Chapter Text
A warzone was loud.
Old warzones had a variety of explosions, the fire of guns to the blast of bombs. Modern warzones had an even larger spread with quirks.
Energy buzzed in the background as strange forces interacted with each other and the world at large.
A strange crunching sound emitted from Shigaraki where he lay on the ground- his Decay spreading like wildfire and twice as destructive, the dirt, grass, and stone rotting into sand that was torn up by the winds.
But all of it fell on deaf ears.
Izuku Midoriya stared away from Shigaraki, away from his opponent, with eyes locked on the still body of Katsuki Bakugou, lying face up in the dirt.
A bully.
A friend.
A rival.
A hero.
And now... a corpse.
Deku could see a hole punched in Bakugou's chest, his eyes could even make out the sandy-white color of broken bones dyed slightly pink with blood as they stuck out, held up by the torn fibers of his uniform.
For that moment, Deku was gone- deaf to the roaring chaos around him, blind to the carnage that had happened, only able to focus on this one small chunk of it to try and focus it all so he could understand...
Lemillion reached out, he spoke to him, pulling Deku back into the reality that had moved on from the moment- a reality that needed Deku right here and now.
The noise died down as Deku regained control over himself- the storm he created dying down too as the smoke and energy billowing around him returned to under his control. He turned to face his opponent, the person he both needed to beat and to save, with a look of grim determination on his face-
But he wasn't the only one getting ready.
"Fantasizing in the middle of a fight- you must really miss your friend, don't you? Well, don't worry, hero-!" Shigaraki screamed as he approached, rocketing over in an instant. His hands reached out towards Deku as the distance between them dwindled to nothing. "Because you aren't far behind him!"
Shigaraki was in a desperate situation. Outnumbered, outmatched, and outgunned, there wasn't much he could do- or at least, there wasn't much that he knew he could do. But he knew he could do more.
Knowing exactly what a quirk you had did was nearly impossible, but knowing you had a quirk was easy- especially after receiving more. You never forgot that, never forgot the pain of it being rammed into you like needles then filled in like flaming tar- All-for-One made sure no one would ever forget it. And Shigaraki knew he had more.
Shigaraki knew he had at least twenty more quirks in him, but had no idea what they actually were. Failsafes against him? Weapons All-for-One planned to use after he took over this body? Passives that lingered in the background, never needing to be activated?
It didn't matter. None of that mattered now, because even if Shigaraki had no idea what they did, no one short of All-for-One himself did. And that meant no one could predict them.
In a Hail Mary to do something, Shigaraki activated every single quirk he could in his body inches from Deku. Already, the young hero's eyes were lighting up, his arms coming together- no doubt to activate a quirk of his own -and so Shigaraki raced to be the first to activate.
Shigaraki had the experience. He had more practice, he had handled more quirks, and his quirks didn't need some stupid physical motion like touching his hands together to activate.
But the numbers!
As Shigaraki cycled through all of his quirks to activate every single one as fast as he could, Deku only had to activate one. He placed his hands together, activating Gear-Shift on himself and starting to move even faster. His body lit up to match his eyes as he began to move, the distance between hero and villain completely disappearing as both lined up their attacks-
"Shigaraki!" "He-ro-!"
Their battle cries echoed as Deku punched Shigaraki faster than the villain could perceive, the three blows feeling like one massive slug that struck him like a thunderbolt- and just as loud, too. Deku already started to move away, repositioning as fast as he could- but it was too late.
As Deku prepared to move back, a myriad of quirks and energies engulfed him... and a few pretty ironic ones, too.
Deku wasn't sure what to feel as the healing aura washed over him, a quirk All-for-One picked to counter some of the drawbacks of actively using Decay.
Shigaraki could only blink in confusion as he felt some effect wash over his body, unaware that he had stopped aging.
But the only one worthwhile was the strangely familiar purplish black haze that was suddenly emitted from Shigaraki's body. Black Cloud, also known as... Kurogiri.
'He kept a double of it?' Deku wondered in amazement as the black cloud mingled with his smokescreen. 'How?'
Shigaraki wasn't as surprised. All-for-One had duplicates of quirks that slowed his aging, regeneration, and a few others- why was it hard to believe the No. 1 villain had some way to duplicate his favorite quirks? It must've been quite costly if he did it so rarely, but if he could... no, even if he couldn't, Shigaraki could see his old master finding some way to recreate the quirk- no matter how much effort it took.
"Hah... Ha! Hahahaha! YES!" Shigaraki's smile was so large it was almost visible between the hands covering his face as he literally and metaphorically teleported victory right back into his hands. "YEEEEEEEEES! THIS! IS! YOUR! END!"
