Archive of Our Own

Midoriya Hisashi, more commonly known as All For One or even Shigaraki Hisashi in some circles, surveyed the bar through one of his many technological quirks. Or rather, what was left of the bar after Tomura’s latest temper tantrum.

All over a damn pair of shoes.

It was only his years of experience that kept the irritated sigh from escaping his mouth. Replacing everything in there was hardly going to make a dent in his budget but it was still more than he wanted to shell out. 

He should have known those damn shoes would eventually come back to bite him in the ass when he first found them.

He scanned the aisle of the specialty hero store with an equally special sort of disdain. He would never have had to step foot in this damn place if Izuku’s overtly bigoted teachers hadn’t decided to outright start a war over his precious son. 

It had seemed benign at first. Just small things, like a misgraded test or a few missing stolen (there was nothing that witch of a teacher could say to him that would convince him his son’s stuff wasn’t stolen) objects from his pencil bag. Dealing with children was exhausting, he would give them a little leeway and start with a simple talk. After all, all negotiations had to start somewhere. 

He would have been more than happy to let things go had they fixed their mistakes and corrected any behavior issues they were exhibiting. At least, until they started rambling about how his son was the problem!  The light of his life. The six year old that couldn’t even swat at a fly without crying. His Izuku was apparently the problem.

He wasn’t going to let those comments slide. He wasn’t the Emperor of the Underworld for nothing. 

Inko’s stern glare was the only thing that kept him from leveling that pathetic excuse of a school right then and there. His wife pleading with him to remain civil may have had a small impact in his approach but it wasn’t the deciding factor. He was going to have to resort to other methods. Methods that he was intimately familiar with from his time before his days as Emperor and methods that made his reign far more delightful, for him at least. Malicious compliance. 

Misgraded tests? Simple, Izuku now wrote in pen. His answers could not be changed and the teachers couldn’t blatantly ignore his genius when Hisashi was calling them after every test to correct their mistakes.

Missing stolen items? Hisashi had a lovely quirk that acted like a lockbox of sorts. If he was touching someone, in this case Izuku, and a storage item, his pencil case, only Izuku would be able to take anything from it. Quite useful, if he did say so himself.

Every little problem that magically popped up out of nowhere he quickly provided a solution to. One that none of the staff at Aldera Elementary could argue against because he was following the rules to the letter. Seeing their increasingly frustrated faces was the highlight of his day. It would be almost as satisfying as their eventual deaths.

Of course, some of their “problems” with his son were a little more inconvenient than others. Like the fact that his shoes weren’t technically regulation. As in his favorite All Might pair that he wore literally everywhere. The blue ones with gaudy streaks of yellow, red, and white all over the sides. The same shoes that he exchanged for slippers the moment he stepped inside the school building and didn’t put on again until the end of the day when he was set to return home.

His precious Izuku came home sobbing his eyes out this afternoon because he wasn’t allowed to wear his favorite shoes anymore. The same exact type he’d seen several other students wear. Hell, the Bakugo brat had a pair and he didn’t get any shit for it!

But if that’s how they want to play, he was more than happy to oblige. 

Which is how he ended up standing inside a god awful specialty hero merch store at nearly ten o’ clock at night. As long as the shoes he picked out were a solid color with white or black soles, those bastards couldn’t say anything. The only problem was finding All Might brand shoes that were a single color. Which is why he spent almost the entire night scouring pretty much every specialty store in the lower half of Japan to find them.

He was staring at the bright red monstrosities, that he was absolutely positive that Izuku would fall in love with when he saw them in the morning, with an unrestrained, positively gleeful grin.

He didn’t pay any attention to the two people that practically fled the store upon seeing his delight.

With his prize in hand, he turned to the checkout counter only to immediately pause in his tracks as a stray thought crossed his mind. Tomura was probably going to need some new shoes soon. He remembered hearing Kurogiri complaining about the boy outgrowing everything recently, though it hadn’t really mattered to him at the moment.

