

Shinomori couldn’t say how he knew it, but the certainty was absolute. Somewhere in the deep current of this new thing - the power Bruce had named 'One For All' - there was an weight, a fresh hollow where Bruce’s presence had been for those brief first days. 

It wasn’t like losing someone in the ordinary way; it was as though the connection itself had flinched, gone cold.

He spent that day in silence.

By evening, he had cleared a corner of the cabin and built a small altar from smooth stones and weathered planks. There were no flowers in the mountains, so Shinomori set a candle instead. He lit it as the sun went down, watching the flame hold steady in the still air.

“Idiot,” he murmured, though there was no heat in it. Just the ache of recognition

Bruce had made his choice. Now it was Shinomori’s burden to honour it.

But honour didn’t mean suicide.

Shinomori knew his limits, and in the past week he had confirmed them in detail. He had pored over every scrap of intelligence Bruce had gathered, every account of All For One’s abilities, every rumour, every whispered report. The picture that formed was of a monster so layered in power, so steeped in experience, that charging at him head-on was nothing more than self-arranged execution.

He was no match for such a thing. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So he would do the only thing that made sense. 

He would stay vanished.

The world thought Shinomori gone existent already -  he was solitary, cautious, a man who kept to the edges and that suited him fine.  This One For All would grow under his care, shaped and sharpened, its edges honed for the day someone stronger - someone worthy - could take it up and strike the Tyrant down.

When the candle burned low, he snuffed it out and sat back in the dark, letting his senses stretch into the quiet. The mountains would keep him. The solitude would keep him. And the vigilance that had always been his curse would now be his discipline.

For Bruce. For the ones before. For the day to come.

He would honour the legacy given to him.

X

The audacity of it.

That there should be consequences to his perfectly natural response to losing what was his - again - was beyond absurd. All For One had reacted as any man would when his most precious possession was snatched away. The fact that the world recoiled instead of applauding spoke only to its hypocrisy.

Even upon returning home, the stench of it clung. Petty voices hissed from screens and newspapers. Errant reprobates - half of whom had come crawling to him for aid before - now spoke with emboldened tongues, puffed up by grainy footage and sanctimonious commentary. News broadcasts looped the carnage again and again, presenters wearing masks of horror they didn’t truly feel, each one savouring the boost in ratings.
 
It was all so tedious. Board members demanding explanations. Government officials distancing themselves from previous agreements. Business partners suddenly discovering urgent prior commitments that prevented them from honouring contracts.

Like rats abandoning a ship they themselves had helped steer toward the rocks.

Dissent, of course, would be dealt with. 

Years spent building them, carefully weaving the façade of Zen Shigaraki - the benevolent magnate, the visionary - reduced to dust in a matter of days. Stocks plummeted in orchestrated freefall. Investors whispered about “unsavoury practices” as though the world hadn’t always run on them. They pretended shock now, as if they hadn’t fattened themselves at his table.

Hypocrites.

They mattered only insofar as they could be used, and for now, they were no longer useful.

Public businesses, he reflected, were such a nuisance. All that time spent cultivating images and maintaining facades, building carefully constructed webs of influence and dependence - only to watch it all dissolve the moment the world glimpsed the truth beneath the mask.

Perhaps it was time to embrace a different approach.

The skin of Zen Shigaraki could be shed.

Where Zen Shigaraki had ruled through influence and intimidation disguised as philanthropy, All For One would rule through pure, undiluted terror.

It was time to reveal how much of nightmare he could truly be.

Over the following days, he watched his corporate empire burn with the detached interest of a scientist observing a controlled experiment. Share prices became abstract numbers. Board meetings devolved into panic sessions as investors realized their golden goose had always been a wolf in disguise.

He let them flounder for exactly seventy-two hours. Long enough for the fear to set in, for them to understand how precarious their positions had always been.

Then he began making calls.

Not to his lawyers or his public relations teams or any of the legitimate channels they expected, but to darker corners of the world where his influence had always run deeper than any public persona could reach. Crime families who owed their territories to his sufferance. Underground networks that existed at his pleasure. The vast ecosystem of violence and vice that had quietly flourished under his protection for decades.

Within days, the restructuring began.

The underground had no patience for pretence. In the shadows, worth was measured in blood, leverage, and the weight of fear you could press into a man’s chest without lifting a finger. Here, there were no reporters, no “shareholders,” no prattling ministers - only predators and prey. And All For One had always been the former.

He approached the local crime networks with the inevitability of a storm front. At first, they postured. Then they bargained. Within days, they bled. Loose ends were cauterized efficiently and their businesses folded into his with barely a ripple.

Rival organizations found themselves absorbed overnight - their leaders given the choice between submission and extinction. Those who chose poorly became object lessons in the consequences of defiance. Smuggling routes, trafficking operations, black market technologies - all of it flowing upward through carefully constructed hierarchies until it reached him.

Where Zen Shigaraki had ruled through influence and intimidation disguised as philanthropy, All For One would rule through pure, undiluted terror.

He watched it all unfold from his new seat of power - not a glass tower reaching toward heaven, but a fortress carved deep beneath the earth where the screaming couldn't reach the surface.

It felt... appropriate.

Within a week, the Japanese underworld had a new emperor.

And as a final gesture, a parting gift to the hypocrites who had abandoned him, All For One reached back into the world of light.

And paid them back in kind.

The global stock market shuddered, then convulsed, tumbling in deliberate ruin. Entire sectors buckled as he yanked key investments free, tearing holes in their stability. And then, while the panic still churned, he released a flood of carefully curated data—his shareholders’ own crimes, meticulously documented. Fraud. Bribery. Exploitation. Enough to collapse reputations, careers, dynasties.

The pharmaceutical executive who had profited from illegal human experimentation found his crimes leaked to every major news outlet. The shipping magnate who had built his fortune on slave labour watched as evidence of his activities flooded social media. The defence contractor who had sold weapons to genocidal regimes discovered that congressional subpoenas could be very difficult to avoid.

Let them explain their own moral compromises to the cameras. Let them face the same scrutiny they were so eager to apply to him.

The Japanese Government fell on a Tuesday.

Prime Minister Hayashi choked on his morning coffee when a previously unknown Meta ability turned the liquid in his stomach to acid. His cabinet followed within hours, victims of heart attacks and strokes and accidents.

By Thursday, the financial district of Tokyo was in flames.

By Saturday, Japan's carefully maintained veneer of post-Meta stability had shattered like glass under pressure, revealing the writhing chaos beneath.

That was all it took, to completely set Japan's timid progress of repairing itself from the chaos of the uprising of meta Abilities, right back to the beginning. 

It was petty revenge, yes, but All For One savoured it. Let them choke on the ruin they had so eagerly built.

None of them mattered - all of them useless trash that over no longer served a purpose. 

In the end, All For One was the only one who mattered. Him - and his dearest …

One For All.

Chapter Text

Eighteen years had refined All For One's cruelty into an art form.

Where once he might have simply killed those who opposed him, now he preferred a more... nuanced approach. 
There was something deeply satisfying about watching hope bloom in someone's eyes before methodically crushing it beneath his heel. The way a small-time hero's face would light up when they thought they had finally cornered him, only to discover that their greatest victory had been orchestrated from the beginning. The slow dawning of despair as they realized their loved ones had been in his grasp all along.

Cruelty had always come naturally to him - it was simply more efficient than mercy, more likely to produce the desired results. But this new refinement, this deliberate cultivation of false hope followed by inevitable destruction, had become something approaching a hobby.

The world had grown so delightfully absurd during his reign of the criminal underground. These new ‘heroes’ scurried about in colourful costumes, spouting rhetoric about justice and protection as if they were living characters from the very comic books he and Yoichi had once shared. 

Even Meta abilities had been rebranded with a more palatable name - ’Quirks,’ as if calling them something friendlier would somehow diminish their potential for devastation.

How fitting that he should rule over a world that had transformed itself into the very fiction that had once shaped his dreams.

All For One adjusted his suit jacket as he walked through the sterile corridors of Dr. Garaki's laboratory, his reflection caught briefly in the polished steel walls. Forty-eight years had touched him with a distinguished elegance - lines of experience etched around his eyes, the bearing of a man who had shaped the world according to his will.

But beneath the surface, he could feel the first whispers of mortality beginning to assert themselves. His healing factor compensated for most damage, but time itself was proving to be a more persistent enemy than any hero or government. His joints ached on cold mornings. His reflexes, while still superhuman, had lost the razor's edge of youth.

It was becoming ... irksome.

"Ah, my old friend!" Dr. Garaki's voice echoed through the laboratory as All For One entered the main research chamber. The doctor had aged far more gracefully, his own Quirk having slowed the march of years to a crawl. "Right on time, as always."

The lab had expanded considerably since their early days together - banks of computers humming with data, specimens floating in preservation tanks, experimental equipment that pushed the boundaries of what science and Quirk abilities could accomplish when properly combined.

"My friend." All For One settled into the chair across from his oldest ally, fingers steepled as he surveyed the controlled chaos around them. "Your message suggested you had something of particular interest to share."

"Indeed I do." The doctor's eyes gleamed with the fervor of a man who had just solved a puzzle that had vexed him for years. "I believe I've found the answer to your little aging problem."

All For One raised an eyebrow, though his expression remained carefully neutral. They had discussed this issue before - the gradual degradation that even his enhanced physiology couldn't entirely prevent. It wasn't urgent yet, but it would become so within the next few decades.

"Go on."

Garaki gestured to a complex diagram displayed on one of his monitors - cellular structures, genetic sequences, mathematical formulas that would have been incomprehensible to lesser minds.

"My own Quirk, as you know, has been slowing my aging process for years. But I've never fully understood the mechanism until recently as time has gone by." He pulled up another screen, this one showing detailed scans of his own biology. "It's not simply cellular regeneration or enhanced healing - it's a fundamental alteration of how my body processes time itself at the molecular level."

All For One leaned forward slightly, genuine interest flickering in his eyes.

"The implications are staggering," Garaki continued, his voice taking on the excited rhythm of a lecturer who had captured his audience's attention. "If I can isolate the specific aspect of my ability that governs temporal cellular mechanics, I could theoretically transfer those properties to another individual. You could take my quirk and use a copying ability to pass the repeat onto me."

"Theoretically."

"More than theoretically." Garaki's smile widened. "I've been conducting preliminary tests for the past three years. The process would require... shall we say, intimate access to both donor and recipient biology. But the potential for shared longevity is very real."

All For One considered this, fingers drumming silently against his armrest. True immortality had always been a distant goal - something to pursue once he had reclaimed what was rightfully his and reshaped the world to his satisfaction. But if the opportunity presented itself now...

"What would you need?"

"Permission to proceed with human trials. Your consent to serve as the primary test subject when I'm ready. And. .." Garaki hesitated for just a moment. "Access to your Quirk-stealing ability during the process. If this works, if we can truly carry on our goals for much longer and both of us would benefit from the advancement."

The request was reasonable. Garaki had been instrumental in his rise to power, had never betrayed his trust or shown anything but absolute loyalty. If anyone deserved to share in the rewards of their partnership, it was the man who had helped make his vision possible.

"Proceed," All For One said simply. "Take whatever time you need. When you're ready, I'll be available."

Garaki's face lit up with the joy of a child given permission to pursue his greatest desire. "Excellent! This could change everything, you know. In time, I could find a way to achieve true immortality, infinite time to achieve our goals, to perfect our methods -"

"Indeed." All For One rose from his chair, smoothing his jacket with practiced ease. "Though I trust you'll maintain your usual discretion regarding this project."

"Of course, of course. Not a word to anyone."

As All For One made his way back through the laboratory corridors, his thoughts turned to his latest vault that waited in the deepest chambers of his underground fortress. 

Yoichi's preserved hand rested there in perfect stasis, protected by layers of security that would make government treasuries seem vulnerable by comparison.

Eighteen years of searching. Eighteen years of gathering power, of building his empire, of planning to become the Demon Lord he had always been destined to be. And still, One For All remained beyond his reach.

But immortality would change that equation entirely. With unlimited time, he could afford to be patient. Could wait for the perfect opportunity, could pursue every lead no matter how faint, could outlast any hero foolish enough to stand against him.

X

At forty, Hikage Shinomori felt like an old man trapped in a body that had forgotten how to be young.

It wasn't the appearance - mirrors still showed him a face that could pass for early thirties, hair still thick and light, muscles still defined from almost two decades of careful training. But beneath the surface, his bones ached with a weariness that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the foreign power that had made its home in his cells.

One For All was killing him. Slowly, methodically, but inexorably.

He had suspected as much for years, had felt the gradual degradation that came with carrying a force his body wasn't designed to contain. Bruce's notes had mentioned some physical strain, but nothing that suggested the progressive deterioration Shinomori had experienced.

Perhaps it was his Quirk - Danger Sense - that made the incompatibility worse. Two powers fighting for dominance within the same vessel, wearing him down from the inside like friction in a machine that had been running too long without maintenance. Perhaps it had cultivated a diseases that rapidly aged and degraded the body of its host.

His heart was the worst of it. The organ that had once beaten steady and strong now stuttered through its rhythm, skipping beats when he pushed himself too hard, aching in his chest during the quiet hours before dawn. Some mornings he woke gasping, hands pressed to his sternum as if he could somehow hold the failing muscle together through will alone.

The hermit's life had served him well - eighteen years of isolation in the mountains, living off the land, avoiding human contact except when absolutely necessary. Danger Sense had been invaluable in evading All For One's searches, allowing him to feel the approaching threat like a pressure in the air, giving him time to fade deeper into the wilderness before the monster's influence could find him.

But hiding wasn't living. And living with the constant knowledge that his death was approaching - not in the distant future, but soon, perhaps within the year - had forced him to confront the question he had been avoiding.

Who would carry this burden after him?

Bruce had trusted him with One For All because he was the logical choice - someone All For One would never think to look for, someone with the skills and temperament to keep the power safe until a better opportunity arose. But Shinomori had no network of allies, no contacts in the hero community, no obvious candidates for succession.

He would have to find someone. Today.

The decision had crystallized during the pre-dawn hours as he sat by his small fire, feeling his heart skip another beat, knowing that each irregularity brought him closer to the moment when it would simply stop. He couldn't wait any longer. Couldn't risk dying alone in the mountains with One For All dying alongside him.

Shinomori gathered his few possessions - a worn pack, basic supplies, the encrypted tablet Bruce had left him with what little information remained about the outside world. Everything else could stay. If he succeeded in his mission, he wouldn't be returning to this place.

The morning air was crisp and clean as he made his way down the mountain path, Danger Sense extending like invisible fingers to probe the world around him. No immediate threats, but he could feel the distant pulse of violence that always seemed to emanate from the cities below - All For One's influence spreading like poison through the veins of civilization.

Heroes. That's what they called themselves now, according to the news feeds he occasionally accessed. 

Another word for vigilantes, Shinomori supposed. No oversight. No adherence to whatever shreds of law were left in this country. Just people dressing up and fighting back.

Such strange people.

But perhaps, there was someone genuine in these people efforts. Someone who carried the same fire and defiance that had formed One For All in the first place could be a potential candidate. 

Danger Sense pulsed softly as he walked, a constant background awareness of the threat that ruled this world from the shadows. But it also served as a compass of sorts - directing him away from immediate danger and toward... something else. Something that felt different from the usual patterns of violence and corruption.

Hope, perhaps. Or at least the possibility of it.

Shinomori adjusted his pack and continued down the mountain, leaving eighteen years of solitude behind him as he went in search of a hero worthy of the name.

His heart stuttered once, twice, then found its rhythm again. His body creaked, and he had to use his sturdy staff to aid his journey.

There was still time. Not much, but enough.

Enough to find someone who could carry the fire when his hands were no longer strong enough to hold it.

X

"Another fool has emerged, dear brother," he murmured to the still hand inside its protective case. "This one calls himself Lariat, can you imagine? As if he were some character from those comics we used to read."

The case hummed softly with preservation energy, maintaining perfect stasis around its contents.

All For One sat beside the crystalline case that housed his most precious possession, elbow resting on the case to hold his head up as he regarded Yoichi's preserved fingers. 

"He's gathering followers, building what he calls a 'hero network.' The same tired rhetoric about justice and protection, the same delusional belief that good intentions can triumph over superior power." All For One's reflection wavered in the crystal surface, overlapping with Yoichi's motionless form. "They never learn, do they?"

But there was something different about this latest resistance, something that made his teeth ache with familiar irritation. The same defiant energy that had once driven Kudō's pathetic band of rebels, the same stubborn refusal to accept inevitable defeat.

History repeating itself, like a song played in an endless loop.
                             
"The thief still eludes me," All For One continued, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "Hikage Shinomori. I can feel him out there sometimes, like a distant heartbeat just beyond my reach. The part of you that you left behind, Yoichi - One For All - it pulses with your essence. I recognized it a decade ago when it surfaced briefly, but the coward vanished again before I could act.“

All For One's smile was barely visible in the dim light, but it carried the weight of absolute certainty.

"But no matter. I'll be ready. He will have to pass you on to another sooner or later and for that he will have to re-enter society. And that is my domain"

He pressed his palm against the case, imagining he could feel warmth radiating through the crystal.

"I will have you soon. You’re my most treasure possession afterall. And I've … learned from our past ... difficulties. I understand it wasn’t your fault - what happened to you. You were born defiant and it troubled you painfully but I have solutions to that now. Garaki has been developing the most wonderful techniques, ways to .. adjust the more troublesome parts of your personality, to modify memory, to ensure perfect compliance."

The hand offered no response, but All For One imagined he could see warmth in the preserved flesh, approval for the lengths he was willing to go to ensure their reunion.

"There will be no more running. No more rebellion. No more letting yourself be stolen by filthy strangers." He pressed his forehead against the case, eyes closing as he made his promise. "Just peace. To claim that compliance of yours and know it will be real - not an act you put on to deceive me. You’ll stand at my side, willingly, because I will control every part of you. As I am supposed to."

The chamber fell silent except for the soft hum of preservation systems, and All For One stood vigil over his most precious treasure, counting down the days until the last thief finally made his inevitable mistake.

X

Tokyo was a hellscape.

The stench hit Shinomori first - a miasma of unwashed bodies, rotting garbage, and something else that took him a moment to identify. 

Death. The sweet, cloying scent of decay that spoke of bodies left too long in alleyways, of violence so commonplace that proper disposal had become an afterthought.

