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An imprisoned All for One was growing impatient with his underlings on the outside. Every shuttering breath he pulled out of the sterile tubing of his government approved life support system was painful. The plastic mask chaffed at the corners of his mouth whenever he breathed with any sort of depth. The villain had not so much as lifted a finger during his imprisonment. He had grown bored with sorting through his quirk stock and thinking up creative new combinations. His mind was irritatingly blank, and every time said mind drifted he may have been dissociating for hours or weeks as he neither slept nor ate and had no way of tracking the passage of time.
Then, for just a moment, the lights flickered.
There they are...the villain contemplated with a smile. His hands curled themselves into fists under his straight jacket. The lights flickered one more time before the wall and interrogation window in front of him imploded into the opposite side of the room. Alarms blared and blurred together in a shrill deafening hum, and the turrets, focused entirely on him for the entirety of his imprisonment, turned on stiff axels to focus on the figure that had just flung themselves into his cell. With a metallic screech they fired at the intruder. The onslaught of bullets was held at bay by a mass of dark, writhing tendrils of shadow that emerged from the masked criminal’s arms. The tendrils of wild energy dropped the bullets, extended out, and ripped the turrets from the concrete walls, sending dust and debris crashing down. There was a crackle of green light and All fo One was up and out of his chair, carried by his rescuer as he dashed through the maze-like hallways of Tartarus. The supervillain sighed and finally flexed the internal muscle that controlled his quirks, caressing the newest addition, Search, for the identity of his savior.
The quirk pinged in quiet recognition.
...It couldn’t be...
The Villian smiled as they darted down hallways, overjoyed by the turn of events, delighted by the pure betrayal. He felt other familiar presences with Search as they turned corners and dodged armed guards. Shigaraki had already been captured years ago. Wasting away in a cell missing two thumbs. Screaming at blank walls with bloodshot eyes. All the other members of the League of Villians were there too, scattered throughout the complex. His rescuer flung past them all without so much as a glance at their cells. Seems he was there only for his master.
There was a burst of intense energy as they finally slammed through a concrete wall and escaped into the night.
By the time they stopped, All for One had thought of his next words carefully.
“It’s good to see you have come to your senses on what this world really needs, my son.”
There was a grunt from the figure as All for One was lowered to his feet. And after a moment, the criminal removed their mask. Underneath was a pair of green eyes and a face full of freckles.
“I don’t think you and I see eye to eye on what this society needs, even if I acknowledge it as broken.” He said tentatively, looking anywhere but where the man’s eyes should be, according to the infrared quirk he used to “see”.
“Something has broken you.” All for One deduced. Izuku, his naive hero-worshipping little child, flinched at his statement.
“What has this world taken from you, my boy?” he inquired.
Izuku was quaking in his own skin, tears welling in his dead looking eyes.
“Our final fight with the League took everything we had. So many of my friends lost their lives, so many mentors and teachers. The few of us who managed to survive can barely stand to be in the same room. All we can think about when we see each other is how our friends were torn ap...” Izuku choked back a sob before composing himself with a shaky breath. “Only five members of my class are left alive, and only two members of the UA staff from my time in high school. I was trying to pick up the pieces and move on, but then...”
All for One could feel the sick, twisted feeling in Izuku’s gut, the revulsion. It almost made him smile.
“I was called into a secret meeting with the Public Hero Safety Commission and they told me about this project.”
Izuku had to take a moment to compose himself, to choke back a gag. “They had preserved the remnants of the heroes who lost their lives in that final fight. Were planning on using their genetic material to start a program to create the next generation of heroes, recover the perfect little soldiers that had been lost before. They wanted me to be part of it. To help determine which quirks would work best together. To look at their list of surrogates. To build my own little engineered offspring.” Izuku shuddered at that thought, but then his eyes steeled over. “I guess that was really the moment I realized that I would never be more than a quirk to those people, and neither would my friends who sacrificed themselves to keep this country safe. I went back to that laboratory the very next night and burned it to the ground...”
All for One couldn’t help but interject.
“It’s amazing how truly twisted this world can be when you’re let in on its dirty little secrets. I guarantee that’s not the only skeleton the Commission has in its closet.”
Izuku didn’t respond to the comment, letting the silence lie for a moment.
“I realized that in the grand scheme of things, there are lots of people like you. That kind of evil, that desire to shape the world to your image, its a common type of evil found in people with power.”
All for One was slightly miffed by his apparent generity but didn’t comment further, instead letting his son explain more.
“I’m so tired, all my friends are gone or slipped into early retirement. I’m a twenty-three year old and already the number one hero. I guess I wanted to be selfish just this once, I wanted to be able to see the only family I have left. So here we are.”
All for One read between the lines. “So Inko...your mother, is she...”
