Chapter Text
The world violently twisted, a sickening, spiraling vortex of black and gray that wrenched Izuku Midoriya from the sky. The weightless sensation of falling vanished as abruptly as it had begun, instantly replaced by the jarring, bone-rattling impact of solid, unyielding stone against the soles of his iron-soled boots. He stumbled forward, his knees bending deeply to absorb the massive shock of the landing, his momentum throwing his hands out to scrape heavily against rough, loose gravel.
He threw his head up, his emerald eyes wide and frantic, scanning the immediate area. Gone were the towering, heavily reinforced metal walls of the U.A. barrier. Gone was the intricate, overlapping array of steel and the meticulously constructed, floating cages of the Troy protocol. All around him stretched a desolate, seemingly endless wasteland of shattered concrete, twisted rebar, and pulverized asphalt. It was the skeletal remains of an abandoned city district.
Izuku’s breath caught hard in his throat. His chest heaved, the dark fabric of his hero costume tightening uncomfortably with every rapid, shallow inhalation. He spun around, his heavy boots kicking up loose dirt and crushed stone, the sound echoing unnaturally in the quiet. He desperately searched for the familiar, comforting flash of Katsuki's explosive blasts, the brilliant glint of Tenya's polished armor, the towering, reassuring presence of Endeavor's flames.
There was nothing. Just endless, broken ruins.
This was wrong. This was entirely, fundamentally wrong. The plan, the careful calculations, the absolute reliance on Monoma and Aizawa’s combined efforts—it was all shattered in an instant. They were supposed to isolate the villains. They were supposed to divide and conquer.
"A breathtaking view, isn't it?"
The voice was smooth, cultured, and resonated with a terrifyingly calm authority.
Izuku whipped around, his stance immediately dropping into a low, defensive crouch. Sparks of brilliant emerald electricity began to crackle and arc across his skin, illuminating the concrete beneath his feet.
Standing barely fifty paces away, amidst a pile of crumbling masonry, was the imposing, towering figure of All For One. The dark, impeccably tailored suit he wore seemed entirely out of place in the ruined landscape. The grotesque, skull-like life-support mask obscured his features.
All For One slowly spread his arms, the palms of his hands facing upward in a gesture of grand, sweeping welcome. He didn't take a stance. He didn't summon any monstrous, mutated appendages. He merely stood there, the picture of absolute, unbothered control.
"I must admit, the heroes' little theater production was quite ingenious," All For One mused, his masked head tilting slightly to the side as he regarded the teenager before him. "The metal cages, the forced warp gates. A truly valiant effort to control the board. But a king does not simply allow the pawns to dictate where he stands." The villain let out a low, vibrating chuckle that rattled in his chest. "I am exceedingly glad I managed to pull you away from the others, Izuku. The noise of all those irrelevant extras was giving me a terrible headache. Here, we can finally have a moment of quiet."
Izuku grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw ticking rapidly. He clenched his fists, the reinforced gloves squeaking slightly under the immense pressure. Think, he commanded himself, his eyes darting across the villain's posture, looking for the telltale signs of a quirk activation. He warped us. He bypassed the cages. Where are we? How far from U.A.?
But more pressing than the location was the eerie, unnatural silence ringing inside Izuku's own skull.
He waited for the sharp, piercing static. He waited for the sudden, jolting spike of electricity in his brain, the overwhelming pressure behind his eyes that always preceded an attack. He waited for the Fourth User’s quirk to scream at him, to warn him of the monstrous, world-ending malice standing just yards away.
Nothing.
Danger Sense remained completely, utterly dormant.
Izuku’s brow furrowed in deep confusion, a bead of cold sweat tracing its way down his temple, slipping beneath the edge of his scarred cowl. Why wasn't it going off? All For One was the very embodiment of evil, a walking calamity who possessed enough killing intent to suffocate an entire city block. Yet, the warning system in Izuku's mind was as still and quiet as a calm lake.
It made absolutely no sense.
"What did you do?" Izuku demanded, his voice tight, the crackling energy around him intensifying, whipping up small particles of ash and loose debris from the ground. "Where did you take us?"
"Does it truly matter?" All For One replied, slowly lowering his arms, interlacing his fingers in front of his chest. "We are far away from the interference of your teachers and your little friends. That is all that concerns me."
The villain wasn't taking a combat stance. His posture remained entirely relaxed, his shoulders completely devoid of tension. He was holding back. He wasn't projecting any hostility.