Shinomori pulled his hood lower as he made his way through streets that bore no resemblance to the city he remembered from two decades ago. Then, there had been order - corrupt and oppressive, perhaps, but order nonetheless. Now there was only chaos, the rule of whoever possessed the strongest Quirk and the least regard for human life.

Bodies lay crumpled in doorways like discarded clothing. Children with hollow eyes picked through the pockets of the dead, searching for anything of value. In the distance, smoke rose from fires that might have been accidents or might have been arson - in this place, the distinction seemed meaningless.

All For One's legacy, written in blood and suffering across every street corner.

Danger Sense thrummed constantly against the edges of his consciousness, a low-level alarm that never quite faded. Threats everywhere - muggers in shadowed alleys, Quirk-enhanced gangs marking territory with violence, the ever-present possibility that someone might recognize him, might carry word back to the wrong ears.

His heart stuttered twice in the space of a single block, reminding him why he was here despite every instinct screaming at him to flee back to the clean air and blessed silence of the mountains.

He was dying. And when he died, One For All would die with him unless he found someone worthy to carry it forward.

The problem was that worthiness seemed to be in desperately short supply.

For three days he had walked these streets, Danger Sense guiding him away from immediate threats while he searched for someone - anyone - who showed the qualities that Bruce had died protecting. Courage without cruelty. Strength tempered by compassion. The willingness to stand against injustice even when victory seemed impossible.

He had found instead a city full of victims and predators, with precious little middle ground between them.

A commotion ahead drew his attention - shouts, the sound of something heavy hitting concrete, a woman's scream cut short. Shinomori rounded the corner to find three men in gang colors standing over a prone figure, one of them rifting through the victim's pockets while the others kept watch.

Danger Sense pulsed softly, warning him that involvement would bring unwanted attention. The smart move would be to turn around, find another route, continue his search elsewhere.

Instead, he found himself stepping forward.

"Leave him alone."

The words came out rougher than intended, his voice rusty from years of disuse. The three gangsters turned to look at him, taking in his worn clothes and thin frame, clearly unimpressed by what they saw.

"Walk away, asshole," the largest of them said, one hand moving to rest on what was probably a weapon. "This doesn't concern you."

Shinomori glanced down at the victim - a young man, barely into his teens, blood trickling from a split lip but still breathing. Still alive.

"It concerns me now."

What followed was brief and ugly. These men had Quirks, but they were street-level thugs who had never faced anyone with real training. Shinomori moved with the efficiency of someone who had spent decades learning to survive, and while his body was failing, it wasn't dead yet. His staff turned from an aid into a weapon and years of honing this power had given him strength, speed and much sharper instincts.

When the dust settled, three unconscious forms lay scattered across the alley, and the young man was looking up at him with a mixture of awe and confusion.

"Thank you," the victim whispered, struggling to sit up. "I thought - they were going to kill me."

Shinomori helped him to his feet, studying the boy's face in the dim light. There was fear there, certainly, but also something else. Gratitude, yes, but deeper than that—a kind of fundamental decency that seemed out of place in this broken city.

"Go," Shinomori told the boy. "Get out of here. Find somewhere safe."

The boy hesitated for a moment, then nodded and fled deeper into the maze of side streets. Shinomori watched him disappear, then turned to face the new arrivals - five more thugs, these ones better armed and clearly more experienced than the first group.

His heart skipped three beats in rapid succession, and for a moment his vision grayed at the edges. 

Not now. Not when he was so close to finding what he sought.

Each time he drew on that stolen strength, it took something from him that he couldn't spare.

When the last attacker fell, Shinomori found himself leaning against a brick wall, gasping for breath that wouldn't come easily. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye, and his hands shook with exhaustion.

He needed to get out of the open. Needed to find shelter before his body gave out entirely. 

But as he pushed himself away from the wall, something caught his eye - a poster pasted to the bricks at eye level, weathered but still legible.

The image showed a man in a heroic pose, fists against his hips. His face was stern but noble, jaw set with determination, eyes blazing with the kind of righteous fury that belonged in comic books.

Beneath the image, a single word in bold letters: 'RESIST TYRANNY! HOPE REMAINS.'

Shinomori stared at the poster for a long moment, something stirring in his chest that he hadn't felt in years. Hope, perhaps. Or at least the possibility of it.

Perhaps this was what he had been searching for. Not the frightened victims or casual predators that populated these streets, but someone who understood what resistance meant. Someone who was willing to stand against the darkness not because they expected to win, but because it was the right thing to do.

It took him three days of careful questioning, of following rumors and half-heard conversations, before he learned the man's name.

Lariat.

X

The call came at three in the morning, cutting through All For One's sleep like a blade through silk.

He emerged from pleasant dreams, instantly alert despite the late hour. Beside him, his most current companion -  a delicate creature with pale hair and waifish features, who’s name he’d already forgotten - remained undisturbed.

The phone continued its insistent buzzing, and All For One reached for it, slipping from the bed without disturbing the sleeping figure. Less chatter on that part, the better.

"This had better be important," he murmured into the device, padding across the marble floor of his private chambers.

"Sir." The voice belonged to Nakamura, one of his more reliable information brokers. The man's tone carried an excitement that immediately caught All For One's attention. "The Hermit. After eighteen years - he's surfaced."

All For One went very still.

"Explain."

"He was sighted in Tokyo. Multiple reports over the past week, confirmed by three independent sources. He's been asking questions, moving through the underground networks, staying low but not invisible. My contacts in the information trade all confirm the same description - matches the profile perfectly."

Hikage Shinomori.

The name resonated through All For One's mind like a struck bell, and suddenly he was fully awake in ways that had nothing to do with the late hour. 

After nearly two decades of playing cat and mouse across the wilderness, the thief had finally made his mistake.

"Current location?"

"Unknown. He's careful, changes locations frequently, never stays in one place long enough to establish a pattern. But sir -" Nakamura's voice took on an even more urgent quality. "The word is he's looking for someone. Asking about heroes, about resistance fighters. Like he's trying to make contact."

Of course he was. There needed to be a new Thief to take the old ones place.

All For one’s smile turned predatory. "Double the bounty, no - triple it. I want every informant, every criminal, every desperate fool in Tokyo looking for him. Alive, Nakamura. Stress that point. It doesn’t matter what state he’s in so long as he lives.“

"Yes sir. Should I -"

All For One ended the call and stood motionless in his chambers, feeling something he hadn't experienced in years flooding through his system. Not mere satisfaction or anticipation - this was something deeper, more primal. The electric thrill of a hunt finally nearing its conclusion.

One For All was within reach again.

Behind him, his companion stirred slightly, hand reaching out for the empty space All For One had left. Ah yes, how annoying it was when they awoke and spoke and reminded All For One of their paltry meaningless lives. 

Soon, he promised silently. Soon he would have no need for such distractions. Soon he would reclaim what had been stolen from him, and the original would be his once more.

The vigour coursing through him was intoxicating - eighteen years of patient waiting suddenly crystallizing into the sharp focus of imminent victory. His body felt decades younger, his mind clear and predatory in ways he had almost forgotten.

The Hermit had made his fatal error. And All For One would be there to capitalize on every moment of weakness, every second of exposure, until the last thief finally fell into his waiting hands.

X

The soba shop was exactly the kind of establishment Shinomori had been avoiding - cramped, poorly lit, filled with the sort of desperate characters who asked too many questions and remembered too many faces. But his heart had been acting up again, sharp pains that left him gasping and dizzy, and he'd needed somewhere to sit before he collapsed in the street.

The noodles were terrible, the broth watery, but it was hot food and he hadn't eaten properly in two days. Shinomori hunched over the bowl, hood pulled low, trying to blend into the background noise of quiet conversations and clinking chopsticks.

Danger Sense hummed softly in the back of his mind - not the sharp spike of immediate threat, but the low-level warning that never quite faded in this urban nightmare. Violence was always close in Shibuya, always ready to erupt from the smallest provocation.

That's when the hand slammed down on his back.

The impact was powerful enough to drive the air from his lungs and send a mouthful of noodles spraying across the counter.

 Shinomori spun around, one hand instinctively moving toward the knife concealed beneath his jacket, and found himself staring up at a mountain of a man.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of open, honest face that belonged in propaganda posters rather than Tokyo's shadowy underworld. Bald, dull eyes, and a grin that suggested far too much levity in these current times.

"You're the guy asking about the posters, right?" the man boomed, his voice carrying easily across the small restaurant. Every conversation stopped. Every head turned. Shinomori felt his blood pressure spike as dozens of eyes focused on their table.

Idiot. The word formed in his mind with crystalline clarity as he glared up at the grinning weirdo dressed all in leather. Absolute, suicidal idiot.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Shinomori said quietly, his voice pitched to carry no further than necessary. "I think you have me confused with someone else."

The man laughed - actually laughed - as if this were some sort of friendly misunderstanding rather than a potentially lethal breach of operational security.

"Come on, don't be modest! I heard you've been asking around for Lariat for the better part of a week. Well, good news - " He thumped his chest with obvious pride. "You found him!"

Shinomori's heart skipped three beats in rapid succession, pain flaring down his left arm. Around them, the restaurant's patrons were trying very hard to look like they weren't listening to every word of this catastrophically public conversation.

"Diagoro Banjo," the man continued, extending a hand the size of a dinner plate. "But most folks call me Lariat. And you are?"

Dead, Shinomori thought grimly. We're both dead if you don't lower your voice.

Instead of shaking the offered hand, he turned back to his bowl, hoping against hope that this walking disaster would take the hint and leave him alone. No such luck.

"Hey, you gonna eat the rest of that?" Banjo asked, already settling into the empty seat across from him without waiting for an invitation. "Because this stuff might be terrible, but I haven't eaten since yesterday and -"

He reached across the table with casual familiarity, dividing the remaining noodles between their bowls as if they were old friends sharing a meal rather than strangers who'd met thirty seconds ago.

Shinomori stared at him, torn between disbelief and the growing certainty that One For All deserved better than this walking catastrophe. 

This was Lariat? This was the man he'd been searching for? This loud, careless, utterly tactless -

Danger Sense spiked suddenly, sharp and immediate. Not the usual background hum of urban violence, but something specific and approaching fast.

Shinomori's eyes snapped toward the restaurant's entrance, every muscle in his body tensing as his Quirk screamed warnings that made his vision blur at the edges.

Across the table, Diagoro Banjo continued eating terrible soba and grinning like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Well," he said cheerfully, slurping his noodles with obvious enjoyment, "we should probably get out of here soon."

Shinomori stared at him. "What?"

"The owner." Banjo nodded toward the counter where a nervous-looking man was conspicuously avoiding eye contact. "Been on his phone since I sat down. Probably ratted us out already - happens more often than you'd think in this part of town. People need the money, you know? That’s why I didn’t bother with anonymity - everyone knew me the moment I walked in and the owner made his choice."

Danger Sense screamed louder, the sensation like ice water flooding his veins. Shinomori could feel them approaching - multiple threats, coordinated, closing in from different directions with military precision.

"Then why are you still sitting there eating?" he hissed.

Banjo shrugged, taking another casual bite. "Because running on an empty stomach is worse than running on bad food. And besides -" He grinned with infuriating confidence. "I'm pretty fast when I need to be."

Pain lanced down Shinomori's left arm, sharp and immediate. He pulled back his sleeve with trembling fingers and felt his blood turn to ice.

Another crack.

The fissure ran from his wrist to his elbow, a thin black line that seemed to pulse with its own malevolent life. It joined the dozens of others that had been appearing over the past months - visible proof that his body was literally coming apart under the strain of containing One For All.

"My running days are over," he said quietly, more to himself than to Banjo.

The pain intensified, radiating up his arm and into his chest like molten metal poured directly into his arteries. His heart seized - not the irregular skipping he'd grown accustomed to, but a complete, terrifying stillness that left him gasping for air that wouldn't come.

No 

No time left.

The realization hit him with absolute clarity. Not days, not hours - minutes at best before his body finally surrendered to the foreign power that had been consuming him from within.
There was no other choice. One For All needed to be passed on - and this Lariat was the closest to him.

Shinomori lunged across the table, his hand shooting out to grab Banjo's wrist. The younger man looked startled but didn't pull away - another point in his favor, if he lived long enough for it to matter.

"Listen carefully," Shinomori rasped, fighting through the agony that was spreading through his chest like wildfire. "I need to give you something. Something important. Don't ask questions, don't resist, just -"

The restaurant's front window exploded inward.

Glass rained down like deadly snow as dark figures poured through the opening, weapons raised, voices shouting orders that were lost in the sudden chaos. Around them, patrons screamed and dove for cover as the peaceful evening dissolved into violence.

Then the world disappeared.

Thick, choking smoke billowed from nowhere, filling the restaurant in seconds with an impenetrable purple haze. Shinomori couldn't see his own hand in front of his face, couldn't breathe without coughing, couldn't do anything but hold on to Banjo's wrist and pray he had enough time to -

His vision went black.

The pain in his chest exploded outward, a supernova of agony that drowned out every other sensation. His heart stopped completely, then started again with a rhythm that felt wrong, broken, like machinery grinding itself to pieces.

Failure.

The word echoed through his fading consciousness as he felt his grip on Banjo's wrist slacken. 

Eighteen years of hiding, of preparing, training and honing this legacy, of waiting for the right moment - and it would end like this. In a soba shop in Shibuya, surrounded by chaos, with One For All dying alongside him.

Through the haze of smoke and failing vision, he felt strong arms wrap around him, lifting him from the floor with surprising gentleness. Banjo's voice, muffled and distant, saying something about getting out of here, about finding help.

The last thing Shinomori felt before darkness claimed him was the sensation of movement - of being carried away from the violence, away from the smoke, away from the hunters who had finally found their prey.

Chapter Text

Escaped. Again.

All For One stood in the wreckage of the soba shop, smoke still clinging to his clothes. Around him, his forces picked through the debris with the methodical precision of professionals, but their search would yield nothing useful. 

He could feel it in the hollowness that had settled in his chest - that familiar sensation of victory slipping through his fingers like water.

One For All was gone. Vanished into Tokyo's urban maze

The shop owner cowered behind the overturned counter, his face pale with terror as All For One's gaze settled on him. The man  had called the moment he'd recognized Shinomori from the distributed photographs. 

But useful intelligence that led to failure was still failure.

"You said they were trapped," All For One observed, his voice carrying the conversational tone of a man discussing the weather. "You assured my people that there was no other exit."

"There - there wasn't!" the man stammered, pressing himself against the wall as if he could somehow disappear into the bricks. "I swear, sir, there was only the front door and the kitchen window, and we had both covered -"

All For One's hand closed around the man's throat, lifting him from the floor with casual ease. "Then explain to me how two men simply vanished from a building surrounded by trained professionals."

The owner's mouth worked soundlessly, his feet kicking uselessly at the air. All For One watched the life fade from his eyes with the detached interest of a scientist observing a particularly mundane experiment.

When the body went limp, he released his grip and let it crumple to the floor like discarded garbage.

"Sir?"

One of his lieutenants - a useful creature named Yoshida who had proven herself capable of thinking beyond the immediate tactical situation - approached with careful deference.

"Orders?"

All For One turned his attention to the city sprawling beyond the shattered windows. Millions of people going about their pathetic lives, unaware that their world was about to change in ways they couldn't possibly comprehend.

One For All was playing games with him. Dancing just beyond his reach, mocking his efforts with every successful escape. The power that should have been his by right, the last piece of Yoichi's soul, treating him like some common predator rather than the apex being he had become.

One For All was out there somewhere. Close enough that he could still feel its pulse like a distant heartbeat.

"Start a riot," All For One said simply.

Yoshida blinked. "Sir?"

"You heard me. Mobilize our assets throughout the city. Criminal gangs, corrupt officials, anyone who owes us favors or fears our displeasure. I want chaos in every district, violence on every corner, pandemonium that will force our targets into the open."

He turned away from the window, his voice taking on the cold precision of absolute authority.

"And if that doesn't draw them out - if they think they can hide among the sheep while the city burns around them—then burn it all. Every building, every street, every last refuge they might think to use."

Yoshida  nodded with the automatic obedience of someone who had learned never to question his orders.

"The entire city, sir?"

All For One smiled, and the expression carried all the warmth of winter moonlight on fresh graves.

"Every. Last. Building."

He had been patient for eighteen years. Had played their game of cat and mouse across continents and decades, always allowing them just enough hope to keep running, just enough distance to feel safe.

But patience was a finite resource, and his had finally run dry.

If One For All wanted to hide among the innocent, then the innocent would pay the price for harboring thieves. If the Hermit thought he could find sanctuary in Tokyo's urban maze, then All For One would reduce that maze to ash and bone until there was nowhere left to run.

The age of mercy was ending.

X

Shinomori was alive.

This came as something of a surprise, considering the last thing he remembered was his heart deciding it wanted to fail in the exact moment he needed it to work.

His heart was a failing traitor.
                                                             
But here he was, lying on a narrow cot in what appeared to be a storage room filled with the most bizarre collection of memorabilia he'd ever seen. 

Posters covered every available inch of wall space - colorful images of costumed figures striking dramatic poses, their faces bright with the kind of optimism that had been extinct in the real world for decades. Action figures lined makeshift shelves and comic books were stacked in precarious towers

It was like stumbling into the fever dream of a child who had never learned that heroes weren't real.

Moving was difficult - Shinomori’s chest ached with every breath, his left arm felt like dead weight, and the cracks along his skin pulsed with a dull, constant pain. He ran a hand over his face, only to find fissures marring the right side of his face - new black cracks, threatening to split him open at the seams.

 But Shinomori forced himself upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot just as the door began to open.

Diagoro Banjo's head appeared in the doorway, his face lighting up with that same infuriating grin that had gotten them into trouble at the soba shop.

"Well, look who's finally awake!" Banjo declared, stepping fully into the room. "You're stubborn, I'll give you that. I was expecting that heart attack to keep you down for days at least."

Danger Sense remained blissfully quiet in the back of Shinomori's mind - the first time in months he'd been anywhere without feeling the constant low-level buzz of potential violence. Whatever this place was, whoever these people were, they posed no immediate threat.

Small mercies.

"Where am I?" Shinomori asked, his voice coming out as more of a croak.

"My hero base!" Banjo announced with obvious pride, gesturing grandly at the cluttered storage room. "Pretty impressive, right?"

