Japan was in an interesting state, Nedzu has to admit. Almost too interesting, and that's a lot considering who is saying it.
He is a cunning, scheming and maybe a bit sadistic rodent. He has a grudge towards a significant part of Mankind, but he is smart enough to realize that trying too rashly to change society only brings bad results. And he likes some two-legs, and he isn't all so keen on making them a collateral.
So, when he had an occasion for that, he became a hero. Then, he became a teacher. And then, a principal. He is really looking forward to becoming a minister of education (which, by his plans, should happen within a decade). Why bother making a revolution when you can take over the educational system of the country without killing anyone?
Okay, maybe a few people. But it doesn't count if there is no evidence of Nedzu's involvement, right?
His life was going quite nicely. Except for the All for One issue. It bugged him for quite a while. The boogeyman of Japan and its government, and an unfortunate roadblock to Nedzu's great plans. The rodent (technically a stoat, but that one's a secret to others, let them try to figure it out themselves) knew that All for One was thriving on division and chaos, the two things that Nedzu disliked.
Worst of all, he knew that All for One was the power behind the Creature Rejection Clan. That made things personal to Nedzu.
He desired to commit an… unpleasantness upon All for One. The last time he did such a thing it was about the head researcher of the project that resulted in his creation and subsequent experimentation. They still didn't find all of the body parts.
But then, All for One vanished. He was clearly not doing well in the war against Nedzu ever since All Might returned from America, and then, out of nowhere, he vanished. With a few square kilometers of cityscape, but that's beside the point.
Nobody knew what happened to him, but it was rather clear that he died. All Might was beside himself in anger. All for One's empire mostly collapsed on its own, with several pretenders to the throne battling it out.
Things were hardly 'calm'. In fact, if anything, there were somehow more villains than before. They never realized how many powerful villains All for One robbed of their quirks once he deemed them unsuitable for his long-term plans. But without All for One to guide them, the villains spent most of the time battling it out between each other.
So Nedzu is free to focus on his teaching career (which totally isn't a part of his long term plan to take over the society), and on drinking tea.
He is doing that in his office, thinking about the All Might's offer to become a teacher (the man has to do something with himself now that his archnemesis vanished on him), when the time comes.
He has a meeting scheduled with some journalist. It's nothing important, really, but sometimes the rat has to do the things that rat has to do. So he puts down the cup of tea on his desk, and waits patiently until his secretary lets Mr. Mikumo inside.
"Welcome to my humble office, Mr. Miku…" Nedzu says while the door closes behind his guest. That's when the visitor suddenly deactivates some sort of identity concealing quirk.
All for One.
It's All for One. In flesh. Tall, wearing an exquisite suit (really, where is he getting those?), white hair. Look of denigration and slight anger on his face. Somehow, just SOMEHOW he has managed to fool all the sensors, all the security measures that changed UA into a fortress.
"Oh." Nedzu comments while picking the cup up. He can't let the tea get wasted like that, now can he? "So this is how I die." He adds after the cup is empty. All for One has remained silent all this time, though he did move over to the seat on the other side of Nedzu's desk.
"Tempting." All for One replies calmly. "But I have to refuse. I'm here to deliver my demands. And some explanations."
Oh dear, Nedzu decides. So he might actually survive the day? He pushes the panic button again, calling the silent alarm off. Eraserhead was his best bet on survival, but perhaps it's best not to aggravate the situation into an all-out brawl? Nedzu really isn't a tough specimen.
"I assume that the explanations are about your… disappearance?" Nedzu replies with a question. And pours some tea for his guest. It's, naturally, poisoned. But All for One uses some sort of anti-poison quirk on it and then calmly sips it.
Oh, well. There goes another anti-All for One plan. He has a quirk to render poisons inert. Nedzu just lost a bet with Sir Nighteye. Mirai Sasaki thought that he only had a poison-resistance quirk.
"I have two centuries of experience in making people disappear." All for One replies. "I can make myself disappear as well. Also, your taste in tea is significantly better than your taste in co-workers."
"I see." Nedzu nods calmly. Time for plan C. "Thank you for your compliment."
"I've also deactivated the bomb in my chair with a technopathic quirk." All for One adds, equally calmly. Plan D it is. "I've come to your office at least partially to announce that I retired as a villain. I'm even paying taxes nowadays, can you believe that?"
"Hardly." Nedzu replies. He still has the other bombs left, but that's going to destroy the entire room. Okay, building, if he detonates all of it at once. Rat enjoys going Plus Ultra on things from time to time. He had it tied to his heartbeat (it's not like he ever leaves the UA grounds), but what if All for One is here for his quirk? "What, hypothetically, changed your mind about your career?"
