In the city of Busan, Korea, there is a statue. It stands on a plinth by the shore. The statue is a simple one, a bronze cast of a woman wearing a police uniform. She faces away from the city, out toward the sea. Her arms are stretched out at her sides, palms facing outward, and her expression is stern. The stand beneath the statue has two inscriptions. On the side behind the statue, a plaque displays the name of the woman immortalized in bronze:

Officer Kim Hana. First Hero of Korea.

Smoke curls and twists in the air, floating towards the heavens from a burning cigarette held between the fingers of a young man in his late adolescence. His nails and teeth are only just starting to become yellowed and discolored, but the youth takes a long drag without coughing as though he's been smoking for his whole life. He blows the smoke out from his mouth in a grey cloud, watching it rise into the sky just dimly visible above the narrow alleyway he's standing in.

A shrill whistle breaks the silence, and a woman's voice calls out, "Hey! Lee Sang-Hyun!"

The young man looks up with a guilty expression to see a woman wearing dark pants and a blue button-up shirt with black epaulettes. Her black hair is pulled back in a tight bun and her dark eyes are narrowed with suspicion. A silver badge gleams brightly on her chest, marking her as an officer of the law. Sang-Hyun briefly considers running, but before he can even take a step, an iron grip takes hold of his upper arm.

"Ow! Hey! Police brutality!"

The female officer scowls and flicks the young man's ear before snatching his cigarette and stomping on it. "Very funny. Ya skippin' school to practice bein' a comedian now? And these are illegal for minors. You'll die of lung cancer by the time you're forty."

Sang-Hyun struggles but the policewoman's grip is unbreakable. He's tall for his age, but skinny. The policewoman is the same height as he is, and lot stronger. He whines, "Aw come on Big Sister, it's not like I learn anything useful there. Besides, you should be more sympathetic for me, the students and teachers all treat me badly because I'm a mutant, like you!"

Kim Hana's face softens just a fraction before it resumes her usual stern expression. "Kid, I get that it's tough. But are ya gonna let 'em win and drive ya out? I wasn't allowed to go to school, but the laws are on your side now. You should take that chance, be better than me."

The young delinquent scowls. "I'm already better than you; at least I don't have an uneducated accent. I bet I'll get married before you too, you old woman."

"I'm only twenty-eight, you brat!" Hana laughs and swats the boy's head playfully.

"Argh, come on! You've got super strength, you're gonna give me a concussion like that, you goon!" Sang-Hyun whines. He rubs his head ruefully, then realizes that Hana actually let go of his arm. The officer appears to be looking at something, and as Sang-Hyun follows her gaze, he sees it too, a plume of smoke rising from the distance. "Sis?"

"Alright, looks like you're off the hook today. But I better not see you back here tomorrow!" Hana ruffles Sang-Hyun's hair and sprints off.

Normally it would take over ten minutes to run from the Centum area to get to the mouth of the Suyeong River, but Kim Hana had always been faster and stronger than most. Early in her life, everyone had chalked it up to her being athletic, but when she lifted a car to rescue a man trapped beneath it, it had become clear that her physical prowess came from metahuman abilities.

Just four minutes after she'd left Sang-Hyun, Hana arrived at the waterfront, barely out of breath. The smoke she'd seen earlier was from a multi-car pileup, and several of the shattered vehicles were burning.

Without hesitating, Hana rushed over to the nearest car and ripped the door from its hinges. As she helped the frightened man within to exit the car, the young policewoman looked around her and realized that the cars were far too damaged for a simple crash to explain. Several of them looked as though they had been sliced apart. She turned to the man she'd just rescued and asked, "What happened here?"

But the man was already gone, fleeing with such urgency as though he'd just seen a monster. Hana frowned; people generally reacted with disgust or disapproval when she used her metahuman strength. This seemed a bit much.

"Well, you're certainly strong." The words seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, echoing and reverberating. Hana whirled around, pulling her handgun from its holster and pointing it at a man with short white hair and red eyes wearing a dark trench coat. The man grinned mockingly and raised his hands. Though his lips did not move, Hana heard his voice again. "Apologies. I don't mean to frighten you by speaking to you this way, but I'm afraid I don't speak Korean."

"Who are you?" Hana kept her gun trained on the man. "Don't make any sudden moves or I will shoot!"

"My name is Shigaraki Yorei, though I prefer to be called All For One."

Hana's eyes widened, and an involuntary shudder ran down her spine. Not long after the appearance of metahumans, society had fallen into chaos. Japan had collapsed entirely into anarchy before suddenly regaining a sort of stability, but there were whispers of a ruler in the shadows, a man of immense power called All For One. Hana had thought him to be just a rumor, but here was a man claiming to be that person, surrounded by destruction and speaking to her without opening his mouth.

"If you really are All For One," Hana hoped her voice wasn't shaking. "You are not welcome here."