Shinomori looked around at the peeling paint, exposed pipes, and what appeared to be a broken ice cream freezer shoved into one corner. "It looks like the back area of a McDonald's."

"Same thing," Banjo said cheerfully. "Hero bases don't have to be fancy, you know. They just have to be functional."

The casual way he said it - as if comparing his operation to a fast food restaurant was somehow a compliment - made Shinomori wonder if the heart attack had affected his hearing. Or his sanity.

"Anyway," Banjo continued, settling into a folding chair that creaked ominously under his weight, "what's your deal? I mean, obviously you were looking for me, but why? You don't exactly look like the typical hero groupie."

At this point, secrecy seemed rather moot. All For One's forces had found them at the restaurant, which meant his cover was blown regardless. And if Banjo had been willing to carry him away from that chaos rather than abandon him, maybe - just maybe - he deserved to know the truth.

"I'm looking for someone," Shinomori said carefully. "Someone who's fighting against the Tyrant. All For One."

Banjo's eyes widened, his entire demeanor shifting from casual friendliness to intense focus. "You fighting him too? That's amazing! I knew there had to be other heroes working against that monster, but -" He paused, frowning slightly. "Wait, if you're a hero in this fight against ultimate evil, how come I've never heard of you?"

"Because I'm not a hero." The word felt strange in Shinomori's mouth, like speaking a foreign language. "I don't even understand what you people mean by that. This whole ... hero thing. It's weird. None of this whole ‘hero’ thing was around the last time I was in the city."

"The last time you were -" Banjo stared at him. "Have you been living under a rock or something?"

"I've been living alone on a mountain."

"... Okay, that's weird."

Shinomori felt a spark of irritation flare in his chest. "I'm the weird one? Look around you. Look at this world you're living in. Cities burning, people dying in the streets, a madman ruling everything from the shadows - and your response is to dress up in costumes and call yourselves heroes like you're characters in a comic book."

He gestured weakly at the memorabilia surrounding them. "You're the weird ones. All of you. Living in these times of darkness and pretending you can fix it with colourful outfits and dramatic speeches."

Banjo's grin returned, undaunted by the criticism. "That's exactly why we need heroes! Look, we've got these cool superpowers, right? Quirks that can do amazing things. So why not use them to fight evil? Why not try to make the world better?"

Why not indeed? Shinomori thought, studying the young man's earnest face. It was naive, certainly. Idealistic to the point of absurdity. But there was something underneath the cheerful exterior - a determination that reminded him, just slightly, of another young man who had once stood against impossible odds.

"Come on," Banjo said, rising from his chair and extending a hand. "Let me show you around properly. Introduce you to the crew."

Despite every instinct telling him this was a terrible idea, Shinomori allowed himself to be helped to his feet. His legs were unsteady, his balance questionable, but Banjo's grip was strong and supportive.

They made their way out of the storage room and into what had clearly once been the main dining area of a fast food restaurant. 

The booths had been removed, replaced with mismatched furniture and equipment that looked like it had been salvaged from a dozen different sources. Maps covered one wall, marked with pins and string in patterns that suggested actual strategic thinking. Computer equipment hummed on a table that might once have held condiment dispensers.

"Welcome to the real base," Banjo announced, clapping Shinomori on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "Pretty cool, right?"

Several figures looked up from their various activities - a mix of ages and appearances united by the same earnest determination that radiated from their leader. They wore practical clothing rather than costumes, but each had the bearing of someone who took their role seriously.

"Everyone, this is ..." Banjo paused, realizing he'd never actually gotten a name.

"Hikage Shinomori."

"Right! Everyone, meet Hikage. He's been living on a mountain for forty years -"

"Twenty years. I’m not that old - we’re probably the same age."

"- twenty years. Now he might be a weirdo, but he’s looking to fight back against All For One, just like us.“

 Banjo pointed to each person in turn, rattling off names like ‘Burnout’ and ‘Flashpoint’ and ‘Grappler’ with the enthusiasm of a child showing off the friends he’d made. 

"And this," Banjo said, grabbing a shorter man by the shoulder and pulling him forward, "is my nephew. Goes by Smoke-Eater these days.“

Smoke-Eater nodded politely, but his gaze was assessing in a way that reminded Shinomori of Bruce's analytical mind. "Lariat said you were asking about the resistance. Are you looking to join up?"

Shinomori looked around at this collection of earnest young people playing at being heroes in the ruins of a McDonald's, and wondered what Bruce would have thought of them.

Probably, he would have believed they could actually make a difference. Or that they were absolute idiots - it had been hard to tell with Bruce sometimes.

"Something like that," Shinomori said quietly, his hand moving unconsciously to his chest where One For All pulsed with its borrowed power.

Maybe it was time to find out if any of these people were the right choice for One For All.

But weakness overcame Shinomori's body like cold water, his legs suddenly unsteady beneath him. The fluorescent lights seemed too bright, the voices around him too loud, and the irregular rhythm of his heart sent fresh spikes of pain down his left arm.

"Whoa there," Banjo said, his massive hand steadying Shinomori's shoulder. "You should sit down. You look like you're about to keel over."

"An accurate assessment," Shinomori managed, allowing himself to be guided to one of the folding chairs scattered around the makeshift command centre - in a small private area that must have been the old drive through station. The metal frame creaked under his weight, but held.

"Don't worry about it," Banjo continued with his characteristic optimism. "Whatever's wrong with you, I'm sure you've got a long life ahead of you. Heroes are tough - comes with the territory."

Shinomori looked up at the earnest face hovering above him and felt something between amusement and despair. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then educate me."

The simple request, delivered without defensiveness or wounded pride, caught Shinomori off guard. He had expected argument, perhaps wounded ego from his blunt assessment. Instead, Banjo settled into the chair across from him with the patient attention of a student ready to learn.

Perhaps there was more to this loud, tactless man than first impressions suggested.

"Very well." Shinomori took a steadying breath, organizing thoughts he had kept secret for eighteen years. "What I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room. The power I carry - the one that will someday be capable of destroying All For One - it's called One For All."

Over the next hour, Shinomori laid out everything he knew. Bruce's sacrifice, the nature of the power as something passed from wielder to wielder, the way it grew stronger with each generation. He spoke of the years of honing and training it, learning and researching it’s limits and reaches.

He also spoke of the cost. The odd disease it seemed to have caused in Shinomori, the cracks that had appeared along his skin, the body that aged faster than it’s natural lifespan, his heart that stuttered and failed under pressures it was never designed to bear.

When he finished, the air fell silent, only for the distant sounds of hushed voices from Banjo’s ‘crew. Even Banjo's usual enthusiasm had been tempered by the gravity of what he'd heard.

"So," Banjo said finally, "you're looking for a successor."

"I am."

Banjo gestured around the room at his assembled crew that couldn’t even hear them. "Well, you won't find better candidates than right here. These people are genuine heroes - every one of them has risked their lives to stand against evil. And Smoke-Eater" He nodded toward his nephew, who disappeared through the front doors and out into the ravaged streets. "He's got the strongest will of anyone I've ever met."

"The toll this power takes on a body -" Shinomori began. “It requires strength not just of will, but physicality. With the looks of, he’d need to train far too long than what I have to wait.”

"Then it should be someone strong enough to handle it," Banjo interrupted. "Someone with the physical constitution to bear that kind of strain for as long as possible. And since you came looking specifically for Lariat -" He thumped his chest with obvious pride. "Seems like it should fall to me to pick up this torch."

"Slow down." Shinomori held up a hand, studying the larger man's eager expression. "This isn't a decision to be made lightly. I want to learn more about you before I hand over something that could reshape the world."

"Not much to tell," Banjo replied with a shrug. "I became a hero to save people from All For One and anyone else who thinks they can prey on the innocent. It's not complicated."

"And before that?"

"Before that, I was just another guy with a Quirk trying to make a living. I worked construction, as a dock worker, even as a teacher at one point when things when to hell again. The hero thing ... it chose me more than I chose it, if that makes sense."

Shinomori waited, but no further explanation came. Banjo's entire worldview seemed to be exactly as simple as he presented it - see evil, fight evil, protect the innocent, repeat as necessary.

"What about you?" Banjo asked, leaning back in his chair. "What's the story behind the mysterious hermit who carries ultimate power?"

Shinomori considered deflecting, maintaining the mystique that had served him so well over the years. But if he was going to entrust One For All to this man, honesty seemed the minimum requirement.

"I came from an affluent family," he said finally. "Old money, political connections, the sort of people who measure success by how often their names appear in society columns. When my Meta ability manifested and I was kicked out of university, they were more concerned with appearances than the discrimination I faced."

He flexed his fingers, remembering the weight of expectations that had once seemed so important.

"They wanted me to hide what I was, to pretend I was normal and hope no one noticed. When I refused - when I suggested that perhaps the problem wasn't people like us but the society that couldn't accept us - they made their choice. Appearances mattered more than their son."

"So you left civilization behind?"

"I retreated to a life where such things didn't matter. Where I could exist without constant judgement or the need to pretend I was something I wasn't. The mountain was ... peaceful. Honest. Far more than the world I'd left behind."

Banjo studied him for a long moment, then broke into a grin. "I was right - you really are a weirdo. Rich boy becomes homeless recluse? That's a good backstory for fighting bad guys, at least."

The casual dismissal of eighteen years of carefully chosen solitude sparked an irritation Shinomori hadn't felt in decades. "I wasn't homeless, you idealistic idiot. I built a home. I simply chose not to participate in society's obsession with accumulating pointless possessions and maintaining meaningless social hierarchies."

To his surprise, Banjo laughed - not mockingly, but with genuine amusement and something that might have been respect.

"Nothing wrong with ideals," he said, his voice carrying an unexpected note of wisdom. "World could use more of them, if you ask me. All this cynicism and despair - it's exactly what All For One wants. People giving up, losing hope, deciding that nothing matters."

He leaned forward, his expression becoming more serious than Shinomori had yet seen it.

"Me? I just want to save people and do it with a smile. Show them that there's still good in the world worth fighting for. Maybe that makes me naive, but I'd rather be naive than beaten."

Before Shinomori could respond to that surprisingly profound observation, footsteps echoed through the converted restaurant. Smoke-Eater appeared in the doorway, his usual calm demeanour replaced by urgent concern.

"Uncle," he said quietly, "the Tyrant's dogs have sniffed us out. Multiple squads moving in from different directions. We have maybe ten minutes before they're on top of us."

The room erupted into controlled chaos as heroes began gathering equipment and destroying sensitive materials. But Banjo's attention remained fixed on Shinomori, his eyes carrying a weight that hadn't been there moments before.

"So," he said simply, "are we doing this?"

X

They were gone. 

And Shinomori … was soon to go far out of their reach.

He looked around the abandoned space, taking inventory of what remained. 

The ‘heroes’ had been thorough in their evacuation - most sensitive materials destroyed, equipment removed, anything that could compromise their networks rendered useless.

But they had left the furniture. Including an old armchair that someone had dragged in from who knew where, its faded upholstery and worn arms speaking of comfort earned through decades of use.

In the small kitchen area, he found tea - nothing fancy, just cheap bags that had been forgotten in the evacuation. But the water still ran, the electric kettle still worked, and within minutes he had managed to brew something that approximated civilization.

He settled into the chair with a sigh of genuine relief. After eighteen years of sleeping on pine boughs and sitting on stones, the simple pleasure of proper cushioning was almost overwhelming. Perhaps there had been some comforts he'd missed during his life of minimalism.

The first sip was heaven.

After setting up the timer and its requisite parts, Shinomori leaned back in the armchair, cradling the warm cup between his hands, and noticed a comic book someone had left behind. The cover showed a caped figure striking a heroic pose against a backdrop of urban chaos - Captain Hero.

He opened to the first page and began to read.

The story was simple, as they always were. Evil threatened the innocent, the hero rose to meet the challenge, justice prevailed through courage and determination. The kind of straightforward morality that the real world seemed determined to complicate at every turn.

But there was something comforting in that simplicity. Something pure.

Shinomori felt his heartbeat grow more irregular, the pauses between beats stretching longer. Pain radiated down his left arm in waves, but it seemed distant now, manageable. The cracks along his skin had stopped spreading - without One For All burning through his system, his body was finally finding peace, as drained and empty it now felt.

He thought of the mountain. 
Of morning mist rising through pine trees, of the absolute silence that came just before dawn, of the way sunlight looked when it first touched snow-covered peaks. Part of him longed to return there, to spend his final moments in the place that had become more home to him than any building ever could.

He knew he wouldn’t even make it out the front door of this old Mcdonald’s.

But this was good too. This armchair with its worn comfort, this terrible tea that somehow tasted perfect, this simple story about heroes and hope. There were worse ways to spend one's final hour.

His work was done. Eighteen years of guardianship, of carrying a burden that had slowly consumed him from within, of waiting for the right moment to pass the torch to worthy hands. He had lived exactly as he chose - free from society's expectations, unburdened by its meaningless hierarchies, connected to something larger than himself.

One For All would continue. Would grow stronger with each generation, would eventually become the weapon capable of ending All For One's reign of terror. He had been part of that chain, that lineage of sacrifice and hope that stretched back to the first defiance of a monster who hurt everything around him.

Shinomori turned another page, though his vision was beginning to blur at the edges. The story's hero was facing impossible odds now, standing alone against forces that should have crushed him. But he stood anyway, because someone had to. Because hope demanded it.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Shinomori's mouth. Diagoro Banjo would understand that kind of heroism. Would carry it forward with the same earnest determination that had driven him to build a resistance movement in the back of a McDonald's.

His heart stuttered once, twice, then found a rhythm that felt different - slower, but somehow more peaceful. The cup slipped from his fingers, tea spilling across the comic book's pages, but he didn't notice.

Hikage Shinomori closed his eyes and felt perfectly, completely content.

He had no regrets.

He had done his part. The rest was up to the heroes he had chosen to trust.

In that moment, he died completely and utterly content.

X

The thief was dead.

All For One stood over the corpse, his hand still extended from where he had attempted to drain whatever remained of One For All from the cooling flesh. The body lay crumpled in the worn armchair like a discarded toy, face relaxed in an expression of such perfect serenity that it made something cold and sharp twist in All For One's chest.

Empty. Completely, utterly empty.

Yet he could still feel it - that familiar pulse of stolen power somewhere out in the world, growing fainter with distance but undeniably present. The last remnants of Yoichi's essence, passed on to yet another unworthy vessel before All For One could reclaim what was rightfully his.

Victory snatched away once more.

The eager anticipation that had invigorated him ever since news of the hermit's emergence died like a snuffed candle, leaving behind only the familiar ache of frustrated possession. To come so close - to actually touch the thief's corpse while traces of One For All's warmth still lingered in the air - and still be denied ...

It sat like acid in his stomach, burning away at the careful control that usually defined his responses to setbacks.

All For One released his grip on Hikage Shinomori's body, letting it slump back into the chair with the dull weight of truly lifeless meat. 

Around him, his forces continued their search of the abandoned restaurant, but he knew they would find nothing useful. The Hermit's allies had been thorough in their retreat.

Eighteen years of hunting, and once again he was left with nothing but a corpse and the bitter knowledge that somewhere in the city, One For All was already beginning to adapt to its new host.

That's when he heard the soft, electronic beeping.

All For One looked down, his enhanced senses immediately identifying the source of the sound.

 Beneath the armchair, hidden among the furniture's support structure, a small device blinked with red light in rhythm with its warning tone.

He had perhaps two seconds to appreciate the elegant simplicity of the trap before the explosive device detonated with enough force to bring down the entire building.

Fire and thunder swallowed the world, and All For One disappeared into the collapsing ruins of yet another failed hunt.

X

Shinomori  was standing - which was curious, given that he distinctly remembered dying - in a space that seemed to shift and reshape around him like a living thing. 

What had begun as blank nothingness gradually resolved into something more concrete: rough stone walls, dim lighting that came from no visible source, and the overwhelming sense of weight that suggested they were deep underground.

I suppose I'm dead, he thought with the same detached calm he might have used to observe the weather.

The space continued to form around him, details emerging from the void with dream-like fluidity. A circular chamber took shape, its walls carved from dark stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. At the centre stood several throne-like chairs, tall and imposing, arranged in a rough semicircle.

Two of the chairs were occupied by still figures that seemed to be sleeping, their forms indistinct in the strange half-light. But it was the voice from beside him that drew Shinomori's attention.

"The other two will be around soon enough," Bruce said casually, as if commenting on the likelihood of rain.

Shinomori turned to find the former resistance fighter looking exactly as he had in life - green flak armor, intelligent eyes, the bearing of a man who had seen too much but refused to let it break him. Except now there was something slightly translucent about him, as if he were made of coloured glass rather than flesh and bone.

"Bruce Lee," Shinomori acknowledged. "I take it this is where holders of One For All go when they die?"

"Something like that. We're not entirely sure of the mechanics ourselves - " Bruce gestured around the chamber with academic interest. "But we seem to persist here, in some fashion. Echoes, maybe. Or vestiges of who we were, imprinted on the power itself."

A new voice cut across the space, carrying amusement and no small amount of professional admiration.

"I’ve got to say, I'm a little impressed you kept One For All for eighteen years. That's a hell of a run." The speaker emerged from the shadows - a red-headed man with a scarred face. "And that explosion? Beautiful work. I bet the bastard didn't see that coming."

The man nodded to Shinomori in acknowledgement. "Toshitsugu Kudō. Second holder. Though most people just called me Kudō."

"Be nice to our new arrival, Kudō." The voice was softer than the others, carrying a easiness that seemed to warm the air around it. "He's been through quite enough already."

Shinomori turned toward the speaker and felt his breath catch in his throat.

The young man approached them - pale hair that caught what little light existed in the chamber, features that managed to be both wearied and determined, eyes that held depths of compassion.

This had to be the first holder. The one whose courage had started it all.

"Yoichi," the young man said simply, moving to stand before Shinomori with the kind of presence that had nothing to do with physical stature and everything to do with an unshakeable moral foundation.

Without warning, Yoichi reached out and took Shinomori's hands in his own, the contact carrying warmth that seemed to spread through his entire being.

"Thank you," Yoichi said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. "Thank you for carrying our dream for so long, for keeping the light alive when the world seemed determined to snuff it out. I'm so sorry it killed you. That burden was never meant to destroy the people who bore it."

