Chapter Text
“I have waited a long time for this meeting, Eraserhead,” the man calling himself All For One says. His voice rasps through the tube connected to his throat, which in turn is connected to a complex machine strapped to the throne-like chair the man sits in. It wheezes gently with each of his breaths.
“Your protege learned of my existence only a couple of months ago,” Shouta says. “If you are indeed who you say you are, surely that’s barely a blink to someone who’s lived as long as you have.”
All For One laughs, voice creaking like a rusty door hinge. “Fair point,” he concedes. “Moreso, I meant that I have waited long to meet a man of your calibre. Of your skill.”
“Hey, it could’ve been a woman,” Shouta says, “or someone beyond our existing binary.” He reaches up with his bound hands to scratch his head. “Don’t be so sexist. Or is that too far beyond your comprehension, old man? I suppose you do come from ancient times.”
“I like your spunk,” All For One smiles. “It’s too bad that I will be killing you momentarily. Alas, your Erasure Quirk is simply too valuable to pass up.”
Shouta affects his best air of nonchalance. “Hmm. Lots of people have tried to kill me. It’s never stuck. What makes you so sure you’re any different?”
Normally he likes to look his prey in the eyes at this point. He finds it to be an effective intimidation tactic. All For One, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to have any eyes worth noting. His face is a massed web of scars that even Shouta shudders to look at. But he swallows it down, keeping his best game face on.
“I sincerely doubt you have ever met someone like me,” All For One says. “I have spent millenia amassing my power—”
“If you mean megalomaniacal old men who steal other people’s abilities,” Shouta interrupts, “you’d be surprised. If I had a yen for every time…”
All For One snaps. “None have been at my power level,” he says. “I have made sure to cull the weak from my path. Long have I rested, biding my time, building this petty farce we call society into my vision. Carving the very shape of destiny to bring us to this moment.”
“Hmm, been there, done that,” Shouta yawns. “Can’t say I recommend it. The last guy died a pretty terrible death.”
“And yet, I’m the one who has captured you and put you in this state. You would have succumbed to your injuries had I not allowed you to be healed.”
You call that healing? Shouta wants to say, but he bites it down. Besides, he was the one who came up with the fire thing!
“This is nothing. You’re just another simple man to add to a long list of names I’ve killed.”
“Enough.” All For One slams his fist down on his chair. “Don’t you understand who you’re talking to? I respect your power, Eraserhead, but I didn’t take you to be so ridiculous.”
Shouta frowns. “Do I look like I’m joking?” He says, voice deadly. “Or, I suppose you can’t see.” He shrugs. “But you seem like a smart man, All For One. I’m sure you can tell when somebody is bluffing, and when they’re serious. Do you believe I’m bluffing?”
A beat.
“Regardless of what you believe,” All For One sneers, “I will be taking your Quirk, here and now. I will destroy All Might, and finally claim One For All.”
He half-rises from his chair, hand outstretched toward Shouta’s head.
Shouta beats him to it.
To his credit, Kurogiri had been thorough in searching Shouta for weapons. He’d taken every visible part of his gear, including the remnants of his capture tool and his goggles. Had run his hands over Shouta’s arms and legs to find the subtle pockets and holsters Shouta always carried on patrol. The cloud-like man had double- and triple-checked his work, vanishing his pile of knives and needles and flash-bangs into a purple void.
His first mistake is that he should have strip-searched Shouta.
Underneath his layers of dark clothing, Shouta keeps one last blade strapped to his thigh. It’s a stiletto knife, long and thin, flat enough to escape most visual detection. The handle is circular, with a hole in the middle, a special request of his to make it as kunai-like as possible. A very determined kidnapper could find it if they ran their hand over it directly—which is why he keeps it tied to his inner thigh, against his bare skin. Across both of his lives, he finds that people are oddly reluctant to put their hands near a stranger’s crotch. Even if their lives depend on it.
Kurogiri’s next mistake is leaving him alone for an extended period of time after taking care of his stab wound. It’s considerate of them to have left him with an abundance of privacy to dig his knife out and move it into a more accessible hiding spot under his right sleeve. He’s counted on the fact that it will go undetected. Because who thinks to search their prisoner a second time?