Izuku couldn't afford to wait. He couldn't afford to let the mastermind dictate the pace of this encounter. If All For One was holding back, Izuku had to exploit that hesitation immediately.
"One For All: Full Cowling... Forty-Five Percent!" Izuku shouted, the words tearing from his throat as the raw, immense power surged through his veins. The glowing red lines of energy intersected across his skin, illuminating the darkness.
With a deafening crack that shattered the concrete beneath his boots, Izuku launched himself forward. He closed the fifty-pace distance in a fraction of a second, becoming a blur of dark green and brilliant emerald static. He pivoted his hips, driving his momentum into his right shoulder, pulling his arm back for a devastating strike.
"St. Louis... Smash!"
His leg swung upward in a high, sweeping arc, aiming directly for the side of the villain's masked head. The air pressure alone from the kick carved a deep trench into the ground before the strike even landed.
All For One didn't dodge. He merely raised a single hand, the movement frustratingly casual, almost lazy.
A sudden, dense wall of solidified air materialized between them. Izuku’s iron sole slammed into the invisible barrier. The impact rang out like a massive bell, sending a shockwave rippling outward that leveled the surrounding piles of debris, turning stone into fine powder.
But the barrier didn't shatter. It yielded just enough to absorb the kinetic energy, acting like a massive, invisible cushion.
Izuku grunted, pushing harder against the barrier, trying to increase his output. Still, All For One didn't counterattack. The villain merely stood behind his shield, his eyeless mask fixed steadily on Izuku's face.
"Such ferocity," All For One observed, his voice completely devoid of the mocking, venomous edge Izuku had come to expect. It sounded almost... analytical. "But your form is still too rigid. You carry too much tension in your shoulders."
Izuku snarled, pushing off the barrier and flipping backward, landing lightly on a piece of overturned masonry. Six tendrils of Blackwhip erupted from his back, the dark, crackling energy lashing out like angry vipers. He sent them surging forward, aiming to bind the villain's limbs.
All For One simply stepped to the side. He didn't use a speed quirk. He merely shifted his weight, allowing the dark tendrils to strike the ground exactly where he had been standing a second prior. The concrete exploded, but the villain remained entirely untouched, his suit completely unblemished.
Why isn't he fighting back? Izuku thought frantically, reeling the tendrils in. He's just deflecting. He's just watching. Why?
Izuku clenched his hands into tight fists, preparing to cycle Fa Jin, preparing to push his body past its limits. He needed to break through that calm facade.
As he tightened his grip, a sudden, bizarre sensation bloomed in the very center of his palms.
It didn't feel like the familiar, bone-deep ache of One For All overtaxing his body. It wasn't the sharp, stabbing pain of a muscle tearing or a bone fracturing under immense pressure.
It felt like an itch. A deep, pinprick itch located directly beneath the thick scar tissue of his palms.
Izuku blinked, slightly loosening his fists, his concentration wavering for a fraction of a second. He rubbed his thumbs across his palms over the fabric of his gloves, trying to alleviate the strange sensation.
Izuku snapped his head up, the emerald energy flaring around him once more. He ignored the strange itch, pushing the feeling aside. He crouched low again, digging his fingers into the stone.
The moment his palms pressed against the hard surface, the itch rapidly transformed.
It ignited.
A sharp, searing spike of heat shot through his hands, as if someone had just pressed a glowing hot branding iron directly against his bare skin. Izuku let out a sharp gasp, his eyes widening in shock. He immediately pulled his hands back from the ground, staring down at his gloved palms.
The heat rapidly escalated into an agonizing, tearing sensation. It felt as though the very flesh and muscle in the center of his hands were being forcibly pulled apart from the inside out.
"Argh!" Izuku cried out, his voice cracking as he stumbled backward. His knees knocked together. The brilliant emerald electricity surrounding his body sputtered, flickering rapidly before dying out completely. The glowing lines of One For All faded from his skin.
He couldn't maintain the output. The sheer intensity of the sudden agony completely severed his focus.
He staggered, his heavy boots tangling with each other. He fell hard onto his side, his shoulder striking a jagged piece of concrete. He rolled onto his back, bringing his hands up to his chest, curling his fingers inward as if trying to protect them.
It felt like hot iron needles were being driven repeatedly through the meat of his palms. His breath came in short, ragged, panicked gasps. Tears sprang entirely unbidden to his eyes, blurring his vision of the gray sky above.
Through the blur of his tears, he saw the towering silhouette of All For One suddenly stiffen. The villain’s relaxed posture instantly vanished.