“Mom is gone. Your pupil wanted me to suffer before my eventual destruction. He wanted everything I loved to become nothing more than dust. I guess he got what he wanted in the end. I haven’t loved anything in a very long time.” The young man angled his head up to look shyly at All for One’s empty eye sockets.
“There’s some distant memory of mine, from the days where you were there with mom and I, where you really acted as a father ought to. Did you care about me then? Could you grow to care about me now?” he asked shyly.
All for One mulled over his response for a moment.
“I thought I would have no hope in getting through to you after you aligned yourself with that blond buffoon.” he said. “However, with obtaining One for All, you have brought that infuriating quirk back into the family where it belongs. And as a bonus, you aren’t powerless and useless to me anymore.” The left corner of Izuku’s wide smile twitched, and there was a coldness that flashed in his eyes. “So yes, I could see us developing a beneficial arrangement.”
Izuku nodded at this response, guiding All for One to the roof access door. The villain buzzed with anticipation. They descended down the staircase until Izuku guided him into a dark room. There was an unfamiliar presence there. A person All for One hadn’t met before...
“Rewind.” Izuku addressed the woman waiting for them. “I’ve brought him as we discussed.”
The young girl sucked in a surprised breath.
“I didn’t think you’d actually follow through with it Deku.” she stated quietly. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Izuku looked at his father and appraised him one more time.
“I’m sure, he is my father after all.”
Rewind flinched, but she reached for All for One’s hand anyway, after a millisecond, intense power radiated from a horn on one side of her head and All for One screamed in pain. But it only seemed to last for a handful of agonizing moments. And then, he simply breathed.
He took in a long lungful of air, the first he’d been able to take in without assistance in fifteen years. Dozens of quirks he hadn’t been able to use, injured as he was, bubbled under his skin in anticipation. He didn’t notice that the girl had left him and his son alone in the room. Too high on the feeling of his body back to its proper condition. This was the powerful feeling of being truly alive, unmatched by mortal ma...
There came a sharp stabbing pain in the side of his neck like a bee sting, and he hissed in surprise and rage. All for One pulled the offending object out of his neck with two fingers and brought it close, but it slipped from them before he had the chance to inspect it. His organs had seized up on him, a shot of adrenaline speeding his heart rate abruptly. The feeling was gone as soon as it came. Leaving him trembling on his knees. When the pain left it had taken everything else with it. His insides were an immense, empty void. Every single quirk, so thoughtfully and meticulously shelved away, was gone. Not even a wisp of power remained. Not even All for One, which was once so twisted in its place around his heart, was there. It left the space cold in its absence. His blurred vision glazed over a glint of shattered glass and a small bit of metal. A strange bullet and injection needle hybrid...
“You bastard!” All for One grit out glaring down at the boy. Izuku looked blankly back up at him.
“As far as mother knew, you were both legally and happily married. If I am a bastard, that is entirely your fault...” All for One didn’t wait for an explanation, instead opting to lunge for his son with an expression akin to a feral animal. With a flash of green, the boy dodged his attack, grabbing his wrist in a brutally tight grip.
“Now, now father. It’s the first rule of good parenting to refrain from laying a hand on your child.”
There was a familiar look in the young man’s eyes, shining silver on the edges in the light. Reflected in them was All for One’s own expression, mirroring the angry, frightened look his brother had given him when he had given him a safe and warm place to stay where no one could possible save harm him...
He realized what was happening before his son had the chance to speak his next broken words, but All for One growled out the question anyway.
“What has possessed you to do this? Do you wish upon me a fate worse than death for my crimes, for leaving you to rot? You are fool enough for me to disown if that is your ultimate goal. I’ll find a way to get back my power, my empire, and I will burn you for what you’ve done.”
Izuku was quiet after his scathing words, blurry, tear filled eyes staring back into his as he kept him tight in his grip.
“There must be some part of you that loved me. You were there until I was four.” There was a stray tear making its way down the left side of Izuku’s face, connecting his freckles.
“I wanted your potential and devotion. With a lack of a quirk, you could only give me the latter. That wasn’t enough, you were useless.” All for One put all his rage into his words. Izuku would hurt for what he had done.
There was a deathly silence, and Izuku smiled a very unheroic kind of smile, a familiar one that All for One had never been the recipient of before.
“You are going to stay here, where I can be sure you can’t hurt anyone. I’ll keep you here and you’ll love me as a father ought to love his son.” Izuku said, turning for the door. When it closed behind him, All for One heard an audible click as it locked. A much quieter, more manic voice called out to him behind the thick metal door. A broken sort of voice unhinged from reality, clinging to a desperate, warped thread of hope.
“...After all, without your quirks and your empire, I’m the only thing left you have to love.”