Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had happened so fast.

Tomura Shigaraki, possessed by All for One, had tried to steal One for All. The vestiges had come out to stop him. The confrontation in the Void had been the first time Yoichi had laid eyes on his older brother since his death. Yoichi would have never admitted it, but he’d prepared a speech for the occasion. He’d only gotten to speak one word. Then All for One had shot forward, grabbed Yoichi by his hair, and yanked him into the shadows.

The other vestiges had moved, but not fast enough. Yoichi had glimpsed their frantic eyes before his vision had been consumed by darkness.

Now Yoichi was being dragged down a dark tunnel. He could neither see nor hear. Even his older brother’s footsteps had no sound. Of course, neither of them breathed. The misty ground under his legs did not feel hard or soft, or indeed like anything at all. Yoichi could only feel the hand painfully gripping his hair.

Yoichi twisted and squirmed, trying to break free. But the hand refused to budge. When he clawed, he did not draw blood. The silence was unnerving. Big brother had always loved to talk. Gritting his teeth, Yoichi dug his nails in harder.

Through trial and error, Yoichi and the other vestiges had long ago learned that manipulating the Void depended on willpower. They could create anything they wanted in the Void, from a chair to sit down in to a card game to play. If one vestige tried to change the landscape and the other fought against the change, then whoever concentrated harder or wanted it more would win.

But no matter how hard Yoichi imagined a knife with which to stab his brother, nothing happened. He feared he knew why. This was not the Void, but rather the mental landscape of All for One’s quirk. Yoichi had absolutely no power here.

A shiver wracked his ghostly body like an electric shock. No, he couldn’t give up so easily. Having failed to remove his brother’s hand, he tried to rip the hair off his own head. For a brief moment of burning pain, Yoichi got a lock free.

Then All for One lifted Yoichi up, still using only one hand, and tossed him into a room.

Yoichi bounced off the shadowy floor without pain. It felt flexible, like a trampoline. He looked around. Though the floor felt soft, it gleamed like metal. He recognized this place, right down the crack in the corner and the door without a handle. The vault.

“Do you love bank vaults so much, big brother? This obsession of yours has gotten unhealthy. You should see a shrink.” Yoichi spoke with false bravado. He felt very, very afraid.

All for One did not reply. He dropped to his knees, his red eyes looming close. At some point during the journey, All for One’s form had changed from the scarred vestige of his real world self to a young, healthy body. Yoichi had a bad feeling that he knew why. The vestiges had some ability to change their bodies in the Void, at least enough to get a new haircut or clothing. Otherwise, they’d all be stuck in the bloody rags of their deaths. All for One must be able to change because he’d entered a mindscape under his control.

Yoichi could change nothing for the same reason.

All for One grabbed Yoichi’s face and felt it. Yoichi tried to jerk away, but his older brother gripped the back of his hair to hold him in place. Either All for One was supernaturally strong, or Yoichi had gotten weaker here.

“Let me go!” Yoichi screamed. This only got him a finger probing his mouth. He bit down, but his teeth did no damage.

All for One kept running his hands down Yoichi’s body. The villain muttered, “So real…much more real than any of my attempts…”

“Big brother, it’s me. You know that, don’t you?” Yoichi had long wondered how his brother would react to coming face-to-face with him again. He’d spitefully hoped for some trace of guilt. Joy was possible, though that would have been annoying. Yoichi would have preferred his brother to show concern about the threat to his evil plans, in the unlikely event that big brother took him seriously for once. At the least, he’d expected some big, dramatic reaction. He did not know how to react to this blank stare.

“Maybe, just maybe,” All for One muttered. His gaze held a burning force that made Yoichi inch backward, as far as he could go with the hand still gripping his hair. “If it was merely a quirk ghost, then it would smell edible to me.”

“I told you, I’m not a quirk ghost, it’s me—wait, edible?”

All for One answered Yoichi’s question by taking a bite out of his hand.

Yoichi howled in pain and backhanded his older brother across the face.

This time, All for One let go. He spat out blood on the steel floor. “I can’t eat it,” he said in a tone of wonder. “Not a quirk ghost. I must talk to the doctor about this.” He stood up and walked out of the vault.

Yoichi lunged, but the vault door slammed shut in his face. His forehead bounced off. Even though the material looked like metal, it felt soft and spongy. This place was made of shadows and despair.

