The air in the room was cool and dry. All For One continued to watch the man as he twiddled his fingers together, most likely thinking of how to properly tell his next story.

Assessing the first story in his head, it was unfortunate that the first pair died; he hoped that wouldn't become a trend. Otherwise, having Kurogiri do all that quirk scouting was going to be for nothing.

"The second pair..." Musubu started, gaze travelling to the ground. "It was my 19th birthday, and I spent it alone. So... even though I knew how dangerous my quirk could be, I used it."

"You were lonely?" All For One questioned.

"...Yeah. Yeah, I was lonely. Sounds stupid, but..." he glanced back up at the villain, then instantly redirected himself. "Ah, anyway. A girl, maybe my age, at the time, appeared in front of me. That time, it wasn't really through a portal. She just slowly appeared, starting from her feet. It still had that purple haze, though.

"She looked fairly normal, even if her fashion sense was pretty questionable. The only really odd thing about it was that she remembered a lot more about herself than I expected.

"Because I wanted a friend, I told her what happened to her—about my quirk, and all. Then I asked her if she had anything like a quirk, too, but it was some weird thing." Musubu paused, scratching his chin.

"Go on," All For One gestured.

"She called it... Exorcism? Nen Exorcism?"

Nen Exorcism, All For One repeated in his head. He'd never heard of the term before, but it greatly interested him. What was Nen? Was it the equivalent of quirks back wherever the interdimensionals came from? Why did it need exorcism?

"Eventually, her counterpart showed up after a while. Some old guy who looked like a wolf. Or a wolf who looked like an old guy? I don't know.

"But, things went a lot better than the first time I used my quirk... until both of them realized I had just, uh... kind of ripped them away from this big goal they were pursuing back home. That was when they told me they ate people."

He'd said it so casually that All For One almost missed it. "Ate people?"

"Used to, at least, since they're actually just really big, mutated ants. Chimera Ants, to be specific. I'm pretty sure wolf man only said it to scare me, though, 'cause he didn't really seem the type," he laughed. "In the end, though, they just left, going wherever." Musubu rested his head in his hands, and said, "They're both probably still here, somewhere on Earth."

"I see..." he trailed off, scrutinizing the man. "Why do you think your quirk is a detriment, then, if the last pair hadn't caused any harm?"

Shaking his head, he answered, "No. It was me who caused them harm. They'd been trying to find this guy for months; and then, just 'cause I got a little lonely, I messed that up for them..."

How self-pitiful, All For One thought. Usually, when presented with such a person, he'd take the opportunity to attempt to turn them to his side. Unfortunately, Musubu had no other commendable aspects about him, other than the quirk he could easily take away. Other than... his unique experiences with the interdimensionals.

"Musubu," All For One bellowed from his chair. "What did you learn from them? Did they tell you anything more about Nen?"

"Actually, not so much..." he murmured. Eyes widening in realization, he looked up at the Symbol of Evil. "The girl did tell me a lot about their world, though..."


"What the heck is this?" Hina blurted, holding the spherical globe in her hands.

"That's Earth."

"Earth?"

Musubu sat in his plastic desk chair, crossing his arms. "You don't live on Earth?"

"No way," she said, "we live in the Known World. It's flat."

"Flat Earth..." he snorted.

As the Chimera Ant closely studied the globe, her eyebrows knitted even further together. "The continents are all wrong, too. This is weird."

"It's as if we're from different dimensions, or something."

Groaning and rolling her eyes, she thumped it back down on the wooden desk. Musubu was actually quite curious how a world like that would work; the Flat Earth Society would have a field day, with that one.

Tapping a pencil against his chin, he asked, "What does your world look like?"

"Hm."

Hina grabbed a random sheet of paper, picked up a pencil, and began working. Every time Musubu leaned over to peek, she'd aggressively shoo him away by waving her hand in front of his face. He just wanted to see...

"Done!" she happily exclaimed, leaning back to let him finally take a look.

And... it was blobs.

Blobs enclosed in a dotted circle.

"What... is this?"

"I can't draw. This is the best you'll get."

Heavily sighing, Musubu picked up and held the paper in his hands. "Are these blobs supposed to be continents?"

The pink ears on her hat flopped as she quickly nodded.

Raising his pointer finger to the dotted line, he asked, "Then what's this? I thought your world was flat?"

"That's only 'cause of how small it is compared to the rest of the planet. See, that dotted line marks where the Dark Continent starts."

"The what?"

"Dark Con-ti-nent," Hina repeated, only painfully slowly. "Come on, you just turned 19. Did you already lose your hearing?"

