Author's Note: This AU diverges off All for One's pre-canon battle with All Might. What if an unconscious All for One got taken in by the authorities as a nameless victim? All for One is not quite as injured as in canon, because then he'd never live long enough to make it to the nursing home. Warning: this fic contains elder abuse. Sadly I took everything in this fic from real nursing home stories. I can't make this horror up.
Nurse Abiko had seen countless patients in terrible shape after villain attacks, but this poor man didn't even have a face. If the blow had come a bit closer, it would have caved his head in and then he would have been beyond her ability to treat. Her patient kept babbling about killing All Might and taking over Japan. She nearly called the police before he started going on about living since the dawn of the age of quirks and chasing after a legacy of heroes who handed down his little brother's quirk. Then she adjusted his chart to say that he had dementia.
When the nameless man started thrashing on his bed and sprouting spikes from his body, Nurse Abiko brought in quirk suppressant cuffs. Many elderly patients had quirks that hurt their bodies. The hospital had specially padded leg cuffs for their use. She also upped the dosage of morphine. This poor old man needed all the pain relief he could get.
If no one stepped forward to claim this man, then he'd be sent to a state facility that looked after the impoverished elderly. Nurse Abiko knew these places were not particularly pleasant and had become severely understaffed due to Japan's increasing elderly population. But she saw tragedies every day in her line of work, and there was very little she could do. His only identifying information was his unusually tall height. She arranged for an ad in the local paper about her patient's situation. But no one had replied, so the Happy Smiles Nursing Home staff came to take the nameless man away.
Everywhere hurt. All for One groaned. "Doctor Garaki, bring me a prisoner. I have a quirk for unloading my pain onto other people."
A distant voice said, "He's lost in his delusions again."
All for One scowled. Moving his lips hurt. "Tell me where I am, or I'll kill you."
The hazy image before him turned into a muscular middle-aged woman wearing a nurse's cap. She cooed, "Is someone in a grumpy mood today? Here at Happy Smiles Nursing Home, we turn those frowns upside-down!"
Technically she'd answered his question, but she was so annoying, All for One decided to kill her anyway. He reached for one of his many quirks, but nothing happened. In horror, All for One stared down at the quirk suppressant cuff on his wrist. When he tried to grab it, he met resistance. He sat in a recliner on coasters, with his wrists and ankles strapped down. Furthermore, he wore a blue plaid posey vest, with meshy straps extending from each corner and tied together to the back of a chair. He wore only a white T-shirt and pajama pants. His bare feet felt freezing.
Against his will and his pounding headache, All for One decided to be diplomatic long enough to get answers and maybe the cuff off. "Pardon me, I'm having trouble remembering. Why am I in a nursing home?"
The nurse beamed. "Aw, you're coherent today! Goodie for you! Though I'm sure you'll forget again soon enough, you're in a nursing home after your nasty accident." She grabbed the back of his chair. Unfortunately, not being in a proper wheelchair meant that she could push him but he'd have no luck propelling himself. The greatest villain in Japan's history was stuck.
All for One said, "Listen, I'm a very wealthy man. If you'll contact my associate, Doctor G—"
The nurse laughed over his words. "Yes, yes, we've heard all about your power and influence, Mr. Demon King." She drew out the title mockingly.
"No, I'm a businessman. Entirely legitimate but very wealthy."
"Ha, that's a new delusion."
All for One fumed. "Listen, you can't hold me here against my will. I demand a lawyer."
"A shame, you were doing so well today, but now you're back to babbling." She hummed to drown out his angry protests as she pushed him down the hallway. The ceiling was so short that the wires and pipes brushed her head, and she was not a tall woman. This trashy building looked like it might fall down at any moment.
Clearly these people wouldn't listen to anything he had to say as long as they believed he had dementia. All for One thought rapidly. He'd been horribly injured in his fight with All Might. Between the two of them, they'd caused massive damage. He must have been mistaken for a civilian caught up in the crossfire. It was mortifying that he'd been sent to a nursing home, but more convenient than Tartarus. All for One could easily escape from regular civilians.
The nurse pushed him into a cafeteria hall. The room was entirely bland: all white walls, no decorations. More elderly people in similar recliners had been shoved over to the rows of white tables. "Everyone is tied down?" All for One accidentally spoke out loud in his shock. Was this place a nursing home or a prison?
The nurse said, "We have to prevent you from falling down."
More like the staff of this hellhole were criminally lazy. All for One gritted his teeth. It made his jaw hurt. Even if he could get out of this chair, could he walk?
Another nurse went around putting down bowls containing greyish mush. She untied the patients' hands so they could eat. The other patients mostly had glassy eyes and seemed unable to communicate. One woman moaned slightly and knocked over her glass, but this just got her hand tied down again. This place was clearly understaffed, with only two nurses managing three dozen elderly.
All for One stared in horror at a dead fly mixed in with his bowl of mush. Raising his voice, he shouted, "There is an insect in my food!"
Giggling, the nurse said, "Don't brag, everyone will want one."
All for One waited for her to do something after spouting her terrible joke, but she did not. She moved on to untying the next patient. This moaning old woman had no teeth. The nurse reached for the dentures in a cupholder on the chair, except she accidentally reached for the wrong chair. As All for One watched in horror, the nurse put a different patient's slobbery dentures in the old woman's mouth. When she arrived at the next chair, she seemed to realize her mistake. But she only shrugged and muttered, "Oh, well, I'm sure all dentures are about the same."
