One Beginning, and One End

The monster with white hair stood infront of me, uncaring of the villain, no, thing, tearing the world apart at the seams.

It looked like a walking black hole, tearing everything apart, and with every collapsing city, and with every corpse, a thousand, no, far more than that, images layed themselves over the terror.

Images of what could have been, images of other worlds.

"So, One," All for One - how did I know that name? - says, placing emphasis on One, "Are you finally willing to listen?"

My stunned - horrified - silence was enough for an answer.

"That, my dear, is Abaddon, and we have absolutely no way of stopping it. At the very least not in time for this world to live, but we can save it's next victims."

"How?" I say, in a whisper that isn't mine, "How can anyone stop that?"

"It wants you, or more accurately your quirk, because it is the answer to eternity. So we give it just that, and then I drag you to it's most important part, the [EYE], and we kill it from the inside."

"See, if I went alone it would simply kill me, but if I go with you it wouldn't risk destroying you, so I can slowly poison it to death."

He reached his hand out to me, like he had done to damn so many others, and I took it - it felt far thinner and more delicate than it should be.

"All For One," he says, smiling like a parent leading their kid to graduation, instead of a madman leading a mad child to his death.

The world falls away and nine shadows pounce, eight faces filled with anger and one with understanding.

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White. My hair was turning white and I was still a damn teenager.

Only Panacea could fix it at this point and she isn't going to waste her time on me.

Emma and her friends will get their sick little kicks out of it by laughing at me for something they did.

As the last meatball slides down my throat I felt full, but some part of me was still hungry, wanting more.

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The bullies laugh at the strands of offcolored white hair, not caring that it was them that did this to me, all while the teachers look the other way.

The laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh, and I can do nothing but run and run.

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So I run. Step by step, I run.

I scream as I get dragged into an alleyway.

I scream as fire burst from the fingers of the teen clad in red and green and laughter bursts from his friends.

I scream as I want so badly.

I smile as I take what I wanted, something that came to me so instinctively.

I smile as fire burst from my fingertips.

I laugh as they scream.

I smile step after step, as I run home.

It is only in the safety of my room that I understand what I did.

The tears fix nothing, and I will use this power, the power I stole, to fix this city.

I wont do this to anyone again, I refuse to! I refuse to take power I don't deserve again!

I will prove that I am a hero and that I deserve to join the wards, the heroes.

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Sophia feels like shadows, and I vow to take her down one day.

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I hold my promise for a week, until a villain, a D-lister at best, pushes me into the ground like I was nothing, with nothing but the power to be just a little better than normal, just a little faster, just a little stronger.

So I pull, like I did a week ago.

And he can't win.

And I realize that people that use their powers to hurt like this don't deserve their powers.

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Weeks later I feel the shadow that is Sophia jumping from roof to roof and I go after her, pushing a flight qui- power and I put extra care into ensuring that the power enlarging shadows into hiding who I am is in place.

I am greeted with a young blonde clad in green and the shadows hiding in a heavy black cloak, and my world breaks just that little bit more.

They talk. I don't listen.

"What are you called?" asks the shadows, and the name is on the tip of my tounge but not quite there, as nine voices shout at me to not and one chuckles, knowing I will.

"All for One."

And I vanish, pushing the flight harder than ever before.

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A car accident. What took my father from me is the same thing that took my mother.

No, what took my father from me was that accident years ago, because he was never there. He gave me food, yes, and a bed, but that was about it.

He left me with no one to go to in a rotten city, and I hate him for that.

I will use that hate to fix this city. For Me.

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Lung tries to fight, he really does, with fire and everything he has at his disposal, to put me down.

The fires vanish with an energy absorbation power, and with little more than a thought that very energy is amplified by another to break him.

He is little more than a corpse, I think, looking down at him.

Without his power healing him he would die, and soon.

He will die.

A single one of his little friends that came with him still live, and as I drag him up by his throat, instead of pulling where nothing is to be taken, I push.