"Funny," he replied, tone devoid of any hint of actual laughter.

Ignoring his awful sarcasm, Hina continued to explain what exactly the Dark Continent was, answering almost all his questions. Apparently, it was an extremely dangerous place that pretty much led to instant death, no matter how strong or prepared one may be. No human can inhabit it, and the mere journey there was already pretty grueling.

What interested him most about it, however, was that no one knew how big the Dark Continent really was. Of course, it had to be huge. But... to what extent? Was it as big as Jupiter? Stars lightyears away? The entire Milky Way Galaxy? However, voicing those speculations only led Hina to call him out for asking stupid questions (along with her reminding him she had no idea what those planets even were,) so he bitterly dropped it.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder.


"And I still keep wondering about it," Musubu said in almost a whisper, still fiddling with his hands. "Even two years after it all happened."

All For One tapped his fingers on the armrest. Thieves. Nen. Chimera Ants. Dark Continent. There was something about it that forced the gears in his head to turn, but he didn't know what. While attempting to connect the dots, he simultaneously considered the fact that it may as well be futile. The Ants and the sick villagers seemed to have nothing in common, so why was he treating them like they were? That it was not actually infinite dimensions, but that the pairs came from a place closer than first imagined?

Perhaps it was only wishful thinking since he'd been interested in the idea of Nen. But, as he assessed the perplexed young man in front of him...

Clearing his throat, he asked, "Do you truly believe your quirk has to do with dimensions? Despite what the doctors told you?"

Musubu froze. Wide eyes staring up at All For One, he gave his answer.

"No." Fists tightening, he continued, "There's definitely more to our world than just this."

"What is it, then?"

A pause. Then, he said, "Our world—i-it... I think we're in the Dark Continent."


As always, Killua walked into class trailing behind Aizawa. Oddly enough, he hadn't worn his signature yellow sleeping bag, today. Did his homeless comments finally get to him?

Strolling over to his seat, he turned the corner where Bakugou sat. For the first time since he'd been admitted as a student, he didn't try to avoid eye contact. Lazily glancing in his direction, he noticed his classmate had actually done the same thing, narrowed red eyes peering into his own. It didn't have the usual fury behind them, though. It was something he couldn't place...

But, he had already walked past him, behind Midoriya, and then into his own seat. If there was something to figure out, he'd do it later. Right now, he just wanted to have a regular, relaxing day at school (especially after that earful he received from Aizawa; he still didn't regret using his credit card, though.)

However, once the day ended... he really needed to figure out this Nen situation, since all he'd done yesterday was try to pass it off as a quirk in front of Kaminari (which, thankfully, he believed.) Telling the truth about his Nen didn't sit right with him at all, and, even if he didn't know why, he again followed his instincts.

Also, he thought, Recovery Girl telling me I have a lot of life energy makes sense, now. The thought of willingly paying her a visit nearly gave him a headache, but perhaps it was worth it if he was going to learn something useful.

Clearing his throat, Aizawa announced, "You'll be coming up with your hero aliases."

With that, the entire class roared with excitement, choruses of "yeah!"s and "awesome!"s attacking his eardrums. Hero names, huh?

He then went on to explain the Pro draft picks first, something about Pro Heroes picking strong people, impressive skills, plans for the future, blah blah blah...

Pointing at the board, he said, "Here's the complete draft pick numbers. There's typically more of a spread, but these three stole most of the spotlight."

CLASS A DRAFT PICK TOTALS

ZOLDYCK: 4,123

TODOROKI: 3,456

BAKUGOU: 2,321 ...

Killua had to do a double take. He got the most internships? When he didn't even win the entire thing?

"Gah! They're in a whole other league!"

"These Pros have no eyes for talent..."

"How did Bakugou place first, but only get the third most?"

"They're probably scared of someone who was tied up to the winner's stand."

"WHAT ARE THE PROS DOING, GETTING INTIMIDATED?!"

"Zoldyck!" Midoriya said, turning towards him with a toothy grin. "Wow, congrats!"

"Nah, you deserve it more than me. I didn't even really try," he deflected.

After saying it, he realized Midoriya's face had slowly lost its light. Did he say something wrong...?

"Sorry," he started, "I didn't mean—"

"No," Midoriya interrupted, waving his hands. "I-it's okay... I, um, heard from Kirishima that you only did this for fun. I mean, you didn't even want to attend this school at first! So, that's... that's valid."

Killua raised an eyebrow. It sounded like a straight up lie, but he didn't want to start interrogating him. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Aizawa had already started talking.

