Later That Night.
Kuin.
She was simply walking through the alleys of Tokyo, scouting out the area with her bees...
And then, pain.
The Queen bee that she's come to rely on revolting from within.
All because it found a better host.
A perfect host.
Kuin frantically reaches for her pocket, for her only chance of survival— only for a slip of paper to slice into her forearm, pinning her limb against her side. A dozen more slips pinning her to the ground as the Quirk she had been given betrayed her.
"Huh... a pager, in this day and age," a voice says from above her. Belonging to a boy, who almost sounded younger than her. Not that she could see him, when she was already missing an eye, and was pinned to the ground face first. "I never really bothered to look into why the speedster was able to find you immediately— and given who his backer is, I honestly just chalked it up to one of his Quirks—" he chuckled. "Heh, accidental pun."
When the Queen bee leaves its host... the wound it creates is incredibly serious.
Kuin knew that. She's known that.
But she never thought that slowly... slowly falling to sleep like this...
"But I guess I'll just give this to Nezu, and then he can recreate the signal, or maybe even the pager itself, through time... and then we don't have to bother with the whole 'kill the pawn to bait the bishop to bait the king' routine," he sighs. "Now we'll just start with the bishop."
Could be so scary.
"And well, you should probably be grateful, since this means that that bee of yours won't be abandoning your eye socket in every discarded timeline."
Could be so painful.
"When we do take that bee, though, we'll make sure to drop you off at a hospital. Consider it as a courtesy, as one former pawn to another."
And then the Kuin of this timeline... was no more.
*
The Next Day.
Waking up with Konan on his left, Rinka on his right, and few more of his girls curled up around him on his bedspread, Seiki couldn't help but smile fondly...
Completely unbothered by the task in front of him.
Well, mostly unbothered.
Because Seiki Yamazaki was no longer afraid of All For One.
Not out of arrogance, but because all of the unknowns that he had feared had slowly but surely been cleared up through liberal use of Save & Load. And while Seiki was still wary of the boogeyman— after all, he is the boogeyman— it was not to the same irrational extent that he was during their first encounter.
Because Seiki is 99.9% sure that All For One cannot take his Quirk.
Not only did All For One require physical contact with his hands to take a Quirk, but if the target resists, it can take upwards of five seconds for All For One to take it.
Five seconds in which Konan was able to dig parts of herself into the concrete around Seiki as he held most of her slips in his arms, but not "her."
So he would have five seconds to activate Save & Load— a Quirk that can be activated at the speed of thought— if All For One were to touch him.
Not to mention that simply losing his Quirk might trigger his auto-load.
He hasn't tested either of those, for very obvious reasons, but at least one of them was almost certainly the case.
And Forcible Quirk Activation... is no longer the threat that it was.
With how narrow his current timeline is, all thanks to FQA in the first place, if Seiki were to have Saves1-4 overwritten now... it would still leave him with the save from— well, with the save from just a few minutes ago, actually.
Leaving him in a timeline where he's come clean about his Quirk to his inner circle. A timeline where Nezu, Mirai, and Hikari believe him to be an unbeatable precog.
A timeline that he was already trapped in... not that it was all that bad of a timeline to be in.
And while the way FQA counters Erasure is annoying... it's still manageable. Probably.
And after so much time spent probing, fighting, and predicting All For One... Seiki has been slowly but surely piecing things together about how the myth operates, about how the opposing Titan thinks, about how he acts.
Little things that just... paint a clearer picture.
Things like, if All For One had a nullification Quirk, than Seiki would've lost long ago.
So he does not.
That if All For One knew of Atlas, then he must also know of Overhaul... so why hasn't the myth already acquired such a useful Quirk? It's far too useful of a Quirk to pass up.
The answer? Fear.
Both of their Quirks work through touch— one much, much faster than the other.
Which was the very same reason that he hasn't taken Erasure.
Fear.
A fear that Seiki managed to overcome.
So no matter what happens from here on out... Seiki thinks that he can't really lose, even if he somehow can't manage to win. Because the only way for Seiki to lose now, is for All For One to forcibly activate his Quirk the moment he wakes up from sleep, and then trap him in an encounter that he cannot survive, leaving him with nothing other than LoadH. A plan that All For One could only really think of if he knew what he was up against.
And if he truly knew what he was up against, well, he might actually just surrender.
But...
All For One does not know of Save & Load. While Save & Load knows of All For One.
So really, all Seiki has to do is infinitely throw stuff at the wall until it sticks.
That was why he was cleaning up the beginning of their encounter. Because Seiki knew that, sooner or later, this whole ordeal would be coming to an end.
"Now to re-enact my talk with Nezu... again..."
*
Later That Night.
All For One.
"Hehe, fucking hell, what an idiot," Atlas laughed, throwing his head back.
Standing over the near-dead, heavily mutilated Number Six. Standing in the middle of Tokyo Central Park, with Deathclaw and Firestarter... and a few other vigilantes that All For One doesn't recognize. Not that he knew those two were anything more than pit fighters, not before now. "Who falls for such obvious fucking bait? To think that you're an agent of All For One."
All For One tenses.
"Not that that rotten old sack of shit matters anymore."
"You dare..." he starts, but Atlas doesn't stop.
"And as soon as I lay my eyes on him, I'll know exactly how to counter every Quirk in that crusty old fuck's arsenal—"
RADIO WAVES!
Kurogiri appears by his side. Not even bothering to explain himself, All For One immediately grabs the sapient Nomu's shoulder. FORCIBLE QUIRK ACTIVATION!
A portal opens before him, one he intends to rip the Quirk out of the boy who dared to insult him to his face— not that Atlas knew he was watching... which he wasn't.