"Izuku?" All For One's voice carried a sharp, sudden edge of actual concern, the smooth calmness entirely fractured.
The villain took a rapid, long stride forward.
Izuku’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. The overwhelming pain was blinding, but the sight of the mastermind closing the distance sent a fresh, icy spike of raw terror through his veins.
Get away. Move. You have to move. Izuku grit his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of blood as he bit down on his own lip to keep from screaming. He forced his body to roll over, planting his elbows into the dirt, frantically trying to push himself away. His legs kicked uselessly against the rubble, his heavy boots scrambling for purchase.
He couldn't use his hands. Every microscopic movement of his fingers sent fresh waves of agonizing, white-hot pain shooting up his forearms, paralyzing his muscles.
He managed to drag himself a few feet backward, his breath hitching and sobbing in his throat. He collapsed against a thick slab of broken concrete, his chest heaving, his entire body trembling violently from the sensory overload.
All For One was walking faster now, the slow, deliberate pacing completely abandoned. He was closing in.
"Stay away!" Izuku managed to choke out, his voice hoarse and desperate. He pressed his back harder against the stone, pulling his agonizing hands tighter against his chest.
The pain was peaking, a relentless, throbbing pressure right in the dead center of his palms. It felt terribly wrong, completely foreign to his body. It felt as though something was trying to physically force its way out of his skin.
He needed to see. He needed to know what was happening to him.
Unable to use his fingers to grip the fabric, Izuku brought his right hand up to his face. He caught the thick, reinforced cuff of his hero glove between his teeth. He clamped down hard, the fabric tasting of dirt and sweat, and violently jerked his head back.
The heavy material tore, slipping off his hand and falling into the mud. He immediately repeated the process with his left hand, tearing the glove away with a frantic, desperate toss of his head.
Izuku lowered his bare hands, his blurry, tear-filled eyes focusing on his palms.
He stopped breathing. His lungs simply seized up, entirely refusing to function.
There, directly in the center of both of his deeply scarred palms, were perfectly circular, dark openings. They were distinct, cleanly formed holes embedded straight into the flesh, ringed by a ring of inflamed, bright red skin. They looked exactly like black coins, hollow exhaust ports on the palms of the villain currently stalking toward him.
He had holes in his hands.
Izuku stared at them, his mind entirely blanking, the world around him narrowing down to those two impossible, terrifying circles of dark, hollow space.
No. No, no, no. This isn't real. This is a hallucination. It has to be an illusion. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head violently from side to side, sending droplets of sweat and tears flying into the air. He opened his eyes again, but the holes remained, staring back at him, pulsing with a deep, agonizing, phantom ache.
A shadow suddenly fell over him, completely blocking out the miserable gray light of the sky.
Izuku flinched violently, snapping his head up.
All For One was kneeling directly in front of him. The villain had moved with a terrifying, silent speed, crossing the remaining distance before Izuku could even register the movement. The skull-like mask was mere inches from Izuku's face, the slow, rhythmic hissing of the life-support respirator filling Izuku's ears, drowning out the sound of the wind.
"Let me see," All for One commanded. The voice was firm, carrying an undeniable weight, yet stripped of its usual mocking lilt.
Before Izuku could scramble away, before he could even attempt to summon Blackwhip to push the man back, All For One reached out.
Large, impeccably gloved hands gently, but with entirely inescapable firmness, wrapped around Izuku's trembling wrists.
Izuku let out a sharp, terrified cry, violently jerking his arms back, trying to rip himself free from the villain's grasp. "Let go! Don't touch me!"
"Be still," All For One commanded, his voice suddenly incredibly soft, almost soothing.
The villain slowly moved his grip, sliding his large hands down to firmly encompass both of Izuku's agonizing, bare palms within his own gloved ones.
Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the worst. He expected his quirk to be ripped from his body. He expected the overwhelming, tearing sensation of One For All being forcibly extracted from his core. He braced for the final, lethal strike.
Instead, a sudden, profound rush of absolute, radiating heat flooded his hands.
It wasn't the destructive, burning heat of Endeavor's flames. It wasn't the searing, tearing agony that had crippled him moments prior. It was a deeply soothing, deeply comforting warmth, perfectly regulated and incredibly gentle. It seeped directly into his skin, instantly melting away the white-hot pain, dissolving the agonizing pressure, leaving behind only a dull, manageable ache.
All For One had activated a quirk. A simple, gentle quirk designed solely to generate comfortable, soothing heat. A handwarmer quirk.