"With that settled, whether you were picked or not, you'll all have a chance to work with the Pros."

And then he went on and on and on, blah blah blah...

Killua really didn't care all too much. Midoriya was right; he didn't even want to attend this school and be a hero. But, while that was true, it didn't mean he didn't enjoy what opportunities it gave him. He actually really liked spending time with his classmates, even while they were in the most mundane of classes.

"The name you pick now may be what the world ends up calling you!" a new voice called.

When did Midnight get here?

"Midnight here will be assessing the sensibility of the names you pick. I'm no good at that," Aizawa said, mumbling the last sentence.

Suddenly, he pulled his yellow sleeping bag out of seemingly nowhere, making Killua chuckle. Turns out he really hadn't let it go.

"What future do you see for yourself?," he said, unrolling the bag, "The name you choose will bring you closer to cementing a certain image. Names are capable of reflecting one's character."

With that, he dropped to the floor and took a nap, leaving Midnight to run the rest of a class.

"I'll give you 15 minutes to come up with something," Midnight said, winking. "Don't disappoint me!"

The class was then sent into a quiet flurry of dry erase markers hitting the whiteboards, heads banging against the desks, and the occasional pained groan. Killua, twirling the marker with his fingers, contemplated his temporary hero name. Half of him wanted to turn it into a joke and put something dumb (to which he'd turn to Aizawa for inspiration,) and the other half was genuinely interested in the idea.

But, however stupid 'Eraserhead' was, he couldn't ignore his last comment.

'Names are capable of reflecting one's character.'

Well, what was his character? Who was he? It was a bit hard to answer those questions with only over a week's worth of life experience. Running through his memories, he attempted to piece his own identity together.

I am Killua Zoldyck.

I don't think I'm from Japan.

I never went to school.

My rough upbringing forced me to be strong.

I'm quirkless, but I can use Nen.

And that was it, really. Nothing about either of those tidbits stood out to him as hero name worthy; most likely because none of those signified a real identity...

Not again, he thought to himself, hitting his palm against his forehead. He knew that the more he tried to dig past his amnesia, the more frustrated he'd get.

Finding something to distract himself with, he stared at the green nest of hair in front of him. Maybe he can ask him for some advice. In one quick motion, Killua tapped his shoulder.

Once his classmate turned around, he whispered, "Psst. You got any ideas, yet?"

"No," Midoriya whispered back.

Killua glanced at his whiteboard and found a dark smudge in the center of it. Poor guy's probably written on and erased it a hundred times or so by now...

"Me neither," he said, sighing and putting the weight of his head in his hands.

Big green eyes staring into his, Midoriya frowned. "Zoldyck..."

"Yeah?"

"Are you really that opposed to being a hero?"

The unexpected question surprised him. Of course, his immediate answer would have been yes, but as he took a second to think about it, he felt more torn than he thought he'd be. The concept of a hero didn't appeal to him. But the ideals behind it?

He studied Midoriya's expectant face.

Give someone hope.

That was it, wasn't it? Not knowing his own past still immensely bothered him, but he felt that this one aspect about him still managed to carry over.

Killua wanted to have fun, and, at the same time, protect those he cared about. He... wanted to be someone his friends could depend on. Someone to lead them out of the dark.

"No, actually," he answered, a smirk on his face. "By the way, Izuku, this'll be the first and last time I'm gonna say this."

"Huh? I-Izuku?"

"Thanks."

Immediately turning his attention back to his whiteboard, he wrote his hero name with a faint smile.

"Let's finish up," Midnight announced. "We can start with whoever's ready!"

At that moment, Killua immediately stood up. Better to get this over with before I forget, he told himself.

Strolling up to the podium, he tightly clutched his whiteboard. He watched as his classmates' eyes were all glued on him: Kirishima's sharp-toothed grin, Iida's stare from behind his glasses, Kaminari's proud thumbs-up, Uraraka's excited smile, Bakugou's narrowed eyes, and Izuku's flushed cheeks. When he reached the front, he even glanced behind him to see if Aizawa had any sort of emotion on his face (that was when he caught a single closed eyelid twitching, as if he'd shut it right as Killua turned around.)

He'd just noticed how many people... cared, one way or another.

Inhaling, he prepared himself to speak. In actuality, he knew he didn't need to make such a fuss about giving the whole backstory behind his hero name. One, because he could barely call it a backstory, and two, because he didn't like wasting people's time.

But this name deserves it.

Holding the board backwards between his palm and the podium, he started, "I only came up with this a few minutes ago, but I like it a lot.

