Initial notes: Hiya! This story was originally posted on AO3 from May 9th to May 14th of 2021 for IzuOcha H/C Week 2021. Because this website has a less robust tagging system, I will include some warnings here:

This story contains manga spoilers and (very vague) movie spoilers for Heroes Rising. It also contains harsh language, some graphic depictions of violence, discussions of depressing thoughts and negative mental health, and the dismemberment of some major characters. Reader discretion is advised, though the violence depicted in it is not particularly more egregious than what is typical for canon in 'My Hero Academia.'

This story is a villain AU for Midoriya Izuku, based on the popular 'Dad for One' fanfiction trope premise, in which he is 'Mikumo Akatani' and Ochako Uraraka is our Ninth Bearer of One for All. This story is an indirect sequel to 'The Gravity Thief,' 'The Emerald Ghost,' 'I Am a Heart on Fire,' 'How Can You Stay in Control,' and 'Right Through My Soul.' It's not strictly a direct sequel but it does have some direct continuity and won't make nearly as much sense if you haven't read those stories.

This story is part six.

Prologue - I Said I'd Never Let You Fall, and I Always Meant it (if You Didn't Have This Chance, Then I Never Did)

"Have faith in me 'cause there are things that I've seen I don't believe. So cling to what you know and never let go. You should know: things aren't always what they seem…"

('Have Faith in Me' by 'A Day to Remember')

Everything around them was obliterated, turned to ash and dust and crushed into the finest particles of debris in the air.

Theoretically, it was mid-morning but Ochako couldn't tell between the smoke and her focus on the ground. With how dark the sky was, it felt like night and the cold air pricked her skin as she moved.

Ochako flew over the remains of the city, cracking the air in an explosive sonic boom, as she hunted for her quarry. Today was the end of the line, she hoped, after hours of fighting and destruction and death from evening past dawn. She was exhausted but she was hoping it wouldn't matter if she could make the next few minutes count.

They had been tracking their villain target - the villain target, the boogeyman haunting superhuman society - for years but today was the day. Today was the day she was going to bring him in or, better yet, the day she was going to put Blackwhip through his heart like a sword. She would end the threat to peace, stability, and life once and for all.

Ochako came to an explosive landing when she found her target: All for One, holding Frostfire in the air by the neck and speaking indistinctly to the half-and-half Hero.

"Oh, hello, Uravity, how nice of you to stop by," All for One said in a louder voice when he noticed her. He turned back to look at Frostfire, who was clawing uselessly in All for One's grip and gurgling a bit. "It's so rude to interrupt, though."

Frostfire tried to throw fire at All for One's face but All for One simply pushed his hand away in a quick parry. Ochako looked over and saw Dynamight, unconscious against a pile of rubble. His legs were visibly broken and he didn't look like he was in any shape to fight anymore.

All for One tossed Frostfire far away, where he landed in a pile of debris with a crash. Then he turned back and looked at her with distant, unfocused red eyes. He wore a bodysuit, mostly black with red accents and long, dark emerald stripes. His gloves were crimson with gold decorative buckles on the knuckles and he had a thin, scarf-like black cape with a two-tone red and green line running down it.

All for One was exceptionally powerful, so Ochako let the pink wildfire of One for All flare around her at maximum output as she prepared for another round with her inherited archnemesis.

"Now, you know I don't really enjoy fighting you, Uravity," All for One said in a low, quiet voice, and Ochako scoffed. Then she disappeared in a sonic boom and went straight for All for One's face with a right hook.

He dodged with inhuman speed, ducking and weaving through her punches. She was well aware a direct frontal assault wouldn't work on him but she was waiting for-

He thrust out Rivet Stab like blades on his fingers, trying to stab at her midsection, and she countered on instinct with Blackwhip hardened like broadswords from her left hand in a horizontal sweep. Blackwhip crashed through Rivet Stab, destroying it. For a brief moment, All for One was stunned.

Then she grabbed him by the little mask thing on his neck and drove him right into the ground with a shattering crash, back-first. The concrete at their feet exploded like glass and All for One made a strangled noise of pain as he coughed up blood.

Ochako drew her fist back and tried to punch his head with all of One for All blazing as a pink inferno but he barely managed to roll out of the way and trip her with his leg. Her armored fist went through the ground and left a crater as she ripped it back out in a shower of earth. He scrambled away but she shot Blackwhip out and drew him in for an explosive kick back to the ground, right into his chest.

"You always go easy on me, that was your first mistake," Ochako said as she tried to stab him in the chest with Blackwhip. He dodged it and her attack went straight into the ground like a knife through butter, leaving sizzling holes from the heat.