The man chuckled. "So people have heard of me even here? Why, I truly am famous indeed."

Hana scowled, it was as if he wasn't even listening to her. She pointed her gun into the air and pulled the trigger. "Final warning! Turn around and go back to Japan."

That seemed to get All For One's attention, but terrifyingly, he only seemed amused by the gunshot. "Little girl, you know who I am and still stand against me? You must be very brave or very stupid."

Before Hana could pull the trigger, All For One's eyes glowed red, and her gun turned searing hot. She yelped and dropped the weapon onto the ground, where it melted into puddle of slag.

"Silly girl. You must know that you are doomed-" Whatever the villain was about to say however, was cut off by Hana's fist smashing into his face.

The policewoman rotated her wrist as she watched All For One bounce off of the street and slam into one of the abandoned and damaged cars. "Oh I don't think so."

To her surprise, the villain got to his feet almost immediately, his broken jaw and nose snapping back into place. He looked more astonished than hurt, as if he couldn't believe that he'd been struck. "You punched me."

"And there's more where that came from!" Hana took up a boxing stance.

"Do you know why they call me All For One?" His voice seemed to hiss from all around Hana. Before he'd seemed almost amused, but now there was an undercurrent of irritation clearly present. "My meta ability allows me to take the powers of others and use them as my own. Just now, I used one to set my broken bones into place and another to heal the damage. I have over a hundred different powers within me. All you have is brute strength."

"And that's all I need." Hana picked up the car door she'd ripped off its hinges earlier and hefted it, hurling it toward All For One like a deadly frisbee.

The villain sneered and slashed his hand through the air, the limb hardening into a metallic solid. As the two halves of the car door clattered to the street, All For One spoke once more. "My turn."

In the blink of an eye, he covered the distance between himself and Hana, and thrust his palm into her chest. The impact sent her flying backwards nearly a hundred feet. The breath is driven hard from Hana's lungs, and her uniform is nearly shredded. She knows that tomorrow her chest is going to be black and blue. If she lives that long. She lays there for a few seconds, wheezing, before getting to her feet. "That... all you... got?"

All For One rushes towards her, but Hana is ready this time, and crosses her arms over her chest, taking the brunt of the blow on her forearms. It hurts, as though she's been hit by a sledgehammer, and her boots are shredded as her feet carve deep furrows into the asphalt road, but she's still standing.

The villain rushes for a third time, but this time Hana steps to the side and throws a left hook that clotheslines her enemy, snapping his head back with a loud crack. Horrifyingly enough, the man's broken neck resets and heals itself within seconds. Hana gulps.

All For One growls and backhands Hana, sending her reeling onto the sidewalk. As she stumbles to a halt, the villain races towards her, ducking under her wild swing to jab her with sharpened nails. As she cries out in pain and tries to hit him, All For One dances around her at high speed, easily dodging her attempts to hit back while occasionally slapping or punching her.

"Hhrrraagghhh!" Hana suddenly drops to the ground, slamming her fists down on the concrete. Cracks spiderweb outward and All For One is thrown from his feet, tripping over suddenly uneven terrain. Hana doesn't give him even a moment to recover, swinging her leg into the villain's gut in the hardest kick she can muster.

All For One is launched into the air, and Hana rips a nearby sign from its post, using it to hammer the villain back down to earth. She hits him again and again, until suddenly his eyes glow red once more, melting the steel rod.

"Enough!" All For One lashes out, sweeping Hana's feet out from beneath her. He stands up, looming over her as he reaches out to touch her face. "I grow bored of this nonsense. Your meta ability is m- agh!"

Hana catches the villain's wrist and squeezes hard. Beneath her fingers, she can feel bones snapping like brittle twigs. "You know, I've never bothered to find out just how strong I am?"

Without letting go of her grip on All For One's wrist, the policewoman scrambles to her feet. She then proceeds to thrash All For One around like a ragdoll, smashing his body against the street repeatedly. "All my life, I've had to hold back, to make sure I don't accidentally kill someone. But you, I can hit you as hard as I can. You should have stayed in Japan!"

With that proclamation, she hurls All For One into the ocean.

Hana leans forward slightly, resting her hands on her knees. Her hair has come undone from its bun, and hangs loosely around her head. She can feel a bruise forming on her cheek, and she's bleeding from a cut on her forehead. For the first time in as long as Hana can remember, she's actually hurt and feeling tired. She looks around the area, surveying the destruction. Hopefully the chief wouldn't be too hard on her for that, all things considered-

"Bold words from someone who has not yet won!"

Water explodes upward as All For One flies out of the harbor. He soars towards Hana, and tackles her into an office building, crashing straight through a wall and several pillars. He finishes by hurling her body at the opposite wall.

"Did you think it was going to be that easy?"

Hana cries out as she bounces off of the wall, leaving cracks at the impact. She struggles to her feet, and sees workers staring at the scene in horror. "Evacuate!" She yells, charging at All For One again.

