The existence of the Symbol of Peace pointed at a lot of questions that one might not make at the moment of hearing or meeting said symbol.

How did you come to be the Symbol of Peace?

Why was the Symbol of Peace necessary?

And more questions that typical people might ask.

Me?

I didn't have those questions (didn't have time for them), because when I entered this world with a age-regressed body upon a battlefield I had no recognition of (second place I came to), I saw All for One wounded deeply … and All Might dying without anyone to help him.

Wearing a labcoat like some badass wannabe, I stood over All Might as he tried to breathe. Tried being the keyword here, because all he did was gurgle with blood in his lungs and stomach.

I didn't see the Symbol of Peace that everyone else saw. I saw the man who would struggle to keep his title aloft with nothing but his willpower. I was disgusted and horrified.

Being horrified was simple enough. All Might was dying.

Being disgusted was something that resulted from my own bias. I saw All Might and knew that he and his cohorts would hide his injuries. All Might, instead of doing the logical thing when such a decision was necessary, would go out to be the hero.

"You poor fucker," I muttered out loud as I walked over the rubble and debris of the ruined building where the battle must have taken place. It wasn't raining, though if it did, then it would have been perfect thematically for the moment of a dying hero.

All Might stirred and looked up. "S-Shounen?"

Ah, he's speaking Japanese.

"Can't understand Japanese for crap, idiot," I said as I sat down next to him. It was a lie, but I felt more comfortable speaking English. And I was pretty stressed from what I was about to do.

Nothing like diving head first into a new situation, eh?

I reached into my pockets and pulled out two scalpels. All Might saw them but didn't move, probably because he didn't have the strength to move. "Four minutes before any help for you comes… but two minutes before you pass out and another two minutes after that before you start to suffer the effects of hypoxic."

"T-That is…?" he asked me in nearly fluent English, though stuttering because … you know, dying?

"Damage to the brain caused by lack of oxygen supply."

"A-Ah."

I sighed. "Ain't really giving you a choice here, but I'm gonna be performing surgery on you. Hopefully, I can tinker something from your fat." I rummaged around the pockets, looking for any painkillers and only found a bottle of water and Tylenol . "... Better than nothing." I opened All Might's mouth, poured some water, and a 500 mg pill into his mouth. "Swallow."

He did.

I washed my hands, crushed a pill, and sprinkled it over the biggest wound on his torso. "Can't let you be infected." He hissed a little. "Sorry, but you need to breathe for me until I'm done with the surgery. So I can't put you out of your misery."

"I-It's fine."

Then the blades of my scalpels cut into his flesh.

-VVG-

When Toshironi Yagi woke up, it was to the ceiling of a typical hospital. It was not a sight he thought he would be seeing after Nana's death.

"He's awake!"

There was a rush of feet and Yagi found himself surrounded by people looking over him from the rail and edges of his hospital bed. He looked around.

"G-Good morning," he said hoarsely.

"You imbecile," Gran Torino grunted out.

"Ha ha …" Yagi coughed weakly. "Sorry for worrying you all." He looked around. "Where is the boy who saved me?"

"... What boy, All Might?" Sir Nighteye asked, speaking up. "There was no one else there."

Yagi looked at them with a frown. "The boy. The one who performed the surgery on me." Everyone looked at each other before turning back to him. "... Where is All for One?"

Everyone looked around uneasily. Then Gran Torino finally answered.

"Gone. He was gone when we arrived."

-VVG-

"... Where am I?"

"In my cozy little space," someone replied in English.

Slowly, Shigaraki pushed himself up and found that his eyes that All Might had literally punched out were still okay, if extremely blurry and dry.

"Are you my savior?" he asked back in English.

"No. I am a fan of a true hero. Happy to see that English still remains the lingua franca."

The second statement was odd. Very odd. "... I see. Then why am I here and not in prison? If you are All Might's fan, then a prison should be where I am waking up."

There was a childish giggle. "I said I'm a fan of a true hero, not All Might." Shigaraki snapped his face forward and saw a figure enter his field of vision. "And all heroes need their villains."

That was a degrading statement. He wasn't someone's villain to be defeated. He was -.

… he was a ruined man now. Not completely ruined but almost.

"Who are you?"

The figure seemed to ponder on that with a childish hum.

"I am what I am, and I am here because of who I am," he began. "But now that I am here, I'm unsure."

"You haven't answered my question yet," Shigaraki replied as he stood up. He saw but his vision must really be blurry because-.

All of his sensing quirk screamed at him. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. His Infrared quirk saw a space twisted beyond recognition. His Limited Clairvoyance quirk saw only this twisted space of impossibilities despite the fact that the quirk in question had over a kilometer in range.

His eyes, which he first though blurry, saw a single figure in perfect clarity but the world around him was still blurry.

