….
Shigaraki's willpower was gone, leaving his mind completely defenseless.
'Thank you for the body, Tomura...'
Deep within the dark, flooded vault of Shigaraki's subconscious, a massive, cold, parasitic shadow slithered out from the abyss.
The vestige of All For One didn't need to fight for control.
It consumed the Shigaraki's soul that hadn't shown any resistance to existence, and claimed the vessel as his own.
The takeover was complete.
And the physical mass, All Might had finished is nothing but a flesh of discarded husk. The real All For One had just commandeered a younger, un-decayed, and terrifyingly potent new vessel.
K-K-K-CRACK–!
High on the spire, a sharp sound echoed through the cold air.
Dabi's blue eyes narrowed instantly as white steam hissed out from his coat.
Inside the glacial block, Shigaraki's head, which had hung limply against his chest, slowly and unnaturally snapped upward.
The blank, broken despair in his eyes vanished.
In its place, a cold and deeply sadistic light flared to life behind his pupils.
His mouth, split and bloody, peeled back into a grotesque, refined smile that did not belong to the former owner.
BOOM!
A red-and-black aura of raw malice erupted from within the ice. The glaciers Dabi had cast were forcibly shattered into millions of razor-sharp shards.
Dabi instantly slid his right foot back, raising a fresh wall of blue fire to incinerate the flying ice shrapnel while staring through the shimmering heat haze at the figure stepping out of the shattered block.
The body and the [Decay] Quirk both belonged to Tomura Shigaraki.
But as the boy stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders, and let out a dry aristocratic chuckle, there was no doubt about who was standing on that spire.
"Ah... remarkable."
'Shigaraki' spoke, his voice carrying a double-layered, echoing resonance; a horrifying fusion of Shigaraki's rough rasp and All For One's refined cadence.
He raised his hand, flexing his fingers with sadistic fascination. "To think the boy's mind would break so easily... A pity he couldn't handle the truth. But his canvas... his Quirk factors... they respond so beautifully to his master's touch."
Down in the crater, Toshinori's gaunt face went deathly pale as he felt the sudden, horrific shift in atmospheric pressure.
He turned his skeletal frame toward the spire, his sunken blue eyes widening in pure horror.
"No..." Toshinori rasped, blood leaking past his lips. "It... it can't be..."
Up on the ice, 'Shigaraki' tilted his head, looking down at the frail Symbol of Peace, then turning his sightless yet perceptive gaze toward Dabi.
"You really thought you had closed the curtain, didn't you, Dabi?" All For One mocked through Shigaraki's lips, a cruel grin spreading across his stolen face. "You dismantled my plans, you isolated my body, and you let the old hero have his moment of glory... But you forgot one simple truth."
He raised his right arm, black-and-red lightning cracking wildly across his skin as the true All For One Quirk factor inside the boy roared to life.
"As long as my vision lives inside a new vessel... the Symbol of Evil can never die!"
Dabi showed no surprise, fear, or panic as he simply exhaled a slow plume of thermal mist into the freezing air, his blue eyes locked onto the parasite possessing the boy.
"I didn't forget anything, you cockroach, or should I call you a parasite now?"
The lingering echo of 'Shigaraki's' dual-layered, monstrous voice vibrated across the shattered basin of Kamino Ward.
Yet, beneath that grandstanding, All For One, knew he didn't have much time. Despite possessing a completely new body, the reality is something only he can understand.
Could he use his massive arsenal of stolen Quirks inside this new body?
No.
He was entirely stripped of them.
The exact reason he wasn't inclined to abandon his body.
All the stolen Quirks All For one had been accumulating over centuries were physically bound to the Quirk factors embedded within his original body.
…which is already dead.
A vestige transfer through a Quirk factor carries the user's mind, soul, and primary Quirk identity, but it does not magically teletransport the physical DNA of dozens of secondary Quirk factors stored in another corpse miles or meters away.
Furthermore, Shigaraki's vessel in this timeline had not undergone Doctor Garaki's cybernetic, Quirk-expansion surgery.
His body was that of a normal, un-enhanced adult.
He did not possess the bio-engineered muscle density, cellular modification, or expanded neural capacity required to hold multiple high-tier Quirks without his brain liquefying.
