The chamber was a cathedral of cold glass and rhythmic, mechanical breathing. At the center of the darkness sat All For One. His head rested against his knuckles, a pose of bored, regal contemplation.
Beside him, Dr. Kyudai Garaki moved with a frenetic, hunchbacked energy, his goggles reflecting the data streams of a dozen monitors. He was tapping at a tablet, his moustache twitching with a self-satisfied quiver.
"It is moving along quite beautifully, my Lord," the Doctor chirped, his voice a grating, sycophantic rasp. "The Aegis Protocol has turned UA into a fortress of paranoia. And All Might... the great Pillar... he is nothing more than a vegetable in a jar. His quirk revelation is quite intriguing though. Society is eating itself alive. A new age has fully arrived, and yet the citizens are already begging for a master."
All For One remained silent. The only sound in the room was the steady, artificial whoosh-click of his respirator.
The Doctor paused, his hand hovering over the screen. He looked up at the faceless man in the chair. "Master? Is something... unsatisfying? Perhaps you are thinking of reclaiming your prize? One For All is ripe for the taking."
"Not yet, Doctor," All For One finally rumbled. His voice was a deep, velvet baritone that seemed to vibrate the very glass of the containment vats. "The Ninth is a vintage that needs a little more time to ferment. Malice is a powerful seasoning, but it can be erratic. I want him focused. I want him to reach for me not out of duty, but out of a desperate need for the order I can provide in my role as a natural enemy."
He shifted his weight, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the arm of his throne.
"Something far more interesting came across the wire today. It seems the Commission has found a new target. A group they are calling... Aftermath."
On the primary monitor, the news report from Osaka flickered to life. The faces of Yoshi, Akira, and Koichi were displayed in a triptych of projected villainy.
The Doctor let out a wet, disdainful scowl as his eyes landed on the middle photo. "Haimawari. That pest from Naruhata. I remember him well. He was always an anomaly, a fly that refused to be swatted. To see him partnered with a brat and a disgraced detective... it's pathetic."
All For One chuckled, a low, dry sound that carried no mirth. "You always did have a short temper for the 'low-variance' types, Kyudai. But I find myself less interested in the vigilante and more intrigued by the man standing beside him. Akira Furuhaya."
The Doctor squinted at the screen. "The ex-detective? His quirk is a sensory-type, isn't it? Useful for paperwork, perhaps, but hardly worth your personal attention."
"You underestimate the value of a secret, Doctor," All For One said, his "gaze" fixing on Akira's image. "His quirk, the ability to extract the 'history' of an object or a moment through a physical, visceral connection. I looked into him years ago, back when Project 46 had just been terminated, wonder how long it will take for them all to figure that one out... anyway, I wanted that quirk for my collection, a way to taste the hidden sins of my enemies. But complications arose, and I moved on to more... immediate acquisitions. To see him resurface now most likely with a vendetta against the State... it is a delightful variable."
"So you want the quirk now?" Garaki asked, already reaching for a digital surgery log.
"I want the game," All For One corrected. "Tomura needs a new lesson. He is currently playing at war, but he has not yet learned the art of the hunt. I have a new scenario for him. I call it 'Cat and Mouse.'"
All For One raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed through the cavernous room like a gunshot.
At the far end of the hall, a heavy, lead-lined cell gate hissed open. A flood of harsh, white security lights spilled into the corridor, illuminating a figure sitting on a simple iron cot.
Lady Nagant did not look up immediately. Her two-toned hair was matted, and her eyes were sunken pits of intense, quiet fury. She sat perfectly still, her right arm, the biological rifle that had silenced a thousand "impurities" for the Commission, resting across her knees. She looked like a fallen goddess of war, discarded by the very people she had bled for.
All For One pointed a long, pale finger toward the screen, toward the face of Akira Furuhaya.
"The Commission wants them dead to protect their lies," All For One said, his voice reaching out to the woman in the cell. "And the 'Aftermath' wants to live to tell the truth. Lets see who is faster."
He leaned forward, his invisible eyes locking onto Nagant's.
"Kanzaki Reiko believes she has always been in charge of the narrative. She thinks she can send 'cleaners' to scrub the world. But she has forgotten that I am the ultimate Eraser."