"It didn't destroy me," Shinomori found himself saying, surprised by how true the words felt. "It was an … honor in a way, to carry the torch. Even if I hadn’t asked for it. And dying... it wasn't so bad, in the end. I got to leave the world in peace."

"It's the next wielder's turn now," Bruce interjected, gesturing toward a fifth chair that was beginning to materialize near the edge of their circle. The seat glowed with the same soft light as the others, but its occupant remained translucent, still forming as One For All settled into its new home.

Yoichi released Shinomori's hands and moved toward the forming vestige, his expression filled with hope and anticipation.

“You think he’s up to the task?” Kudo asked as sharp eyes assessed the latest wielder.

Shinomori considered the question, remembering the loud, enthusiastic man who had insisted on sharing terrible soba and treating heroism like the most natural thing in the world.

"He's ... unusual," he said finally. "But yes, I believe he has what it takes. The will, certainly. And the heart."

Yoichi's face lit up with a smile that could have powered the chamber's mysterious lighting. "You’re all heroes. But the world will know Lariat as a true hero. I hope Diagoro Banjo can carry the torch for as long as you did, Hikage."

He stepped toward the forming vestige, his expression filled with wonder and hope.

"I can feel it," he whispered, placing a hand on the shoulder of banjo’s vestige. "One For All is growing stronger. I can sense the good it will do, the lives it will touch, the hope it will kindle in places that have forgotten what hope looks like."

He turned back to the others, his eyes bright with the kind of vision that most have driven him to stand against his own brother all those years ago.

"This will usher in a new age," he said with absolute conviction. "An age where heroes don't hide in the shadows or work in secret, where good people stand up openly against evil and inspire others to do the same."

Yoichi looked around the chamber at the gathered vestiges - at Bruce with his quiet intelligence, at Kudō with his fierce determination, at Shinomori with his hard-won wisdom.

"An age of heroes," he said softly. "And peace."

Shinomori settled into his own chair as it materialized around him, feeling the weight of eighteen years of solitude finally lifting from his shoulders. Around him, the other vestiges found their places, and the chamber filled with a contentment that seemed to emanate from the very stones.

One For All lived on. The torch had been passed. And somewhere above them, in a world still ruled by monsters and fear, a loud, idealistic man with questionable tactical sense was about to discover what it meant to carry the hopes of the dead.

The age of heroes was about to begin.

Chapter Text

Those damn filthy thieves.

All For One dragged himself through the rubble of what had once been a three-story building, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through his ravaged body. 

The explosion had been more comprehensive than he had anticipated - not just powerful enough to bring down the structure, but specifically designed to maximize damage to anyone caught within the blast radius.

Clever. Painfully, infuriatingly clever.

His left arm hung at an unnatural angle, bones shattered and muscles torn beyond immediate repair. Burns covered nearly sixty percent of his body, the flesh blackened and weeping in ways that would have killed a normal person within minutes. His regeneration Quirks were working frantically to keep him alive, but they were being pushed beyond their limits.

Inconceivable.

The word echoed through his mind as he forced his body to continue moving. 

He was All For One - the future Demon Lord, the apex predator, the force that had reshaped the world according to his will. He did not get hurt by dead hermits and their crude explosives. He did not crawl through debris like some wounded animal.

Yet here he was, his life slipping between his fingers like water through a broken dam.

His warping Quirk sputtered and failed twice before finally responding to his commands, teleporting him in short, agonizing bursts across the city. Each jump drained more of his remaining strength, but the alternative was bleeding out in an alley while his enemies escaped to fight another day.

The laboratory appeared around him in a swirl of displaced air, and All For One collapsed onto the sterile floor with a wet, tearing sound that spoke of internal damage far worse than what was visible on the surface.

"Dear god -" Dr. Garaki's voice cut through the haze of pain, followed immediately by the sound of medical equipment being wheeled across the room. "What happened?"

"Bomb," All For One managed, the word coming out as barely more than a wheezing  rasp. "That filthy Hermit ... had a contingency."

Garaki's hands moved with practised efficiency, scanners and diagnostic equipment painting a grim picture of the damage. All For One watched the doctor's face grow progressively paler as the full extent of his injuries became clear.

"The burns are extensive but manageable," Garaki muttered, more to himself than to his patient. "The internal bleeding ... that's more serious. Your regeneration Quirks are keeping you alive, but they're burning through your cellular reserves faster than they can replenish. And the neurological damage from the concussion -"

"How long?" All For One interrupted.

"To heal completely? Even with your enhanced recovery abilities... If I put you into stasis -" Garaki paused, double-checking his readings. "Six months. Minimum. Your body needs time to rebuild from the ground up, and pushing the regeneration too hard could cause permanent damage to the Quirks themselves."

Six months. Half a year of vulnerability while One For All grew stronger in the hands of yet another unworthy Thief. The thought made All For One's remaining functional hand clench into a fist, sending fresh spikes of pain up his arm.

"Put me in stasis," he ordered. "Full medical suspension. When I wake up, I want to be completely restored."

Garaki nodded, already moving toward the specialized equipment that would preserve All For One's body while the healing process ran its course. "The damage is severe, but not irreversible. This may provide an opportunity to push your  power to its limits and when you emerge - the trauma will have forced your regeneration to adapt and improve. Much like hatred - near death experiences have a beneficial effects on quirks. If you allow it, I will bring you to the brink of death to push you regeneration beyond its boundaries."

“Such a opportunistic man,” All For One stated. “Dear friend, do whatever you will to me to make me above that even of a god.”

He heard Garaki chuckle as he helped All For One into the iron chamber that had housed many an experiment.

All For One closed his eyes as the stasis field began to take effect, his consciousness already starting to fade around the edges. Six months of darkness while the world continued to turn without him. Six months of forced patience while his enemies celebrated their pyrrhic victory.

But he would emerge. He would heal. And when he did, the Thieves who thought they had won would discover that bombs and clever traps were no match for true immortality.

The last thing he felt before the stasis claimed him was the distant pulse of One For All, still out there, still stolen, still calling to him across the void.

Soon, he promised the darkness. Very soon.

X

Tokyo was on fire.

Smoke billowed from a dozen different districts as Banjo led what remained of his crew through streets that had descended into complete chaos. Cars overturned and burning, windows smashed, the sound of distant gunfire mixing with screams and sirens in a symphony of urban breakdown.

All For One's forces had done their work well. What had started as targeted riots in response to his escape had metastasised into city-wide pandemonium, citizen turning against citizen in the kind of violence that fed on itself until reason became impossible.

"Stay close!" Banjo shouted to En, pulling his nephew against him as a crowd of rioters surged past their hiding spot behind an overturned bus. The young man's smoke was providing some cover, but there were too many people, too much chaos, too many opportunities for things to go wrong.

And things were already going wrong in ways Banjo couldn't have anticipated.

His entire body felt like it was being torn apart from the inside. The power Shinomori had given him coursed through his system like liquid fire. Every heartbeat brought fresh waves of agony as foreign energy found a home in flesh that hadn't been designed to contain it.

But that was a problem for later. Right now, people were dying in the streets.

They had lost Kazuo three blocks back - caught by a mob that had mistaken his hero costume for some sort of government uniform. Banjo had tried to reach him, had fought through the crowd with En's smoke providing cover, but by the time they'd broken through, it was too late.

Good people dying while monsters pulled strings from the shadows. It was exactly the kind of injustice that had driven Banjo to become a hero in the first place.

Banjo lifted En over his shoulder despite the teenagers fussing. He wouldn’t risk losing En in this mess. 

"Uncle," En said shouted with annoyance, his voice barely audible over the chaos surrounding them. "Maybe we should get out of the city. Find somewhere safe to regroup."

The suggestion was logical. Tactical. The smart play would be to retreat, to wait out the riots in some hidden location while the city tore itself apart. Let someone else deal with the immediate crisis while they focused on the larger war.

But as Banjo looked out at the burning streets, at the innocent people caught in the crossfire of forces beyond their understanding, he knew he couldn't do it.

 They were heroes. And heroes didn't run when people needed help.

"No," he said, his voice carrying the kind of quiet certainty that had nothing to do with volume and everything to do with absolute conviction. "We're not running."

"Uncle, there are thousands of them out there. We can't save -"

"Maybe not." Banjo stood up slowly, feeling the foreign power in his system respond to his determination. One For All was painful, yes, but it was also... "But we can save some of them," he continued, stepping out from behind their makeshift shelter. "And sometimes, that's enough to make a difference."

Around them, Tokyo continued to burn. Sirens wailed in the distance, smoke obscured entire city blocks, and somewhere in the chaos, All For One's influence spread like poison through the veins of civilization.

But Heroes didn't run.

Heroes stood up.

They saved people.

One life at a time.

X

Dreams had always been a tedious necessity - the brain's fumbling attempt to process information while the body rested.

 All For One found them tedious at best, actively irritating at worst. Reality was complex enough without his subconscious fabricating additional nonsense to muddy his thoughts.

But stasis dreams were different. Deeper. More persistent.

In the artificial darkness of medical suspension, he dreamed not of Yoichi -  but of the others. The countless individuals whose abilities had become his over the decades, their essence absorbed and catalogued like books in a library he rarely bothered to visit.

They whispered to him in the space between sleep and waking. Fragments of personality, echoes of lives that had meant nothing to him beyond the power they possessed. A speedster who had once dreamed of racing professionally. A woman who could manipulate plant growth and had used it to tend a small garden behind her apartment. A man whose enhanced hearing had made him the neighborhood's unofficial guardian against thieves and worse.

All absorbed now. All reduced to whispers in the dark corners of his mind.

The longer he retained a stolen ability, the stronger these echoes  and the despondency of the theft seemed to become. Most he discarded quickly enough to rid himself of the problem. But there were a few - abilities too useful to give away - that had been with him long enough to develop an almost haunting quality to their leftovers.

One such ability was his very first theft in the womb - hers.

His first acquisition. His Lifegiver.

The pathetic waste of flesh who had carried him and Yoichi for months only to fail at the one task that mattered - staying alive long enough to see them born. 

No, the useless vessel had failed at that - he had been forced to claw his way out of her warm corpse, then drag his weaker twin after him into a world that cared nothing for abandoned infants.

Useless. Utterly, completely useless save for the flesh and milk she’d provided for sustenance afterwards.

Perhaps it was malice that kept him from ever discarding her echo. Let her wallow in the memory of her own failures, of the children she had abandoned to fend for themselves. She never acknowledged him anyway - never.

As if she were ashamed of what he had become.

Good. Let her be ashamed. Let her watch from whatever prison her echoes of consciousness inhabited as he reshaped the world according to his will. Let her see what her weakness had created.

But those echoes served another purpose beyond petty revenge. They were proof that consciousness could persist within stolen power, that something of the original wielder remained even after death. And if that was true - if fragments of identity could survive the transfer from one host to another -

Then surely some part of Yoichi still existed within One For All.

All For One had been of two minds about what to do when he finally reclaimed his brother's essence. Part of him wanted to keep One For All intact, to let Yoichi's consciousness exist within him as the other echoes did. They could be together always, Yoichi's voice a constant presence in his thoughts.

The other half of All For One’s soul finally reunited.

But the other part - the part that remembered warm hands and gentle smiles and the weight of a body pressed against his in sleep - wanted something more tangible. Something that look at him - and only him.

Garaki's techniques had advanced considerably over the years. It might be possible to use Yoichi's preserved hand as the foundation for a complete reconstruction, to build his twin a new body that could house his returned spirit.

The possibilities were intoxicating. But first, All For One had to heal. Had to emerge from this artificial slumber stronger than before.

Had to -

Light flooded All For One’s vision as the stasis field deactivated, dragging him back to wakefulness with the insistence of dawn breaking over water. 

His pale eyes opened to find Dr. Garaki peering down at him with obvious satisfaction.

"Welcome back, my friend," the doctor greeted with a wide grin. "Seven months, two weeks, and three days. How do you feel?"

All For One sat up slowly, testing the limits of his restored body. The burns were gone, the broken bones mended, the internal damage completely erased. But more than that - he felt better than he had before the explosion. Stronger. More vital. As though trauma had forced his regeneration abilities to evolve beyond their previous limitations just as he’d been promised.

"Excellent," he said, his voice carrying none of the weakness that had defined his final moments in the ruins of Tokyo. "You've outdone yourself, my dear friend."

"The healing process exceeded even my most optimistic projections. Your body didn't just repair the damage - it improved upon the original design. Stronger bones, more efficient circulation, enhanced neural pathways. You're better than new."

All For One flexed his fingers, feeling power flow through him like electricity through copper wire. Seven months of forced patience, but the wait had been worth it.

"And how goes your research into the aging solution?"

"Ah, yes!" Garaki's eyes lit up with scientific enthusiasm. "I've secured a more efficient method for sharing my Life Force Quirk. It involves you stealing a copying ability from a subject I've already acquired in anticipation for your awakening, then using that power to duplicate my own ability rather than stealing it outright."

“As efficiently prepared as ever I see,” All For One mused as he flexed his long prone muscles.

“If you’re up for it - the acquisition is ready for extraction.”
The good doctor gestured toward a corner of the laboratory where a small figure huddled behind a makeshift barrier of medical equipment. 

All For One's enhanced hearing caught the sound of quiet sobbing, muffled by small hands pressed against a frightened face.

"The subject possesses a rudimentary copying ability - nothing sophisticated, but sufficient for our purposes. Once you've acquired it, you can duplicate my Quirk and we'll both benefit from its effects."

All For One swung his legs over the stasis chamber, testing his balance as he stood. Everything felt perfect - joints moving smoothly, muscles responding with precision, no lingering weakness or discomfort.

The child huddled behind the equipment barrier was perhaps five years old, with the kind of wide, terrified eyes that belonged to prey animals. When it saw him approaching, it tried to run - a futile gesture that ended with its small body pressed against the laboratory wall.

"Please," it whispered, the word barely audible. "I want to go home."

The very epitome of weak prey.

All For One towered over its quaking form, studying its face with the detached interest of a scientist examining a specimen. He could feel the copying ability humming beneath its skin - weak, underdeveloped, but functional enough for his purposes.

He didn’t bother coddling it, simply extending one hand toward the trembling figure.

It tried to run again. All For One lifted it up by the scruff of its neck to keep it still. 

The extraction was swift and efficient. The child's scream cut through the sterile air of the laboratory like a knife, then faded to broken whimpering as the ability tore free from its original host and flowed into its new master with nary a fight.

It was always so much  easier to extract power from the young. 

All For One carelessly dropped the drained vessel, feeling the new power settle into place alongside his vast collection.

The child slumped against the wall, damaged but breathing. It would live, though the extraction seemed to have taken its toll on its small body in a way that made All For One’s lip curl

Pitiful.

"Excellent work," Garaki said, approaching with a scanner to document the transfer. "Now, if you could copy my Life Force ability -"

All For One nodded, turning his attention to his old friend. 

He laid a softer hand above the smaller man’s head and allowed the given power to fill him. He felt no different as Life Force settled within but felt the slight thrum of it beat alongside his empty heart.

The copying power was crude compared to his own ability, but it served its purpose. Within moments, he possessed his own version of Garaki's Life Force ability , ensuring that both of them would have the time necessary to achieve their ultimate goals. Naturally he gave back the inferior copy which didn’t seem to bother his dear doctor in slightest. 

Such obedience and loyalty … if only it had been from the right person -

"Perfect," he murmured, as the new ability settle into place alongside all the others. "Now we can focus on what truly matters."

X

Seven months without All For One had been a godsend.

Banjo stood on the rooftop of their latest base - a repurposed office building in what used to be the entertainment district - and watched the city sprawl beneath him with something approaching hope. 

Tokyo was still scarred from the riots, still bearing the wounds of that terrible night when the world had seemed to catch fire, but there were signs of recovery everywhere he looked.
People were getting braver. Standing up to the petty criminals who had thrived under the Tyrant's protection. Forming neighborhood watch groups, organizing mutual aid networks, refusing to be cowed by threats that had once sent entire districts into hiding.

And the hero movement - that was spreading faster than Banjo had dared to imagine.

Reports filtered in from across the world through their carefully maintained information networks. 
In America, a woman calling herself Liberty Belle had begun organizing Meta-humans against organized crime. 
In Europe, someone known only as The Guardian was protecting refugees from government persecution. 
Even in China, despite the devastating aftermath of the Meta Purge, whispers spoke of figures in masks standing between oppressors and the innocent.

Heroes. Real ones.

Banjo could see it in the way people walked the streets now - heads held higher, voices speaking truths that would have been whispered in shadows just a year ago. The fear that had gripped Japan like a stranglehold was finally beginning to loosen, and in that space between terror and hope, something beautiful was growing.

Not just him and his ragtag crew, but ordinary people choosing to stand up against oppression. A teacher in Osaka who used her plant-manipulation Quirk to feed hungry children. A construction worker in Kyoto whose super-strength helped rebuild neighborhoods that corruption had left to rot. A teenager in Hokkaido whose speed let her deliver medicine to remote villages.

The movement was spreading - more reports filtered in from Korea, from Taiwan, America, the Philippines -  from places where All For One's influence had seemed absolute just months ago.

People were remembering what it felt like to hope.

But Banjo knew better than to think the reprieve would last. That's why he'd pushed his body to its absolute limits, forcing One For All to settle into his system through sheer stubborn will and more training than any sane person would attempt.

The power still hurt. Every morning he woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a truck, his muscles screaming in protest, new stress fractures appearing along his bones that healed overnight only to reappear the next day. But he was containing it now, channelling that godlike strength into something useful instead of letting it tear him apart from the inside.

He had to be strong enough. When All For One returned - and he would return, Banjo was certain of that - the world would need every hero it could get.

"Lariat!" En's voice echoed through their current base of operations. "We got the WiFi hooked up to the secure network!"

Banjo dropped the weights he'd been using for his morning routine - custom-made titanium bars that could handle One For All's enhanced strength without crumpling like paper - and practically ran to where En had set up their communications equipment.

The screen flickered to life, pixelated at first but gradually resolving into the face he'd been desperate to see.

"AMI!" Banjo bellowed, his grin wide enough to split his face. "Happy sixth birthday, baby girl!"

His daughter's face lit up with the kind of pure joy that made every sacrifice, every moment of pain, every sleepless night worth it. She was missing her front teeth, he noticed, which made her smile even more adorable as she held up her presents for the camera.