Shouta stands before this so-called All For One, alone in a room with the secret leader of the League. He holds his hands out before his body, dropping the slack end of the rope he’s been holding to maintain the illusion of being tied, the handle of his knife leaping into his palm.
The Villains’ last mistake: thinking that Shouta, alone and unarmed and injured in enemy territory, is not a threat.
Shouta lunges. His movement is utterly silent as he swings his arm up toward All For One’s throat.
To his credit, the man reacts quickly. He jerks his head back immediately. Shouta’s knife misses its intended target. Instead, in a long vertical slash, it bites into the soft flesh of All For One’s chin, moves upward over the delicate curve of his cheekbone, and exits just above the brow.
Warm blood bursts from the deep cut. Shouta is almost surprised that the Villain bleeds red—just like any other human. All For One makes a low, shocked noise. Shouta flips the knife into a reverse grip and stabs downward. Again, All For One escapes a lethal blow in the nick of time, taking a deep puncture wound against his jawline instead of at his neck. Shouta’s knife scrapes against bone. He twists his wrist, ripping into the fatty flesh of the man’s face efficiently.
All For One reaches up with his hands, making some kind of gesture. But whichever Quirk he’s hoping to use doesn’t trigger. Shouta’s eyes glow red with Erasure, having been active since the moment he made his first move.
“Kuro—“ the man calls out. Shouta pommel-strikes him across the face with a backhanded fist. He feels something warm and soft leaking out of All For One’s empty eyesocket.
Unfortunately, he’s not quite fast enough. A purple portal snaps open under All For One, and he disappears, life support machinery and all. Shouta makes to jump in after him, but Kurogiri slams the portal closed, leaving the man himself behind. His yellow eyes dance as his gaseous form wavers, and Shouta readjusts to take on his new opponent.
“You must not harm my master,” Kurogiri says. “I’m afraid I’ll have to—“
Metal on metal screeches harshly. Shouta ducks instinctively. The attack didn’t come from him; a long blade scrapes against Kurogiri’s neck brace. His eyes follow the gentle curve to the pommel.
Attached to the other end of the sword is Stain.
“I overheard what Shigaraki said in the hallway,” Stain growls, twisting his sword to keep Kurogiri on the defensive. “Stealing Quirks and killing meaninglessly—you and your master are just as bad as those Heroes I killed. All you want is personal gain. You don’t care about people like me. For that reason, I can’t allow you to kill Eraserhead and take his Quirk.”
Kurogiri ducks, and Stain overbalances with a yell. The gaseous Villain reappears across the room, and Shouta spins his knife into a defensive stance.
“This is a grave mistake,” Kurogiri says. “You do not want my master as your enemy, Stain. Stop this at once, and we will overlook this incident.”
“Why should I?” Stain spits. “You’ve only been using me this whole time. I’d rather take my chances with Eraserhead. At least he fights and dies honestly!”
Shouta takes the opportunity to lunge forward, catching Kurogiri off-guard with a strike to his neck brace.
“I can’t say honest is a word I’ve ever heard in the same sentence as my name,” Shouta says, half-grinning, half-grimacing. “But for the time being, it’s good to be on the same side again, Stain.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Stain grunts. He jabs forward with his sword. Held in place by Shouta’s knife, Kurogiri is unable to dodge the strike to his neck. A sizeable dent caves the left side of the brace, and a shard of metal flies off. “I won’t always be around to save your sorry ass.”
Kurogiri brings a hand up to Shouta’s weapon. He snatches his fingers back just in time to avoid losing them to a portal, his stiletto knife falling away into a void. Mentally, he bids it a fond and regretful goodbye. He leaps away from a portal that opens under his feet.
Stain takes another swipe at Kurogiri’s neck. It distracts him long enough for Shouta to roll forward, throwing caution to the wind to attempt a melee fight. It’s not the smartest play, but his complete lack of weapons sort of forces his hand.
Besides, he used to be sparring buddies with Gai. Kurogiri has nothing on his green-clad rival.
In a way, Kurogiri’s immaterial body works to Shouta’s advantage. He charges straight through the black mist. No limbs or weapons cut through the air at him. He zeroes in on his target, fist smashing a path to Kurogiri’s neck brace.