"Follow me," I say, "and all will be forgiven."

As he bows, I smile, but the hate is still there, smouldering.

I blow the last few strands of black hair out of my line of sight, as useless as it is these days.

I ignore the capes - probably vigilantes or villains considering Lung was willing to kill them - as they sneak away.

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The suit is stuffy, as I sit in the bank discussing my father's old loans with a spineless worm.

I want nothing less then to stand up and tear his spine out to see if anything will change.

I smile - a small smile - as the door is violently opened and a motorcycle helmet wearing villain - Gro or something like that - steps in.

I keep smiling as I get led to the lobby by four villains, and eventually sat down in the front row of hostages.

My smile changes, though, as halfway through her - some lady wearing a purple skintight suit - little speech about why we shouldn't try anything "funny" her eyes lands on me and she stops, her eyes widening.

All it takes is a single half formed desire and powers leap to my fingertips, black and red lightning crackling around me, as I amplify something that was once little more then a long ranged punch.

One of the dogs is torn apart and the others are thrown away.

I move fast - faster then humanly possible - and as I reach the girl in the in the dog mask, I slam her into the ground, hard enough to cause the floor - or her spine, something craced - to crack.

The villains are vaulted over, and as the thinker starts talking I feel the amplification and "long ranged punch" start to almost purr in anticipation.

But something - a whisper from a white haired, red eyed monster - stops me from going through with it.

So just once, I listen.

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I throw another few hired soldiers away like the garbage they are, walls cracking with the force of my blows.

Only one gets up after a single strike. Not the one that can make suns - thanks for the gift -, not the one that can teleport me - quite useless, but I will use it -, not the one throwing ball bearings at me - fun times - , nor the one with the "perfect body".

I do have to eviscerate three of those projections before they stop coming - I'll have to collect that one later.

The snake tries to run as I enter the room he was once, and still is, in.

I glare and with a jump I make his power do what I want, a nifty little "gift" from one of the many scum of the city.

And now he sits on a chair infront of me.

He gets no last words.

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Dinah, oh smart little Dinah. All it would take for me to rescue her would be me going to the bank that day, and what better way then to give a drunk man the keys his friends took from him.

I would have - should have - raged and torn her limb from limb... but I couldn't.

She didn't take my father from me, he vanished years ago.

But I would need a new family, and I think she could use one too.

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The "legs" struggle against me as I tear away what holds them togheter, and I do nothing but smile.

"We are friends now, right?" I ask the wounded young woman, and she nods before I continue, "And friends help eachother when they get in trouble."

"I helped you here, so you will help me, right?"

She just continues nodding, tears streaming down her face as I give her the power to make things burn, and to not get killed by just anyone while doing so.

"The first thing I ask of you is to find and bring that damn master sending monsters at me, to me."

She goes to sleep that day able to light things on fire, to create monsters while sleeping and a slight brute ability.

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The Empire is nothing infront of my allies and friends, as their little community meet ups are destroyed by my friends.

And then... then it all goes to hell.

All of a sudden I am no longer All for One the vigilante, instead I am All for One the villain, the monster, for daring to defend myself and my new friends from being attacked by horrid monsters for being born wrong.

Heroes - all ten shadows disagree with that title - hound me and my allies, my friends, my family, for protecting the down trodden when the system wouldn't.

And then Bakuda happens. She continues to terrorize and hurt with her portable fucking sucide bomber, and the last straw is when the cemetery, is ruined and there is no place to bury father next to.

I find her and plunge my hand into her, grab and pull, ripping out organs and a shower of blood.

It just makes more heroes, and villains now, hound me, wanting me dead for my brutality.

Then they send me the corpse of Rachel and film of them killing her, something they only accomplished because I told her to not kill anyone - even as she was attacked in her own home - trying to capture us, because that is what was meant to happen, so I could get her out again.

Two villains wanting to take a piece of the pie. Two idiots took part of my family from me, and I can't let it stand.