"Everyone here knows I'm still an amnesiac. It really sucks not remembering what I've gone through, or what I've been doing, but I at least know what my values are. 'Cause even if I don't wanna be a hero, I wanna help those I care about."

Swiftly spinning the board around, he revealed his hero name to the class. "Light. This is a name I want to live up to, since I'm not quite there yet. I... wanna help those suffering through the darkness, because someone had inspired me to do so—"

Killua paused. That last sentence unintentionally slipped out. Who had he been referring to...?

"So touching!" Midnight cheered from behind him, interrupting his thoughts. "You sound like such a selfless hero!"

He glanced at her.

"Whatever, old lady," Killua murmured, heading back to his seat.

A silence filled the air.

"Old...?"

Sounds like she heard him. Killua didn't care, of course; he was too busy sifting through the endless thoughts and questions in his brain (and even if he wasn't, he still wouldn't care.)


It was Gon's fourth day of training. And, surprisingly, he'd been exhausted by it.

Summon was a really taxing quirk, but Gon was glad his amount of life energy could handle it. Some tasks had him sleeping for five minutes after completing them, some nearly thirty. He recovered his energy fairly quickly, though, which was always a delight—that meant he could train more, and get even stronger!

Kurogiri even found out what his quirk was summoning the other day, and he told him all about it...

"Isn't it odd that Freecss was using my exact techniques when mixing drinks?"

"Sure," a bored Shigaraki answered.

"Perhaps he summons skills from the people around him, on top of his own."

"Go figure it out."

Kurogiri set down a cleaned glass on the bar. "Actually, I require your assistance for this experiment."

"Huh?"

Later on, Gon asked Sonohoka to disintegrate a piece of paper—something only Shigaraki's quirk could do. It actually succeeded, exactly copying his quirk once he stuck all five fingers on it. Then, Shigaraki left the room, moving far away from their hideout. Again, once he woke up a couple minutes later, Gon asked Sonohoka to do the same exact thing.

"'Kay."

Gon picked up the paper. This time, when all his fingers landed, it didn't dissolve as it did before. Instead, he created a portal from above, a large object clunking on the ground.

He had teleported a paper shredder using Kurogiri's quirk.

The smoky man almost laughed as he watched the child carefully go through the steps of plugging it in, setting it up, and then finally shredding it after several button presses. What a way to interpret disintegration.

Gon admitted he may have gotten it from one of the shops he saw when he was out with Shigaraki for his birthday. He embarrassingly laughed when he realized what had happened, making himself a mental note to return it one day so the guilt wouldn't eat him up.

Other than that, the rest of their training was meant to test the limits of how far they could go with Summon—which was exactly why he currently felt so groggy.

For today, Shigaraki and he had teleported themselves to Hosu. Gon hadn't yet used his quirk anywhere other than their hideout, so it was a nice change of pace. The reason Shigaraki wanted to go to Hosu, though...

"There's this guy calling himself the Hero Killer," he said. "Kurogiri talked to him a few days ago."

The pair walked through the busy streets, stars in the sky and bright lights illuminating the city walls. They had their usual getup on: Shigaraki with his jacket and Gon with his mask.

It really is a big city, Gon noticed. It felt like almost all the places he'd been to were cities; he quite missed the feeling of open, grassy plains, flora and fauna blooming all around him. Maybe he could ask Shigaraki if they could go somewhere like that. He hadn't gotten the chance to really explore Japan, anyway.

If only Pro Heroes weren't trying to go after me...

Snapping out of his thoughts, he realized he hadn't yet replied to Shigaraki.

"Oh, is he gonna help us?" he asked.

"I don't know yet."

"But he's the Hero Killer. Isn't that what you guys wanna do?"

"Yeah, no shit." Stopping in his tracks, he turned to Gon. "Hey, I got an idea."

"Huh?" he cocked his head.

A grin cracked through his chapped lips. "Why don't you try doing his work for him?"

Gon's eyes widened. "You mean kill Pro Heroes?"

The older boy nodded.

Furrowing his brows in concentration, he shook his head. While it could be an interesting way to train his quirk, trying to murder some random hero who did absolutely nothing to deserve it was way outside his comfort zone.

"I don't wanna kill them," Gon affirmed. "They're just doing their job."

"And you're just training your quirk," he bit back, glaring straight into his brown eyes. However, it didn't seem likely that Gon was going to change his mind any time soon.

Shigaraki clicked his tongue.

"Damn stubborn brat," he sneered, scratching his neck.

The pair then continued to walk down the streets, occasionally bumping shoulders with its city folk. There weren't too many people, but that'd change tomorrow once the weekend hit—it always did.