His eyes wandered back to the shoes as a thought crossed his mind. As much as he hated to admit anything decent about the blond oaf, All Might didn’t produce crap. All his products were top of the line, especially things like attire. The shoes were, dare he say, excellent quality and not outwardly representative of the number one hero. Only a truly dedicated fan or, in his case, a spite-fueled father would ever be able to tell the difference between your average pair of red shoes and these. Tomura might as well be allergic to hero shops, so it wasn’t like he would ever know the difference. Right?

He shrugged, mind made up and grabbed a bigger pair of the shoes. Tomura would never find out and he was always thankful for anything Hisashi got for him. Plus, Kurogiri would stop complaining. It was a win-win scenario.

He checked out and strutted out of the shop with his gleeful grin back in place and two boxes tucked under his arm. Izuku was going to be so excited.

And Tomura too, he supposed.

Izuku was shivering, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the water of the shipwreck zone or the fear of seeing his teacher’s head bashed into the ground as easily as one would crack an egg. 

Probably a bit of both, if he was being honest with himself.

But none of it even remotely compared to the way his mind went completely and utterly blank at the sight of a certain brand of shoes that he was intimately familiar with.

He probably should have been a bit more concerned with the fact that a homicidal maniac with a five point activation disintegration quirk was coming straight for his face but, in his defense, he was a little stunned. And confused.

And that confusion only grew as he got closer and Izuku was able to confirm his suspicions.

Shigaraki Tomura, homicidal maniac with a five point activation disintegration quirk, who waltzed into a hero school declaring he was going to kill All Might loudly enough for everyone in the building to hear— which he had to admit was impressive projecting skills for someone without a voice quirk like Present Mic— was wearing a pair of special edition All Might brand shoes.

Just what the hell was even happening right now?

He wasn’t sure how long he was just standing in the water, staring at Shigaraki in utter disbelief and perhaps some slight indignation, but it wasn’t until a chill had settled in the air and Todoroki had taken one arm while Tsu took the other to haul him out of the water that he snapped out of his stupor.

The sound of explosions and Kachan shouting, “Snap the fuck out of it, Deku!” Was only barely registered.

None of it mattered. He had to get answers. He just had to know.

“If you’re so hellbent on killing All Might, why are you wearing his merchandise?”

His question cut through the air, interrupting Shigaraki mid monologue and instantly silencing everyone in the plaza for several long minutes.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” Shigaraki demanded an answer. He seemed even more pissed off than he already was.

Izuku pointed at Shigaraki’s shoes furiously. “Those are the Special Edition: Red Sun All Mighty shoes! How do you not know that? They’re not just expensive! You can’t even order them online, you have to go to a specialty hero merch store to even hope to find them!”

Shigaraki’s face twisted up in anger and disgust behind the hand covering his face. “What kind of bullshit are you spewing?! I’m not wearing fucking All Might merch!”

“Really? Because every piece of All Might merch has an AM with a half circle stamped somewhere onto it. For shoes, it’s on the inner lining right at your heel.”

Shigaraki seemed to hesitate, as if the thought of his shoes actually being All Might merch might be the death of him. For someone who claimed to have the biggest hate boner for the number one hero, it very well might. At least then, the main threat in the USJ would be out of the way.

But not knowing was apparently killing him more because only a second later he practically ripped off a shoe to look at the inner lining. The shoe turned to dust in his hand as hysterical laughter fell from the overgrown manchild’s mouth while he gripped tightly onto his hair. The insanity was getting to him already.

Before Shigaraki could get a grip back on reality, the doors to the entrance of the USJ crumpled open as easily as ripping paper revealing All Might.

Luckily for the uninformed idiot, his underling seemed to have some common sense and warped both Shigaraki and the nomu out of there leaving the rest of them standing there with an awkward silence surrounding them.

Hisashi wasn’t expecting anything but failure from Tomura’s debut. It was a mission scraped together in only a few days, meant to make a statement more than anything else. So when the three of them returned, he tuned into the TV hooked up in the bar. 

He was pleasantly surprised to see they were all intact, even the nomu. Though, Tomura was missing one of his shoes for some odd reason.

“Sensei…” Tomura’s voice was high pitched, almost manic.

“Yes, Tomura?” He didn’t even have time to ask for a status report. Oh well, he would get to it eventually.

“Am I wearing All Might merch?”

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Well, shit.