The Sacred Torch: Origins

Chapter 1: One For All

Haru didn't consider himself to be special in any way at all.

Since the day he was born he knew he would never excel above anyone surrounding him. From the very beginning, his older brother surpassed him in everything: in school, in fitness, in social life. Haru wasn't strong, or exceptionally clever, or even brave. He was frail and sickly, cowardly and meek. He could admit to himself he felt bitter about it. How was it fair that no people in the world were created equal?

To make things worse, the world was entering a new age - the Superhuman Era, they started to call it. Mutants and powers suddenly started appearing all over the place, ordinary humans giving birth to half-animal children, adults waking up with lasers shooting out of their eyes or wings growing on their backs. People were terrified, and for a good reason. The society was swiftly crumbling, the laws and human rights losing their initial meaning. And in these chaotic times, the only sure survivors were ones with the best connections and the most impressive powers.

Of course with his luck, Haru experienced no such things, for all appearances the evolution of mankind skipping him in favor of Haru's charismatic older brother.

Ironically, Haru did not fully understand the implications of his brother's power at first. Great, so he can borrow powers from others. Another reason he's so special, Haru thought with a bit of envy. In hindsight, it was very foolish of him to dismiss the sheer potential for such a gift. His brother however was anything but foolish. He was ecstatic about the discovery of his power, determined to push its limits to the extreme, just to see how far he could go with it.

Much to Haru's growing feeling of foreboding, they both soon realized there appeared to be no such limit on the power his brother named All For One.

His brother could steal any power - any power at all - from anyone, anytime, without any repercussions upon himself. While at first Haru's brother only took other's powers (or quirks, as the public began to call them) temporarily, just to see if he could use them for himself, soon he started outright stealing from people.

The first time it happened, Haru had an argument with his brother. It was not right, he told him. All For One was an incredible power and could be used for many great things, certainly - but it should not be used to permanently take quirks from others. It was risky and dangerous and borderline criminal. His brother dismissed his worries easily. He had a much better use for those powers, he claimed. Their potential was utterly wasted on people who were going to use them for selfish or petty reasons. Haru wished to say that if anyone was petty or selfish, it was his brother. But Haru was a coward, and had no strength to argue with his bossy older sibling, so he let the matter go.

Haru did not find out that his brother could also grant stolen quirks to other people than their original owners until much later. Apparently Haru wasn't considered trustworthy enough to be told such information. But seeing his brother's acquaintances suddenly using powers they definitely had not possessed naturally made Haru suspicious. It continued, his brother's "friends" gaining or switching quirks seemingly on a whim and Haru slowly started to fill with horror as he began to realize the truth.

His brother was building a illegal network of widespread influence. A real criminal mastermind, manipulating people and conducting dangerous and immoral human experiments just to explore the limits of his own quirk. As soon and he knew what was going on, Haru decided he had to go to the police.

He never got that far, however. Haru's brother found out about his intentions and forced a "brotherly chat" on Haru before he could share his brother's activities with anyone.

The first thing Haru was offered for his silence was a quirk. The audacity of it literally made his blood bold. Had his brother ever cared about him at all, he would have offered him a quirk a long time ago. Furious at having been lied to about the true nature of All For One, being offered someone else's stolen power and recently made aware of the terrible consequences of incompatible quirks being forced on people, Haru point-blank refused.

Haru's defiance did not please the holder of All For One. For the first time, his brother threatened him and Haru instantly understood that their sibling status no longer held any meaning. Haru was merely a loose end to him, and his brother was determined to make him keep his mouth shut no matter what. Resigned, Haru pretended to yield to the demands, secretly plotting ways to expose his brother's activities to the authorities.

It was nothing more than wishful thinking on his part, considering his brother - calling himself All For One now - had him under constant surveillance. Haru was forced to watch as All For One's empire grew, gaining more and more influence over the years in the entire country. Haru began to truly fear his brother, and the monster he was becoming. If only there was any way to stop what he was doing, any way at all...

Then one day, something unexpected happened. It was almost funny to Haru in retrospect; too ironic and ridiculous to be true. But it was.

Haru was kidnapped for ransom by one of his brother's opponents.

The quirkless man had a insane urge to laugh hysterically as he listened to his kidnappers negotiating with All For One. He honestly didn't believe his brother had any reason to try to get him back. He was only a nuisance to him at this point, after all. Heck, he expected All For One to be relieved, to have such a convenient opportunity to get rid of him without soiling his hands.

However, what Haru did not consider in the equation was the reputation All For One was trying to maintain as he ruled the underworld. Apparently having his own younger brother taken from right under his nose was good enough for All For One to immediately hunt his kidnappers down and ruthlessly dispose of them, to warn people off from touching All For One's property. The thought that All For One considered Haru his property sickened him, but, at least it gave his brother an incentive to get him back alive and relatively unharmed.

The short and seemingly insignificant event became the catalysis for All For One's biggest mistake, and Haru's greatest blessing.

At that point All For One finally decided that it was impractical for his younger brother to remain quirkless. People in the criminal world were now aware of Haru's existence, and some already set their eyes on him. To prevent Haru from being helpless the next time people attempted to capture him, All For One carefully selected a quirk from his collection and forced it upon him without Haru's consent: Power Stockpiling.

The quirk by itself wasn't all that impressive. Perhaps, with the right training Haru could master it and become a fearsome fighter, but in reality Power Stockpiling only gave Haru a slightly-above-average strength. It had to with Haru's inexperience of using a quirk properly - being quirkless his whole life and all - as much as his constitution and reluctance to use it. Haru had never wanted a quirk from All For One in the first place, and the fact that he'd been forced to receive it felt like a violation.