Collapsing to the ground, Yoichi cradled his injured hand, which did hurt. What had big brother been thinking? Yoichi had bitten his older brother repeatedly from a young age. But All for One had always considered retaliating in kind to be beneath him. He’d often lectured his little brother for being disgusting. Had the centuries driven All for One mad?

All for One hadn’t seemed to believe that Yoichi was real. Of all the reactions that Yoichi had anticipated, that hadn’t been one of them. He did not know how to feel. It would have been good if his brother had left him alone, but All for One had kidnapped him without even bothering to accept his existence. How unfair and undignified.

For lack of anything better to do, Yoichi felt his way around the vault. It looked exactly like the old prison featured in his nightmares. However, the building material lacked the substance to let him bash his brains out. Yoichi had used a hunger strike to try and force his brother to let him out last time, but ghosts didn’t eat and that hadn’t worked anyway. He tried repeatedly to imagine up a wrecking ball inside his cell but nothing happened. This only confirmed his worst fears that he had no power in this place. He was completely at his brother’s nonexistent mercy.

Yoichi wanted to believe that his heroes would rescue him again, but he could imagine no way for them to enter All for One’s mind. No heroes were coming. At this point, his only escape would be if All for One died. Then they’d both go down together.

Burying his face in his hands, Yoichi tried very hard not to cry. He’d endured this place once. He’d do it again. He had faith that Nineth would finally defeat All for One. Then everything would be over.

But he really didn’t want to die trapped within these hated four walls.

Time passed. It was impossible for Yoichi to say how much. He didn’t get hungry or thirsty. He did get bored. Lying back with his eyes closed, he ran through a dictionary of every English word he knew. He couldn’t bear to look at the vault walls. When he’d died for the first time, at least he’d believed he could never be trapped in this place again. This fate was too cruel.

A tear trickled down Yoichi’s face. He made the mistake of cracking an eye open as he wiped it off. Even though the darkness, he could feel the walls pressing around him. It choked him. Yoichi clutched his chest, gasping for air. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Surely this was all another nightmare. He keened like a wounded animal.

The wheel on the door turned.

Yoichi’s head shot up. He leapt to his feet. Dizziness made him sway, dropping down on one knee.

All for One shot forward, too fast to be resisted, and wrapped his arms around Yoichi, clingy as a baby sloth. “It’s truly you,” he cried.

Yoichi had a perverse desire to futilely deny it, but his breath wouldn’t come. His lungs felt crushed. He was still panicking.

“There, there.” All for One brushed a tear away from Yoichi’s eye. With the villain’s touch, Yoichi’s body felt lighter. He could breathe again. His pulse slowed. The panic attack was gone. In its place came a strange emptiness.

“What did you do to me?” Yoichi demanded.

“I helped you.” All for One kept petting Yoichi’s hair.

Yoichi wanted to throw his brother off, but there would be no point to fighting someone so much stronger, so he sat still. How odd. Normally, Yoichi had no problem attacking his older brother no matter how futile it might be. Intellectually, Yoichi knew he ought to be enraged by this babying touch. But rather than anger, he only had a sense that he ought to be angry.

“What did you do?” Yoichi growled again. Even his tone did not sound as furious as it should be.

“You feel perfectly real,” All for One whispered, kissing the top of Yoichi’s head.

Yoichi knew he ought to react, but his heart rate and breathing remained completely steady. This, in turn, forced him to be calm. At least it made thinking easier. “You’re controlling my body.”

All for One smiled. “You don’t have a body.”

“This fake body is part of your mindscape now. It’s under your control.” Once again, Yoichi knew he ought to be panicking. He was completely and utterly screwed, but this knowledge felt distant. His thoughts had been wrapped up in cotton. Yoichi fought through the suffocating sensation to summon up anger. “How dare you do this to me?”

“The vault was only a temporary holding cell, little brother. I’ve kept your old room for you.” Full of smiles, All for One snapped his fingers. The vault warped into Yoichi’s old bedroom as a young adult. It was a perfect replica, from the mahogany desk to the titles of the books on the shelves. Even his Spiderman bedcover had the same soda stain in the corner. The material under Yoichi’s knees changed to cream carpet.

Bending over, All for One grabbed Yoichi’s hand. He effortlessly healed the bite injury, then hauled his little brother to his feet.

Yoichi shook off the hand. “I meant stop messing with my body! I want out of your head!”

