Choices

Mydoriya Kyoko POV

I didn't wake up where I fell asleep. I woke up in that abhorrent land of shadows, with stone beneth my feet.

"Ah, you're awake. Good." The same voice that had spoken to me before spoke again. This time though, he didn't sound quite as much as if he was speaking with vocal cords someone had decided to rip out and beat him to death with.

I looked at him and I realized that my previous assumption of what happened might not be too wrong.

Arms resembeling stumps of flesh more then arms, blood flowing down from the wound on his head, that more or less was his head. Or well, was not his head.

"Stunned into silence? How unexpected!"

He was speaking jovially, seemed to be almost giddy, while making gestures with his limbs as if he still had them.

It was bizzare.

"Who are you?"

"And there we come to the big question. Some would argue that I am a villain, while others would, for the same reasons, declare me a hero. Ultimately, I am neither. I am merely me, and I belive that the same is true for you!"

"What?" What part is he refering too, being a hero or a villain, or me merely being me?

"Well, considering the fact that you just ended the life of a prevelant member of the organization known as Villain factory, and massacered many other members in the process, and ending your rampage in the death of Knuckleduster, a vigilante, some would refer to you as a villain and others as a hero!"

"I- what?"

"Your vocabulary seems incredibly limited, if I am being honest, but I suppose we will have to make due. And to answer your question, as broad as it is, it would be more correct to say I did those things, but it was with your body, so really, to the law I think it's just semantics."

And at that moment the world seemed to warp, with the shadows around, surrounding us in every direction, seemed to grow longer. Somehow.

The figure standing infront of me seemed somewhat dissapointed by this, or atleast that what I could decipher from the man without a face.

"Well, it appers though as you are waking up. We will have to continue this conversation at a later date." And with that said, as the world was closing around us, he smiled a smile with broken teeth and blood streaming down from a skull that wasn't there, happy despite it all.

He chuckled as I fell into the shadows, and the shadows fell into me.

____________________________

I woke up gasping in an alleway, the man nowhere to be seen.

I did the only logical thing a person would do in this scenario. I started running home.

But, I was moving so slow! Then I saw a bird, on the ground in front of me that started to flap it's wings, and it was also slow.

Unaturally slow. Superhumanly slow.

But I still ran circles around it.

This... this could be my ticket to becoming a hero. If it's real that is.

I reached into my backpack (I barely noticed I had it on) and fumbled out my phone, and started to navigate towards the clock app with shaky fingers.

I started the timer and began to run.

It was like nothing I had ever done before, and it felt like minutes had passed when I got home, out of breath, the world moving like normal again. My movements being like normal again.

Nothing, huh?

Looking down at my timer, expecting to see a number in minutes, my mind blanked at the 1:02 that was staring back at me.

I swung the door open and was greeted by the face of my mother, Inko, staring at me accusingly.

"Where have you been?! I told you to go straight home after school!"

And then she finally looked at me, and her eyes widened.

"And look at those scrapes, what happened to you? Did you fall down again?"

"Y-yeah. Uh, what's for dinner?"

And that's how it always went. She worried for a second then went right back to ignoring it. She genuinly belived it was scrapes, not because she was stupid, but because I was quirkless, and that meant I was useless. It made a small part of me hate her just a little.

"Your favorite! Katsudon!"

Dinner was as stale as always, with Inko trying to hold a conversation, and failing.

As always. She tried and tried, but she failed.

______________________

I woke up in a dream to a land of shadows, greeted by the voice of the same man, this time sounding even better, or well, not as horrible.

He sounded almost healthy actually.

"Back again, Alice?" I feel as if I was supposed to understand that referance.

Here the man was again, this time with arms, actual arms, and mist where his head was previously missing.

"It seems as if my previous form bothered both of us, so here I am, now and improved!"

He was starting to annoy me.

"Well, who are you?!"

He better give me a straight answer this time.

"I am, for lack of a better explination, a quirk. All For One to be exact, but you can call me sensei. Now, the reason I am with you is because of the fact that you do, infact, have a quirk! One that I made sure you didn't find out about, something I am terrible sorry about."

He what.

"You what."

His mood didn't seem dampened in the least, instead my anger seemingly only made him more ecstatic.

"Well, that feels less like a question and more like a statement, but I will answer it nonetheless. You have the amazing power to use your power instinctively, and I have the underwhelming ability to take, give, stockpile and use other quirks. Sadly, I don't get any instincts on how to use these quirks, so I was intending to use your quirk for that."

"Hold on, take quirks! Isn't that... like that one villain? The one that there is a bunch of rumors about and people online basically treat like the boogieman."

"That could be me yes. I would of course have rewarded you for making my power easier to use, but it sadly seems as if I passed away before that came to happen."

What the actual fuck is this day.

"Now" -he waved his arm- "it is time for a choice." And the shadows around us formed a hallway. The one outside of my door.

"There are three things you can do now, little one."

"First, you can turn away now. Wake up, and forget all about me. Go back and live peacefully with your mother."

I grimaced at that and he seemed almost... sympathetic.

"I understand." He said it with such certainty, such belief, that I stopped for a second, shocked.

"Huh?"

"I understand how you feel, Kyoko. She tries so hard, but she is so wrong. She keeps trying to screw a screw but she is going the wrong way and she doesn't even realize it."

How could he ever understand? He, who always had a powerful quirk, looking down on people like me from his high horse.

"AND HOW CAN YOU KNOW?!"

He closed and opened his mouth a few times, not in shock, but in uncertainty.

There was no happiness in his voice now, it had been replaced with something resembling loathing.

"Let me tell you a story of two brothers. The elder brother loved his younger brother, and the elder brother had been blessed with so much power while the younger had none, so the older brother tried to hide the younger from all the dangers of the world."

"When even that didn't work to keep the younger safe, when even locking him in a metal box didn't work, the older brother gave the younger brother power. Power to match the older brother, although neither knew it at that time."

"Do you want to know how it ended?"

Of course I do. You can't say that and just end it there.

"Yes."

"The older brother hunted down the younger, after the younger tried to run. Their end of their story happened on a mountain in a cabin, where the elder brother put an end to the dreams of the younger brother, a boy, no, a man, that would achieve his dream or die trying."

He looked at me, and how I knew that when he had no eyes I do not know but I did, at he saw a second chance. A new beginning.

I was disgusted and yet so happy.

The jovial tone returned.

"Now then, back to your choices!"

"You could become a hero, saving all with the power of speed that you experimented with earlier today. You would never be the strongest or the best, but you would help people. You would make a change."

I can be a hero.

"Or, you can use the power of All For One."

That was... strange.

"Why can't I use that power if I am a hero? Do you hate heroes enough to stop me from using it if I become one?"

He chuckled a bit at that, almost nostalgic, before answering me.

"No no, it is merely the fact that some heroes would simply throw you in tartarus for having that power, and those heroes have the power to make that happen."

"N-no hero would do that!"

"Well no, but actually yes. Several heroes hate me enough to do that, especially if it gets out that I am still running around inside your head. They would sooner have your head on a pike then make you a hero."

"But, using the power of All For One does not make you evil. You can take the power from those using it wrongly and those that do not want it while granting it to those without power! You, Kyoko, could change the world."

"So what will you do?"

I could walk back into the comfort of my home, back into mediocrisy.

I could walk down those stairs, and be a hero.

Or, I could walk into the waiting arms of Sensei and change the world.

The choice was obvious.