No, Atlas just knew exactly how he would respond.
*
12 Seconds Later.
Blind, barely breathing, and rapidly withering even more than he already was, All For One reappears in Hosu with a splash of grey goo.
"That... was f-far too close..."
Hosu Hospital.
Unlike the few unfinished projects at the warehouse, Kyudai Garaki's lab his home to the bulk of his work. The bulk of his genius. The mad doctor hasn't managed to perfect his high ends yet, but he still has dozens upon dozens of functioning Nomu, enough of them fitted with a variety of Quirks, and nearly every single one of them ready to be deployed with a single activation of Radio Waves.
Storming it would be a herculean task for most heroes...
Something that Atlas doesn't even have to do.
"Atlas..." All For One growled, his hands curling up into fists. His nails digging so hard into his palms that they drew blood. A deep, violent hatred forming in his mind, one that matched his hatred of All Might. One that matched his hatred of Kubo.
"I will kill everyone you love, and then I'll kill you, right after I rip that damned Quirk of yours out of your head."
But Atlas, the source of his newfound hatred, holds the keys to time itself, and the slips of paper that he cannot sense have already infiltrated Kyudai's lab.
Konan describing the now Trigger overdosed Nomu, "Johnny," to Seiki.
Who would then describe it back to a version of her.
A version that would slice Johnny to ribbons moments before All For One fell for Atlas's trap.
And then... then All For One would be forced to fight Atlas at a disadvantage, against numerous opponents, with a single Quirk activation at a time.
Like a cornered rat.
*
Slightly Earlier That Night.
Rinka.
Rinka watches as Atlas stands over Number Six. Once again shredded and charred by Konan, Azula, and yours truly.
Standing just a few meters back as Atlas taunts the freaking boogeyman.
Then she watches as Konan pulls Atlas out of the way... all while she pulls All For One through his subordinate's portal... all while Konan's slips lie in wait through out Japan, ready to strike against both of All For One's teleporters. And while Rinka likes to think that she's Atlas's strongest subordinate, she cannot deny the sheer utility Razor offers. Something that no one else in Atlas's crew even dares to compete.
And now... everything is in place.
The Wild Wild Pussycats spread throughout the forest.
Eraserhead hiding in the trees.
Azula and D'Vorah not too far behind, Konan herself spread throughout Japan.
Erasure activates.
All For One, now blind and mostly deaf, starts to wither.
And so Rinka... standing just half a dozen meters behind the demonlord of Japan...
She thinks.
About how this man tried to kill her Seiki. About how he nearly succeeded. About how this man is the source of her Seiki's worries. About how this man has forced her Seiki into an un-optimal timeline.
About what it would mean if her Seiki was forced to start over from scratch.
About how he'd lose everything.
About how she would lose everything.
"GrgggGGGGGGH," she growls, now standing at a solid 17 feet.
And then she bolts forwards, swatting the crippled demonlord with a clawed hand.
She feels his spine shatter, his limbs snapping as the crippled runt is sent sprawling through Tokyo Central Park, knocking down tree after tree with as he's sent tumbling through the air. And before All For One even has a chance to slow down and right himself— something that he's surely struggling to do, given how he's limited to a single Quirk at at time— she's already sprinting at him.
Tearing up the ground as she approaches Japan's hidden Titan.
As she approaches the man that she will fight to her very last breath... because even if she dies, her master will simply bring her back.
And when Rinka sees what's left of the crippled Titan...
Her breath hitches.
*
All For One.
Despite being reduced to a cripple... All For One still sports quite the intimidating figure.
The demonlord of Japan stands at a solid 7ft1, with a lean cut of pure muscle. His base form can bench-press nearly 800 pounds.
But that's not something he worked up to.
No, like everything else that that man has acquired, it had simply been taken.
Rhino. Bat. Giraffe. Lizard. Toad. Snake. Hawk. Beetle. Spider. Leaping Gecko. Octopus. And many, many more.
Dozens upon dozens of mutant Quirks, all running in the background. Micromanaged by All For One, the Quirk, to give him the optimal appearance and base strength. All stolen not for their utility, but for the sole purpose of making himself slightly better. And as someone from the Dawn of Quirks, his inherent disgust of muties is rather strong— even if he manages to hide it well. Being known as as open racist would hurt the 'demonlord image.'
And even if it disgusts him...
He has been caught on the backfoot.
He will not die here.
Not to a fucking brat who decided he could taunt the boogeyman and live.
And with power at his disposal... he sees no reason not to use it.
FORCIBLE QUIRK ACTIVATION.
ALL FOR ONE.
A horn grows out of his face, his ears growing outwards, turning upwards. His ears warping further as they picked up more and more sounds. Scales exploding out of his skin, his tongue becoming forked, his fingers and toes becoming clawed, misshapen. His entire body, which is slowly becoming nothing but scales, coating in a wet, poisonous mucus. His scales growing sharper, his claws and fangs becoming venomous.
His nonexistent eyes becoming sharper.
Chitin erupting out of his skin to cover his sickly green scales. Six more eyes– all of them a dull, blind grey– sprouting out of his face and neck, the chitin strengthening further.
But... even if he's had all of these Quirks for decades...
His ignorance shows.
Mutant Quirks are stagnant, the least likely Quirks to awaken, but at the same time... they are all the more ferocious. With just a single Mutant Quirk being enough to overwhelm some users... All For One, who has never once paid any mind to the struggles of others, is not even remotely prepared for what comes next.
HATE! ANGER! FEAR! EAT! KILL! BREED! DESTROY! MATE!
KILL!!! KILL!!! KILL!!!
"AAAahhHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"
*
*
*