A purple, misty hand reaches to block him. It’s ineffective, of course, but Shouta files the information away. So there are some base human instincts left in this strange body before him…
He strikes home. With the force of his punch and Stain’s counterpressure with his sword, the hollow neck brace creaks threateningly. Even in the dark, Shouta can see large cracks spiderwebbing across its metallic surface.
The impact knocks Stain away. Shouta clicks a tongue at him. “If you widened your feet in a horse stance, you’d have a stronger base form.”
“Hai, Sensei,” Stain says, layering his sarcasm onto the title. Shouta idly wonders if Stain knows the truth of his words. “Here.” He presses a bundle of knives into Shouta’s hand, and Shouta barely has time to wonder how he got the weapons before a portal splits the air between them, forcing him to jerk away.
He twists and immediately launches two knives at Kurogiri’s neck. Acutely aware of how precious and limited his resources are at the moment. The Villain dodges—twitches, really—to his left, missing the first knife. As if he’s conserving his energy as much as possible.
It would have been smarter for him to portal the knife away instead of physically dodging, because he moves straight into the path of Shouta’s second knife. It’s hard to overcome your base instincts in the face of danger, though. Shouta would know.
Either way, the knife buries itself into one of the cracks in Kurogiri’s brace. Shouta is only one step behind it, and he lunges to grab the handle. Stain takes the initiative to loop around to Kurogiri’s other side, keeping the Villain hemmed into the space between the two. Now that Shouta has a point of leverage on the neck brace with his knife, he’s able to wrench it within arm’s reach and grab the other side with his empty hand.
The metal is thick. He can tell it’s meant to have a glossy finish, but it’s badly chipped under his and Stain’s combined onslaught. Eerily, Kurogiri makes no noises as they fight. No grunts of effort, or even heavy breathing—does he have lungs in that inorganic chest of his?
Shouta wrenches his mind back into the moment. It’s hard to focus with no food in his stomach and probably not enough blood flowing through his veins. But he’s had worse.
Kurogiri leans away from Shouta, trying to throw him off-balance. He wonders where Kurogiri’s body mass is, to have the leverage to shift Shouta around. He hangs onto the knife, keeping Kurogiri anchored in place for Stain’s attacks. His scabbed and burnt side protests against the strain of his muscles, but he ignores it.
Stain lands several more strikes. The metal brace groans and cracks, but holds strong. Shouta grits his teeth, digging harder into his grip—
His knife snaps clean through the metal. The brace splits neatly in half.
Freed from his braced position, Shouta stumbles straight through Kurogiri’s gaseous body. The Villain reels back, and Shouta instinctively jumps away from the ground beneath him, a portal missing his toes by centimeters.
Stain isn’t so lucky. His yell abruptly cuts off as the portal spins him away to who knows where. With luck, Kurogiri will be so frazzled that he’ll put the Hero Killer in the same place he took the injured All For One.
Unfortunately, that leaves him to face Kurogiri on his own. Purple haze whips before the Villain’s neck, now freed from its metal confines, although its true form remains obscured. Shouta throws an experimental knife at it. This time, Kurogiri opens his hand into a portal, sucking the knife away. No more fucking around, Shouta muses.
He jumps away, zig-zagging his way through the room. He can’t let Kurogiri predict where he’ll land next, else he fall straight into a portal. Five knives remain in the strap that Stain had given him.
Shouta goes on the defensive, watching Kurogiri’s moves carefully as he avoids purple portal after portal. If he can wait out the Villain’s patience, he might get an opening. For the next minute or so, Shouta does just that—running around the small concrete room. While Kurogiri doesn’t seem to run out of energy, his movements take on a frantic edge. The curls of purple smoke grow ragged, rather than their usual smooth flow. And when Shouta draws him out too far, he seems to snap his limbs back inward. Defending his bare neck.
Although he’s not bleeding out this time, Shouta’s acutely aware of the limits his injuries present. He can’t draw this out forever. And yet, they’re at an impasse: Shouta can’t move toward Kurogiri’s body without risking being portalled, while Kurogiri appears unwilling to stretch away from his secure position in the middle of the room.
Shouta clenches his jaw.
“C’mon, Oboro,” he mutters, “quit messing around.”
