Smile, You're On Camera

Toshinori Yagi POV

The houses crumbled like paper before a storm as I hit.

It would be a lie to say I was unharmed, but I was alive and fighting fit.

I would not lose here, because that would mean this monster would be unstoppable.

I doubt even Mirio could beat both the girl and the monster at once, and there would be no tenth.

I knew that, as clearly as I knew that I had to end this monster here, or there would be no victory for the heroes. For the good.

My eyes scanned for any sight of the monster, and I knew he would refuse to leave a fight unfinished. He was too proud for that.

How I knew that I don't know, but I knew it was true.

There! A crack in space, with shadows spilling out.

I lunged and pushed with all I had, as I saw fools all around me cheer.

They didn't know just what was coming, what was about to happen.

A fist holding no less power then my own struck back at my own, and shock waves rippled out from us, debris from the attack of All For One flying all around us.

I had worked as a hero long enough to know the ripple that went through the gathering crowd, fools that they were, was excitement.

The ripple that went through them when All For One pushed, and I tried, oh I tried, to hold him? When I failed to push back with equal force and I flew, no, was flung, across several blocks?

That was all fear.

"So, All Might," said the monster, loud enough for me to hear and surely loud enough for the damned crowd to hear too, "is this all you have? I this the power that was meant to put me six feet below?"

And we began again, the power of eight generations of heroes clashing with the power stolen from hundreds, thousands, in a show of force never seen before.

And I was losing. Getting pushed back, oh so slowly, towards families trying to rescue their young, from children trying to push debris from their friends, and all of it was because of one uncaring monster.

"Why?" My voice didn't break, didn't falter, but the monster smiled, because he sensed weakness.

I knew that there was no way for my voice to be heard by an ordinary man over such a long distance, but this was no man.

"Why what?" asked the monster, in a voice impossibly loud for being spoken from so far away - and I knew everyone around us heard it -, tilting his head, as if he didn't already know the answer.

"Why all this?" I asked, waving my hand around to show the destruction, and he merely smiled as he looked around, as if he was looking upon progress. "Why didn't you become a hero? With a power like yours..."

At my last words the serene smile - false, a part of me whispered, but I paid it no mind - fell, replaced with a scowl of anger.

"Because, Hero," he spat the word like a foul curse "you weren't there when they put up the camps. Because, you weren't there when we were hunted down for the crime of living, for the crime of being different."

Camps?

He smiled a quick smile at my confusion, that quickly smoothed itself into a picture of anger, and continued to speak. "Let me tell you a story, Yagi."

"There was once a child, a young girl, that was born a bit different then others. See, she was born with the tail and horns of a cow. Well, not very big horns, but horns non the less."

"One day when she got home from school, on her twelfth birthday, she got a ticket to go a farm. Lovely, no?"

Where was he going with this?

I nodded once, and the look of anger on his face progressed itself into mad wrath.

"No," he growled, actually growled, out, loud enough to shake my bones, "it was not. She also got five ropes, which she was confused at, but her parents told her to bring them. So she did."

"When they got there, she saw some bulls, creatures that always fascinated her. Her parents told her to wait behind the fence as they went to talk with the caretaker of the bulls, the ropes they had her carry until then with they took them to the caretaker, that bound each of the five to one bull each."

"He then tied loops, hangman knots, at the end of each rope."

What is he getting at?

"One for each leg and arm, and one..."

No.

He spoke now, but in soft and sad whispers. They were angry yes, but far more mournful then angry.

"For the head. The bulls pulled, and what could a small do to resist?"

Why is he telling me this?

"And what, All For One, does this have to do with you being a monster?"

He glared at me, angry at my interruption.

"Because, Yagi," he spat out, "where did I hear about it? Do you think it was from news denouncing it? From police acting disgusted?"

"No. I heard it from the mouth of a politician saying what they did was right, I saw it on the news, congratulating them for making the right choice. I saw it from the police, as they pardoned mad murderers."

"I was mad with fury, and I acted on my anger."

And faster than I could see he whipped his arm up, and it swelled with power not his.

Then he was in front of me, pushing all his power onto me.

When power greater than ever seen before, power enough to crush a city down to bedrock turned itself on me, when power greater than the decommissioned atomic bombs pushed down on me, I held the line.

Because I had to, but my resolve was cracking.

I was failing.

But I held the line.

"The mistakes of those that came before us," I ground out, and even though my voice didn't travel beyond my mouth I knew he could hear, "is not the mistakes of us."

And I pushed hard. I pushed harder than I ever had before, my body, my mind screaming at me to stop as One For All sang through my veins louder than ever before, and I gained ground.

Just a little yes, but the monster was losing.

And then, for just a split-second, the monster didn't stop losing, but I won, and he flew through house after house.

It wasn't over, but it would get me a breather.

Or not, I thought, as I looked at the explosion of dark energy in the distance, and the black blur speeding towards me.

I caught him, closing pushing with all I had to ensure I lost nothing.

His face though, was unlike ever before. Before, there was always a thin veneer of civility, a lie, but that was gone, and in its place raw, pure rage.

"MISTAKE?!" shouted the monster, "There was no mistake!"

"Oh," my right hand slipped from his, "but," I twisted my body to the left, "there," I cocked back my right hand "WAS!" impact.

"No," came a dull and deep voice from the remnant of a destroyed building, "there was no mistake. The same thing happened four days ago, but with a quirkless teenager and cars."

He was in front of me again, his fist cocked back fully and lashing out.

I flew.

____________________

Torino Sorahiko POV

I had to help Toshinori.

The jets in my feet gathered power, and I would be there in less then a second.

But a wet slap, right behind me, caught my attention.

I turned as I flew, and I was lucky that I did.

The Shadow Queen.

"Let's not interrupt Sensei's fun, hmm?" She spoke and tilted her head, but there was a dark undercurrent to it.

She would end me if I even tried to help Toshinori.

"No need to be so stressed, Jet." She spoke, this time in a hundred voices, each showing a different emotion.

I looked at what she had brought and it brought stunned me into silence.

Mirio Togata (Togato? I couldn't remember.), with his suit ripped and torn, with blood leaking out of him.

But he was breathing. Why was he still alive, if he ended up in the claws of this madwoman?

A giggle, as if she knew what I was thinking (she probably did), called my attention.

"Do not fret, Jet, it is Sensei's right to decide what we shall do with One For All."

She turned her attention back to the chaos outside of the half cracked building I was standing in, one of the walls simply torn away, and the other three in an only slightly better condition.

"Let us enjoy the show, shall we?" She smiled with all teeth, and I shivered.

"You will get to keep your shadow until the show is over."

Her ghosts circled her, always watching me, as I tended to the wounds of Lemonilla (even more stupid then All Might, who names them self after a drink?), and I knew that even All Might's victory or loss here didn't matter.

Not when this thing was waiting to ensure that he lost.

I consider myself a smart man, despite what many people said, but I could see no way out of this.

But I had to try, so I gathered power, and I pushed.

The last thing I saw was green eyes twinkling merrily, on a childish face with a smile stretching from ear to ear, as if Christmas had come early.