"My wife didn't like the way I earned my money." All for One replies and Nedzu finds himself staring at the man in front of him in abject shock. "So, naturally, I had to change a few things. Fake my own death, retire to a countryside cottage with her, start earning money legally, and so on." He sips the tea a bit, before continuing. "I am hearing that recon drone making his way here through the vents, could you please call it off? The buzzing of its engine is irritating."
Nedzu pushes one of the many almost invisible buttons around his desk. The Power Loader is remotely told to stand down. Just in case, Nedzu does the same with Eraserhead's attempt to go after the drone.
"Good." All for One clearly heard that as well. "The point is, it turns out that my eldest son inherited my brother's dumbass gene. Honestly, if Yoichi wasn't dead for more than two centuries, I'd make a paternity test." He sighs. "I did my best to teach Izuku how to become a perfect heir to my currently leaderless empire. But I failed. I've done all I could to help him, but he still wants to be a hero. Like All Might."
The laser (Nedzu really likes old spy movies) almost slices All for One apart vertically, but some sort of light refraction quirk (he expected this, how peculiar) bounces it back through the window. There is now a hole in it.
He regrets not adding the shark pool underneath the floor. Not like it would achieve anything, but at least it would be hilarious. Yes, he'll certainly add that (they don't need that one classroom under his office) if he survives this meeting.
"So I did what a responsible father would do." All for One refuses to verbally acknowledge yet another assasination attempt and simply continues on with the talk. "I let him interact with his peers. Sons and daughters of the best murderers, terrorists and criminal kingpins in the country. Plus a handful of others that I foresaw would rise to the same league." He sighs while pinching the bridge of his nose. Nedzu wonders if this is truly what a responsible father would do. Well, to each their own. "Now they all want to be heroes. And I'm really not in a mood to explain to the majority of the supervillains in the country that their children are looking to enroll into a hero school because of my… imperfect parenting skills."
Nedzu blinks a few times and stops trying to calculate the best way to detonate the explosives surrounding them in a way to maximize the chances of All for One suffering serious wounds while still giving Nedzu a chance to survive.
"Well, that's… unexpected." Nedzu says. He's grossly underselling All for One's words. "But I'm not exactly sure why you are telling me this."
"Well, I need to fix the problem at hand." All for One replies. "Plan A, attacking Might Tower and slaughtering every single person inside, especially All Might and Sir Nighteye, was vetoed by my wife. Apparently, this will make my son angry at me instead of making him think that I'm cool. And I don't want to start another inter-family feud. The last one is enough of a problem for me."
All for One's wife is now Nedzu's favourite two-leg.
"So I decided to go for plan B." All for One continues. "UA made All Might. All Might became my son's idol, and thus is a source of the problem. So UA is going to fix the problem." It's a bit of an insane troll logic, Nedzu decides. Then again, people are calling his thought process with those words every other day. He got used to it. "You are going to create a Villain Rehabilitation Course with a curriculum and the end result of it de facto identical to the Hero Course. Then you are going to enroll my children and all of their friends in it."
"And if I refuse?" Nedzu replies. The aura of intimidation that he gets in return almost makes him drop his cup.
"Let me be honest with you, Nedzu." All for One replies with a mocking calmness on his face. He leans forward a bit, and Nedzu feels like the pressure of his presence alone is pushing him deeper into his seat. "You, All Might and the rest of your little menagerie exist because I want it that way. Ruling the world of villainy and breaking the past Holders of One for All was an entertainment to me. There is a reason why I never make that line die out. I've been holding myself back this whole time. These two centuries, in fact. What you took as waging a war against me was more like a bunch of toddlers trying to wrestle with their father. You do not want me to take my gloves off."
"Oh?" Nedzu might be intimidated, but he is intelligent enough to restrain that. He needs information. "You looked pretty hard-pressed during your last bout with All Might. How exactly can you become much stronger than that?" Nedzu was certain that it was All for One's full power.
"My brother's quirk transfering quirk wasn't the only quirk altering quirk out there." All for One calmly replies. "I've spent two centuries gathering quirks allowing me to empower other quirks. Change their properties. What do you think will happen if I, purely hypothetically, steal Endeavor's quirk tomorrow and enhance it with twenty quirk-strengthening quirks while doing the same thing with some fire-resistance quirk? I should squeeze a tenfold increase in firepower, I believe. While still being able to put up thirteen more quirks at once."