He laughed, a rich, booming sound that filled the laboratory with a sense of impending doom.
"It's time to earn your keep, Nagant. Akira Furuhaya is the mouse. And you..."
The shadow of the great villain loomed over the monitors, devouring the images of Yoshi and his friends.
"...you are the cat. Go to Osaka. Find the detective. Bring me his quirk."
___
The morning in Osaka did not arrive with a sunrise, it arrived as a slow, bruising smudge of charcoal gray against the sky. In the cramped, drafty apartment, the rhythmic breathing of Makoto and the wet, laboured wheezing of the unconscious Koichi were the only sounds.
Yoshi Abara sat on the floor, his back against the cold plaster, watching the steam of his own breath dissipate in the dim light. He hadn't slept. His mind was a restless engine, cycling through the "what-ifs" that usually came for a person only at the end of their life.
If I hadn't died, he thought, his eyes fixed on a crack in the ceiling. If we hadn't run into Stinger. If my sister were still here.
The memory of her was a dull ache, like a bone that had set wrong. He tried to imagine a world where the "Hero Machine" wasn't a meat grinder. In that world, kids wouldn't spend their youth looking at their hands and wondering how many people they could save, or kill. They would look at their quirks as tools, not destinies.
He thought about the people he'd encountered in Midoriya's head, the students of Class 1-A. In a sane world, Kaminari wouldn't want to fight crime in that way, he may be working along with people at the heart of a city's power grid, a living battery providing clean, limitless energy. Todoroki wouldn't be a legacy student of a great hero, he'd be out in the dying parts of the world, stabilizing climates, cooling the oceans, or bringing warmth to the frozen wastes. Momo Yaoyorozu could end scarcity with a thought.
Even the detectives, Akira and Makoto. Their quirks wouldn't be used to dig through the bloody laundry of a corrupt state. They'd be the ultimate arbiters of justice, closing cases before the victims' bodies were even cold.
And then there's me, Yoshi thought, a bitter smirk touching his lips.
With the Ripple Effect, he could have been someone involved with logistics. International transport, deep-sea salvage, instant medical delivery. He could have made enough money to buy his sister a palace. He could have taken the weight off her shoulders before it crushed her.
But that world didn't exist. In this new age, your quirk was your leash or your cage.
He looked at his hands. Now, he was a variable. A boy hunted by the Commission and likely viewed as a target by the very heroes Midoriya called friends. He was "Aftermath." He was the boy who had stolen the Ninth Successor's skin and left a trail of wreckage across the country.
He realized, with a sudden, sinking clarity, that he couldn't see a future. He couldn't visualize an older version of himself, a Yoshi with gray in his hair, sitting on a porch somewhere. He was a creature of the now. He was a reaction to a violent world, and he suspected that his lifespan would be measured in months, not decades.
Koichi talked about him becoming a "hero," but Yoshi knew better. He was just a guy trying to survive a situation where the only options were to be the boot or the ant.
He felt a strange, heavy solemnity settling in his chest. It wasn't fear, it was something deeper, a sense of "not-rightness" that vibrated in his bone marrow. It was as if the air itself had become too thin, too static.
The silence of the room suddenly felt like a held breath.
Something is wrong.
It wasn't a sound. It was a shift in the space of the room. A minute displacement of air that only someone who lived constantly sensing it could feel.
Three blocks away, atop a skeletal construction crane, a finger squeezed a trigger.
Yoshi didn't think. He didn't have time to wake the others. His body acted on a predatory reflex older than his conscious mind. He lunged forward from his seated position, not to run, but to strike the very air.
He threw a wild, desperate fist toward the window. He didn't hit glass, he hit the space in front of the glass, "Singularizing" the distance into a dense, gravitational knot.
CRACK.
A high-calibre, tungsten-tipped round, fired from over a mile away, collided with the spatial distortion inches from Yoshi's knuckles. The bullet didn't just stop, it shrieked as its energy was swallowed by the ripple, the metal twisting and glowing red-hot before it lost momentum and clattered harmlessly to the floorboards.
Yoshi stared at the flattened slug. The air in the room was suddenly filled with the scent of burnt ozone and lead.
"Akira! Makoto! UP!" Yoshi roared, his voice cracking the morning silence.