Deku's eyes shifted from surprise to determination as with a mere swing of his hand, he pushed back Black Cloud, building distance easily and outspeeding with Gear-Shift. He even shifted even higher to go even faster before seeming to disappear, rounding on Shigaraki from behind to- punch straight into another Black Cloud?!
"Haha~! To think! Kurogiri couldn't even manage this!" Shigaraki boasted as he shifted his own body, smiling confidently still. It didn't matter where Deku was or how fast he went- after all, Shigaraki had Search, and there was no way he'd miss the obvious burning beacon that was Deku in his mind's eye. He could always sense the hero, always see him, and if he knew where Deku was going to be-! "You thought you were fast, but all you did was speedily run straight first into a portal! It's over!"
From afar, Eraserhead cursed, getting himself ready before handing something very vital to Monoma. A single piece of hair. "Shit! Monoma, I need you to recopy Kurogiri! Just overlay it on Shigaraki's- we can't let Deku get teleported away! At best, he could end up miles from here! At worst..."
"Alright, alright- I won't let our little hero get turned into confetti." Monoma scoffed at the idea, grabbing the hair to regain Kurogiri for a full duration of ten minutes. "Erase his Decay, Erase his Kurogiri- What else can we do?"
"If you erase Kurogiri, you might cut the portal in half with Deku still in it! We just need to neutralize the portals by putting our own in there!" Eraserhead quickly shut down the unfortunately easy seeming way- that was just likely to get Deku killed. It looked like the hard way was the only way, like forcing a door to stay open by opening a second door on the exact same spot. "Do it, Monoma!"
Time seemed to slow as Shigaraki zeroed in, prepared to do exactly what Eraserhead feared. All he needed to do was teleport half of that meddlesome hero somewhere, anywhere, and then cut the portal off- cutting this little hero into little pieces!
In the same breath, Monoma reached out- pushing his portal through itself, teleporting it directly in the way of Shigaraki's portal. His large familiarity with the quirk helped close the gap even as the portal itself closed, the two clouds engulfing Deku entirely for but a moment.
To the rest of the world, it seemed to happen in an instant- and it was only when those two quirks overlapped could one notice the differences, the slightly different effects. The misty cloud of the true Kurogiri versus the almost heated haze-like smoke of Shigaraki's, the stronger blue of Monoma's copied quirk clashing and warring with the stronger red of Shigaraki's duplicate.
In this moment- especially trapped between them -it was easy to see that they weren't the same. Especially when one moment you were fighting the greatest threat to Japan and possibly the world at large, and the next, you're falling out of the sky.
Deku looked left. He looked right. He looked in almost every direction in a mix of horror and confusion as the unstable smoke and clouds trailed slightly off his rapidly plummeting body. Other than the bluish-purple and reddish-purple darkness that were quickly dissipating from his body, there wasn't a single sign of U.A. or the fight he just had.
The distance was scenic, if a little weird with one giant white tower in the distance.
The sky was clear, save for one light shower of confused heroes.
The ground was nice and plain, albeit coming up fast.
Deku locked in, spreading his arms out to stabilize as he took in the scene, trying to rationalize what had happened. He used Gear-Shift, he almost hit Shigaraki, then... did Kurogiri show up? No, Kurogiri had been contained... He still was contained, but then did that mean Shigaraki did this? Monoma?
It seemed that he must've been teleported somewhere far away. An attack or a mishap, either way, he was here now- and it was time to fix that.
Deku let the wind blow through his hair, breathing it in as he felt the wind pushed against him, then activated his quirk Float to start his stop. Next, he circulated One-for-All through his body, to do an almost flapping motion to slow himself down-
"...huh?" Deku muttered as he looked down at his arms, feeling something literally and metaphorically deeply wrong. His fall was really picking up now, but for some reason, he wasn't slowing- and he couldn't feel something.
Like a part of himself missing, something was off-balance, and it took a moment too long to figure out what it was.
It was All-for-One.
All-for-One was gone.
Deku's mind filled with panic as he searched his mind for the Vestiges, but found nothing. He searched his body for their quirks but found nothing. He didn't have his super-strength! Hell, he didn't even have Float!
He cycled through them faster now as the ground grew into focus- Gear-Shift, Fa-Jin, Danger-Sense, and- finally, a quirk!
With a triumphant cry, Deku focused on one of the feelings left, activating Blackwhip to create a dark tendril out of his arm. He smiled openly at it, then looked at the ground zooming closer, then at the greenish-black noodle flailing in the wind, then at that ground he was about to hit, and then-
"Holy Freaking Super Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"