The sheer absurdity of the action, the profound dissonance of the world's most terrifying supervillain kneeling in the mud to carefully soothe the pain in his hands, completely short-circuited Izuku's brain.
His struggles instantly ceased. His rigid muscles went entirely slack. He sat there, slumped against the cold concrete, his hands resting limply in the gentle, warm grasp of his greatest enemy.
Izuku slowly tilted his head back, looking up at the smooth, featureless surface of the life-support mask. His emerald eyes were wide, utterly dilated with absolute fear and profound, uncomprehending shock. He trembled, a deep, full-body shiver that had absolutely nothing to do with the air around them.
With his skin pressed so firmly against All For One's, with the warm energy of the villain's quirk flowing directly into his newly formed palms, the physical barrier between them simply vanished.
Izuku didn't just feel the heat anymore. He felt in.
It was as if a massive, heavy iron vault door had suddenly been thrown wide open inside his mind.
He felt them.
Thousands upon thousands of them.
It wasn't a sight; it was a pure, overwhelming sensory presence. A massive, churning, bottomless ocean of stolen power, shifting and writhing just beneath the surface of the villain's skin. He could feel the distinct, individual weight of every single quirk All For One had ever stolen. He felt the sharp, jagged edges of kinetic enhancers. He felt the heavy, suffocating density of localized gravity manipulators. He felt the cold, slippery presence of water-based emitter types.
It was a collection of stolen life, a horrifying, infinitely dense gravity well of compressed power that threatened to completely swallow Izuku's own consciousness whole. It was so incredibly massive, so fundamentally wrong, that it made Izuku profoundly nauseous.
It was the Vault. And Izuku was standing right on the precipice, staring directly down into the terrifying, endless abyss.
He tried to pull his hands back, deeply horrified by the connection, desperate to sever the terrifying psychic link. But his fingers refused to cooperate. His muscles remained entirely limp, fascinated and terrified by the sheer magnitude of what he was experiencing.
He was connected to it. The holes in his palms were not just physical deformities; they were open doors, directly linking his body to the very same, horrific mechanism that defined the man kneeling before him.
All For One remained perfectly still for a long, agonizing moment, his thumbs gently, rhythmically stroking the backs of Izuku's hands, maintaining the steady flow of soothing heat.
Slowly, the villain tilted his masked head downward, studying the open, hollow ports in Izuku's palms with an air of deep, contemplative fascination.
"Fascinating," All For One murmured, his deep voice carrying a strange, heavy mix of scientific curiosity and something that sounded horrifyingly like genuine, paternal pride. "I had always wondered why it remained completely dormant within you for all these years. Perhaps, it simply required the proper catalyst."
The villain lifted his head back up, the featureless mask pointing directly at Izuku's terrified, tear-streaked face.
"It seems," All For One mused, the rhythmic hissing of his respirator punctuating the heavy, unnatural silence of the wasteland, "that the sheer physical proximity to the original source was all that was truly needed to finally make your inheritance manifest."
---
Izuku’s heart slammed against his ribs, a frantic, rhythmic drumming that felt loud enough to crack bone. The warmth from All For One’s hands—that gentle, mocking "handwarmer" quirk—felt like liquid lead pouring into his veins. It was sickening. It was a violation.
He tried to jerk his wrists back. He threw his entire body weight into the movement, his boots skidding across the wet gravel, his shoulders tensing until they cramped.
The villain’s grip didn't even flicker. All For One’s fingers remained locked around Izuku’s wrists like bands of cold, reinforced steel. The more Izuku struggled, the more the villain’s thumbs pressed into the sensitive skin near the newly formed holes in his palms, an anchor that grounded Izuku in his own agony and confusion.
"Let... go!" Izuku hissed, his voice a ragged, broken thing. He tried to summon the Blackwhip, tried to find that familiar spark of emerald lightning that had defined his life for the last year.
But One For All was a distant, muffled echo.
"Now, now, Izuku," All For One murmured. His voice had lost its theatrical edge, replaced by a terrifyingly soft, intimate cadence. "There is no need for such unseemly thrashing. You’ve only just begun to stabilize. If I let go now, the pain will return tenfold. Your body is still learning how to house the void."