Although All for One's stomach growled, he made no move towards his food. Being weak from hunger would make it hard to escape, but so would catching food poisoning. If his little brother could pull escape artist stunts after hunger striking, then so could the far superior older brother.
As the others ate around him, All for One tested the cuff on his wrist. Stuck on good and tight, dammit. Why were the cuffs the only new technology in this hellhole facility?
When the nurse returned to wheel him away, she didn't seem to notice or care that he hadn't eaten. Faking a smile, All for One asked, "Can I have my cuff removed?"
"You need that because your quirk hurts you, silly! Don't worry your mushy head about it."
All for One fantasized about choking her to death. "Maybe when I was unconscious, but now I'm awake. You can't legally keep me like this." He looked around, seeing cuffs on every patient's wrist. "Wait, is everyone here wearing quirk suppressants?"
The fake smile vanished off the nurse's face, replaced by a mixture of malice and weariness. She demanded, "Do you know how hard it is to look after three dozen dementia patients with different quirks when there's just two of us? Ugh, why am I bothering to talk to you? You don't have the mental capacity to understand."
All for One's temper snapped. He reached out, planning to take her hostage by grabbing her neck. But his hands were too weak. He had no muscle strength. He only succeeded in slapping at her collar.
The nurse's eyes narrowed. "Someone is a grumpy boy. Someone needs naptime!" She easily tied his hands down. Did this woman rival a Nomu in strength, or was he so weak? "You'll feel better after an ickle bit of shut eye."
"Naptime? Is this a kindergarten?" All for One shouted as he was wheeled away. He cursed up a storm using swear words from the dawn of the age of quirks. She took him back to a plain white bedroom with cracked walls and tied him down. "At least stop being so patronizing about this!"
The mattress was hideously lumpy. The room had half a dozen other beds, and more patients were gradually wheeled in. One kept muttering. One sobbed incoherently. It was a very long night.
A week later, All for One had yet to recover any strength in his body, probably because of the slop they were feeding him and inability to move his legs. His only joy in life was nightly bingo. Here, he could prove his superiority.
"Bingo!" All for One shouted, raising his hand.
The nurse's smile became strained. "This is the seventh time in a row that you've won. Do you want to give the lollipop to someone else?"
"Nope," All for One said cheerfully. The elderly around the room glared as he selected a strawberry lollipop from the bag. The fools had yet to notice that he stole a dozen cards every night and then memorized all of them so he could whip out the winning card as soon as it achieved bingo.
…Gods, how far he'd fallen.
As the nurse wheeled him down the hallway, she said, "You have a very special guest coming to see you. He's a hero's secretary. Be a good boy, okay?" She sounded worried and a little confused.
The office door opened to reveal Toshinori Yagi, aka All Might's civilian identity. He looked pale. His stomach was covered in bandages from his recent injury.
All for One froze. He briefly considered playing the senile old man, then realized he'd rather be arrested than stay like this. Instead, All for One met his enemy's eyes and coldly said, "Hello, Eighth."
All Might froze. Then he asked, "Can you leave us alone?"
With a nervous glance, the nurse left and shut the door.
All for One said, "I suppose you're here to put me in handcuffs and take me to Tartarus."
Toshinori burst out laughing. He laughed so hard, tears streamed down his cheeks. "You're…in one of my old T-shirts…"
Yes, by some horrible coincidence, today All for One had been dressed in a faded All Might T-shirt. He scowled. "Just get it over with."
"After I saw the ad in the paper about the mystery tall patient, I planned to arrest you. But this is even better." Toshinori's grin widened. "You want to be hauled off to Tartarus, don't you? There, you would be important. The guards would fear of you. Psychologists would want to pick your brain. Your allies would be able to rescue you. Here, you're just an irrelevant old man left to rot. This is the perfect ending for you."
All for One felt a chill of fear. "You're bluffing."
"Nope. Enjoy Happy Smiles Nursing Home." Toshinori walked out of the room. In the hallway, he said to the nurse, "He's just a deluded old man. I'll get you the latest quirk suppressants for him. Call it an act of charity. Also, is there a way I can make a large donation to this facility, arrange for repairs, and hire more staff under the condition that only that one guy gets stuck the same crappy white room with a lumpy mattress?"
OMAKE TIME!
All for One: I've finally escaped nursing home hell, and I'm coming to take over Japan!
All Might: Noooooooooo!
All for One: I'm going to establish a better healthcare system and a series of proper nursing homes across Japan. There will be investigations every week to make sure the elderly are being treated well!
All Might: Nooooooo—wait, what?
Author's Note: This fic was intended to be way more cracky. Then I started looking up nursing home horror stories and got a big "Yikes." The good news is, the restraint chairs came from half a century ago and are now illegal in most countries. Bad food and understaffing continue to be huge issues. There are luxurious nursing homes too, but like everything in life, it all depends on how much money you have.
For Cyberphobia's All for One Bullying Week, I tried to teach All for One a lesson about empathy. As far as All for One is concerned, that omake is the worst ending yet. Doing good deeds! The horror!
FYI: stealthsuitdeku drew wonderful fanart for my fic "The Genesis of One for All." Delete the spaces to get the link:
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