This was an execution.
"We're being hunted," Yoshi hissed.
___
The second bullet arrived before the sound of the first had even finished echoing through the hollow, dinky and abandoned apartment.
Yoshi felt the air tear. He pivoted his torso, the movement assisted by a micro-ripple that slid his center of gravity three inches to the left. The projectile hissed past his cheek, close enough that the heat of its friction blistered his skin. It slammed into the kitchen wall, but instead of the metallic ping of lead, there was a dull, organic thud.
Yoshi's eyes darted to the impact site. It wasn't a standard slug. It was a twisted, hardened coil of violet-and-black fibre, keratinized hair, compressed into the density of armour-piercing steel.
What kind of hero uses hair for ammunition? Yoshi thought, his teeth gritting. He peered through the shattered window, his vision sharpening as he focused his spatial awareness on the horizon.
Nearly a mile away, atop the steel skeleton of an unfinished skyscraper, he saw a blur. It wasn't a static silhouette, the figure was moving through the sky, not flying, but walking. They stepped on the empty air as if it were solid ground, moving with a jagged, high-speed grace that defied every law of physics Yoshi knew.
"Yoshi! We're ready!" Akira's voice was strained. He and Makoto had Koichi's limp arms draped over their shoulders, dragging the unconscious hero toward the back stairwell. "We need to go, now!"
"Go where?" Yoshi spat, his eyes never leaving the distant blur. "They have a line of sight on the entire block. You step outside, and you're just target practice."
He felt a surge of cold, calculated fury. He was tired of the running, tired of the clinical "cleaners" and the "Aftermath" headlines. If the Commission, or whoever this "hero" was, wanted a piece of the Demon-God, he would give them a masterpiece of wreckage to remember him by. He needed to gauge them. He needed to see if the world truly had an answer for a boy who could fold space like paper.
I'll drop the building, Yoshi decided. Level the structure, create a shroud of dust and debris. It'll give Akira and Makoto a chance to vanish into the sewers or the neighbouring alleys.
He planted his feet, his lungs drawing in the cold morning air. He raised his right hand, pulling his fingers into a tight, white-knuckled fist. He began to hum, a low-frequency vibration that started in his marrow and radiated outward. He was preparing a "Deep-Structure Burst," a technique designed to expand the spatial gaps between the atoms of the building's support columns. He was going to turn the apartment complex into a pile of rubble in a single heartbeat.
Just one strike, he thought. Down. Through the floor. Through the lie.
But as his fist began to glow with the distorted light of the Ripple, the air in front of his face... thickened.
It happened with a terrifying, silent speed. Yoshi didn't hear a footfall, he didn't feel a spatial displacement. Instead, a dark, viscous shadow seemed to manifest out of the very oxygen he was inhaling.
Before he could release the strike, a cold, wet pressure slammed into his face.
It felt like a handful of thick, oily mud, but it was alive. A mass of dark, semi-fluid matter wrapped around his head, sealing his mouth shut with the strength of industrial glue. Yoshi's eyes went wide as he felt a pair of cold, thin fingers pinch his nostrils shut.
I can't...
The breath he had taken to fuel his attack became a vacuum. He tried to pull away, to "Ripple" his own body out of the hold, but the intruder wasn't just holding him. The mass was moving.
He felt a horrific, snaky sensation, a thin, gelatinous limb of the entity began to force its way into his nasal passages. It felt like a cold wire sliding up into his skull. He tried to scream, but the fluid matter surged into his mouth, coating his tongue and sliding down his throat with an oily, suffocating weight.
His lungs burned. His vision began to swim with white spots as the oxygen was cut off. The "Burst" he had prepared fizzled out in his hand, the energy dissipating as his concentration shattered under the sheer, visceral horror of the invasion.
The entity began to expand inside his airways, a pulsing, rhythmic movement that felt like a parasite trying to find a home in his chest. Yoshi's hands clawed at his own face, his nails tearing at the dark matter, but there was nothing to grip. It was like trying to fight smoke.
As he began to sink to his knees, his diaphragm spasming in a desperate, failed attempt to draw breath, a muffled, gurgling voice whispered directly into his ear, echoing through the fluid in his head:
"Don't fight it, little bird."