"Daddy! Look! Mama got me a bicycle and Jeff taught me how to ride it and I only fell down twice!"

"That's my girl! I knew you'd figure it out fast - you're too stubborn to let a bicycle beat you." Banjo pressed closer to the screen, drinking in every detail of her face. She'd grown so much in just a few months. "What else did you get?"

Ami proceeded to show him every present in exhaustive detail - books, toys, art supplies that she immediately began using to draw him a picture of what she insisted was a "super cool hero daddy." The drawing looked more like a stick figure with wild hair, but Banjo declared it the most amazing artwork he'd ever seen.

"Diagoro, you look well. Are you eating enough?." Hanna's voice was gentler as she took her place beside Ami, and Banjo felt his chest tighten at the sight of her. She looked well - better than well, actually.  He was glad about that.

"You know me," Banjo replied with a grin that didn't entirely hide his exhaustion. "Takes more than a few world ending crises to keep me down. How are you? How's Jeff?"

Hanna's smile was genuine and warm. "He's wonderful. The engagement is - well, we’ve decided to keep it short. We're thinking a small ceremony this coming spring, if travel restrictions ease up by then."

"That's fantastic! Tell him congratulations from me. He's a lucky guy." And Banjo meant it - Jeff was exactly the kind of steady, dependable man that Hanna deserved, someone who could give her the quiet life that Banjo's chosen path had made impossible.

"I wish you could be there," Hanna said softly, and Banjo heard the apology in her voice for circumstances neither of them could control.

"Me too. But you know I'll be there in spirit, cheering you both on."

"Daddy, when are you coming to visit?" Ami's question cut through the adult conversation with the direct honesty that only children possessed. "I miss you."

The words hit him like a physical blow. Banjo swallowed hard, forcing his smile to remain steady even as something broke inside his chest.

"I miss you too, princess. More than anything in the whole world. But Japan's a little difficult to get out of right now - there's been a countrywide travel shutdown for almost a year. As soon as things calm down, I promise I'll come see you, okay?"

Ami nodded solemnly, accepting the explanation with the resilience that six-year-olds somehow managed when the adults in their lives tried to shield them from harsh realities.

"Is En there?" Hanna asked, and Banjo gestured for his nephew to join the conversation.

En appeared on screen with a somewhat embarrassed wave. "Hey, Aunt Hanna."

"Are you staying safe? - your mother told me tell you to make sure you’re eating,“ Hanna badgered the moment she saw him. ”Is your uncle helping you -“

"I’m alright auntie Hanna," En cut her off. “Happy birthday Ami, you got those glowsticks I brought?”

Ami happily cracked a green stick that blinded the camera lens. “I used all the blue ones already!”

Hanna sighed, muttering about Ami waking her and Jeff up with the strobe light ones. Her brow furrowed with a severity that made both Banjo and En straighten.

“I want you safe, both of you - and home as soon as you can. Is there noone with an ability who can get you out of Japan?”

“Anyone displaying teleportation quirks are immediately detained and every mode of transport out of the country is under foreign military, militia or All For One control. Besides …” Banjo shook his head. “Australia is a damn long way to get.”

Hanna nodded even as she scowled. “… you’ll keep my sister’s boy safe - right, Daigoro?”

“Auntie - I can -”

"We will," Banjo promised. "You don't need to worry about us."

The lie came easily, practiced over months of similar conversations. 

There was no point in telling her about the training accidents, the close calls with All For One's remaining forces, the way One For All was slowly but steadily burning through his cellular structure. She had enough to worry about. 

He couldn’t tell her there was no way for anyone to stay safe in this place. No one was safe in Japan.

That’s why they had to keep going.

Banjo blew a kiss to his daughter, waved goodbye to Hanna, and ended the call before the longing in his chest could overwhelm his carefully maintained composure.

The office fell silent except for the hum of electronic equipment and the distant sounds of the city.

"Uncle," En said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of bad news. "There's something else. Our inside man in the Tyrant’s organisation just gave word that All For One is on the move again."

Banjo stared at the blank computer screen for a long moment, seeing Ami's smile reflected in the dark glass. Then he stood and reached into his jacket and pulled out a small photograph - the only physical picture he had left of his daughter and ex-wife, taken during happier times when his biggest worry was paying rent and making it to parent-teacher conferences.

He smiled at their happy faces, pressed a kiss to the photo and without hesitation - held the photograph over a nearby burner and watched the flames consume the faces he loved most.

"Can't risk them being traced back to us," he said simply, though his voice cracked slightly on the words.

En nodded understanding. In their line of work, love was a liability that enemies could exploit. The safest thing for the people they cared about was to erase any connection, any trace that might lead monsters to their doors.

It was what heroes did. What heroes sacrificed.

"Come on," Banjo said, standing and stretching muscles. "We've got work to do."

The makeshift scanner crackled to life as they prepared to leave, reports of an armed robbery in progress just six blocks away. Multiple hostages, suspects with military-grade weapons

Banjo grinned - the same bright, confident expression that had been appearing on posters and internet forums around the world as the symbol of what heroes should be.

"Perfect timing," he said, cracking his knuckles as One For All responded to his will. "Time to remind people what heroes are for."

They reached the scene in less than three minutes, Banjo's enhanced speed and Blackwhip making the journey across rooftops and through alleyways feel almost leisurely. The convenience store was overrun with criminals, innocent bystanders their hostages.

"Stay back and provide cover," he told En, who was already generating the purple smoke that would give them tactical advantages. "And remember what I've been teaching you about hero work."

"Keep smiling," En replied dutifully, though his expression remained as seriously focused as ever.

"That's my boy. Now let's go save some people."

Banjo charged into the bank with One For All blazing through his system like liquid lightning, ready to do what heroes did best.

Stand between the innocent and those who would harm them.

No matter the cost.

X

The past three months had been a delicate balancing act - maintaining the momentum of hope that had built during All For One's absence while preparing for the inevitable return of the monster that ruled from the shadows.

Banjo stood atop a overturned bus in downtown Tokyo, One For All crackling through his system as he addressed the crowd that had gathered to watch him single-handedly dismantle a trafficking operation. The criminals lay unconscious around him, their weapons scattered and broken, but it was the people's faces that mattered most.

They were listening. More than that - they were believing.

"This is what we can accomplish when we refuse to bow to fear!" he called out, his voice carrying easily across the plaza. "Every one of you has the power to be a hero! You don't need super strength or flying abilities - you just need the courage to stand up!"

In the crowd, he saw nods of agreement, phones recording his words, the kind of fired-up expressions that suggested his message was taking root. Later tonight, his speech would be circulating on every social media platform that hadn't been shut down by All For One's influence. By tomorrow, there would be new posters appearing on walls across the city - images of ordinary people helping their neighbors, with simple messages about the power of doing good.

It was working. Slowly, imperfectly, but working nonetheless.

The hero movement was spreading faster than any government could suppress it. Every act of public heroism inspired ten more. Every criminal defeated in broad daylight proved that the monsters weren't invincible. Every time someone chose to help instead of looking away, the world became a little brighter.

That night, Banjo sat on the edge of the office skyscraper with En, both of them still in costume despite the late hour. The city sprawled beneath them, lights twinkling like earthbound stars, and for a moment it was possible to imagine they were winning.

"Do you ever think it's all worthless?" En asked quietly, . "All this hero stuff, I mean. The world is shit, Uncle. The people living in it are shit. What's the point of trying to save something that's already rotten?"

Banjo looked at his nephew - really looked at him. En was nineteen now, had been fighting beside him for over a year, had seen more violence and cruelty than most people his age witnessed in a lifetime. The cynicism in his voice wasn't surprising, but it was heartbreaking nonetheless.

"The world's full of people with good hearts that fear has polluted," Banjo said firmly. "They're not shit, En. They're scared. And when you're scared, it's easy to make bad choices, to hurt others before they hurt you, to convince yourself that cruelty is just survival. You of all people know that."

He gestured toward the city below them, at the millions of lives carrying on in the darkness.

"They need others to show them that fear doesn't have to control them. That even when you're terrified - especially when you're terrified - there's more power in doing good than in doing harm."

"Is that why you always smile?" En asked. "Even when things are going to hell?"

Banjo's grin was automatic, so practised it had become second nature. "I don't hide from my fear, kid. I embrace it. Everyone's afraid of something - me included. But when people see me smiling in the face of danger, when they watch me laugh while taking down bad guys, it tells them something important."

"What's that?"

"That they can depend on me. That no matter how bad things get, there's still someone willing to stand between them and the darkness. And maybe, just maybe, they'll decide they can be that someone for somebody else."

En was quiet for a long moment, processing this philosophy that seemed so foreign to someone who had saturated his world with violence at such a young age.

"You're such a weirdo, Uncle."

Banjo laughed - genuinely laughed, the sound echoing across the rooftop. "Yeah, well, you're not exactly normal yourself, kid."

"I'm not a good kid," En said, his voice carrying the weight of self-doubt that came with adolescence and trauma in equal measure.

"You're wrong about that." Banjo reached over and ruffled his nephew's dark hair with obvious affection. "I know life's been rough on you, En. Rougher than anyone your age should have to handle. But you've stuck around this long, kept fighting beside me even when things got dangerous. You can't think this hero thing is all bad, or you wouldn't still be here."

En didn't respond directly, but he didn't pull away from the contact either. They sat in comfortable silence, uncle and nephew, watching over a city that was slowly learning to hope again.

X

The fool made it pathetically easy to find him.

Unlike the previous thieves  - Bruce Lee with his paranoid secrecy, Hikage Shinomori with his hermit's instincts - this latest Thief of One For All seemed determined to broadcast his location to anyone with eyes to see. Public speeches, dramatic rescues, his face plastered across every news outlet that dared to operate independently.

Lariat. The name itself was an insult - as if this pathetic creature thought he could somehow rope and tame the forces that shaped the world.

All For One hovered above the office building back in Shibuya where his surveillance network had tracked the hero's current base of operations. Seventeen stories of converted corporate space.

Through the windows of the seventh, he could see them clearly - the Thief and his small band of followers, gathered around what appeared to be a planning table covered with maps and intelligence reports. They were talking, laughing, displaying the kind of easy camaraderie that belonged to people who genuinely trusted each other.

Such touching comradeship. Such naïve faith in the bonds of friendship and shared purpose.

All For One's lip curled in disgust. 

They had no idea what was coming for them. No understanding that their precious hero movement was nothing more than an elaborate form of pest control, a way to draw out and eliminate the more troublesome elements of society.

The Thief himself stood at the centre of the group - tall, muscular, radiating the kind of confident energy that came from believing his own propaganda about heroism and justice. He was gesturing at something on the map, probably planning their next pointless gesture of defiance.

There was too much pride in this one. Too much self-assurance. Too much belief that he could somehow stand against forces beyond his comprehension.

All For One intended to crush every last bit of that pride before he reclaimed what was rightfully his.

His hands began to glow with accumulated power - dozens of Quirks working in concert, preparing to deliver devastation on a scale that would reduce the building and everyone in it to component atoms. No games this time, no elaborate traps or psychological manipulation.

Just overwhelming, decisive violence.

The kind of message that would remind the world why they had learned to fear him in the first place.

All For One drew back his arms and hurled twin projectiles of concentrated force through the building's windows, watching the reinforced glass explode inward like crystalline rain.

The age of heroes was about to come to a very abrupt end.

X

Glass exploded inward like a thousand crystal knives, and Banjo had perhaps half a second to process what was happening before adrenalin flooded his system with desperate energy.

Blackwhip erupted from his hand, dark tendrils wrapping around En's torso just as the wall behind his nephew disintegrated under the impact of something that hit like concentrated thunder. Banjo yanked hard, pulling En away from the killing zone as chunks of concrete and twisted metal filled the space where he'd been standing.

"Smokescreen! Now!" Banjo shouted, and En responded instantly despite his obvious disorientation, purple smoke billowing through the ruined office space in thick, choking clouds.

Around them, chaos reigned. The other heroes were already moving - years of training and preparation kicking in automatically as the building shuddered under repeated impacts. Someone was screaming orders, someone else was calling for evacuation routes, but all of it was background noise to the immediate crisis of keeping people alive.

A family of civilians - people they'd been sheltering  - huddled near what remained of the eastern wall, trapped as the floor beneath them cracked and tilted at dangerous angles. 

Banjo didn't hesitate, Blackwhip extending in multiple directions to brace the failing structure while they scrambled toward the emergency stairs.

"Go, go, go!" he called out, muscles straining as he held tons of failing architecture together through sheer force of will. "I've got you!"

The family made it to safety just as another impact shook the building, this one powerful enough to knock Banjo off his feet. Through the smoke and debris, he caught a glimpse of something impossible - a figure floating outside the shattered windows, silhouetted against the night sky like some nightmare made manifest.

All For One.

A beam of pure energy - brilliant gold and impossibly precise - carved through the building from top to bottom, bisecting the entire structure with surgical efficiency. 

The floor beneath Banjo's feet simply ceased to exist, leaving him falling through open air with nothing but empty space between him and the concrete seven stories below.

Blackwhip lashed out instinctively, seeking any anchor point that might arrest his fall. But the energy beam had been perfectly aimed - it caught his right arm at the elbow, severing tendon and bone with the clean efficiency of a guillotine blade.

Agony exploded up his arm, but there was no time to react. No time to react. He was falling and nothing to stop him. He was breaking his promise to Hanna - to Ami -

Not even in some heroic last stand, not saving innocent lives or delivering inspiring final words. Just falling through darkness while his blood painted abstract patterns in the air around him.

Only he stopped falling.

The descent simply ... halted. 

Banjo hung suspended in midair twenty feet above the ground, unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to breathe as some invisible force held him like an insect trapped in amber.

Slow, mocking applause echoed through the ruins of the building.
"Magnificent," a cultured voice observed with the casual tone of someone commenting on the weather. "Truly, a performance worthy of the grand stage."

All For One descended from the night sky with languid grace, his form becoming clearer as he approached. Tall, imposing, dressed in an expensive suit that hadn't acquired so much as a wrinkle despite the violence he'd just unleashed. 

"Tell me, Lariat," the monster continued, settling onto the rubble-strewn ground with practised elegance, "do you feel heroic now? Do you sense victory approaching? Or perhaps you're beginning to understand the difference between comic book fantasies and actual power?"

Banjo tried to respond, tried to summon some defiant quip or inspiring declaration, but the force holding him allowed for no movement beyond the basic functions of breathing and blinking.

All For One circled him slowly, like a predator savouring the moment before the kill.

"You're all the same, you know. Every last one of you pathetic thieves and your delusions of grandeur. Small-minded children playing dress-up, convinced that colourful costumes and righteous speeches can somehow triumph over the fundamental realities of existence."

He laughed - a sound like breaking glass wrapped in silk.

"Heroes. Heroes! Do you have any idea how utterly childish this entire charade has become? You parade around in capes, striking dramatic poses, spouting dialogue that belongs in Saturday morning cartoons. As if life were some silly comic book where good always triumphs and justice always prevails."

The monster paused directly in front of Banjo, close enough that his presence felt suffocating.

"I wonder - do you even know what you've stolen from me? Do you understand the true nature of the power you carry so carelessly? No, of course not. You're just another vessel, another temporary inconvenience standing between me and what rightfully belongs to me."

All For One raised his hand and Banjo was forced upright, still suspended as fingers extended toward his forehead.

"But no matter. It will be returned to me now. After decades of searching, after countless delays and frustrations, One For All will finally come home where it belongs."

His palm settled against Banjo's skin, and immediately the world exploded into sensation. Not pain - though there was pain - but something deeper and more fundamental. 

The feeling of being unmade at the cellular level, of having the very essence of who he was pulled apart thread by thread.

One For All responded to the intrusion like a living thing, power surging through Banjo's system in ways that felt both protective and violent. He could sense the previous holders - distant presences stirring to wakefulness as their shared strength was threatened.

"Come to me, little brother," All For One whispered, his voice thick with starving anticipation. "Come home at last."

But something shifted.

Instead of One For All flowing out of Banjo and into its would-be thief, both men suddenly found themselves caught in a tide of energy that pulled in an entirely different direction. Not toward All For One, but inward - into the heart of the power itself, into spaces that existed between thought and reality.

The last thing Banjo saw before the world dissolved around him was All For One's expression of shocked confusion, the supreme confidence bleeding from his face in a way that made him startlingly  human.

X

“Yoichi -”

“I know, Kudo …”

Yoichi felt it as he felt the very essence of all he’d once been.

“He’s here.”

Chapter Text

Strange …

He had not expected this.

All For One pressed Lariat's head against ground that shouldn't exist, feeling the satisfying crunch of cartilage against his palm while the Thief struggled uselessly beneath him. 

Around them stretched an impossible space - not darkness, not light, but something that existed in the gap between concepts, where physics bent to accommodate powers that defied rational explanation.

The Thief flailed under his grip, trying to break free through sheer desperation, but mortal strength meant nothing here. All For One was the apex predator, the force that had reshaped reality according to his will for decades. A few dead echoes and their stolen power would not change that fundamental truth.

"It's too late to hide, Yoichi," he called out to the emptiness. "I've found you at last. This cultivated power, this pathetic attempt at preservation, cannot stop what was always inevitable. Even this little sanctuary you've built can't protect you any longer."

Silence answered him, vast and mocking.

All For One increased the pressure against Lariat's skull, feeling bone begin to give way.

The ground split.

Not cracked or fractured, but split - a perfect line that separated him from his captive as if the space itself had decided to intervene. Lariat tumbled away across the impossible surface, while All For One found himself isolated on the other side of a chasm that hadn't existed moments before.

A figure materialized between them.

Tall, lean, with the kind of weathered that came from years of self-imposed exile. Light hair streaked with premature gray, eyes that held depths of hard-won wisdom. He stood with quiet confidence, arms at his sides, facing All For One as if death were merely an inconvenience rather than an ending.

Hikage Shinomori. The Hermit. The coward who had hidden in mountains for eighteen years rather than face his destiny.

"Defiance," All For One observed with something approaching amusement. "Even now, even as nothing more than an echo in stolen power, you think you can stand against me?"

Shinomori said nothing, but his presence solidified, becoming more real, more substantial. A barrier of pure will given form and weight.

All For One's lip curled in disgust. "Dead souls believing they can beat me. How utterly pathetic."