“No, I don’t think so.” All for One sat down backwards on the desk chair, with his arms hanging over the back. “How have you been, little brother?”

Yoichi stared. “Dead.”

All for One chuckled. “Fair enough. I’ve been working on my plan to possess bodies using duplicates of my quirk—”

“I don’t want to hear about your disgusting child-grooming activities.”

“Don’t be rude.” All for One wagged his finger. “You get three strikes, then I leave.”

Yoichi sneered. “Why would you possibly imagine that I would want you here?”

“Strike Two. You’ve always been foolish, little brother, but surely you’ve realized that I’m all that you have now.” All for One smirked.

That smug tone pushed Yoichi over the edge. “Your company is far worse than nothing, you narcissistic, deluded windbag!” Yoichi picked up a book from the shelf, intending to throw it at his brother’s head. But All for One had already vanished without so much as a mention of Strike Three.

Alone in the room, Yoichi flicked open the book. The pages were blank inside. It figured. Yoichi grasped his brother’s plan quickly. The first time All for One had thrown Yoichi in a vault, he’d tried to use isolation to break his little brother. This was the same tactic again. All for One planned to leave Yoichi alone until he longed for any human contact at all.

But why even bother? All for One couldn’t still want Yoichi to join his side. Yoichi had nothing to offer. If All for One wanted information, then he’d be disappointed by Yoichi’s limited grasp of the living world. More likely, All for One simply wanted to win. From past experience, a burning desire for victory alone would be enough to motivate big brother to great efforts.

Even now, Yoichi still felt calmer than he knew he ought to be. He’d started to sweat and grind his teeth again, but that was a mild reaction to the current disaster. He should be having another panic attack. Obviously that wouldn’t feel pleasant or help anything. Even so, Yoichi missed his emotions. They’d belonged to him. If he couldn’t properly explode, he could at least feel indignant at his brother for taking that away from him. No matter what, he refused to forget his anger.

Yoichi explored every inch of this new room. The desk drawers didn’t open. Neither did the closet door. The computer didn’t turn on. The window showed a motionless image of the backyard of his old family home from the dawn of the age of quirks. He could not break the chair no matter how many times he hit it against the wall. He didn’t even scratch the pastel blue wallpaper. The sound of the chair hitting the wall was reasonably realistic. However, Yoichi couldn’t smell anything. The entire room was completely odorless. Having created numerous rooms in the Void for his own entertainment, Yoichi would classify this place as a shoddy, poor imitation of reality.

Eventually, Yoichi lay on the bed and closed his eyes. In the Void, he’d been able to fall into a proximity of sleep with the occasional dream. It served to pass the time when he got bored.

When Yoichi awoke, there was a hand on his pillow. All for One said, “I came to fix this place into better shape.” As All for One’s fingers brushed the pillow, it suddenly held a faint scent of Yoichi’s favorite strawberry shampoo.

Yoichi sat up abruptly. The computer was turned on now. The book lying fallen on the floor showed words. “You…gave me books? Why?” This contradicted everything he’d assumed about his brother’s plan.

“I’m not going to torment you this time,” All for One crooned. “There’s no need.”

Because I’ve already won, hung in the air unspoken between them. Yoichi scowled. He’d braced himself for a difficult battle of wills. It felt a little insulting to learn that had all been unnecessary. “Then what do you want from me, big brother?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Liar! You kidnapped me!”

“I removed you from a place that’s likely to become dangerous over the course of the coming battle. If your latest holder died, then so would you. I myself have two bodies to move between now, so my consciousness is a much safer place for you to stay.”

Even now, All for One persisted in pretending to be a protective older brother. Yoichi scowled. “I’d rather take my chances with my successors.”

“I can’t allow you to vanish with those pitiful ghosts. It would be irresponsible of me.” All for One kissed Yoichi on the forehead. “I still love you, my foolish little brother. Now, I have business to take care of. I’ll see you later. We have nothing but time.”

Without even letting Yoichi get in a retort or a revenge bite, All for One vanished.

Nothing but time? What did that mean? Deep down, Yoichi knew what it meant, but he preferred not to think about it.

Yoichi tried to read, but his twisting and turning mind wouldn’t focus on the words. There had to be something he could do against his mad brother. He just couldn’t think of anything. Even if Yoichi could only throw All for One off-guard or upset him, then that would benefit his allies…right? Yoichi had his doubts he could truly do anything to help. But spiting his brother had always been reason enough for him.