They are a couple, and I smile with hate.

My hatred burns brighter than ever so I wait until one of them gets home until I attack, dragging her out of the house.

I kill her before I tear her limb from limb in an abandoned warehouse, and then I dump her in the bed of her partner, that never once questioned why she wasn't home yet.

He wakes up screaming that morning and he meets my as he opens the door to his apartment.

It only takes a single light tap to leave him bleeding out, unable to formulate words.

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Kaiser tries to regain relevance by showing himself as a valiant knight standing against the evil of me, and I can't help but laugh.

At least until he crucifies Aisha, and dumps her in the bay.

I barely pull her togheter again, and for the first time as my friend shows his loyalty to me, swearing his undying loyalty in fact, I feel uncomfortable.

The young girl gets her own brute powers to play with, and I go to hit Kaiser where it hurts.

He hinds behind his dog of steel, one whose power is now mine, but I see him.

A single power lets me see the face behind his mask and another lets me step into the room of a mother with two children.

I ignore the slight sting as she tries - and fails - to hurt me.

Hooks of metal tear her apart as I rip out what makes her special, her children watching.

One of them rushes towards me and does absolutely nothing as I push him to his knees with a single hand.

"Take this power of her's," I say, "and rectify the sins of your family. If you ever need a new one, you know you can always find me."

I vanish and he turns up on my doorstep two days later, wet from the rain.

All he asks is to be allowed to kill his father himself, and if I thought my smile couldn't get wider than before I was wrong.

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The final nail in the coffin that is Brockton Bay is Leviathan.

A monster that sends wave after wave of water, destroying any defences with the weight of the ocean.

The damn thing nearly ignores everything I do to it, and no one else is doing much better.

Then, I see it. A single arrow flying through the air, and the beast twists just the right way, as if it wasn't dodging that arrow, but I knew it was.

And when the beast sends a wave aimed at her - I knew it was at her - I am there as the water spits her out, dying but not dead.

She knows who I am - she must know - because she smiles - a sad smile, but a smile - and nods.

I take her power, and for just a second I use it.

The beast loses and arm and a leg, but that doesn't matter, because it isn't dead, but it is running, and that is the best I can ask for, even as the city is falling under it's own weight.

No one could prove it was me that made sure that house fell on the shadow, and why she didn't use her breaker form was a mystery, as I fell through the roof.

My friends and I re group and we travel forth into the wider world.

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A single power - one that allows me to make portals to different worlds - changes everything.

I don't make any new allies, but I find new powers.

A "goddess" ruling an empire finds me, and that empire buckles and falls against me.

And then I find cauldron, and everything changes.

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Idiots with too much power is what they are, and I cant help but hate them for it. For not being better, for not being there for me.

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Golden morning happens, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with monsters and heroes, and I don't know which I am anymore.

Probably the former.

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It takes a long time before I choose to use that power, and I don't know why I use it, but it's the first thing that makes the golden warrior actually move out of the way.

So now? Now we only have to hit him.

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Master power after master power was used and discarded - hour after hour - , until finally, finally, I send a projectile of something - I don't question these things anymore - that he doesn't move out of the way of.

It breaks, and falls, but I am just so tired.

I just need a few minutes... just a little more.

I fall out of a pocket in reality into a school hallway - the place I was made - and I can't hear any footsteps but I feel someone coming closer.

The [EYE].

She says something that I ignore and I rush forward into on spearing her through.

A single bullet spirals through the air - so slow compared to me - but my powers fail me, refusing to respond.

I fall like a puppet with its strings cut and I feel the keeper of the dead draining me of my stamina.

And finally that familiar rage hits. They planned this.

They fucking planned this. They would rather I lose against the golden warrior then letting me live.

My hatred burns bright, but I am so tired.

I fall and I feel parts of my power flake away from me, falling off, as I fall, and my power is no longer eternal.