He darts out of the way, then shoves her hard, sending her crashing through another pillar. The villain sneers, taking no notice of the civilians around them fleeing the building. He walks towards the policewoman, and grabs her by her hair, pulling her upright before throwing her against another pillar, which crumbles.

"Did you really think that you stood a chance against me?"

All For One crosses the room in three strides as Hana struggles to her feet. He throws a straight punch at her face, but to his surprise, she catches it. Hana looks All For One in the eye. "Yes. I do."

She seizes his collar with her other hand and pivots, throwing All For One through yet another column. All of the workers in the offices seem to have made it out, so she rushes over and slams the villain's head into the floor hard enough to make the building shake. She presses her knee into his back and wraps her arm around All For One's neck in a chokehold. Snapping his neck clearly wouldn't work, she had to hold this until he passed out.

But it seemed that All For One was finally pissed. He went limp in Hana's arms, then his whole body seemed to soften. His arms reach back bonelessly and throw the policewoman off his back. As Hana gets to her feet between two of the last remaining pillars, the villain also stands. His right arm bulges, and the sleeve of his trench coat splits as the limb inside swells to four times its size, with what look like metal spikes and bones jutting out.

Hana is barely holding herself upright at this point. Every breath hurts, and now the villain is quite literally twisting his own body into a monstrosity. Despite what she said earlier, Hana knows she doesn't have any chance of winning this fight. She holds onto both pillars on either side of her, standing between them. A final, desperate plan begins to form in her mind.

"You cannot possibly hope to stand against me."

"So long as I stand, evil shall not pass!" Hana retorts, and closes her eyes. With a mighty heave, she pushes outward, the two pillars on either side of her crumbling to dust. Almost immediately, the ceiling above caves in, and the entire building collapses on top of her and All For One.

"Looks like you're no longer standing." All For One said in Japanese, wincing at the pain in his ribs. That was going to have to wait, his healing quirk had been overtaxed. Before he could say anything else however, he was interrupted by the sound of helicopters. The villain looked up to see three of them hovering overhead, with military-grade machine guns aimed directly at him.

All For One cursed. He'd been hoping to strike fast enough to capture the city before Korea's government could respond, but the damned policewoman had slowed him down enough for the army to mobilize their forces. Even with all of the powers at his disposal, he doubted he could take on Korea's military. Unlike Japan, Korea had spent the years after the second World War building up their military strength, and had reunited in the chaotic times following the discovery of metahumans. He'd been anticipating a fight, but to be this damaged and exhausted even before facing the army...

"Tch, this is too much trouble." All For One growled. He looked down again at the body of the police officer. If she wasn't dead yet, she surely would be soon. Her black hair is splayed out around her head like a dark halo, and her face was stark white beneath streaks of blood and a bruise on her cheek. Her uniform was a mess of tattered fabric, with more wounds showing beneath the tears and rips.

Strangely, she looked totally at peace, eyes closed as though asleep. The sight of her pissed him off. The villain placed his hand on her face, and a red light began to emanate from the contact. Because metahuman abilities were tied to a person's physical being, he could take them even from the dead. She certainly wasn't going to need it anymore.

To his surprise, stealing the policewoman's metahuman power didn't fill All For One with power or make him feel tougher in any way. The villain's eyes widened in understanding. This was not simple strength. Rather, it was power gathered over time, meaning the longer this meta ability existed, the stronger it would become, until it was theoretically limitless. Not that it was much use to All For One. While he did prefer simple powers, this one was too straightforward for his liking, and useless unless the holder was patient, which he was not.

All For One chuckled as he rose into the air. The helicopters opened fire but he was already gone, soaring to the east back to Japan. The wind and sea spray felt cold against his skin, his clothes had been utterly ruined over the course of that fight. Truly a shame, that had been his favorite coat. All that effort, and all he'd gotten out of it was a single quirk. Expanding outside of Japan was clearly more trouble than it was worth.

Oddly enough, the villain wasn't that disappointed. While he himself had no use for the police officer's stockpiling meta ability, he had just the candidate in mind. What a wonderful irony it would be, to force the power of a fellow rebel onto Yoichi and burden him with a strength that had no hope of actually winning against his elder brother.

In the city of Busan, Korea, there is a statue. It stands on a plinth by the shore. The statue is a simple one, a bronze cast of a woman wearing a police uniform. She faces away from the city, out toward the sea. Her arms are stretched out at her sides, protecting all those behind her from whatever enemies face her fierce gaze. The stand beneath the statue has two inscriptions. On the side behind the statue, a plaque displays the name of the first person to thwart All For One:

Officer Kim Hana. First Hero of Korea.

On the opposite side of the block, beneath the statue's feet, is another inscription, this one carved into the stone.

So long as I stand, evil shall not pass.