He tumbled away again and wiped blood off of his face with his right hand. All for One eyed her warily and she watched crimson lightning crackle across his costume and behind his eyes as he seemed to begin to take her seriously.

"Going easy on you… was never the issue," he said, his breathing heavy after fighting for so long that morning. Ochako just scoffed again at him, irritated and deeply unimpressed.

"Could've fooled me," she replied as she punched an air pressure wave at him. One for All ripped her brunette hair into the air around her headband, though All for One blocked her attack one-handed with some kind of yellow energy shield.

"I'm glad I reclaimed this one," All for One muttered as he looked back over to Ochako. "You know, they'll probably… do an indiscriminate strike soon, right?"

Ochako raised an eyebrow as she began to circle All for One. He stood very calmly and very still, save for his heavy breathing, and followed her with his gaze; only his scarf-cape moved in the frigid wind. His eyes were darkened and intense but his expression was muted, like he couldn't quite decide what to do with it. That was common with him, she'd learned over five years of chasing after him and trying to bring him down, and she hated it.

She hated how familiar she was with him and how, despite that, she still couldn't read him well. Nana always told her that she needed to understand if she wanted to destroy, via the metaphysical connection of One for All. But Ochako wasn't sure she ever understood One for All or All for One; not in the way that Nana so desperately wanted her to, at least.

It was freezing out in the dead of January but she didn't feel the cold with how hot One for All ran over her Hero costume. She wore more armor than she used to, courtesy of Melissa Shield - two-tone blueish-black and pink gauntlets that covered her hands, heavier boots, and an armored chestpiece meant to stop rifle rounds, all built from Melissa's 'Full Gauntlet' prototype material - and Ochako was feeling more alive than she'd felt in a long time as she clenched her armored fist and continued to circle him.

She'd only fought All for One a few times in the past - though she'd encountered him more often than she'd fought him - and every time she felt like there was a livewire in the back of her mind willing her forward. She also felt like she was one wrong move from death each time, even if - maybe especially if - All for One was going easy on her, and that was thrilling, too, in its own way.

Ochako hated All for One, she believed, but she didn't hate fighting him. It gave her a sense of purpose as the Ninth Bearer of One for All.

Ochako completed a full circle around All for One without responding to him and he said nothing in turn. He was always like this with her: waiting for her to respond to him, giving her a chance to speak, and she didn't get it. Part of her wondered if he was simply obsessed with her; if he just wanted to see how the Ninth Bearer ticked before he took her apart. He was obsessive in general, she'd learned, so that would fit.

Nana always told her to be wary of his abilities - to 'be careful against the boy without a fate' - and she took that advice to heart.

"They wouldn't launch an indiscriminate attack when there's still Heroes in the blast radius," Ochako settled on saying when she reached her original position in a full circle. To her profound irritation, All for One raised his right hand and index finger and pointed somewhere above and behind her, smirking as he did so. Ochako rolled her eyes, the pink fire of One for All dimming a bit around her. As if she was stupid enough to fall for that trick. "You really don't respect me, do you?" Ochako said bitterly, and All for One's smirk fell.

"That's not true. But they don't respect you, that's for sure," All for One replied calmly, having caught his breath. That was when Ochako heard the whirring of a plane engine, whipping around in time to see fighter jets flying in formation.

"Fuck," Ochako breathed, then she turned back to find All for One right next to her. Ochako gasped and made to throw a punch but All for One merely pushed her away with surprising force, sending her flying.

"You'll want to move away from Dynamight and Frostfire, Uravity," All for One called out by way of explanation as he walked towards her. Ochako landed on two feet and immediately scrambled backwards, realizing what he meant: the fighter jets were aiming for him, so she needed to minimize collateral damage by pulling him away from her comrades.

All for One abruptly took off, crackling red lightning on his body as he zipped through the city wreckage and away from where he'd left Dynamight and Frostfire. Ochako turned and cursed under her breath as she watched the fighter jets change course and try to keep a bead on the villain. That was pointless - missiles weren't going to kill him with how many defensive quirks he had, she was sure - but All for One had one point at least: the government didn't respect her and they'd made that abundantly clear in her time as a Hero.

Ochako took off like a pink rocket, intending to try and catch up to All for One and pin him down. The jets were a secondary concern for her, since she had faith in her ability to dodge the explosions. All for One was fast as far as such things went but the Ninth Bearer was faster, so she caught up to him and knocked him to the side with a hard kick and a sonic boom into the remains of a leaning skyscraper.

He made a confused cry of surprise and pain as a larger chunk of rubble cracked him over the head, then looked dazed as blood ran down his forehead from his hairline. Ochako couldn't believe how the stars had aligned for her as she bounded over and immediately picked him up by the collar with her left hand. Blackwhip hardened like blades around her right hand and she decided at that moment to end things as she pushed him against the twisted metal.