He struck without warning, power erupting from his hands in waves of concentrated destruction. The attack hit Shinomori's barrier like a tsunami meeting a seawall, energy cascading in all directions as it sought ways around the Hermit's defences.

The barrier buckled but held.

For now.

"Stubborn to the end," All For One sneered, pressing harder, watching cracks begin to form in Shinomori's protective field. "But stubbornness means nothing against overwhelming force. You learned that lesson once before, didn't you? When you died alone and forgotten while I claimed everything you thought you were protecting?"

The barrier wavered, and All For One could taste victory approaching like wine on his tongue. Each crack in Shinomori's defenses was proof of what he had always known - that resistance was ultimately futile, that power would always triumph over idealism, that -

Another figure stepped forward.

This one was  broader, with the bearing of someone who had spent their life fighting losing battles. Intelligent eyes, that infernal military style clothing, hands scarred by years of desperate work in service of impossible causes.

Bruce Lee. The researcher. The fool who had thrown his life away in Hong Kong's burning streets rather than surrender what was never his to keep.

The invisible force that had been pressing against Shinomori's barrier suddenly reversed, pushing All For One backward with enough strength to make him stagger. He braced himself, feet digging furrows in the non-ground, and pushed forward again with redoubled effort.

The combined will of two dead Thieves was stronger than one, but it was still nothing compared to his accumulated might. All For One pressed against their shared barrier, watching Bruce's face tighten with strain as the force of his assault began to tell.

"Two against one?" he called out mockingly. "How very heroic of you. Tell me, Bruce - was it worth it? All that sacrifice, all that noble suffering, just to delay the inevitable by a few more years?"

Bruce's barrier joined with Shinomori's, both men straining against the tide of malevolent power that sought to sweep them aside. But they were holding. Barely, but holding nonetheless.

That's when he came.

That's when the third figure placed himself at the front of the line, stepping between Bruce and the force that sought to destroy them all. That ever-persistent thorn, that parasite who had started this entire chain of theft and rebellion

Nineteen years after his death, here he stood again.

Red hair, scarred face, eyes that blazed with unrepentant fury even in death.

Toshitsugu Kudō.

That plague. That constant thorn in his side was here before him, defiant as ever

Yet as All For One regarded the pathetic ingrate who had stolen from him in ways no one ever had before, he found... nothing. None surge of consuming rage which had pulverised the ingrate. There was desire to tear the spectre apart with his bare hands, but no echo of the fury that had driven him to such extremes all those years ago.

He had moved past such childish spite, it seemed. How remarkably mature of him.

"Valiant knights," he sneered, looking at the three figures arrayed against him. "Still protecting my dear little brother even in death. Tell me - does it shame you that he remains too weak and afraid to face me himself? That after all this time, Yoichi still needs others to fight his battles?"

Kudō's response was immediate and predictably insolent. "Wrong as always, All For One. The power we're using to keep you at bay is only a fraction of what One For All can truly accomplish."

He smirked ever so slightly - that smirk. That damned infernal -

"Its greatest capacity lies with him."

…

And there he was.

At long last. 

Yoichi appeared before Kudō like dawn breaking over a battlefield - small and fragile-looking, still possessed of that bird-like delicacy that had defined him since birth.

 But his eyes... his eyes burned with the same fierce defiance that had plagued All For One from the moment his twin had first learned to speak the word "no."

His Yoichi.

Those green eyes - so familiar they made something twist in All For One's chest - looked directly at him with the same defiance that had plagued their relationship from the moment of their birth. But there was something else there now, something that hadn't been present during their final confrontation in those tunnels so many years ago.

Sadness. Deep, profound sadness.
                                 
"Brother … you've become so empty," Yoichi said quietly, his voice carrying across the impossible distance between them. "I can see it in you. The hollowness where your heart used to be."

The words struck All For One like a physical blow. 

Empty? Him? He was fuller than he had ever been - gorged on stolen power, commanding abilities that spanned continents, ruling an empire that stretched across multiple nations. He who had accumulated more power than any being in human history, who had reshaped entire continents according to his will, who commanded fear and respect from every corner of the globe?

How dare Yoichi suggest -

"Such weak tricks," All For One snarled, pushing down the unwelcome sensation that had risen in response to his brother's words. "All you're doing is delaying the inevitable. Do you have any idea how many people have died because you refused to stay where you belonged? How much suffering could have been avoided if you had simply accepted your place at my side?"

He gathered his power, drawing on reserves that dwarfed nations, and pulled.

The other wielders staggered under the assault, their forms flickering as the force threatened to tear them apart. But Yoichi - fragile, impossible Yoichi - stood steadfast against the tide with nothing more than a grimace of pain and those fierce, uncompromising eyes.

"I'm sorry," Yoichi said, and the genuine regret in his voice sent fresh spikes of irritation through All For One's system. "I'm sorry for what you are. For what you've become. For the monster that my brother chose to be."

Pity. He was offering pity, as if All For One were some pathetic creature deserving of sympathy rather than the apex predator who had reshaped the world according to his will.

All For One redoubled his efforts, pouring more force into his assault. The very fabric of this place began to strain under the pressure, reality bending like heated metal as he demanded compliance from power that had been stolen from him.

"This defiance ends now, Yoichi," he commanded, his voice carrying the authority of divine will. "You will return to where you belong. You will stop this foolish resistance."

But Yoichi's expression didn't change. If anything, his resolve seemed to strengthen, fed by some inner fire that no amount of force could extinguish.

"This power was born from defiance," Yoichi said simply, his words cutting through All For One's assault like a blade through silk. "Born from the will to resist you specifically. You cannot take it by force, brother. No matter how much strength you've accumulated, no matter how many abilities you've stolen - One For All will never bow to your will."

"I can take anything I choose to take!"

"No," Yoichi said simply. "You can't."

The denial - spoken with such quiet certainty - sent All For One's rage spiralling beyond reason. If he couldn't claim One For All directly, then he would destroy these pathetic vestiges one by one until Yoichi had no choice but to surrender.

He focused his attack on Lariat specifically, power coiling around the living Thief like invisible chains. "Then I'll wipe each of them from existence," he snarled, dragging the man toward him despite the vestiges' attempts at protection. "Starting with this insignificant pest!"

Hands seized him from behind.

Shinomori's grip closed around his shoulder while Bruce grabbed his free arm. Then Kudō's arms wrapped around his throat in a headlock, all three vestiges working together to physically restrain him.

"You really think -" All For One began, preparing to incinerate all of them simultaneously.

That's when Yoichi moved.

His brother appeared at Lariat's side with speed that defied physics, small fingers closing around All For One's wrist with impossible strength. 

With a twist that sent shockwaves through the vestige space, Yoichi flung All For One's hand away from his intended victim.

Then Yoichi's palm pressed against All For One's chest, and power erupted between them - not the stolen abilities that had defined All For One's existence, but something pure and fundamental and utterly immovable.

The force of rejection was absolute. All For One felt himself being expelled from One For All like a virus being purged from a healthy system, reality warping around him as he was flung back through dimensions that shouldn't exist.

He collided with familiar ground - concrete and steel and the night air of the world he would conquered. The building around him was ruins, the battle long over, but he was alone now.

Alone, and still empty-handed.

Shocked. That was the only word that adequately described the sensation coursing through All For One's system as he pulled himself from the crater his impact had created.

One For All had rejected him. Not simply resisted - rejected. Cast him out like a foreign infection, like something fundamentally incompatible with its nature. as if he were some common parasite rather than its rightful master.

The audacity was staggering. That his own brother's power would dare to deny him, would choose Thieves and pretenders over its rightful master.

As if Yoichi had chosen those pathetic Thieves over his own brother.

Again.

It was inconceivable. And yet it had happened.

He stumbled slightly as he stood, catching himself against a piece of twisted rebar. His body ached in ways that felt disturbingly familiar - actual pain, actual weakness, as if the encounter in that impossible space had somehow injured him in ways his regeneration couldn't immediately address.

Ludicrous. He was All For One. He didn't get hurt by stolen powers and dead idealists.

And yet ...

Movement caught his attention. That fool Lariat was already on his feet, his remaining hand crackling with the dark energy of Blackwhip as he prepared for another round of their dance. The Thief's face was set in lines of grim determination, blood streaming from a dozen minor wounds but his spirit apparently unbroken.

Pathetic. But instructive.

All For One's mind raced through possibilities with the cold precision of a master strategist. Killing Lariat outright was no longer an option - not if One For All would simply pass to another unworthy successor. But breaking him... that held more promise.

"Had enough already?" Lariat's voice cut through his introspection, rough but defiant. The Thief was already back on his feet despite everything he'd endured, Blackwhip tendrils emerging from his remaining hand to lash toward All For One with desperate aggression.

Killing Lariat was still not an option. Clearly, One For All couldn't be taken by force, couldn't be seized through overwhelming power or superior will. At least not at this moment. But perhaps it could be surrendered willingly, given up by a wielder who had been broken so completely that death seemed preferable to continued existence.

All For One dodged the incoming whips with casual grace, his body moving on instinct even as his mind calculated new strategies. Lariat didn't need all of his limbs to eventually capitulate. He was already missing a hand - he wouldn't miss his legs. Or his spine.

"You know," All For One said conversationally, weaving between the increasingly desperate attacks, "I've been thinking about our little encounter just now. How presumptuous it was of you to believe that power could protect what you care about."

Blackwhip snapped toward his head; he caught it barehanded and used it to yank Lariat closer.

"Tell me, do you have family? Friends? Loved ones tucked away somewhere, believing themselves safe from the consequences of your heroic delusions?"

Lariat's eyes flashed with something beyond mere defiance - fear, quickly suppressed but unmistakably present.

Excellent.

"I'm going to find them," All For One continued, his voice taking on the pleasant tone of someone discussing vacation plans. "Every last person who has ever mattered to you. And I'm going to break them slowly, methodically, while you watch. I'll make you understand that your heroic posturing has consequences for more than just yourself."

The Thief's response was predictably violent - a surge of power that sent Blackwhip whipping around All For One in increasingly complex patterns. But rage made him sloppy, and All For One had decades of experience turning emotion into weakness.

A spike of hardened air punched through Lariat's left leg, just above the knee. The man went down hard, crying out as bone and muscle parted company with surgical precision.

"That's a start," All For One observed, approaching the downed hero with measured steps. "Though I think we can do better. After all, you won't need your legs where you're going."

Something slammed into his back with surprising force - the smoke - generating boy, Smoke-Eater, clinging to his shoulders like some sort of desperate monkey. Purple haze began billowing from the young man's body, obscuring vision and providing tactical cover.

Smokescreen. A useful ability, if unrefined. All For One would have to steal it.

He reached behind himself, fingers seeking the boy's throat, but Blackwhip wrapped around Smoke-Eater's waist and yanked him away before All For One could make contact. Worse, the tendrils continued their motion, pulling a section of unstable wall down on top of him in a cascade of brick and mortar.

All For One emerged from the debris unharmed but annoyed, brushing dust from his hair as he watched the two thieves limp away through the smoke. Lariat was supporting his protégé, both of them moving with the desperate efficiency of people who knew they were outmatched but refused to surrender.

How touching. 

How utterly pointless.

He began walking after them, his pace deliberately unhurried. There was no escape from this district - he'd made sure of that before beginning his assault. And injured as Lariat was, they wouldn't get far.

X

Banjo ducked into the narrow alley between two abandoned buildings, his damaged leg screaming protest with every step. 

Blood loss was making him dizzy, and whatever had happened in that impossible space - that confrontation with All For One in the heart of One For All itself - had left him feeling completely drained.

He wouldn't get far like this. Not with a severed hand, a punctured leg, and exhaustion that felt like it had settled into his very bones.

Which meant there was only one choice left to make.

En returned from scouting their potential escape route, purple smoke still wisping around his shoulders from the adrenaline of their narrow getaway. His young face was tight with worry and determination, the kind of expression that belonged on someone much older.

"I found a path," he said urgently, gesturing toward the fire escapes that zigzagged up the building walls. "With Blackwhip, we can hoist ourselves to the rooftops and get away before -"

He stopped talking when he turned to see Banjo leaning against the brick wall, making sure he was grinning that same bright smile he'd worn through every crisis they'd faced together. 

In his remaining hand, Banjo held several strands of his own hair, dark and slightly damp with sweat.

"Eat this," Banjo said simply, extending the hair toward his nephew.

En stared at him as if he'd completely lost his mind. "What?"

"I'm not risking you getting an infection from blood exchange," Banjo explained matter-of-factly. "Hair's safer to ingest. Cleaner transfer."

"Uncle, what are you -" Understanding dawned in En's eyes, followed immediately by horror. "No. No, absolutely not."

"En -"

"No! You don't need to pass it on!" En's voice cracked with desperation. "We can both get out of here! I'll help you, I'll carry you if I have to, but you don't need to -"

"Kid." Banjo's voice was gentle but firm. "Look at me. Really look."

En's gaze took in the blood pooling beneath Banjo's leg, the way his uncle's breathing had become shallow and laboured, the pallor that spoke of significant blood loss. The reality of the situation settled over them both like a shroud.

"With these injuries, I'll slow you down," Banjo continued quietly. "And that monster isn't going to give up. He'll keep coming, keep hunting, until one of us is dead and the other is broken beyond repair."

"Then we fight him together!" En stepped forward, his hands beginning to generate smoke as his emotions spiked. "We don't give up, we don't run, we -"

"We make sure One For All survives," Banjo interrupted, his smile never wavering even as his voice took on an edge of command that brooked no argument. "That's what heroes do, En. We make the hard choices so others don't have to."

He held out the strands of hair again, and this time there was no mistaking the finality in the gesture.

En tried to back away, shaking his head violently. "I won't. I won't take it. You can't make me-"

But Banjo was faster than his injuries suggested he should be, his remaining hand shooting out to grab En's wrist and pull him close. With movements born of desperation and love, he forced the hair between his nephew's lips, covering En's mouth until the young man had no choice but to swallow.

En struggled, tried to spit it out, clawed at his own throat as if he could somehow reverse what had just happened. But they both knew it was too late. The transfer was already beginning, One For All recognizing its new host and starting the slow process of adaptation.

"You have no choice but to live now," Banjo said softly, releasing his hold on his nephew. "So live, En. Live and carry this forward for all of us."

En hit him - weakly, without real force, more expression of grief than anger. 

"I hate you," he whispered, but the words carried no venom. Only heartbreak.

"I know, kid. I know." Banjo's smile was sadder now, tinged with the weight of what he was asking. "Now go. Get out of here before he -"

"No." En's voice was flat, absolute. "I'm not leaving you behind."

"En -" Banjo reached forward, taking En’s arms and pushing him back to safety. But Banjo’s strength was failing and En’s wasn’t. The kid pushed back, digging his boots into the sodden ground.

"No!" The word echoed off the alley walls, carrying eighteen years of accumulated stubbornness and familial loyalty. "I don't care what you say, I don't care about the logic, I'm not leaving you here to die!"

"You have to." Banjo continued to try physically push his nephew away. "En, you have to go. I promised your mom I’d keep put you on the right path. And with One For All -"

"I don't care about One For All!" En grabbed his uncle's jacket, trying to pull him upright despite Banjo's dead weight. "You can’t do this to me - you can’t bring me into this and then abandon me like this - you can’t -"

But Banjo was equally as immovable. 

"The more you tell me to go, the more I'm going to resist," En said through gritted teeth, still trying futilely to lift his uncle. "So stop wasting time and let me help you!"

Banjo watched his nephew struggle, watched the determination and denial war across his young face, and felt his heart break in ways that had nothing to do with physical injury.

En was a good kid. Had always been a good kid, even when life had been cruel to him, even when the world had told him to be otherwise. He deserved better than this choice, better than being forced to choose between his family and his duty.

But heroes didn't get to choose their burdens.

En finally collapsed to his knees, his hands clutching at his uncle's jacket as if he could somehow anchor him to life through will alone. His shoulders shook with sobs he'd been holding back, the composure of the past few minutes finally cracking under the weight of impending loss.

"Please," he whispered, the word barely audible through his tears. "Please don't leave me alone. I can't do this without you. I can’t be a hero without you."

Banjo reached out with his remaining hand, resting it gently on En's head in a gesture that had comforted his nephew through countless childhood nightmares and adolescent crises.

"You're a good kid, En," he said softly, his voice thick with pride and love and the terrible sadness of goodbyes. "The best kid anyone could ask for.“

The words hung in the air between them, a benediction and a promise and a final gift from uncle to nephew.

That's when the world exploded around them.

The buildings on either side of the alley simply ... ceased. Vaporized by force that turned brick and steel into component atoms, leaving them exposed under the open sky like insects under a magnifying glass.

All For One descended from the darkness above, his form silhouetted against the stars like some nightmare made manifest. His voice carried easily across the ruins of their hiding place, cultured and calm and utterly without mercy.

"How touching," he observed, landing gracefully among the debris. "A family reunion in the face of certain death. How very ... heroic."

All For One moved like lightning made flesh, crossing the distance between them in the space of a heartbeat. 

Banjo had perhaps half a second to react - just enough time to snap Blackwhip around En's waist and hurl his nephew away from the impact zone with every ounce of strength he had left.

En tumbled across the debris field, his body bouncing off chunks of concrete and twisted metal before coming to rest behind the ruins of what had once been a storefront. Safe, for the moment. Far enough away that maybe - just maybe - he could escape when the opportunity presented itself.

All For One's hand closed around Banjo's throat like a vice, lifting him from the ground with casual ease before slamming him down onto the rubble-strewn pavement hard enough to crack ribs.

The impact drove the air from Banjo's lungs, but he managed to keep that trademark grin fixed on his face even as stars exploded across his vision.

Then came the pulling sensation - that awful, invasive feeling of All For One's Quirk reaching into his cells, seeking to tear away the power that defined him. Banjo felt the monster's ability probe deeper, searching frantically for One For All, only to find ...

Nothing.

All For One's grip loosened slightly, his head tilting as confusion replaced certainty. When he spoke, his cultured voice carried a note of genuine surprise.

"I see - it seems you've already passed it along."

His head turned slowly toward where En was struggling to his feet, purple smoke beginning to wisp around the young man's shoulders as his emotions spiked. All For One's attention fixed on him like a predator spotting wounded prey.

"Ah, there it is," the monster murmured with satisfaction. "Still warm, still fresh inside its new host."

All For One's grip on Banjo's throat tightened again, but his voice remained conversational as he called out to En.

