Chapter Text
Tomura grasps the hand of All for One, desperation flooding his brain. He looks down at the hospital bed, at the barely conscious body of All for One. He looks weak and broken and depleted- things All for One could never be.
Except he could be, and he was, and Tomura is drowning in his own disbelief.
“But you said you were invincible.” His voice rasps. “You said you couldn’t die.”
There’s a sputtering, and he only hopes that it was a laugh filtered through the oxygen mask that holds fast to the man's face. “No, child, I can still die-”
“Obviously.” Tomura scoffs, rolling his eyes petulantly. He drops All for One's hand, opting to cross his arms and lean on the bed.
He’s been struggling to accept this on any level. Tomura Shigaraki doesn’t do grief, he doesn’t do unexpected, he doesn’t do depressing. All for One rolled all of these into one big bag of suck that he can’t just decay away and be done with.
All for One raises an eyebrow at him before continuing.
“If I get injured severely enough, then yes, I surely can die. There are wounds even I can’t heal.”
“Clearly.”
Tomura knows he’s being childish, maybe even a little bit disrespectful. But All for One seems to brush it off, his normal no-nonsense attitude not upheld in the face of death.
“I’m sorry, boy, but I don’t have much longer. I can feel it. I think-,” he starts sputtering again, the force of his cough splashing the inside of his mask until it's speckled with red. The corners of his eyes gather tears and Tomura can tell the burning in his mentor's chest is getting worse. “I think we should think about a successor.”
He furrows his eyebrows, staring at the blood splatters in the mask, and puts a hand to his own chest in a gesture. “I thought I was your successor? I’m seventeen now, I can do it.”
“No,” All for One tries to shake his head, then seems to think better of it, “I need you to lead them, teach them these ways of mine. It took a very long time to find a quirk that would let me do this. The noumu experiments haven’t yet proven reliable. We need to make sure the new host of All for One has the lowest possible chance of their body rejecting it. To avoid that imbalance, the host should be quirkless.”
Tomura mulls this information over for a moment. This means he’ll have to find, raise, mentor a whole new villain. He nods good-bye to his own mentor and steps into the hallway.
He starts his research immediately and within a week, with the help of the doctor, has two possible options.
______
“Kacchan?” Izuku calls, staring down the monolithic front door of the Bakugo’s home. “Kacchan, why won’t you open the door?”
He knocks once more, his tiny hands barely making a sound.
Katsuki leans against his front door, frustration clear on his face. “Just go away, Deku. I just… go away.”
He tangles his stubby fingers in the hem of his shirt, wiping the sweat off his palms. He actually couldn’t play, this wasn’t even him avoiding Deku. Katsuki wanted to play, honest. Deku always brought all his action figures when he came over, letting Katsuki pick who he wanted to be first (All Might, obviously. It was never, and has never been, a question).
They played together all the time, but Deku stopped visiting as often after Katsuki got his quirk. He knew why. He knew Deku was afraid of him, but it really wasn’t Katsuki’s fault. Deku was weak, quirkless. A loser.
In his heart of hearts, Katsuki knew it was wrong to take his anger and frustration out on a boy unable to defend himself, and the guilt stayed lodged in his stomach, unaddressed. He’d die before he told a worthless nobody that he was sorry. Why should he? He was the best. The best of his friends, the best of his class, and someday, the best of the heroes.
“K-kacchan? Please, it’s getting dark! I-It’s kinda scary.” He hears Deku’s small voice stutter, muffled behind the door.
Katsuki throws his fist into the wall he was leaning against, his quirk sparking to life in his palm. He can almost feel Deku flinch on the other side. “Stupid Deku… I can’t. My mom said no.”
He wasn’t even lying. Last night, he shattered her favorite vase mid-tantrum. He’d frozen, slowly turning to look at his mom. Her eyes were alight with thinly veiled rage. Immediately grounded.
Katsuki slumps up the stairs to his bedroom, casting a glance out his window to the front landing below. Deku sits cross-legged on the porch, his limited edition All Might hanging idly in his hands. He wasn’t playing, just looking out into the park across the street that makes up the other side of their cul-de-sac.
Katsuki strains his eyes against the growing darkness of nighttime. He sees very little beyond his porch; tall gray silhouettes of trees, some headlights in the distance beyond them. The sky looks angry; thick clouds gathering, their bottoms black and heavy with rain.
He feels… not good. Deku is out there, and the sky threatens to drench him at any second. Katsuki didn’t even try to let him in, or ask his mom and dad. A voice in the back of his head gnaws at him. That’s not very heroic of you.
The voice sounds like mom.
As he thinks such, the light pitter-patter of sprinkles tap on his window. He decides to let Deku in. Mom wouldn’t scold him for helping another child avoid sickness, right?
Makes sense to him.
He climbs off his bed, dawdling down the stairs to his parents office. Poking his head inside, he sees his mom on the phone, her eyebrows knit together.
“Mommy, Daddy?” He says tentatively.
They turn at the sound of his voice, his mom hanging up the phone call she’d been on.
“Katsuki, honey. Have you seen Izuku today?”
Katsuki has a sinking feeling that she’s upset. He’s not sure why. But sometimes, when she’s upset and trying not to show it, she purses her lips the way she’s doing now. Behind her, dad presses his lips together.
He nods. “Yes, Momma. He’s on the porch. I told him I couldn’t play but he wouldn’t go home.”
Mom and dad seem to relax, tense shoulders dropping. Katsuki looks between them for a moment, confusion dusting his face.
“Why can’t you play?” His dad asks, head tilted to the side in question.
He frowns and looks briefly to the living room, at the empty shelf where the vase once sat. “I broke the vase, remember? I’m grounded.” He reminds them.
“Ah yes, the vase,” Mom chuckles, hand poorly covering her smirk. “Why don’t we bring him inside until Inko gets here, hm?”
Mom picks him up, turning him so he sits on her hip. He doesn’t fight her on this, though normally he would. He’s busy thinking about getting Deku indoors (and, more importantly, the All Might figurine he’ll get to play with until Auntie gets here).
He yawns, bringing his fist up to rub the sleepy out of his eyes. It was a big day today. Being the best five year old is hard, okay?
His feet touch the floor right before they open the door. Can’t have a loser thinking he’s soft, now- that would be no good at all.
Katsuki reaches for the handle, standing tall on his tiptoes, and twists. As he throws the door open, all he can do is scowl.
The rug on the front porch that reads ‘I’m not getting up to answer the door’ is displaced from its normal spot. All Might's plastic face grins up at him from the step, wet with rain. Katsuki leans forward to pick it up, glancing down either side of the dark, empty street. Mom looks between him and the landing.
Deku isn’t here. He looks like a liar. Deku made a fool of him.
His palms spark, momentarily offended. It's quickly dampened by the minuscule traces of fear on his moms face. He hasn’t seen that face before, but he knows it’s fear. He’s scared now too, because mom isn’t afraid of anything, ever.
“Where’d he go?”