The computer had internet, including decades worth of new movies, books, and anime. At first Yoichi was excited, until he realized he was blocked from any news of the outside world. Also, the content all seemed to be limited to what his older brother had seen. This made sense, because Yoichi was inside All for One’s head. But it meant the entertainment was heavily slanted toward edgelord crap with villain protagonists. Also, All for One had literally never finished a single story in his entire life. Of all the ridiculous pettiness. Yoichi despaired.

When All for One next materialized in his room, Yoichi had a plan ready. He sat on his bed, reading. Pointedly, he did not look up at his brother.

All for One asked, “Would you like to play a game? I brought Monopoly.”

Yoichi barely resisted a snort. He kept his face studiously neutral as he turned a page. Part of him was already desperate for human conversation, but he beat that part to death with a shovel. He knew his brother’s game and refused to lose at it. Big brother barely qualified as human anyway.

All for One said, “If you play with me, then I’ll tell you how the battle at Jaku City ended.”

Yoichi twitched. He wanted to know badly. But he reminded himself that it would do his allies no good whether he had information or not, and All for One was a liar. Yoichi’s plan was to irritate his brother and draw his attention into their battle of wills as much as possible. That meant he couldn’t give in.

“Still no? Very well. We’ll play a different game.” All for One snapped his fingers. (There was no need for gestures in the Void. Big brother was being melodramatic.)

Pain seized Yoichi’s chest. He coughed.

“Aw, are you sick, little brother?” All for One leaned over the bed and placed his hand on Yoichi’s forehead. “You feel feverish. Lie down, and I’ll make you tea.”

“How?” Yoichi croaked. His body felt hot. Small shivers shook his hands. He could not get sick in the Void. For crying out loud, he was already dead! His older brother must be doing this. Horror consumed Yoichi as he remembered that he was in a place where big brother had total control—including over Yoichi’s own body.

All for One pushed Yoichi down onto the bed. “You need rest.”

Yoichi leapt up, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at his brother’s face.

The pillow bounced off an invisible forcefield. The blankets leapt up and wrapped around Yoichi’s body, cocooning him. Yoichi struggled and swore.

With a clarity born from his still strangely emotionless mind, Yoichi realized the hopelessness of his situation. Whether he played along or not, he would still be his brother’s toy. All for One had plenty of games that he could enjoy without Yoichi’s cooperation. Big brother had always liked looking after him when he was sick a little too much. Yoichi had long suspected that there might be a reason he’d recovered from his illness after being rescued from the vault, even though no doctor his brother had taken him to had ever been able to help. It felt bitter to have his worst suspicions confirmed like this, with his older brother making him ill as a “game.”

There was no ignoring big brother. There was no escape. There was no winning. There were no heroes coming. Even death did not exist in this place.

A teacup on a saucer materialized on All for One’s palm. “Drink this, and then I’ll read you a story to put you to sleep.”

“I’ll accept nothing from you that you don’t force on me,” Yoichi hissed.

“You’re such a child. Even after all these years, you haven’t matured a bit.” All for One shook his head. “No matter. Now we’re together again, we can work on reaching a truce.”

In a world where All for One had all the power and control, Yoichi knew that truce meant surrender. “Fuck you.”

“Language.” All for One snapped his fingers again, and Yoichi’s throat seized up. He could no longer talk. He couldn’t move. Only his eyes tracked his brother’s every movement.

I’ll accept nothing from you that you don’t force on me had been his final gesture of defiance, but it meant nothing if his brother could simply force everything.

“I recreated your favorite green tea,” All for One said, then poured it straight down Yoichi’s throat.

Yoichi thrashed and howled voicelessly. It did not hurt. He had no need to breathe. Yet still he felt suffocated, as the weight of this horrible endless existence pressed down on him.

OMAKE TIME!

Omake: The Perfect Test

All for One: Are you really my brother or just an illusion? I must test this. (Manifests a pair of scissors and cuts off a lock of Yoichi’s hair.)

Yoichi: You’ve gone too far, you deranged megalomaniac! I will feed you those scissors!

All for One: You’re real! Ow ow ow.

#

Omake: Bedtime Story

All for One: Tonight, I’ll read you my Captain Hero fanfiction. Spoiler alert: the demon king wins.

Yoichi: I choose death.

All for One: You’re already dead.

Yoichi: (Sighs) I choose Monopoly.