Nedzu can feel blood leaving his face. Well, he doesn't - his body is a bit different than the one of humans - but he believes that this is how he would react if he was a human.
"I'm, in the end, an avid collector of quirks." All for One continues. "I enjoy collecting them. Altering them in a way… it feels like desecrating a masterpiece painting by scrabbling over it with crayons. But if you make me unretire myself, I'll make an exception for you, your school, All Might… and probably half of Tokyo." His eyes narrow. "Did I make myself clear?"
"Crystal clear." Nedzu nods. This is a completely new threat. He has to bide his time to figure out countermeasures for it. And, perhaps, find a confirmation of All for One's words. "So, how many students are we talking about?"
"Thirty in total." All for One replies and Nedzu almost spits his tea. "Some are rather… troublesome, so I believe that three classes with ten students each would make sense. Especially as I happen to have found three perfect homeroom teachers that the UA will greatly benefit from hiring."
"You… want me to hire villains?" Nedzu needs to ask because of the sheer audacity… then again, it's not like he has much of a space to wiggle in, right?
"Of course." All for One snorts, he is clearly finding the question hilarious. "You think that I'll let my children be educated exclusively by heroes? Thankfully for you, I've chosen the villains that should be… palatable to you. Villains that, for some reason that's clearly beyond me, hold the heroics in great value. I also ensured that they all have teaching AND hero licenses. And so do I." Their eyes meet. "The UA's new vice-principal."
Oh dear.
(***)
All Might gets a call from Nedzu while he is busy doing the paperwork after his last heroic intervention in the Might Tower.
Emergency meeting. Online one, through the super-secure line. Which is odd, but… Nedzu is often quite odd.
The meeting is in an hour, so Yagi Toshinori has the time to prepare. When the time comes, he and Sir Nighteye are in All Might's office at the top floor of the Might Tower.
Gran Torino seems to be participating from his hero agency. There is also Detective Tsukauchi, who seems to be at home. This is the first alarm to ring in the hero's head. This is the All for One task force in its (almost) full ensemble.
("Oh, great." Daigoro Banjo, the Black Whip Hero - currently reduced to being a ghost in One for All - comments. "He is alive, isn't he?"
"It was a given, really." Yoichi Shigaraki, the First Holder, replies. "I didn't buy his 'oh no someone attacked me and ended my life' ploy for a second."
"What do you think it is about?" Nana replies. Most of the past holders weren't that much interested in what was happening and were still in their little unconscious dreamstate. Yoichi was the only Holder before the last few to be active. And considering the fact that Yagi Toshinori was the 27th Holder…
Two centuries were a long time. How much Yoichi Shigaraki was a human and how much a quirk was debatable.
"Nothing good." Yoichi mumbles back, clearly trying not to look at Nana. Daigoro and En roll their eyes as if on cue.)
"What happened, Nedzu?" Sir Nighteye asks first. He, like always, prefers to go for the throat. Preferably with some side-jokes.
"All for One is alive." Nedzu replies from his office. He is drinking tea and All Might is too afraid of the answer to ask how many cups he drank. It's a good way of gauging just how angry Nedzu is - he sips them slowly to savour the taste when he is calm.
("Called it." Yoichi sighs. "So the war starts again."
"It was way too quiet either way." Nana comments from her seat. She is looking forward to seeing that monster finally dead and buried. And nothing but seeing his caved in skull is going to satiate that thirst for revenge.)
"How do you know that?" All Might asks. Gran Torino's face is twisted in anger. Detective looks more traumatized than anything. He was truly and honestly hoping that the All for One was gone.
"Because he just left my office." Nedzu replies. "Right after blackmailing me into making him the vice-principal of the UA. And enrolling his son into the Hero Course."
The silence after these words lasts for a good ten seconds. Both outside and inside of Yagi Toshinori's quirk.
"What?" Gran Torino is the first to regain rudimentary ability to speak.
("... What?" Yoichi has two centuries of seeing the most insane things in the world - now possible thanks to quirks - under his belt. He is the first one to speak within the One for All.
The others are still silent. Too taken aback to form cohesive sentences.)
"He retired from his life of crime after faking his death, and got married." Nedzu continued speaking. "His son has apparently inherited his brother's dumbass gene, I'm quoting him now, and decided to become a hero. All for One tried to discourage this and made him hang out with children of other supervillains and prospective young villains from other sources, but… now they all want to become heroes." He sighs. "His father decided to make arrangements."
"What?" This time it was detective Naomasa. But he did that almost at the same time as Yoichi Shigaraki's another half-conscious 'what'.