"... I think my name is supposed to be Tenko, but I was Alan before that," the child said with a malevolent smile. "But I think a simpler name will do. Call me Bonesaw. I think it's a title I'm going to change people's perspective on."

Shigaraki was still cautious. This child in front of him wore no mask and stood casually, but there was an air about him that all of his senses rumbled against.

"I see. Will you be my ally, then? Who else but I could give All Might the villain they need?" Appealing to the boy's ideology like this wasn't the first time he tried this.

"Nope."

The child chose death, then. A shame he couldn't be left alive, because he was too powerful.

"That was fast, but then why save me if you know who I am?"

Vandal pondered on that.

Seeing how the boy was distracted, Shigaraki launched himself forward with a propulsion quirk and his All for One shot out from his hand, making connection with the boy's chest-.

And nothing.

The boy saw the quirk projection from him and frowned.

"That was not nice." The boy reeled a fist back, and Shigaraki moved to dodge as his senses screamed for him to do so. He jumped backward but he didn't move away despite feeling the winds ruffle his clothes.

"?!"

"You must be really tired if this is the best thing you came up with, All for One!" Then the boy punched.

The tiny fist struck with the same amount of force that All Might punched with, and Shigaraki screamed as he flew back and then smashed into a wall that he couldn't see. He fell down to his bottom and groaned.

"You really are a scum, if the first thing you do after asking someone's name is to attack them, especially more so since that someone just saved your ass," the child continued but it was speaking an older version of English curse words.

Shigaraki stood up, trembling from the blow he'd just received. "Are you like me?" he asked, genuinely curious despite the pain and the situation. "You … take and give quirks?" It was the only explanation that fit which would prevent his All for One from taking the child's quirk.

Vandal snorted. "No, I just have immunity to anything that might change how my power works," he replied. "And you know what? I thought I could play with you a little, but you're clearly not up for it. Your typical villainous nature is making this boring and cliche. I thought you would be something more than … this," the child said as he gestured to him.

It irked Shigaraki to hear disappointment directed at him from a child who couldn't know the things he'd just lost.

All Might and his friends had worn down everything he had built over the last three decades, and this child, who knew nothing about the sweat of his allies and subordinates for a dreamland to call their own, blood spilled for the sake of growth, and hundreds of hours poured into plans spent to build his organization, looked down on him?

"You are insignifi-"

"argh. Please don't fucking monologue. And were you about to say insignificant after I just healed you and then handed your ass to you? You know what, I'm leaving. Bye."

And then the child was gone, disappearing like a vivid mirage. The warped space shattered along with the child's disappearance, and Shigaraki found himself standing alone in an abandoned house.

His cheeks and the corners of his lips twitched.

"... Tenko or Bonesaw. I will have you learn what it means to irk me."

-VVG-

With a silent hiss and nary a special effect, I found myself back in the room where I had first seen.

This was the room of Shimura Tenko, the boy that I had taken over.

It was here that I made two decisions. The first had been to see All Might, and I had been exactly on time to save the idiot.

The second decision…

I opened the door, and walked out of my room and into the corridor.

"Mom, dad, can we talk?"

The Shimura matriarch and the patriarch, disheveled and exhausted out of their minds, both looked up from the dinner table, and then froze when they saw my form, wearing a labcoat, holes in the shirt Shigaraki punctured in an attempt to get my "quirks," and, perhaps most importantly, the blood. Though they didn't know it and perhaps because they didn't know it, the blood wasn't mine.

"T-Tenko-!" Shimura Jinsu, the kind and encouraging matriarch, was the first to respond. She leapt out of her chair and brought her hands all over me, trying to find the injury that didn't exist. I had a body that was bulletproof in all layers. My skin, hair, eyes, muscles, bones, and even my "squishy" organs were all bulletproof.

Then she wrapped me in a hug, obviously shocked by my appearance.

"Tenko, where were you?!" Shimura Kotaro, the unwise yet well meaning patriarch asked, tears in his eyes.

I just smiled for them and they hugged me.

This was nice.

One fact that was left out by my "insertion" into this universe was the fact that whoever had done the insertion had performed the action unorthodoxically. I hadn't been "downloaded" into a growing child or even born as Tenko with my mind intact and dominant.

Because as far as this world was concerned, Shimura Tenko had been missing for almost a year and had not triggered a Bad Quirk Activation Event as an emotionally unstable child. The only reason I knew this was because this fact - as well as All Might's state of being - had been made known to me upon arrival like an airport announcement only I could hear.

I focused on my new parents that my new body and memories felt a genuine childish love for.

"I'm home… and I'm sorry."

For saving All for One, that was. I would never say it out loud and I would kill Shigaraki if he ever said it out loud, too. This nation needed a true hero, but a true hero can only exist when they had a good enough of a rival.

But if that rival risked my new life and family, then I would kill them and everyone involved, including the hero.

Everything was worth less than the happiness of my new family.

"Mom, dad, I have something to tell you. You might want to sit down."