All for One: Why not both?

Chapter Text

Yoichi woke up lying on the floor. The sunlight hurt. A conga line danced across his skull. Something dug into his back. He groaned and threw a hand over his eyes. A hard thing underneath him crunched as he moved.

Sitting up, Yoichi peeled a beer can off his back. He’d only had a couple drinks last night, to celebrate his debut as a mangaka. He shouldn’t have ended up so drunk that he’d collapsed on the floor. Memory returned in flashes. Maybe he’d downed three or four cans. For a long time, he hadn’t been able to drink alcohol because it mixed poorly with his medication. He lacked the experience to tell when he was drunk. Big brother must never find out about this.

Speaking of the devil, the light on his answering machine was flashing. It was probably a message from his older brother. Not a day went by without at least one call. Yoichi tossed the can in the trash, then shuffled over.

Yoichi’s penthouse apartment had massive glass windows with a panoramic view of the city below. Potted plants sat on the white shelves above the first set of windows, with another row of windows above. Stairs led up to the second floor. The living room had a fireplace, a big screen TV, and a leather sofa. A piano sat in the corner, delivered as a gift even though Yoichi had only once casually expressed an interest in playing. His bookshelves were much more frequently used and double-stacked with comics. He had a complete collection of every volume of Captain Hero except the last one. He hated the ending.

Yoichi stepped off the tan carpet of the living room to the yellow tiles of the kitchen. The chill instantly went to his bare feet. The kitchen had more shelves than he’d ever used. He didn’t even recognize half the very comprehensive cooking equipment. The landline phone and answering machine rested on the end of the counter. Yoichi pressed the button to play the message.

Big brother’s voice filled the room. “I received the very first copy of your first manga fresh off the press. Naturally, you’ll have to autograph it for me. I’ve made lunch reservations for us today at Nakamura Sushi. The cover art looks amazing. I could tell you used my ideas for the villain’s design. I know you insisted that I wasn’t to use my influence at the publishing company, but please at least let me send a gift to your editor. I’m delighted that my support of you has paid off—”

Yoichi pressed delete. Of course his brother would turn Yoichi’s manga debut into an excuse to brag about himself. Also, Yoichi had carefully designed all his villains not to appeal to his brother’s taste—the main enemies were mindless insect aliens and the human bad guy was a well-intentioned extremist with a redemption arc. Apparently nothing could stop big brother from simping over a villain…or claiming undue credit. Ugh. Even without listening to the end, Yoichi already gotten the gist of the message. He had a command performance this afternoon. Glancing at the stove clock, Yoichi paled. It was a lot closer to noon than he’d realized. He ran upstairs to get dressed.

A crisp autumn wind nipped at Yoichi as he walked down the street. He tugged his scarf to cover more of his face. His long grey coat had a fur lining to keep him warm.

Down the street, a man stood on the lip of a fountain shouting at people. He wore a suit, but his hair was uncombed and greasy. Most passing people ignored him. One left a coin at his feet.

Homeless people should not exist in this city. Yoichi picked up his pace, sprinting to the fountain.

The middle-aged man waved a fist at the sky. “It’s all fake! Look at the sun. You can look at the sun. It doesn’t hurt your eyes at all! The sun isn’t real! I’ve been counting the days. Fall lasted too long this year. It ought to be winter by now. That’s not all. When is the last time anyone here has grown older?”

The crowd kept passing by the man, ignoring his words. The shouting made Yoichi’s headache worsen.

With a growl, the man punched the fountain behind him, where water poured from three tiers of bamboo. “See? It won’t break! Things don’t break here!” He punched the wood harder, not even shaking it. “I fell down a flight of stairs and heard my spine snap, but when I stood up, I was fine! I should be dead!”

Yoichi ran over and yanked the man off the fountain wall. Pressing their faces close together, Yoichi hissed, “Stop! You can’t let on that you know! Did it ever occur to you that if the world is fake, then someone must have created it?”

The man’s eyes widened. Up close, he smelled of sweat and unwashed dirt. He whispered, “You know, too?”

“I know better than to shout about it in public,” Yoichi growled. Underneath his anger was a desperate edge of fear. Nothing that happened in this city could be hidden from him. And if Yoichi was late to lunch, that would only make this situation more likely to end in disaster. “I have to go. I have a noon meeting. Please, go home.”