"If this is a joke, then it's a very good one." Sir Nighteye wins the laurels of being the first person to say something even remotely constructive in response to Nedzu's news.
"I'm afraid that it's not." Nedzu replies. "And I'm as shocked about it as you are, I assure you."
("Wait, I have a nephew?!" Yoichi is the second one to join the cohesive and constructive sentences team, although admittedly while missing the point entirely.
"I really don't think that this is an important thing right now." Hikage Shinomori, the eternal loner, comments in a sarcastic tone from his seat.)
"I'm not even sure where to start unpacking this." All Might finally speaks. It's clear that he isn't sure if he isn't falling for some joke. "All for One RETIRED? All for One GOT MARRIED? All for One HAS A CHILD? All for One didn't kill said child the second it decided to be a hero? All for One decided to… what, take over the UA instead of… I don't know, doing anything else, really?" He is silent for a few seconds. "What on Earth?"
("For as much as I detest him, he wouldn't kill such a child." Yoichi admits. "He would throw it into a bank vault and keep it imprisoned there, caring about all its needs while pretending that it's for their own good rather than for his own control freak tendencies."
"That's…" Daigoro blinks a few times. "... strangely specific."
Yoichi shrugs. The history might have gone down differently if Hisashi actually left his superhero comic book collection in the vault, instead of throwing it to trash. What sort of monster is locking an introvert in his room WITHOUT their main source of entertainment? Really, rebellion was a given.)
"Yes, I'm still rather… shocked." Nedzu admits. "Despite spending two hours discussing the arrangements with him. We'll probably end up having to convert into a board school." He sighs. "At least the list of new students sounds interesting."
"You can't be serious?!" Gran Torino ends up calling Nedzu out the fastest. "You aren't thinking about going along with this idiocy, right?!"
"I… might not have an alternative to this." Nedzu replies. "The blackmail is rather solid."
"What blackmail?" Sir Nighteye asks.
Nedzu narrates the part where All for One clearly stated that he wasn't fighting seriously the whole time, and that he could erase Tokyo from the map if he got the reason to. And that he pretty much didn't interrupt the One for All holders line because he found its struggles amusing.
("Wait, is that the truth?" Nana is horrified by the words. Yoichi nods solemnly in his seat.
"Unfortunately, yes." He replies, and the eyes of the active vestiges focus on him. "My brother isn't using All for One to its full power. He never did. This is his achilles heel. He requires conscious thoughts to call up for his quirks. And he has a tendency to gloat over his victims." He sighs. "If Yagi was in a similar situation and managed to sneak in a fully powered blow to the head, there is a chance that he would take Hisashi down instantly. Other than that… we're waiting for the One for All to reach the Singularity so that we can grant the current Holder the stockpiled quirks. Then they can fight like equals. But no one outside of this quirk knows about that."
"I'm still pissed off that I was beaten up by that asshole." Daigoro replies. "Now I'm doubly pissed off that he did it while half-assing it."
"Does that mean that he is actually serious about the whole 'son wants to go to a hero school' bit?" En says suddenly. "He just betrayed a massive secret to the heroes to achieve that."
Yoichi is incredibly confused at this himself.)
"Is… do you think that's the truth?" All Might asks. Nedzu shrugs.
"I do not know." The rodent replies. "While I have a good record of reading people, it's certainly not something that would work against him. Unfortunately, Tsukauchi wasn't there to assist me. As of now, I believe that trying to test him would be… unwise." He sighs. "Especially in the light of the student list that I was provided with."
("Uh oh." Yoichi comments scarcily.)
"There are thirty… candidates for the Villain Rehabilitation Course." Nedzu says. "The list includes biological children of Mr. Compress, Dictator, Gigantomachia, Purity, Eclipse, Beast, Mischief and All for One."
That was almost the entire supervillain rooster. Save for Gigantomachia, whom they thought to be a myth, Mischief, who was thought to be dead, and All for One, who was too scary to be acknowledged as NOT a myth.
"... if this is even remotely true, then Japanese supervillains are going to shit square." Gran Torino manages to say. He is visibly torn before abject horror, desire to murder All for One and something akin to morbid joy.
"Not only them." Nedzu replies. "Because the list also includes biological children of Endeavor and Thunderbolt, both thought to be dead. And adopted child and biological nephew of Midnight, that ran away from home. And, which is going to be a low blow to at least some members of this group, the biological grandchildren of Nana Shimura."
"WHAT?!" Gran Torino, All Might and Nana shout almost in unison.
