Work Text:
All For One used to think he wanted his brother to stay with him for the entire eternity. He was always on the outlook for longevity quirks, and he had been actually considering sharing some of them...
Of course, that had been before he had given the stockpile quirk away, starting the domino effect which led to his brother's death.
He mourned, for a long time, expressing his grief by killing the two who had stolen Yoichi away from him, the two who thought they had any right to hold the quirk he gave to his brother.
All For One used to think he would have given anything to bring his brother back.
When Yoichi came back, slightly less corporeal than before, All For One quickly changed his mind.
***
The thing about ghosts was: You couldn't really vault them.
No matter how hard he tried, Yoichi would simply phase through whatever obstacles All For One left in his way. Yoichi existed in an entirely different plane of existence now. He was only bound by the rules most mortals had to adhere to when it suited him.
And it never suited him when All For One wanted it to.
At the very least, he was the only one who came back, All For One cheered himself up, trying to ignore the steadily growing number of ink-splattered documents he has had to rewrite and ruined ties he's had to throw.
Or, at least, that's what he thought.
It took three months for the Second to arrive, another five months for Third.
Five years from death, to the day. That was... A useful tidbit of knowledge.
Having three ghosts hellbent on making his life a living nightmare was slightly less manageable than when it was just his brother.
Especially when they figured out they could still interact with each other without any trouble.
All For One really didn't have to know that much about Yoichi's love life.
***
Fourth was a quiet ghost.
Fifth, not so much.
All For One briefly entertained establishing some sort of a scholarship for aspiring villains and naming it after Daigoro Banjo.
His ability to manifest objects, which he somehow managed to figure out, had been purely evil.
Especially when he had used it to summon kazoos for everyone. The next five years of his life had a very annoying soundtrack.
***
Sixth was a quiet ghost.
All For One was almost afraid to kill Seventh.
***
He was right.
With the arrival of Seventh, apparently enough life force was channeled into the quirk - One For All, they've seemed to name it - that the ghosts were able to use their own quirks now.
All For One might have been over two centuries old, but those following years were some of the longest of his life.
***
He's never expected to fall in love, but Midoriya Inko had been an exception.
All For One - Hisashi, - cared about her far too much to admit to anything that could jeopardize their relationship.
As such, she had no idea how old he really was, what was his actual quirk, that he used to have a brother, that he was the leader of the largest criminal organization in Japan if not in the world-
And, of course, she had no clue they had a permanent audience.
Seven ghosts, observing them during every second of every day.
That was the main reason why Izuku was never going to have a sibling.
***
It was kind of hard to fight with seven ghosts spectating him. Especially when they kept yelling obscenities at him, obscuring his vision with their quirks and throwing objects at him.
And they weren't small objects, like popcorn, no. Fifth was especially fond of throwing pianos straight at All For One.
It's not like they could do anything to him, they were incorporeal (and hooo boy, he was definitely not looking forwards to what effect All Might's death will bring, what power boost it will give his own personal peanut gallery) but they still obscured his vision for precious seconds, making him flinch.
He was blaming them for only managing to critically damage the hero instead of killing him straight away. All Might came closer to murdering All For One than All For One came to murdering him!
Truly, he was getting old.
Doctor Garaki managed to mostly put him back together, save for the face.
He had learned an important lesson after that: ghosts, existing in a different plane of existence, were still fully visible to him, even when nothing else was.
***
Five years passed, and All Might still failed to die.
All For One tried not to let it get to him, focusing instead on building up his empire and amassing more and more power.
He almost thought the bouffon finally managed to die when the ghosts started gasping in surprise, restlessly zipping around.
"He's passed it-!" They chattered excitedly amongst themselves.
All For One groaned, slamming what was left of his head on the desk.
***
The quirk seemed to be a bit at a loss as to what to do with All Might’s share when the man was still alive. In the end, it settled on creating a golden statue of the man, pretty much unresponsive, as it waited for the hero to join them.
As such, number eight was the calmest vestige yet.
All For One promised himself he would do his best to merely incapacitate Ninth, instead of killing him. The extra effort surely was worth avoiding having what All For One suspected to be the most chaotic gremlin in existence constantly haunting him.
Perhaps one of these Quirk-removing bullets the Yakuza was working on would do the job nicely...
*** EXTRA
(One For All, as if hearing his thoughts, responded by inviting Ninth into the quirkspace.
The newest Holder - barely a boy, what had been All Might thinking? - didn’t seem to be able to see All For One, just the other vestiges and the renovations to the quirkspace they’ve conducted.
The resemblance was uncanny. His hair and eyes had a different colour - pure Inko, those - but the wildness of his curls, his frecles, the shape of his face-
All For One called doctor Garaki immediately after, not even noticing how he was cutting straight through the Sports Festival’s commentator.
“Create a paper trail for me,” he said. “Whichever hospital you want, as long as it’s in the USA. Make it seem like I had been in a coma all those years.”
“Sir?” Garaki seemed baffled, the bloodied apro still tied around his midsection.
“I have to have an airtight defense to show my son,” All For One sighed, already dreading the conversations he was going to have. “I can’t have him hate me.”
Doctor Garaki, thankfully, didn’t question it further.
All For One was going to have a lot of grovelling to do... But in a way, he was glad Izuku was the Ninth.
At least, this way, he would be able to see his boy grow.)