He was important. You needed him.

Nana's voice, clear and sharp and true, cut through Ochako's thoughts. Ochako hesitated for just a moment.

She blinked as she registered something, as all the hair on the back of her neck stood up and Danger Sense screamed: the whirring of something flying towards her. She had been so caught up in her victory that she forgot about the jets.

Ochako saw the missiles and felt frozen to the spot. Her rational mind hadn't caught up yet with reality and she was loath to let go of All for One. Part of her thought the missiles would kill him but another part of her insisted that nothing short of her watching him die up close would make it a sure thing.

The first missile struck the ground across from them and the sound made Ochako go deaf as heat washed over her. The second hit the building above them, low in its center of gravity, and it began to tilt over them and fall as its support pillars buckled under the strain of its own weight.

Ochako cried out in surprise when All for One reached out and grabbed her, shoving her to the ground. She tried to push him off her but he covered her whole body with his own, as much as he could. There was a yellow glow and she assumed he was using some kind of defensive quirk; she brought her hands up to protect her face and head.

Then there was a devastating explosion of heat around them and Ochako's world went black.

Ochako is dreaming: a lucid dream given to her by Nana Shimura, the Seventh Bearer of One for All and now the personification of One for All as a whole.

She is familiar with the dreams, by now. The things that Nana tries to show and tell her about how the world is all wrong and how she needs to make things right. The mechanism by which Nana admitted failure and told Ochako that her second child was lost. The way that Nana told her that he was meant to be the Ninth Bearer of One for All, that he was meant to be a Hero… and how he was taken from her by the man who would be king, just as her grandchild was.

The way that Nana cried for him and the fact that he could not be saved, just like Tenko Shimura could no longer be saved. The way that Nana cried that Tenko could never be saved - not by Nana, at least - and how she lost, again and again, across infinity itself. Nana's sorrow crashed over Ochako like an ocean sometimes even still for what she felt was lost.

She still remembers when she first saw him in person, as the dream plays out.

Ochako, an adult, wears her current Hero costume and stands off to the side as a ghost. The dream is silent - they're always silent - but she remembers the words, the things that Nana is showing her. The dream provides the words from her memories so that Ochako can follow along with clarity.

It's not the first time she's seen this dream but that doesn't make it any easier.

In front of her, five years younger and with a lighter costume, little Ochako is interning with Gran Torino and trying to master One for All in little increments at All Might's behest. She is practicing using it in tiny bursts across her whole body to fly around. It was hard back then to use Zero Gravity on herself with how One for All amplified it but she practiced that with Gran Torino, too.

But tonight, she is in an alleyway trying to prevent Tenya from making a huge mistake. Ochako's adult self watches her younger self come to a skidding stop at the opening, looking frantic. She stops; however, the scene that greets her is… baffling.

Little Ochako finds Stain, the Hero Killer, standing in the dark with his arms crossed. He leans against the wall and looks none too pleased. On the other side of the alley, there is the pro Hero, Native. He's already dead, his corpse leaned against the wall and slumped to the ground, though Stain seems entirely unconcerned about that now.

Next to Native, with his hands in his pockets and his right foot planted against the wall, is All for One. His left foot is firmly planted on Tenya's back, as Tenya is pinned to the ground, and All for One is resting his weight against the wall of the alley.

Tenya is not making any motion to try and get up - not that he could, little Ochako suspects, with All for One standing on him - and she realizes that must be Stain's handiwork; how he somehow defeats pro Heroes with only melee weapons.

Stain and All for One are talking when she rounds the corner but they stop and look at her when she does. The dream remains deathly silent, though it provides their words from her memories as adult Ochako reads their lips.

"Ah, just the person I didn't want to run into," All for One deadpans.

She knows who he is even then, both from the dream of One for All and because All Might showed her pictures. Five years before she met All Might, he defeated the original All for One and All for One elected to kidnap his estranged son and pass on his power to him in response.

To bend and break little Izuku Midoriya, to transform him into something horrible and cruel to spite the legacy of All Might and Nana Shimura, to show how even the most promising and hopeful young children who aspire to be Heroes can be destroyed.

The new All for One's first act as successor, once the quirk was firmly his, was to kill his father. But the damage is done, as there is no Izuku Midoriya anymore. The little beautiful boy with the curly green hair and emerald eyes was taken, so now Mikumo Akatani stands before her as All for One.

Now, he and Tomura Shigaraki are planning to watch the world burn together as brothers bound by their dark father and their hatred for a world that never loved them. The world rejected them - it failed to offer them a hand - and now, it will shudder in the face of their power, the dream provides.