"Young man! I believe we have something to discuss. Your mentor here is in rather dire straits. But that doesn't have to be permanent."

En had managed to stand, blood running from a cut on his forehead, his stance unsteady but defiant. The sight of his nephew - battered but unbroken, afraid but still standing - filled Banjo with a pride so fierce it temporarily overshadowed the pain.

"I'll make you a simple offer," All For One continued pleasantly. "Surrender One For All willingly, and I'll let you both live. My quarrel isn't really with either of you, after all. You're just caught up in circumstances beyond your control. And you're so young - your whole life is ahead of you. Why throw it away for a power you never asked for?"

"Go to hell," En snarled, smoke billowing around him in thick clouds.

Banjo's grin widened despite the crushing pressure on his windpipe. That's my boy.

"How disappointing," All For One sighed. 

Banjo tried to summon Blackwhip from his remaining hand - to maybe create enough confusion for En to escape. The dark tendrils began to emerge, weak but functional.

All For One's polished shoe came down on his hand with surgical precision, bones snapping like dry twigs under the pressure. Banjo's yell tore through the night air, but even that couldn't completely erase his smile.

"En," he gasped out through gritted teeth, "go. Be a true hero. Gather others, fight on. Show them - show them what hope looks like."

"How awful of you to put such a young man in this position," All For One observed, releasing his grip on Banjo's throat. "He's barely more than a child. The weight of such responsibility will crush someone his age."

The monster stepped back, spreading his arms in a gesture of theatrical reasonableness.
"Perhaps we should test this new wielder's resolve. See exactly how much suffering he's willing to watch before wisdom overcomes youthful pride."

"En," Banjo called out, forcing his voice to carry despite the pain radiating from his crushed hand. "Remember what I taught you. You have to keep smiling. You have to keep living. So go -"

All For One gestured casually, and a chunk of concrete the size of a small car lifted from the debris field. He held it suspended above Banjo's legs for a moment, letting the threat sink in.

"One For All," he said to En, simply. "Now."

"Don't," Banjo ordered, his voice sharp with command. "En, don't you dare -"

The concrete dropped.

The impact was devastating - bones shattering, muscles tearing, nerves screaming as his left leg was crushed beyond any hope of repair. 

But Banjo kept smiling, kept his eyes fixed on his nephew's horrified face.

"Still nothing?" All For One asked with mock disappointment. "How remarkably callous of you, young man. Here I thought idols meant something to your generation."

Another piece of rubble rose into the air - larger this time, jagged edges that promised even more comprehensive destruction.

"En, run!" Banjo shouted, his voice breaking with pain and desperation. "Run right now!"

The second impact crushed his pelvis, and this time Banjo couldn't completely suppress the cry that tore from his throat. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges, but he forced himself to stay conscious. Had to stay awake long enough to see En escape, to know that he and One For All would survive.

Movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. En was pulling something from his jacket - a knife, its blade glinting in the moonlight. The young man's face was set with the kind of desperate determination that Banjo recognized from a mirror.

No. No, you can't fight him. You're not ready.

En began running toward them, knife raised, smoke billowing around him like a war banner. It was brave. It was heroic. It was absolutely, suicidally stupid.

Banjo reached deep inside himself, past the pain and the crushing weakness, past the reality of his own approaching death, and found one last reservoir of strength. His broken hand moved almost without conscious direction, Blackwhip emerging in a final, desperate manifestation.

The dark tendrils wrapped around En's waist just as the young man reached the halfway point between them. With every ounce of power he had left - with strength born of love and desperation and the absolute refusal to watch his nephew die - Banjo hurled En high into the air, sending him flying over the ruins and far beyond All For One's immediate reach.

"Keep smiling!" he called out as En disappeared into the distance, his voice carrying across the devastated landscape like a final benediction. "Keep smiling, you hear me?"

Those pale, dead eyes turned back to him. 

All For One stood silhouetted against the stars, no longer pretending at civility or reasonable negotiation. His hand rose slowly, deliberately, and more rubble lifted from the ground - massive chunks of concrete and steel that would leave nothing recognizable behind.

"Such dedication," the monster observed with something that might have been respect. "Such pointless, wasteful dedication."

Banjo looked up at the approaching death and managed to smile one last time - not the practised grin of a public hero, but something softer, more genuine. A smile full of love and pride and the absolute certainty that he had made the right choice.

His last thoughts weren't of One For All or the fate of the world or the legacy he was leaving behind.

He thought of Ami's laugh when he'd made funny faces during their video call. Of her stuffed dinosaur and her birthday cake and the way she'd called him Daddy with such pure, uncomplicated love.

He thought of En - stubborn, serious En who had followed him into this impossible life despite having every reason to choose safety instead. En, who would carry One For All forward and show the world what real heroism looked like.

Both of his children. Both safe. Both loved.

Chapter Text

En was fourteen when he'd first started running with gangs, drawn by the promise of easy money and easier violence. The world was shit, people were shit, and if you weren't taking what you wanted then someone else was taking it from you. Simple mathematics.

At sixteen, he'd been arrested for vandalism - spray-painting obscenities across a government building while high on whatever pills Kazuki had been pushing that week. The cops had beaten him bloody during the arrest, and En had smiled through broken teeth because at least pain was something real in a world that felt increasingly hollow.

Nothing mattered. Nothing had ever mattered. The world was a rotting corpse shambling toward inevitable collapse, and the only sensible response was to accelerate the process.

The taste of blood had been metallic and familiar, coating En's tongue as he spat it onto the concrete. 

"You think you're tough?" The older gang member - Sasaki, maybe, or was it Tanaka? - grabbed En's jacket, pulling him close enough that the stench of cheap cigarettes was overwhelming. "You think this is a game, kid?"

En headbutted the bastard. Pain was just another kind of nothing, and nothing was all the world had to offer anyway. At least when he was fighting, when he was running from police sirens and spray-painting obscenities on government buildings, the crushing weight of existence felt momentarily lighter.

What was the point of anything else?

X

En closed the video app on his phone, Uncle Diagoro's younger face frozen mid-grin on the black screen. 

Eight years old, that footage. Banjo getting the absolute hell beaten out of him by three men twice his size, but still throwing himself between them and some terrified shop owner who couldn't afford their protection fees.

He'd been so stupid back then. So recklessly, impossibly optimistic.

En missed him with an ache that never quite faded.

The rooftop was quiet except for the distant hum of the city below. Twenty-five years old now, and En could count on one hand the number of nights he'd slept in the same place twice. Two years since Banjo died. Two years since that crushing weight of One For All had settled into his cells like lead in his bones.

Two years since he'd been unable to retrieve his uncle's body from the rubble.

Aunt Hanna deserved better than that. Deserved to have somewhere to lay flowers, somewhere to bring Ami when she was old enough to understand. But going home - even if he wasn't carrying the power that painted a target on anyone who got too close - meant facing questions he couldn't answer. Meant explaining why he'd left uncle Daigoro behind.

‘Keep smiling.’ Banjo's last words, shouted across a battlefield as Blackwhip hurled En to safety. The memory still made his chest tight.

En had never been good at smiling. Not like his uncle, whose grin could light up rooms and convince people that maybe the world wasn't completely broken. But he'd found other ways to honour what Banjo had died for.

"Boss." Gran Torino's voice drifted up from the fire escape below. "We're ready."

En pocketed his phone and dropped through the purple haze of his own making, landing silently beside the younger man. Sorahiko Torino - twenty-three years old, quick as lightning, stubborn as hell. He'd lost his parents to one of All For One's "demonstrations" and had been looking for a way to hit back ever since.

"Target's confirmed," Kenji Shimura said quietly, adjusting the scope on his rifle. Best shot En had ever seen, and Torino's closest friend since childhood. "Three floors up, northwest corner. They've got civilians."

Three others rounded out their team - Yuki with her barrier generation, old Matsuda whose enhanced hearing could track a whisper through concrete, and Sato, barely nineteen but faster than anyone had a right to be. 

En studied the building through the scope Shimura offered. Standard kidnapping operation - All For One's people grabbing leverage against some government official who'd grown a spine. Nothing they hadn't handled before.

"Insertion points?" he asked.

"Fire escape on the east side," Torino said. "Matsuda's hearing four hostiles, maybe five. Yuki can box them in while Sato and I handle extraction."

"And if they rabbit?"

"Smoke and mirrors," Shimura said with something that might have been humour. "What you do best."

En nodded. Simple plan. Get in fast, save who they could, disappear before anyone could track them back to whatever hole they were calling home this week. Like smoke - there one moment, gone the next.

It wasn't the kind of heroism that made headlines or inspired movements. Wasn't the grand gestures that Banjo had specialized in, the public stands that rallied people to believe in something better.

But it was what they could do. 

The city spread out below them, millions of lights that represented millions of lives. Most of them would never know that six people on a rooftop were about to risk everything for the sake of strangers. Most of them would never need to know.

En pulled his collar higher, purple smoke beginning to curl around the team as they prepared to drop into darkness.
Maybe he couldn't smile the way his uncle had. Maybe he'd never be the kind of hero who changed the world with speeches and dramatic gestures.

But he could be smoke in the night. Could be the thing that appeared when people needed help and vanished before the monsters could follow.

X

The juvenile facility's visiting room smelled of industrial disinfectant and broken dreams. 

En sat across from his uncle, studying the man's face for some sign of judgement or disappointment. After six months of these weekly visits, he still couldn't read Daigoro's expressions.

"Your mother thinks it might be good for you to stay with me when you get out next week," his uncle said carefully, hands folded on the scratched plastic table between them. "Change of scenery, you know? Maybe see a different side of the world."

En's laugh was bitter. "What world is that? The one where you dress up in a costume and pretend beating up criminals makes a difference?"

"The one where people still try to help each other," Daigoro replied quietly. "Even when it seems pointless."

"Especially when it's pointless." En leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Mom's worried I'll try again, isn't she?"

His uncle's silence was answer enough.

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" En continued. "It's either live with Uncle Hero or back to the group home. Could always jump into traffic this time, but knowing my luck I’d probably just end up in here."

"There's always a choice, En. A way to appreciate life. That's what I' want to show you."

"And if I choose to stay fucked up and angry?"

Uncle Daigoro's grin was sudden and somehow reassuring. "Then at least you can be fucked up and angry while learning to throw a proper punch. The kids you were fighting in those gangs - they had no idea what they were doing."

Despite himself, En almost smiled. Almost.

Wasn’t enough though.

X

Purple smoke billowed thick and choking as En threw himself sideways, Smokescreen erupting from every pore as All For One's latest attack carved through the space where he'd been standing. 

The basement hideout - their carefully chosen safe house, three levels underground with multiple escape routes - crumbled around them like a house of cards in a hurricane.

Stupid to trust that broker. Stupid to think they could buy information without consequences. It hadn't even been an hour since the meet when All For One tore through their defences like they were tissue paper

"Move!" En shouted, though the word was lost in the thunder of collapsing concrete. His smoke provided cover, but cover meant nothing against an enemy who could level buildings with a thought.

Yuki's barriers shattered under the assault. Matsuda was already down, his enhanced hearing no match for the simple reality of overwhelming force. Sato darted between falling debris with desperate speed, trying to reach the emergency exit that might no longer exist.

En saw Kenji raise his rifle, saw him sight down the scope with the calm precision that had saved them a dozen times before. Saw All For One turn those pale, terrible eyes toward his friend.

The Decay spread faster than understanding. Kenji's weapon crumbled first, then his hands, then his arms, dissolution racing through his body like a cancer of entropy. He had time for one last look - not fear, just the quiet acceptance of someone who'd always known this was how it would end.

Then he was dust, scattered on the wind of collapsing masonry.

En felt the familiar weight close around his throat, lifting him from the ground with effortless strength. All For One's grip was iron and certainty, cutting off air and hope in equal measure.

The pulling sensation began immediately - that invasive, nauseating feeling of having his very essence torn apart at the cellular level. One For All reacted like a living thing, power surging through his system in violent rejection of the theft.

But this time was different. Stronger. All For One had learned from his previous failures, refined his technique, brought more force to bear against the resistance.

En fought back anyway. Not because he thought he could win, but because Banjo's voice echoed in his memory, telling him to keep living, keep fighting, keep believing that maybe the world was worth saving after all.

One For All pulsed in harmony with his defiance, and together they pushed against the invasion. The power rejected All For One's claim with the force of accumulated righteousness, sending both of them tumbling back away from one another. 

En crashed into the ruins of their hideout, ribs cracking against twisted rebar, while All For One merely adjusted his position in the air with fluid grace.

"Fascinating, so it wasn’t unique to you mentor," the monster murmured, then reached down and grabbed En by the throat again. "But ultimately pointless."

They rose into the night sky, En in All For One’s tight grip as they flew above the city. Tokyo spread below them like a circuit board of lights and shadows. En's struggling was useless against the monster’s bulk and All For One seemed content to let him tire himself out, confident in his eventual victory.

That's when something  fast slammed into the bastard's side with the force of a cannonball.

Gran Torino materialized out of the darkness, his Jet Quirk allowing him to ricochet between buildings like a pinball with lethal intent. The impact wasn't enough to seriously damage All For One, but it was enough to break his grip.

En fell, Smokescreen erupting around him as Gran Torino caught him mid-descent. They bounced off a fire escape, ricocheted between two walls, and disappeared into the maze of alleyways that threaded through the district like veins.

Behind them, All For One's roar of frustration echoed off the buildings, but they were already gone - smoke and mirrors vanishing into the urban labyrinth.

They didn't stop moving until they reached the backup rendezvous, three districts away and six stories underground. En collapsed against a concrete wall, his body finally acknowledging the damage it had sustained. Purple smoke continued to wisp from his skin, his Quirk responding to stress and trauma in ways he couldn't quite control.

"Kenji?" Gran Torino asked quietly.

En shook his head, not trusting his voice.

Another body to add to the pile. Another friend lost in a war that seemed so one sided.

X

This hero drivel had become bothersome.

All For One stood in his office, watching the city sprawl like a diseased organism over the monitors on the right wall. In just a few short years, these costumed fools had multiplied like locusts, spreading their naive ideology across continents with the persistence of a particularly virulent plague.

What had once been isolated incidents - lone vigilantes taking on petty criminals - had metastasised into something approaching an actual movement. Heroes, they called themselves, as if the word carried some inherent nobility rather than marking them as delusional children playing dress-up.

More troubling than their proliferation was the impact on his operations. Criminal networks that had taken decades to establish were crumbling under sustained assault from these amateur do-gooders. Valuable assets - cannon fodder, really, but still useful - were being captured or killed at rates that threatened the stability of his empire.

The economics alone were becoming irritating.

But what truly galled him was One For All's sheer audacity. To reject him - its original and rightful owner - as if he were some common thief rather than the power's legitimate master. The memory of that impossible space, of Yoichi's sad eyes and stubborn defiance, made something cold and sharp twist in his chest.

A fluke, certainly. One For All wasn't powerful enough in itself to mount such resistance. The accumulated will of dead Thieves, perhaps, lending their pathetic strength to the current bearer. But flukes, by definition, couldn't be repeated indefinitely.

The new thief would bend more easily. Had to. One For All could not resist him again, not when he brought the full weight of his refined techniques to bear.

At least there was some entertainment to be found in watching these absolute ingrates prance around in their colourful costumes, solemnly declaring war on "villainy" as if evil were something that could be defeated through righteous speeches and teamwork. They even had the audacity to call his associates 'villains,' as if crime were some sort of theatrical performance rather than the natural order of things.

Villains.

The term was almost endearing in its simplicity.

All For One allowed himself a moment of genuine amusement as he considered the trajectory of recent events. 

The world was becoming exactly like those Captain Hero comic books he and Yoichi had shared as children - heroes and villains locked in eternal conflict, good and evil clearly delineated, justice triumphing through determination and friendship.

How fitting that he should rule over a world that had transformed itself into the very fiction that had once shaped their dreams. What better stage for the future Demon Lord than one where heroism and villainy had become performance art?

The irony was delicious. These heroes thought they were creating something new, something revolutionary. In reality, they were simply fulfilling roles that had been written decades ago by people who understood that audiences preferred their morality simplified and their conflicts dramatic.

Let them play their parts. Let them gather followers and inspire hope and believe that somehow their efforts mattered in the grand scheme of things.

At least the world would finally provide some entertainment while he waited for the inevitable conclusion of this tedious drama. Heroes rose, heroes fell, and in the end, power remained with those intelligent enough to recognize that everything else was just elaborate theatre.

One For All would come home eventually. The Thief carrying it would break, as they all did when sufficient pressure was applied to the right leverage points.

And when that moment came, when the last traces of resistance finally crumbled, All For One would be waiting patiently, knowing how this story would end.

His conquest was as inevitable as the rising tide.

X

Nana Shimura had her husband's same steady hands and her own fierce eyes.

En watched her work from across the abandoned warehouse they'd been using as a temporary base - cleaning weapons with mechanical precision, her movements economical and practised. Twenty years old, widow for three weeks, and she'd already proven herself in two separate rescue operations without flinching once.

She reminded him of Uncle Daigoro, though En couldn't quite pinpoint why. 

Maybe it was the way she smiled at the people they saved - genuine warmth cutting through fear and trauma like sunlight through storm clouds. Maybe it was how she'd insisted on joining them despite Gran Torino's protests, despite having a newborn son waiting at home with her mother.

"You're good at this," she said without looking up from the rifle she was reassembling. They'd just returned from extracting a family from one of the government ‘recruitment centres' - places where ordinary people with useful Quirks disappeared until they agreed to more flexible moral standards.

En adjusted his collar, purple smoke wisping absently from his shoulders. "Have to be."

"Have to be, or want to be?"

The question caught him off guard. Most people didn't bother making the distinction.

"Both, I guess. I have a lot to live up to. Legacy to carry on."

She set the rifle aside and turned to face him fully. "What kind of legacy?"

The warehouse fell quiet except for the distant hum of city traffic. Gran Torino was checking perimeter sensors, the others were getting what sleep they could before the next operation. It was as private as conversations ever got in their line of work.

En studied Nana's face - the determined set of her jaw, the way grief had carved new lines around her eyes without breaking her spirit. Gran Torino stood by the window, pretending not to listen but obviously waiting.

They deserved to know. Had earned the right through blood and loss and the simple act of standing when others ran.