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My wounds were horrible, and I barely crawled out of it all alive, helped by a kind Japanese man.

Shigaraki Hisashi he called himself, and I name myself Inko.

One week of staying resting turns into a month of helping him around the house, and that month turns into a year, and that finally leads to wearing a wedding dress.

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That, in turn, leads to little Izuku, my little star.

But then these Meta abilities start emerging, and I want to stop the hate, the hunting of them, and I wonder if this is what would have happened if Parahumans weren't as strong, but I don't stop it.

Because Hisashi tells me to trust the system, to not be the nail that sticks out.

Even as they put my bretheren into camps and execute them on live television, I didn't do anything to stop them.

Until a single phone call from Izuku's daycare came, and it stops my world.

He took the quirk of another child, and was taken.

My form changes from the beautiful woman I turned myself into for Hisashi into something far away from it; A large man.

No one dies as the facility is torn down by me - at least not intentionally - until I find Izuku.

My little Izuku, cut open in a single afternoon, to find out how he ticked.

My world burns and I burn down the world around me, because they took one of the few things worth saving.

One of the few things that stopped me from trying to find a meta ability to crawl back into my world and take revenge on my old frinds - Lisa, Brian, Alec, and all of them - for stabbing me in the back.

Hisashi tells me to calm down, as his sickly body starts failing him.

But I don't and the first power I take I feel is meant to be mine. These are simply parts of my power, the parts that fell off when I fell, and I feel my rage burn hot.

After a year of struggling to find the right power I present it to Hisashi and he rejects it, but I don't let him.

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Hisashi tried to leave me, and it breaks me just a little more.

So the woman in the dress making deals, turns into the woman in the suit.

But it's still All for One.

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My underlings - because these fools weren't my friends - tried to do me a favor, cuttting away dead weight.

My husband, and just as the last one almost dies I remember the glassy look in the eyes of a corpse.

So they live, broken, and they will keep living for a long time.

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With one more part of the old me cut away, the woman in the suit turns into the man in the suit.

_____________________

One for All. The piece of eternity that was missing all this time is the thing meant to kill me, and one by one they slip through my fingers.

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As my head caves in I feel desperation coursing through me, and I pull through death somehow, but I am far more diminished.

I must have One for All to find eternity again.

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The child looks so much like Izuku, so lost, as he walks through the streets asking for help where Izuku found none, so I reach my hand out.

But, as he admits he wants to kill them all something in me breaks a little bit more, because that is nothing like Izuku.

______________________

My face is nothing but scars, and I could recreate a face but I don't, because it doesn't matter anymore.

I am diminshed, and it is a good reminder of that, if you could ignore the empty feeling where my power once blazed with power, that is now filled with little more than a candlestick.

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Tomura complained about a green haired child with the power of All Might and I look into him, and I can't help but want more and more and more, and the more I find the more I want to strangle that pathetic excuse of a mother of his for daring to deny him anything.

This is Izuku.

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And he breaks again and again, but he is so brave.

So before I go to lose against All Might -pathetic- I take the quirk of some cosplayer playing hero to keep an eye on him.

As he hides behind the wall I smile with pride - and slight smugness, I knew I would need to keep an eye on him -, "It's... All... for you" I say, reaching my hand out to the person it isn't meant for, the person I should have thrown at All Might and grabbed the child that was clearly the better in that comparison.

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As I stand face to face with Tomura again I can't see a single trace of Izuku in him, so I simply spew lies about some demon king in a story I never read, but Hisashi liked to talk about, and Izuku never got to read.

_______________________

As Abaddon finally arrives I smile at Izuku, proud of how far he has gotten.

When he inevitably accepts the sacrifice - a part of me dies at sacrificing what is my child, damned what anyone else says, but I continue on.

My body morphs into the woman I once was as I sat at a dinner table for three; Hisashi, Izuku and me, and I lead him to victory.

"All For One." All for you Izuku, and I am sorry there is no other way.

I smile as I remember an old dream.