The new All for One is so… young, with dull red eyes, wild, black hair that covers some of his expression, freckles, and a boyish face that doesn't suit his new role in life. He wears a dark costume that yet seems like it was meant for something different; that it was meant for a Hero. Whereas the original wore bizarre suits and had a flair for dramatics, the new All for One feels…

Small. Like he lives his whole life in a corner and hopes the world doesn't see him.

He is handsome but his eyes are sunken and his skin is pale. He reminds her of a vampire but in a sad way. The contrast between his boyish face that certainly must have been kind once and the monster he's become is jarring in its intensity.

Nana told Ochako the truth about how little Izuku was always meant to be a Hero; the greatest Hero who ever lived. The sheer magnitude of what has been done to him makes the adult Ochako watching him begin to cry.

"Your classmate, Iida, tried to pick a fight he wasn't ready for yet, Uraraka Ochako," All for One says in an even tone. He is formal and polite and even now, with tears streaming down her face, Ochako's adult self doesn't understand why he doesn't hate her. Little Ochako watches in mute horror as Stain turns to All for One, perplexed.

"You know her?" Stain asks, and All for One hums neutrally, a non-answer. Little Ochako is only just close enough to hear and she takes a sharp breath, realizing that All for One could expose One for All right here, if he wants to.

Adult Ochako, the ghost of the dream, slowly walks forward as she wipes her face off, looking more closely at All for One as the dream continues.

"You could say that," All for One says cryptically. "She's important. I need her. You aren't allowed to kill her."

Stain visibly tenses at All for One's words and little Ochako sees that he still has a knife in a reverse grip, hidden behind his right wrist.

Adult Ochako frowns. She had forgotten that he used those words. Nana's words, her cryptic metaphor for the metaphysical hole in reality left by All for One's kidnapping. Her words for how Ochako and All for One were bound by fate and how, at the same time, All for One is now the boy without a fate. Her words… for how Ochako needed him, too, just as he needed her.

Ochako's adult self wonders how All for One knows them. She wonders if he has a connection still, however faint, with One for All through All for One. She wonders if maybe his connection to One for All has become permanent due to Nana's interference with the timeline itself. She wonders if he even knows the words' meaning, with the power of Nana Shimura over the fabric of reality itself through One for All.

Does he know about true infinity, the way that Ochako has learned about it, or is it something he can only dream about?

"Who says that I take orders from you?" Stain growls at All for One.

In response, All for One's Rivet Stab tendrils crash like a wave of blades around Stain, shattering the wall behind him as crimson lightning crackles across their length and All for One's jumpsuit. They come from All for One's shoulders, his arms, and his chest and little Ochako watches Stain realize that he's already dead, if he chooses to disobey.

All for One is not to be trifled with, his power overwhelming, little Ochako learns that night, and so does Stain.

"Try me," All for One replies calmly. The Rivet Stab tendrils retract. Stain does not try him. "We're going to leave now. You should make sure Iida here understands not to bite off more than he can chew in the future, Uraraka," All for One continues, loud enough for little Ochako to hear but still looking intently at Stain. Tenya grunts as All for One steps away from the wall, briefly placing all of his weight on Tenya's back before stepping off into a clean walk away.

Stain follows wordlessly, having come to understand his new place in the world.

Little Ochako, then only fifteen and knowing she is not yet up to the task of challenging the boy who would be king, growls under her breath in frustration. How dare he treat her friend like that? How dare he act like he is the be-all, end-all? Power is not everything in their society, no matter how much some people claim otherwise. Just because he has all the power in the world, that doesn't give him any right to treat other people like garbage.

But she does not follow or challenge as the portal opens and the villains step through it.

Adult Ochako watches on in sadness as the scene begins to fade into white and ash, as if Shigaraki himself were disintegrating it. Little Ochako didn't understand, back then, the true nature of the challenge she faced; not like Ochako understands it now.

A pro Hero died that night, yet Ochako never really wondered if she could've prevented it. Tenya was safe, yet she was never under any illusion that it was because of what she did. Ochako felt so frustrated after that night; not because she felt like she should've done something different but because she felt like it wouldn't have mattered if she did something different. She felt like her fate was already decided, while All for One could shape fate however he wanted.

She resolved that All for One would not make her feel that way ever again, if she could help it.

Ochako wakes up with tears in her eyes and not just from the agony she's in.

Closing notes: There won't be a lot of author's notes for this story because it is complete and I don't intend to transcribe the notes I have on AO3 here since they have to go in the body text here.

As this story was originally written from February to March of 2021, it uses canon from the manga up to about chapter 306 or so, give or take.

Thank you for reading.