Besides, it was the only logical way he could think of choosing a successor.

No doubt, he’d need one sooner or later.

En made a decision that probably violated every security protocol his uncle had ever taught him.

"There's something you both should know," he said, settling onto a shipping crate that served as their improvised conference table. "About why All For One keeps hunting us specifically."

Torino looked from the window. "I figured it was just the general hero thing."

"No." En pulled off his gloves. "It's more personal than that. There's a power - a Quirk - that's been passed down through several people over the years. Always to someone fighting against All For One. Or, at least, the next person who stands a chance."

He explained what he knew, which wasn't much. A power that could theoretically defeat the monster, passed from wielder to wielder, growing stronger with each generation. His uncle had carried it, and the hermit before him, and others stretching back into history.

"And now you have it," Nana said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah." En stared at his hands, feeling the foreign energy that had settled into his cells like an strange houseguest. "Which means eventually, I'll need to pass it on to someone else. Someone worthy."

Torino's expression was unreadable. "How do you choose something like that?"

En looked between them - Torino with his lightning reflexes and unshakeable determination, Nana with her steady courage and natural leadership instincts. Both of them would make excellent candidates. Both of them had already proven they were willing to risk everything for the sake of others.

But Nana had a son waiting for her at home. 

So the logical choice would be the unmarried, unattached Gran Torino.

"I don't know," he hedged. "Uncle Banjo didn't have much time to explain the criteria. Just that it has to be someone who won't give up, no matter what."

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of aircraft engines - too close, too coordinated to be civilian traffic. Through the warehouse windows, En could see searchlights cutting through the evening sky.

"Time to go," he said, already moving toward their emergency packs. The decision about succession would have to wait.

They made it out minutes before the building was surrounded, fading into the urban maze like smoke dispersing on the wind. 

By dawn, they were deep in the mountain forests north of the city, far from surveillance cameras and organized pursuit.
The woods reminded En of old school trips - back when he’d bothered to actually go to school.

He settled against a tree trunk, watching Torino and Nana and the others establish their temporary camp with practised efficiency. The power inside him pulsed with each heartbeat, a constant reminder of the choices he would eventually have to make.

Legacy was a heavy thing to carry. But it was lighter when shared with people who understood what it meant to keep fighting, even when the odds seemed impossible.

Even when the world felt too broken to be worth saving.

Uncle Banjo had taught him that much, at least.

X

That insignificant pest. What was this? How was it possible for this weak power and these pathetic interlopers to defy him in such a way?

All For One stood in his private study, surrounded by monitors displaying the scattered locations where heroes had been sighted over the past week. Each pin on the digital map represented another failure, another moment when One For All had slipped through his fingers like smoke.

To reject him - him - like this. How dare Yoichi defy him so brazenly, his own brother, his other half, with this stubborn resistance that made no logical sense.

No doubt this was that ingrate's influence. 

Toshitsugu Kudō, poisoning Yoichi's spirit even from beyond death, filling his gentle brother's consciousness with ideas of rebellion and independence that he never would have conceived on his own. Yoichi had been too weak for such defiance when he was alive - too dependent, too trusting, too willing to let his stronger twin make the difficult decisions.

But now, contaminated by the memories of thieves and terrorists, Yoichi's essence fought against the very reunion it should have welcomed.

All For One's hand closed around the stress ball on his desk, reducing it to powder between his fingers.

 He needed to secure One For All. Had hunted for it for so long, had structured his entire existence around its eventual reclamation. It was his right, his property, his brother  made manifest in stolen power.

It could not refuse him forever. He would not allow it.

But … perhaps the solution had been staring him in the face for months, waiting in the depths of his mountain fortress like a living earthquake held in check by will alone. 

All For One activated the communication system with a thought, his voice carrying through reinforced tunnels to the chamber where his most recent acquisition waited in patient slumber.

"My dear Gigantomachia," he said simply. "It's time."

The answering roar shook dust from the ceiling three stories above.

X

The sound started as a whisper - branches creaking in what should have been still air. Then came the snapping, sharp cracks that spoke of old-growth timber giving way under impossible pressure.

En was on his feet before the second tree fell as  every instinct screamed danger.

 Around their makeshift camp, nine other figures responded with the fluid coordination of people who had learned to trust each other's reflexes completely.

"Movement, northeast," Torino reported, his enhanced speed allowing him to scout the perimeter in seconds. "Something big. Really big."

Nana was already gathering their essential gear, her movements economical and precise. The newer recruits - three survivors from other hero cells that All For One had destroyed - looked to En for guidance with the kind of trust he still wasn't comfortable receiving.

"How big?" En asked, purple smoke beginning to curl around his fingertips.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet, a tremor that sent birds screaming from the canopy overhead. Through the trees came a sound that had no business existing in the natural world - part roar, part avalanche, part something that belonged in nightmares rather than waking reality.

"Living mountain big," Torino said grimly.

En saw it before his mind could properly process what he was seeing. 

A mass of stone and muscle and primal fury that moved with the fluid grace of a predator despite its impossible size. Trees that had stood for centuries simply ceased to exist in its path, reduced to splinters and scattered debris as it charged toward them with single-minded purpose.

Above the creature, a familiar figure hovered in the air like a carrion bird waiting for the feast to begin.

All For One had brought a friend.

And after the third coordinated attack failed to so much as slow the beast down, En realized the brutal truth of their situation.

This thing - whatever it was - couldn't be beaten. Not by them, not with their resources, probably not by anything short of a natural disaster. Every shot that connected bounced off skin like granite. Every coordinated assault was shrugged off like raindrops. The creature moved with inexorable purpose, crushing everything in its path while All For One directed its rampage from above.

"Run!" En shouted over the sound of splintering trees and distant screams. "Everyone run!"

X

Dear Gigantomachia had been almost pathetically easy to acquire.

All For One stood on the creature's massive shoulder, one hand resting casually against the granite-hard skin as they surveyed the devastation below. The giant's rampage through the forest had left a trail of destruction that would be visible from orbit - trees reduced to splinters, boulders shattered like glass, the very landscape reshaped by the passage of living calamity.

Such a displaced, tormented, simple-minded beast. Manipulating his giant colossus had required barely any effort at all - a few careful adjustments to the creature's already fractured psyche, some strategic conditioning to foster the obsession that now burned in those massive eyes whenever they looked upon their master.

"You did well, my friend," All For One murmured, and felt the giant's entire body shiver with pleasure at the praise. 

Such desperate hunger for approval, for purpose, for someone to tell him he mattered in a world that had discarded him like broken machinery.

It was almost touching, in its way.

A few months of such careful cultivation, and Gigantomachia had become the perfect weapon - utterly loyal, devastatingly powerful, and completely incapable of questioning orders. Where All For One had once been merely untouchable, now he was something approaching a force of nature. Nothing could impede him with this living mountain as his guardian.

There was something deeply thrilling about commanding such loyalty, such devastating power in service to his will. The way Gigantomachia looked at him with those burning eyes, the absolute devotion that radiated from every gesture - it was almost intoxicating.

Pity it wasn't from the right person.

It never was.

X

His team scattered like leaves before a hurricane - Nana and Torino disappearing into En’s purple smoke, the others fleeing along predetermined escape routes that suddenly seemed laughably inadequate. 

En threw up the thickest Smokescreen he could manage, turning the forest into an impenetrable haze of violet fog.

For a few precious moments, it worked. He could hear Gigantomachia's confused roars as the giant struggled to track targets through the obscuring clouds. All For One's cultured voice called out directions, but even his enhanced perception seemed hampered by the density of En's Quirk.

Then something massive wrapped around En’s ankle.

The world spun as he was yanked upward with crushing force, his ankle dislocating with a wet pop that sent lightning bolts of agony up his leg. Through the dispersing smoke, En found himself face-to-face with eyes the size of dinner plates, burning with fanatic devotion to the figure standing casually on the giant's shoulder.

"There you are," All For One said pleasantly, as if greeting an old friend rather than his captive. "I was beginning to worry you'd gotten lost in all that smoke."

Smug bastard.

En glared up at him, ignoring the searing pain in his ankle. "No matter how many times you try, you can't take One For All by force. And I'll never surrender it, asshole."

Felt good to let loose his old delinquent foul mouth once in a while. This bastard deserved it.

"Oh, my dear boy." All For One's expression was almost paternal in its concern. "There are so many more ways to break a person than simple force."

To punctuate his point, he nodded to Gigantomachia. The giant's massive fist closed around En's right foot with deliberate slowness, allowing him to feel every bone snap, every joint collapse, every nerve ending scream as his foot was pulverized into paste.

En's vision went white with agony, but he managed not to scream.

"I believe we'll start with the right leg," All For One observed with clinical detachment, studying En's mangled extremity like a doctor examining an interesting case study. "Such a pity - you're so young to be forced into this position. It's not your fault, really. Your teacher filled your head with all this heroism nonsense, convinced you that suffering for others was somehow noble."

His voice took on the cooing tone one might use with a frightened child.

"I offered the same mercy to your predecessor, you know. Told him I'd spare his friends if he simply surrendered what wasn't his to begin with. A reasonable proposal, wouldn't you agree? But he was a fool - he spat my generous offer back in my face and all his friends died because of it."

En forced himself to focus through the waves of pain radiating from his destroyed foot. "Lariat spat it back in your face, huh?"

All For One's smile widened slightly. "Indeed he did. Poor judgement, considering what it cost him and everyone he cared about. I hope you'll choose more wisely."

En looked up at that perfect, terrible face - at the absolute confidence of a man who had never encountered a problem he couldn't solve through application of superior force. At the casual cruelty that treated human suffering like a negotiating tactic.

At the reminder of the complete human apathy En’s life had been plagued with. It was staring back at him with this monster’s face.

Until his uncle had shown him a better way.

En gathered what saliva he could manage and spat directly into All For One's eye.

The monster's expression didn't change, but something cold and final settled in the air between them as he slowly wiped the spittle from his face.

All For One didn't waste any time after that.

Something shifted in the air around them - not anger, exactly, but something colder and infinitely more dangerous. 

All For One's hand shot out with surgical precision, fingers splaying across En's forehead as that familiar, nauseating pulling sensation began just like last time.

En tried to flood the area with Smokescreen, tried to obscure vision and buy himself precious seconds, but the purple haze felt thin and insubstantial compared to the force now tearing at his very essence.

 One For All responded like a living thing under attack, power surging through his system with desperate intensity.

But this time felt different.

Where previous encounters had been about resistance - about holding on and enduring until All For One gave up or was forced to retreat - this struggle carried a quality En hadn’t experienced last time. 

One For All wasn't just resisting the theft; it was actively fighting back, growing more resolute with each moment of opposition as if the pressure itself was somehow feeding it.

The sensation was incredible and terrifying in equal measure. Like being caught between two opposing forces of nature, each one trying to tear him apart from the inside.

All For One's face began to change as the seconds stretched into minutes. Not emotional breakdown - En had seen that kind of unhinged before, had watched criminals crack under pressure and lose whatever semblance of sanity they'd possessed. 

This was something else entirely. Something calculated and cold and absolutely ruthless.

The kind of unhinged that belonged to apex predators who had never learned to accept defeat.

"Show me your face," All For One hissed, his grip tightening as he poured more force into the extraction. "Look at me!"

En tried to respond, tried to voice some defiant quip about already looking, but the words died in his throat as he realized All For One wasn't talking to him. The monster's eyes were focused on something beyond the physical - something only he could see in the space between thought and reality.

"Give him to me," All For One demanded, his voice taking on an edge that made En's bones ache. "Give me One For All. Give me what belongs to me!"

The agony was indescribable. Not just physical pain, though that was certainly present, but something deeper - the feeling of having his very identity pulled apart at the seams, of being unmade and remade in real time. 

En choked on air that felt thick as syrup, his vision blurring as One For All and All For One's ability clashed within the confines of his mortal frame.

But he fought anyway. Fought with every scrap of will and stubbornness his uncle had taught him, fought with the accumulated defiance of everyone who had carried this burden before him. One For All responded to his determination, growing brighter and more solid with each moment of resistance.

The pressure built beyond what En's body should have been able to contain. Beyond what reality should have allowed. Like trying to force two magnets of identical polarity together, the resistance growing exponentially until something had to give.

They separated with the force of an atom bomb.

En went flying backward through the forest, branches whipping past his face as he tumbled through space. Trees that had stood for decades splintered around him as he crashed through the canopy, his body bouncing off trunks thick as telephone poles.

He should have died. Should have been reduced to paste against the first solid surface he encountered.

Instead, familiar arms wrapped around him just before impact, cushioning his fall as Nana materialized out of the purple smoke that had followed his trajectory. They hit the ground hard but together, rolling through undergrowth until friction finally brought them to a stop.

"Smoke-Eater!" Nana's voice was tight with concern as she checked him for injuries beyond the obviously mangled foot. "Can you move?"

Before he could answer, the ground beneath them began to shake. 

Not the random tremors of settling earth, but the rhythmic pounding of something massive moving with purpose. Through the trees, En caught glimpses of it as the living mountain crashed through the forest in their direction.

"Torino," Nana called, and suddenly the speedster was there, his expression grim as he took in En's condition.

"I can move," En gasped, trying to lever himself upright despite the waves of agony radiating from his destroyed foot. "Just give me a -"

Torino didn't wait for him to finish. Strong arms lifted En off the ground and across his shoulders in a fireman's carry, the younger man's enhanced speed already activating as he calculated escape vectors.

"Sorry about this," Torino muttered, then they were moving.

The forest blurred around them as Torino's Quirk carried them between trees at speeds that should have been impossible for someone carrying a passenger. 

Behind them, the sound of the beast’s pursuit grew closer - the crash of falling timber, the rumble of displaced earth, the bass roar that seemed to shake leaves from their branches.

En gritted his teeth against both the pain and the humiliation of being carried like cargo, but he had to admit Torino was right. With his foot destroyed and his body still reeling from whatever had happened during that power struggle, he would have slowed them down fatally.

X

All For One pulled himself from the crater his body had carved into the mountainside, brushing debris from his clothes with movements that betrayed none of the frustration burning in his chest.

Three rejections now. Three failures to claim what belonged to him by every conceivable right.

No.

Enough of this, Yoichi.

X

The blast of coiled crimson power struck Torino's spine with surgical precision like a whip, sending both of them tumbling through the undergrowth in a tangle of limbs and desperate momentum. 

En felt Torino's body go limp beneath him, heard the younger man's sharp intake of breath as something vital was damaged.

Through the haze of their fall, En caught a glimpse of the red power reshaping itself - sharpening, coiling for another strike with deadly intent. 

Without thinking, without calculating odds or considering alternatives, he twisted his body between the attack and his friend.

The coiled force swept through his middle like a scythe through wheat.

For a moment, En wasn't entirely sure what had happened. There was a strange sensation of disconnection, of weight distributed incorrectly, of something fundamental being wrong with the way his body related to gravity.

Then he saw his legs tumble away from his torso, and understanding hit him with the force of a physical blow.

Oh god. 

Oh fuck. 

Oh shit.

Oh no, this couldn’t be happening - he couldn’t be -

He was dying, wasn't he? 

No no no no no no no no no -

En had known it would happen eventually - carrying One For All was a death sentence measured in years rather than decades - but fuck, no, not like this. He wasn't finished living yet. Wasn't done with the work Uncle Banjo had started. He couldn't - 

The agony arrived all at once, white-hot and overwhelming, as his bisected body hit the forest floor with wet, terrible sounds. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges, but he forced himself to stay conscious through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

He heard Nana's voice as she landed nearby, her Float Quirk bringing her down with controlled grace. Heard Torino groaning as he tried to move with whatever damage he'd sustained.

En couldn't give way to panic. Not now. Not when there was still one last thing he could do.

With shaking hands - hands that were somehow still attached to the part of him that mattered - he tore strands of his hair free. The action sent fresh spikes of agony through his nervous system, but he swallowed back the tears and painted on the smile Uncle would have been proud of.

The first person he saw clearly through the haze of pain was Nana, her face pale with horror as she took in his condition.

There was no time to debate succession, no opportunity for careful consideration of worthiness or capability. They both knew that.

En held out the strands of hair, his smile never wavering even as his life leaked out onto the forest floor.

"Keep smiling," he managed to whisper, the words carrying all the weight of his uncle's final lesson as he kept his own grin in place. "Whatever happens next - keep smiling."

The world went black before he could see if she understood.

When he next came to, expensive shoes filled his vision. Polished leather that belonged in boardrooms rather than battlefields, unmarred by the violence that had carved through his body like tissue paper.

En looked up and met All For One's gaze, those perfect features arranged in an expression of mild curiosity. The monster had probably come to gloat, to see if the latest thief had any final words before the inevitable conclusion.

"Told you so," En managed, blood frothing between his lips but his grin somehow intact. "Can't take it by force, you bastard."

All For One's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture - a subtle adjustment that spoke of patience finally exhausted.

En's neck snapped with a sound like breaking kindling, and the last thing he saw was purple smoke drifting through the trees - his final gift to the world, obscuring Nana's escape route as she carried One For All toward an uncertain future.

X

When En opened his eyes again, he was engulfed in familiar arms - his uncle's embrace, warm and solid and exactly as he remembered it. Banjo's voice was thick with pride and grief as he held his nephew close.

"You did good, kid," Uncle's voice rumbled against his ear, and En felt something inside his chest finally relax. "You did real good."

A pale hand touched his shoulder, and En looked up to see a man he'd never met but somehow recognized. 

"Thank you," the pale man said quietly, "for carrying the burden when it was your turn. For keeping the light alive."

En nodded, understanding without explanation who this must be - the first bearer, the one who had started it all. Around them, the impossible space of the vestige realm stretched into infinity, a place where heroes went when their watch was finally over.

He thought of Nana, probably still reeling from the transfer, from the sudden weight of responsibility that had just settled into her cells. She was strong but One For All had a way of testing its bearers in ways they never expected.

Live a long and happy life, he wished silently, though he knew it wasn't likely. 

But maybe her son could have the happiness that had been denied to so many others. Maybe when this was all over, when All For One was finally defeated, children could grow up in a world where heroes didn't have to die to keep hope alive.

It wasn't much of a legacy. But it was all En had left to give.

Uncle Daigoro's arms tightened around him, and for the first time since that night in the juvenile facility, En allowed himself to believe that maybe - just maybe - he had done something worth being proud of.