He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud, until the words leave his mouth. It had been a half-formed suspicion rattling around his head, ever since Kurogiri had said those damning words to him after bringing him to the hideout. And even though he refused to engage in speculation—the abilities of the purple Villain, compared to his long-dead friend—it was too great a coincidence to ignore.
(If it could happen once before, who’s to say it couldn’t happen again?)
Kurogiri freezes. Even his purple smoke stops moving. Shouta hadn’t realized he’d heard him speak.
“...What did you just say?” The Villain’s voice rasps hoarsely, a far cry from his usual unshakeable demeanor.
“Oboro,” Shouta repeats. “I called you Oboro.”
The gaseous Villain quivers. “How do you know that name? How do I know that name?”
Shouta takes a step forward. “It’s yours, isn’t it? From a long time ago.”
“My name is Kurogiri,” he says. “I have never had another name.”
“If that’s true, then ‘Oboro’ shouldn’t mean anything to you.”
He takes another step forward.
“You’ve done something to me,” Kurogiri says, almost accusing. “You’ve compromised me.”
Shouta spreads his hands placatingly. “How would I have done that? I’ve never mentioned that name to you before now. Don’t make excuses, Oboro. It’s your name, and you know it.”
“I—” Purple gas reaches a rolling boil, throwing wisps of its essence into the air. “You—” He draws into himself. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Shouta says. “You’re my friend. Even if you’ve forgotten that part.”
“You are a Hero. I am a Villain. We cannot be friends.”
“Those are the rules, aren’t they? Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash.” Shouta takes another step. “I won’t abandon you again, Oboro, and I’m sorry that I did before.”
“You’re wrong,” Kurogiri says. “You’re wrong. You’re—”
He vanishes, purple smoke collapsing in on itself in a singularity. One moment he’s there, and the next, he’s gone.
-----
Shouta takes a few moments to collect himself. The room is quiet, and he sits to catch his breath, heart rate gradually slowing from ‘discovering your childhood friend is alive after a decade’ to ‘just ran 1000 laps around the village.’ There are some scattered knives lying on the cold concrete, which he adds to his collection. The machine that was keeping All For One alive looms in the corner, but is otherwise still.
He’ll deal with whatever fiasco he just experienced later. For now, he has to get out of here.
The door handle twists open easily under his hand. Shouta huffs out a disbelieving laugh. It’s unlocked. He supposes it makes sense, given that All For One was meant to kill him.
The hallway is dark and quiet, but out in the distance he can hear faint sounds of yelling and thumping. It’s muffled, like stereo music being played several rooms over, but it’s unmistakably there. Could his fellow Heroes have found the League’s headquarters already? Who else would the Villains be fighting?
He picks up a light jog, stretching his arms overhead in a makeshift warm-up before throwing himself back into the action. Shouta steps into the doorway, and finds the scene unfolding before him in a wash of noise and light.
The main room of the hideout is chaos. Bodies on bodies on bodies. Shouta scans the room—realizes there are no Heroes to speak of. Rather, the Villains have turned on each other in an apparent civil war. He recognizes Dabi, blue flames pouring from his bruised palms, fighting alongside the young schoolgirl with the sharp-toothed smile. They face off against a slim figure in a gas mask, and seem to be doing quite well as a team. At their back, a lizard-like man in a familiar-lookng costume whacks at his opponents in an uncoordinated, yet effective, display of swordsmanship.
And above it all, holding the line all on his own, is Stain. He blocks the single doorway out of the hideout, slashing ferociously with his new sword. Crimson blood flows freely around him as panicked Villains struggle between Stain and the rebels like Dabi. It appears to Shouta that Stain had been teleported outside of the hideout by Kurogiri, before fighting his way back in. And seeing their idol fighting the League, his self-professed fans have turned on the other Villains as well.
Enemy of his enemy and all, Shouta muses. Might as well join in on the fun. He braces himself to leap back into the fray with Stain and company.
Of course, that’s when the windows shatter. Concussive explosions blow out the glass, followed by a familiar war cry as a blond head screeches through the smoke. A chorus of voices that Shouta recognizes follow.
“For Sensei!”
Class 1-A of U.A. charges into the League of Villains hideout.
Shouta slaps his open palm to his forehead, and borrows a phrase from someone he once knew in a previous life.
"What a pain..."