"I don't... I don't have a void!" Izuku shouted, a sob catching in the back of his throat. He kicked out, his heavy boot catching All For One’s thigh, but the villain didn't even flinch. It was like kicking a statue made of solid iron. "I’m a hero! I’m All Might's successor! This is... this is a trick! You’re using a quirk to make me see things, to make me feel—"
"To make you feel the truth?" All For One finished the thought for him. He leaned in closer. "I have spent decades orchestrating the movements of this world, Izuku. I have manipulated bloodlines, toppled governments, and cultivated hatred as if it were a fine wine. But do you know what the most difficult part of the last of those years has been?"
Izuku stopped struggling for a heartbeat, his breath hitching as he stared into the black, featureless visor of the mask.
"It was the distance," All For One said, his voice dropping to a low, vibrato-rich hum. "Being away from you for so long. Watching you from the periphery, seeing you grow through the grain of a satellite feed or the reports of a subordinate. It was a necessary exile, of course. For the plan to work, for the world to believe in the lie of your insignificance, I had to stay in the shadows."
He adjusted his grip, his fingers sliding up to cradle Izuku's bare hands more fully. The heat quirk flared slightly, a pulse of warmth that made Izuku’s vision swim.
"And then," the villain continued, a trace of genuine, dark delight coloring his tone, "the most delicious coincidence occurred. You managed to stumble right into the very thing I have been chasing for generations. One For All. The wandering spark. My brother’s stubborn, pathetic legacy."
All For One let out a short, airy laugh that sounded like dry leaves skittering over pavement.
"To think, I was prepared to tear this world apart to bring that power back to where it belongs. And all the while, it was being nurtured by my own blood. It’s almost poetic, don't you think? The quirk is back in the family, Izuku. Exactly where it was always meant to be."
Izuku’s head spun. The words felt like physical blows, dizzying and nonsensical. Back in the family? Blood?
"You're lying," Izuku whispered. The denial was instinctive, a reflex to keep his world from shattering. "You're trying to get inside my head. You want me to lose focus so you can take One For All. That’s all this is. You’re a monster. You’re the man who hurt All Might. You’re the man who destroyed Nana Shimura."
"I am many things, Izuku," All For One replied, his grip tightening just a fraction—not enough to hurt, but enough to remind the boy of his absolute helplessness. "I am a king. I am a demon lord. I am the architect of the future."
He leaned even closer, until the cold glass of his mask was nearly touching Izuku’s forehead.
"But to you," he whispered, the words vibrating through Izuku’s skull, "I am simply your father. Hisashi Midoriya was always such a bland name, wasn't it? But your mother... she always did have a fondness for the mundane."
The world went silent.
Izuku’s eyes searched the mask, looking for a sign of a lie, looking for the twist, the punchline.
Hisashi.
He remembered the few, blurry photos in the apartment. A man with curly white hair, always turned away from the camera or obscured by shadows. He remembered his mother’s soft, sad smiles when he asked why Dad was always working abroad, why the checks from overseas were the only thing that ever arrived.
"No," Izuku said, the word coming out as a choked gasp. He shook his head. "No. My father works... He’s... he’s in America. He has a fire breathing quirk. He’s an office worker. He’s nothing like you."
"A simple quirk for a simple cover," All For One mused. "A little bit of heat, a little bit of smoke. It’s easy to mimic the trivial when you possess the infinite."
"You're lying!" Izuku screamed, his voice finally breaking. A surge of desperate, panicked instable energy flared within him, and for a split second, a single, violent lash of Blackwhip exploded from his shoulder.
It struck All For One’s chest, the dark energy sparking against the villain’s suit. It didn't move him. It didn't even leave a mark.
All For One simply watched the tendril dissipate into smoke. He didn't let go of Izuku’s hands.
"The denial is expected," the villain said, his tone patient, as if he were explaining a complex math problem to a child. "The human mind has a remarkable capacity to reject what it cannot categorize. But look at your hands, Izuku. Truly look at them."
He forced Izuku’s hands up, positioning the bare, trembling palms between their faces. The holes were there, dark and pulsing, like twin wounds that refused to heal.
"Those aren't from One For All," All For One said softly. "Those are yours. The ability to take, to hold, to give. It finally broke through because you were pushed to the limit. Because you were near me."
Izuku stared at the holes. He could feel the "void" All For One had mentioned—a hungry, empty sensation that seemed to want to reach out and pull everything into itself. Disgusting.
He thought of his mother. He thought of her crying in the kitchen when he was diagnosed as quirkless. He thought of her apologizing to him, over and over again, as if she had failed him.
"I simply... provided the version of myself that your mother could love. And from that love, came you. My masterpiece. The bridge between the old world and the new."