“Here’s my address.” The man ripped out a paper from a notebook, scribbled on it, and handed it to Yoichi. “Will you come talk to me after your meeting?” A desperate hope filled his gaze.

Yoichi took the paper, though he doubted he’d ever have any occasion to use the address. “Sure. I’ll tell you everything I know in a private location if you stop shouting in public,” he lied. Anything to get this man off the street before this turned ugly.

Luckily, his persuasion worked. The man stepped over the coins on the ground and left. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but luckily did not stop.

Wearily and with an aching head, Yoichi pushed open the door to Nakamura Sushi. The small restaurant had wooden walls and paper lanterns hanging from the windows. A conveyer belt brought fresh sushi to customers sitting at the counter. Overhead was a board with pictures of the sushi and prices.

The restaurant was deserted except for his older brother. A copy of Yoichi’s manga rested on the counter. An astronaut wielded a wrench as he faced off against a hoard of giant bug aliens. Yoichi had been in the mood for escapism when he’d written it.

His older brother looked up and smirked. “You have dirt on your cheek.” Standing up, he wiped it off.

Yoichi could read the message hidden inside those words: big brother already knew. There was no point in playing games. Flatly, Yoichi said, “Please don’t eat him. Just erase his memories again.”

All for One tucked a lock of Yoichi’s hair behind his ear. “I’m not sure why you care about them so much. None of them are real people. But if that’s what my cute little brother wants, then of course.”

All the quirk ghosts who made up the population of this fake city were hostages to force Yoichi to play along with the dream that his older brother had carefully crafted inside his mental landscape. Yes, Yoichi knew they weren’t exactly people. It was difficult to say how much awareness they had. But their screams when they were eaten haunted his nightmares. He needed to be able to save someone. His knees shook.

All for One placed a hand on Yoichi’s forehead. “Tsk tsk, you drank too much last night. A bit of a headache, I see? That won’t do. We’re celebrating today.” With one touch, Yoichi’s pain vanished.

Yoichi knew that big brother would have also erased his memories if he could. But Yoichi was not a quirk ghost. He was a dead man, or perhaps a dead man’s copy. Everything inside All for One’s mind was under his control, including Yoichi’s body—but not Yoichi’s thoughts.

Throwing off the hand, Yoichi sat down. Even though there was no chef, the conveyer belt started moving. All for One didn’t bother to hide the nature of this dream world when it was just the two of them.

“Cheer up. Today is your big day.” Sitting, All for One placed a hand on Yoichi’s shoulder. Immediately, the tension melted from Yoichi’s body. He felt invigorated. The physical change couldn’t force Yoichi to be happy, exactly, but it became very hard to feel upset.

Until All for One added, “Our big day, really, since I gave you so many story ideas and financially supported you while you worked on your manga.”

A surge of annoyance penetrated Yoichi’s forced calm. Did it count as support when he’d been imprisoned here and forced to accept whatever his brother gave him? It wasn’t as if money cost anything inside a dream. “I didn’t use any of your ideas.” At least Yoichi could be proud that his manga was his own. He’d insisted that his older brother not use his control over this world to get it published. Yoichi had submitted his manuscript to a quirk ghost belonging to an editor and been accepted on his own merits.

“Oh?” All for One put his chin on his palm. “But I want to be a part of your project. Maybe you could make a small change to your story for me, since I’m doing you a favor not eating that rebellious quirk ghost.”

Everything had a price with big brother. “What do you want?”

All for One winked. “Let the villain win.”

Yoichi laughed. All for One laughed, too. Yoichi had a sense of wrongness. He should be more angry. That had definitely been a jab. But he could not muster the energy to fight with his older brother. Yoichi did not know how much of this to attribute to the hopelessness of his situation, and how much to blame on the control his brother possessed over his emotional state. Sometimes he had trouble figuring out what he ought to be feeling.

“Stop messing with my emotions.” Yoichi summoned up the will to glare. “If you force happiness on me, then it isn’t real.”

“Then I’ll rewrite reality for your sake.” All for One mussed Yoichi’s hair. “I have to look after what belongs to me. I’ll take care of you. If I keep tweaking it, then eventually I’ll find the chemical combination that causes happiness.”

Yoichi did not want to admit, even to himself, how close his brother had already come. This subject gave him cold chills. Summoning up an icy tone, he said, “No one except you would ever read a science fiction adventure where the aliens win in the end out of nowhere. I’m writing escapism, not some nihilist bullshit masquerading as deep. It’s not happening. Instead, I’ll give you a new alien king character that you can customize to your taste.”