Peering over at Gon, Shigaraki tightened a fist in his hoodie's pocket. Leaving all this training to Kurogiri wasn't an option; he wanted to, not only see, but take control of the kid's quirk. However, he'd have to find another way to try and test his theory, since the brat wanted to keep holding onto those capricious morals of his. It was damn annoying...

Then, a light bulb in his brain lit up.

"Gon," Shigaraki called, tugging at the young boy's sleeve, "I have a different idea."

"Really?"

"No killing this time," he said, attempting to soften the blow. "You're just gonna take something from them."

Cocking his head, Gon blurted, "Eh? Take what?"

Pulling his hands out of his hoodie, he held them up, gesturing as he spoke.

"For the next three Pro Heroes you see, I want you to steal the tips of their left pinky fingers."

"The tips of their pinkies?"

"Is there a problem?" Shigaraki said, glaring at him.

Gon incredulously raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I'm cutting off their fingers!"

"Then," he said, "once you do it, we can eventually give it back to them. Pro Heroes get all kinds of healers, so it really shouldn't be hard for them to just, you know, stitch it back on."

To that, Gon was relatively silent. "Why do you want me to do that, though? It's a little weird..."

"To test how long your quirk can influence you," Shigaraki murmured. "How specific it can be, too."

"But... why do we have to involve Pro Heroes?"

Twisting his neck around, he let out a short laugh.

"'Cause I hate them, duh. And I wanna see how you'd manage against them."

Gon tightened his lips. It was still strange to him, but Shigaraki did make some points. At least, he wasn't asking him to kill any heroes anymore. Whatever Shigaraki wanted to test would at least be helpful in the long run.

Right, Gon told himself, once he finished this task, it'd provide information that'd aid him and his quirk forever. As long as Shigaraki hadn't lied about the Pro Heroes' "healers," it was okay.

Looks like he needed to add more to his mental checklist: return the paper shredder, and then return three pinky tips.

Gon groaned.

"Fine," he said, "but do you promise we'll give them back?"

"Yeah, sure," he mumbled. "Also, make sure you say the next three. If you don't, your quirk'll probably actively look for them in one go."

The pair stopped walking. Tightening the straps on his black mask, he breathed in, eyes shutting.

"Sonohoka, ah, can you take the left pinky tips of the next three Pro Heroes I see?"

Silence. Gon's brow furrowed.

"Sonohoka?"

"Why the hell did you give it a name?" Shigaraki lowly grumbled, but Gon paid it no mind.

Why wasn't it worki—

'Kay.

Leaping backwards, Gon looked all around him, senses on high alert. Until he realized...

Turning to face the older boy, he put on a matter-of-fact tone. "Shigaraki, Sonohoka's in my head."

Narrowed red eyes stared back at the now far away child. "Eh? Are you insane?"

"I think," Gon started, walking back next to Shigaraki, "the command activated. But, since I don't see a hero right now, Sonohoka couldn't come out."

Clicking his tongue, Shigaraki said, "Well, what did it say?"

"'Kay."

"...That's the same thing it says whenever you black out." Crossing his arms, he continued, "I guess this means my theory was right, huh, Gon?"

Making a sound of acknowledgement, his eyes scanned the area. As soon as he spotted a Pro Hero...

There. Someone wearing a skin-tight, blue and white long sleeved shirt along with a fin attached to the top of his helmet was currently putting out a dumpster fire using some kind of a water quirk, yellow gloves directing its motion. He definitely looked like a hero—

Next, all Gon saw was darkness, consciousness drowning in the waves of his quirk.


A/N: hey everyone! i have about 75% of my "outline" done! (in quotations because it's way too messy to be actually considered that... maybe when this fic is done i'll publish it so you can see how chaotic my thought process is) (also can you tell i started this fic without an outline lmao.) anyway, as the plot gets deeper, i'll be taking a handful of elements from the hxh manga plot. so, if all the dark continent stuff isn't too familiar (five threats etc.,) i can help in the comments/PMs if anyone wants! i love talking and theorizing about it, and i've always always wanted to see the DC incorporated in fics despite the manga's hiatus, just because it sounds super cool. anyway, thank you again for continuing to read this story. feedback is always greatly appreciated! i'll see you all in the next chapter :)

P.S. extra note for readers on ao3 but those on ff .net can get in on this too 'cause why not: as of publishing this chapter, i've updated some of the tags. that content warning's gonna kick in pretty soon, so i hope everyone'll be on the same page when all that super fun stuff happens! (i'm being vague on purpose but don't worry, everything'll be justt fine.)