"I'm working on confirming that part as we speak." Nedzu sighs. "But thus far it appears to be true. I also asked All for One if he had a hand in that, to which he replied that, however ironic that would be, he didn't. And that if there is anyone to blame, it's probably Nana's son."
Nedzu sighs. Loudly and painfully.
"Okay, can we move over for a second from Nana?" It's Tsukauchi. "Yes, I know this is almost a heresy in these circumstances. But are you telling me that children of the Heroes Number Two and Three are alive AND, apparently, villains? And that all of those kids are of the same age? Besides, if it's Touya Todoroki, then he is 24 years old right now!"
"Apparently not anymore." Nedzu replies. "All for One has some sort of age alteration quirk. Touya is the oldest of the candidates. Everyone else was at worst twenty-one years old. They also apparently consented to the changes… and it's permanent. Every single one of the thirty candidates is biologically and mentally seventeen to eighteen years old." Which is about the standard age for recruitment into the hero schools ever since that governmental reform of those.
"This is just so wrong." Tsukauchi pinches the bridge of his nose and looks like he is in a severe need for coffee. All Might and Gran Torino look borderline horrified that the talk continued while they were still on the Nana part.
Nana herself was consoled by other Holders. Or, to be exact, they tried to console her before she glared at them in a way that made them back away. Then she returned to watching the events, with the eyes of a hawk going after a prey.
"Yes. Extremely and disturbingly so." Sir Nighteye admits. "This really isn't a joke, right?"
"Yes, this really isn't a joke." Nedzu replies. But it's clear that the rat himself isn't super sure about it. "Unless All for One is pulling us into one. He has also provided three teachers, who are supposed to be acting as homeroom teachers of three ten-people large classes. They are all villains, but ones that apparently hold heroics in very high regards. Each of them has, somehow, managed to acquire apparently genuine hero licenses AND teaching licenses, so they are technically qualified."
"Do I even want to ask?" Sir Nighteye sighs. All Might is still clearly undisposed. It's up to him to actually ask questions, or so he decides. "Alright, I'll ask. Who is it?"
"Apparently Stain, Mr. Compress and a warp quirk bearer that claims to be… uhm… a resurrected corpse of one of our graduates." Nedzu replies. Sir Nighteye develops a sudden desire to jump out of the window of the Might Tower.
Stain is a vigilante murderer who has targeted several heroes in the past. Sir Nighteye has to admit one thing - each of the heroes he went after was a farce and an insult to the term hero that he held so dear.
While it's not something that he will ever admit publically, the world was better with those people dead. One molested an intern and drove him to suicide, another was assisting (rather than dismantling) a human trafficking ring, the next one was a pedophile, etc.
But, the world would be even better with those people exposed and in jail. Where they belonged. And that's where his acceptance towards the Hero Killer ended. At least he dropped out from the network about a year ago, when…
… when he probably refocused towards earning a hero license under false persona. And a teaching one. How long was it all getting prepared?
Mr. Compress in the meantime is a double S-villain and a self-proclaimed heir of Oji Harima. Like his ancestor, he seeked to steal from the rich and give to the poor (after getting a cut for himself to pay for the bills), but was especially focused on targeting the heroes whom he deemed unworthy of the title. Unlike Stain, he at least had the tendency of avoiding bloodshed as a rule.
The last one of the supposed teachers, in the meantime? He isn't opening that can of worms.
"Are we… Is the UA going along with this?" Sir Nighteye asks. It's time to tackle the beast.
"It's not, right?" Gran Torino asks, while All Might nods fervently.
"It's certainly not." Detective Tsukauchi chirps in.
"Why not?" Nedzu asks, looking just a tiny bit taken aback by this. "All for One is going to spend time right next to us, where we'll be able to monitor his activities. This is a break during which One for All's strength might grow. And the students?" The rodent smiles. "They are all potentially brilliant heroes. Not to mention the amount of screams it would draw from their villainous parents if we'll manage to pull it off. After all, guiding their students into becoming the better versions of themselves is what the schools are about, am I right?"
"I hate this very idea." Sir Nighteye says before letting out a loud sigh. "But I hate the fact that it's a logical idea even more. Of course, if you know how to deal with all of that and the potential repercussions of the public finding out."
"I have truly brilliant ideas about that!" Nedzu chirps. "The only real question is… while I know that All Might is interested in teaching in the UA, would you be so as well, Sir Nighteye?"
("Oh no." Yoichi lets out a sigh. This is going to be a monumental pain in the ass, isn't it?)