All for One grinned. “And your human bad guy doesn’t get redeemed in the end.”

“What?” Yoichi’s eyes narrowed. “I knew you were only pretending that didn’t bother you. Ha!”

“I’m starting to feel hungry…I’m not sure this sushi will be enough…” All for One licked his lips loudly.

“Oh, fine.” Yoichi reached for a piece of sushi, wishing it was another beer. He’d lost this round, as usual.

OMAKE TIME!

All for One: Little brother, I’m so proud of you that I even hired an artist team to reproduce your manga in the real world. Then I made it mandatory school reading across Japan.

Yoichi: Don’t do that! I told you that I wanted to succeed on my own merits!

All for One: It got instantly seized upon as a symbol for the resistance. Well-played.

Yoichi: Isn’t that because you forced me to make the bad guy resemble you? I didn’t even want you anywhere near my manga but you shoehorned your way in! People usually empathize with the hero, not the villain, unless they’re weirdos like you. You played yourself!

All for One: If you put it like that, it makes me look foolish, so I’m going to continue to believe this was all your clever scheme.

Chapter Text

For three weeks after his younger brother’s death, All for One decorated his giant bank vault with comic books and hero posters. A dozen bookshelves circled around the new bed, television, and gaming set. He went about his task in a mad fervor, as if he sincerely believed if he’d made the metal prison a bit nicer then his younger brother wouldn’t have run off with the first vigilantes who offered him a hand.

Since All for One hadn’t been able to retrieve his brother’s corpse off the battlefield before those damn kidnappers took it away, he could pretend that horrible day had all been a nightmare. This was the “denial” stage of grief.

Anger arrived when he learned the vigilantes had cremated the body. This destroyed his delusions of cryogenic freezing, corpse resurrection, and cloning. He stripped everything from the vault, including the blanket and the toilet. Let the rebellious brat rot in his own waste, that would teach him. (He knew this didn’t make any sense. His brother was already dead. But his thoughts shied away from that place like a man on his deathbed refusing to look at the knife sticking out of his chest.)

When he turned to bargaining, he slowly added a few objects back here and there. A new comic book that he believed his little brother would have liked. A thousand yen shampoo. The last cookie from their favorite childhood bakery before it closed down. It rotted on the metal floor next to the other offerings.

The vault had started to stink, so All for One turned to his favorite refuge, fantasy transformed into reality. He could create convincing illusions of places and objects inside the mental landscape where he kept his quirk hoard. The void-like realm had long been his playground. His illusions of his younger brother’s old bedroom looked and felt completely real. He tried creating a duplicate of his younger brother to sit inside, but it didn’t talk. It didn’t move except when he puppeteered it around. It didn’t fight him. He could not even pretend that this was real for very long. Frankly, the pathetic shadow only made him feel worse.

The depression stage lasted nearly a century, during which time he didn’t visit the vault at all. He locked away every picture of his younger brother where he couldn’t see them. He wasted a lot of time chasing around the lineage of thieves who had stolen his brother’s quirk, seeking the last trace of his little brother left in the world.

Acceptance meant destroying the vault. He melted it down with a fire hotter than anything except a quirk could generate, then dropped the lumpy remnants into the ocean. He could add littering to his many other sins.

With renewed vigor, All for One returned to conquering Japan. If his ambitions were all that remained to him, then he’d at least have those. It ended with him being smashed to the pavement by All Might, twice.

Sitting strapped to a chair in Tartarus, All for One heard a sound he hadn’t in centuries. His younger brother’s voice. At first, he took it for a dream or delusion. But when he concentrated hard enough, he felt a faint tug toward One for All. A bond left over from long ago. He thought about a stockpiling quirk and what—who—it might be able to copy. A desperate drop of denial from long ago returned.

Maybe the voice merely came from a quirk ghost. He did not want another fake to remind him of his past mistakes. But the quirk stockpiled memories. Could it even stockpile personality and consciousness? Was there any tiny hope that he could get back what he’d lost?

He spent long hours reaching out for One for All. What else did he have to do while locked up in this hellhole prison? He could visualize a door standing before him, but he couldn’t open it. Not yet.

Obtaining One for All had just become top priority.

Within his mental palace, All for One started to construct a vault.