All For One was effectively trapped inside a basic biological vessel, possessing only two powers: the primary, stolen All For One Quirk factor acting as his consciousness anchor, and Tomura Shigaraki's innate [Decay].
To a lesser villain, this would be a death sentence.
But All For One was a grandmaster of destruction.
He had an unhinged, fully awakened [Decay] factor within his body with unburdened neural pathways.
Because All For One's master-tier mind was now directly controlling the Quirk, free of Shigaraki's erratic emotional tantrums, he could wield [Decay] with far more efficiency.
It was a far more lethal, concentrated form of destruction.
But against the monster standing before him?
It wasn't nearly enough.
….
Down in the crater, Toshinori Yagi took a trembling step forward.
His gaunt, skeletal chest heaved as blood trickled past his chin, his calloused hands twitching violently as he forced his broken body back into a combat stance.
Every nerve ending in his frame screamed in agony, but his eyes burned with that familiar, self-sacrificing resolve.
He was ready to burn away the absolute last minute drop of his life force right here, willing to die in the dirt just to drag his arch-nemesis down with him.
Before Toshinori could take another step, a tall shadow dropped straight down from the high ice spire, landing on the frost-covered earth directly between All Might and the parasite…. was–
Dabi.
…and he didn't step in because he doubted All Might.
On the contrary, he had watched the Symbol of Peace give everything he had to settle the century-old score of his generation.
According to him, All Might had already killed the demon king, laid his true self bare before the world, and held the line with absolute, unyielding honor.
This secondary monstrosity, a parasitic ghost hijacking a broken, manipulated body, was no longer Toshinori's burden to carry.
The old era had officially closed the second All For One's original body flatlined in the crater.
This was Dabi's fight now.
Dabi tilted his head slightly, his blue eyes cutting over his shoulder to glance at the gaunt, bleeding Hero.
"Save your breath, old man." Dabi declared. "You already broke his spine. Stop trying to die on the job and let me clean up the trash."
?!Toshinori froze mid-stride.
He stared at the young man standing firmly in front of him, and his still long hospital coat snapping wildly in the air, while white frost crawling over his left hand and blinding blue fire crackled lightly over his right.
Looking at Dabi's back, a profound weight lifted off Toshinori Yagi's weary soul.
For twenty long years, Toshinori had lived in constant terror of what would happen to the world when he finally fell.
He had genuinely believed he was the only pillar holding up the sky, forced to carry the crushing weight of society entirely on his own broken back.
But looking at Dabi, a Hero of such immense power, and an unshakeable presence, Toshinori realized the world was no longer alone.
It no longer needed an old Hero pretending to be invincible; it had a new reliable Hero ready to take his place.
The iconic catchphrase, the instinctual, lifelong urge to force his muscles to swell and shout "I am still here!", completely died in Toshinori's throat.
Inside his sunken eye sockets, those deep blue eyes shined with a warmth and pure, human relief he hadn't felt since he was a young man standing beside Nana Shimura.
A soft smile spread across his bloodied, gaunt face.
"I see..."
Toshinori rasped, his voice cracking slightly as a single tear cut through the dust on his hollow cheek–
"Then... it's all yours, Hero Dabi."
"A Hero?"
Dabi chuckled, but he didn't wait for any answer as he flicked his left wrist, gently elevating a smooth, solid pillar of dense ice directly beneath Toshinori's boots.
The pillar smoothly carried the exhausted Symbol of Peace backward, lifting him cleanly out of the attack zone and depositing him safely near the perimeter line where medical teams, Gran Torino, were waiting.
Toshinori didn't resist, as he stood tall and proud atop the retreating ice platform, keeping his head held high, his starlight eyes locked onto the front line as he silently passed the torch to the young man holding the field.
Across the globe, every single news camera zoomed in on the exchange.
Up in the lead broadcast chopper, the news anchor gripped his headset with trembling hands, his voice dropping from frantic commentary into a breathless, unscripted whisper.
"Is... is everyone seeing this?!"
The reporter choked out, his raw, trembling voice echoing across tens of millions of television sets–
"He!!! All Might is stepping back! He's handing the front line over to Dabi, the Blue Sun!"
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well. For additional content please do support me and gain access to +12 more chapters.
-->[email protected]/WrightBrothers