But underneath his reluctance and disgust, Haru began to sense something else. Something neither he nor his brother had ever noticed. Although Haru had believed his entire life he had no quirk, apparently something had been hiding inside of him all along. Upon being forced into his body Power Stockpiling combined with it and mutated, transforming into something different.

It wasn't until soon before his death that Haru realized just what his hidden quirk was.

After unwillingly gaining Power Stockpiling, Haru slowly created a plan that allowed him to escape from under his brother's watch. Having given up on police long ago - All For One had his fingers deep in all government departments by that point - he went into hiding, meeting up with a resistance organization against his brother's influence.

At first the people were extremely cautious about him, watching his every move with suspicion. This is All For One's little brother, they whispered among each other. He has the same blood as him, who is to say he's not a spy and he's going to betray us? Haru patiently endured their hostility and wariness, knowing well he had to earn their trust before he could be of any use to anyone. During that difficult time of adjusting to his new life, an unprejudiced member of the organization approached Haru, a young man with a moderate telekinetic quirk named Koriyoda.

Koriyoda was everything Haru had ever wished to be. To his pessimism, he was optimistic. To his frailty and weakness, he was strong and athletic. To his cowardice, he was brave. Haru quickly began to like and admire Koriyoda, the first person ever to offer him an unconditional friendship.

Haru and Koriyoda's bond grew over the years, the two becoming best friends and practically brothers. It was thanks to Koriyoda that Haru eventually earned himself trust in the resistance, and rekindled his determination to stop All For One.

No good things last forever, unfortunately, as eventually All For One found the hideout of the resistance and attacked ruthlessly. By some miracle Haru and Koriyoda managed to escape, spending the next few years on the run.

It was then when Haru shared his suspicions about his original quirk with Koriyoda. Originally Haru believed All For One to be primarily a quirk which had to purpose of borrowing quirks from others. Later he revised his opinion, that its basic function was stealing quirks. But in reality, the most fundamental part of the quirk was bestowing quirks rather than taking them. Why did that difference concern Haru? Well, since they were brothers, it would make sense if Haru had inherited a quirk with similar properties. Not nearly as obvious as All For One, Haru's hidden quirk could have something to do with passing quirks to others. And just like that, Haru found it.

The Power Stockpiling quirk within Haru had been combined with a passive, useless quirk, related to All For One only on its most fundamental level: the ability that could pass itself on to others.

Koriyoda, the enthusiastic imaginative mind that he was, proposed that Haru could pass this new combined quirk to as many people as possible to help defeat his his brother. Haru quickly figured out that it wouldn't work, since his ability could probably be passed on only to a single person. No matter how crazy Koriyoda's idea seemed, however, it gave Haru inspiration. He named his quirk One For All, the antithesis to his brother's quirk; the One quirk For All people, to fight the One who wanted All quirks for himself. Perhaps, Haru considered, if he could pass it to someone powerful then maybe someday, that person would deal his seemingly untouchable brother a deadly blow.

Sadly, Haru never got the chance to seek out a powerful successor. In a sudden and unexpected turn of events, the two friends were tracked down by one of All For One's spies. Severely wounded and cornered, Haru pressed a bloody hand to his friends lips, begging him to run ahead without him so at least one of them would survive for sure.

Unknown to Koriyoda at the time, Haru had figured out the key to passing on One For All. He knew his friend would have to ingest some of Haru's DNA to receive the quirk, and Koriyoda had a habit of biting his lips when he was nervous. Threatened by death and running out of time, Koriyoda did not notice the blood or realize Haru's intentions. Promising to come back for him, Koriyoda split ways with Haru, unknowingly leaving him alone to face his brother for their final showdown.

Haru fought All For One with everything he had. For the one and only time in his life, he felt like he wasn't a coward. He fought long, fiercely and to the bitter end, knowing he was buying his friend as much time as possible. Naturally All For One won and killed him in the end, but Haru accepted it with a hopeful conviction in his soul.

Because Koriyoda got away. Because he had One For All with him. Because one day, the mild quirk would grow into a force to be reckoned with, and it would bring All For One's permanent end.

As the white ember flickered out, the new flame of One For All's legacy glowed with timid blue light.

Author's Note:

Here it is guys, my first non-crossover, real story for My Hero Academia! I've found there are little to no head-cannons about the previous One For All holders, except for Nana Shimura and All Might - both of whom have very limited information about their history anyway. On my request I had the characters of All For One, One For All and Nana added to the list of available characters, because we need more of them, guys! Especially Shimura, but I guess there's still more to come in the manga. We gotta have more of them, people, seriously.

The white and blue colors are references of how the "passing on One For All" is portrayed in the anime, with following colors: white, dark blue, red, green, orange, purple, pink, yellow and green once again. Each color representing one holder, with the first One For All being white, yellow being All Might, and of course green being Izuku.

I didn't put too much thought into the names: "Haru" means simply spring, which is fitting for the beginning of One For All, and "Kido" means brightness, which then I turned into a longer name so it wouldn't sound like a Japanese person trying to say "kid" in English... xD

I mean come on, "Nana" means "seven", and she was the seventh's successor, so it's not like they made the naming process too complicated in the manga.

Thank you for reading! Please follow, favorite and review if you liked it, but most importantly - read on and enjoy! :)