He knew it was going to happen one way or another, the memories that were brought over from a life long past warned him as much. That still did not lessen the pain he felt when he received the sudden news that his former mentor had died at the hands of an infamous villain.

All For One.

"Hello, my name is Shimura Nana and I will be your trainer starting today- Woah, you are small. How old are you even?"

"Four. Apparently, the HPSC has a hobby of using child labour for their hero work."

"Such sass at such a young age. What are they feeding kids these days?"

"In my opinion? Propaganda."

The dark clouds and pouring rain makes it seem as if the heavens are also mourning the loss of another true hero. He silently stood beside the blond-hair teenager as they both mourned their mentor at the front of her grave. This is the person that he knows will one day surpass all of his predecessors to become the Symbol of Peace.

"What the- Did you just copy my quirk?"

"I can copy the quirk of whoever I touch, but it does more than just that."

"Mind elaborating?"

"To put it simply, I can choose whether I want to permanently keep the quirks I copied, and also possibly integrate the copied quirks to create a brand new one."

Yagi Toshinori is weeping, his tears hidden by the massive downpour where they both stood side by side in front of Shimura Nana's grave. She often fusses over them, treating them as if they are her own sons. That would not happen anymore.

"Here, it's time you meet my protege. Meet Toshinori. Toshinori, meet the squirt. Take care of each other, okay?"

Gran Torino stood behind them in silence, allowing them the time and privacy to grieve over the death of his friend.

"What are you going to do now?"

Kazuya's words caught Gran Torino's attention as well as Toshinori's.

"I'm going to kill him."

Toshinori's words were soft, but filled with vengeance. He could still remember the sense of helplessness he felt when his master stayed behind to ensure their survival. He could still remember the despair when he saw how All For One killed his master in cold blood while hideously laughing at their plight.

He will never forgive All For One.

"You will do no such thing," Gran Torino crushed that line of thought immediately before that reckless child did something stupid and get himself killed. One For All is their only hope left in ending All For One and as the last torchbearer, Toshinori cannot be allowed to come to harm before he grows strong enough to take on that monster.

"HE KILLED MY MASTER!" Toshinori screamed. His grief, sadness, anger, and guilt are plain for all to see.

"Wake up, Toshinori! Do you seriously think you are ready to face that monster who had walked the earth for over a hundred years?! All For One can easily kill you with his pinky as it is! Nana's sacrifice would really have been in vain then!"

Silence fell over them after Gran Torino spelled out the truth of the harsh reality. Toshinori could do nothing other than clenching his fists and jaw.

"Cross the ocean, Toshinori," Gran Torino spoke softly after Toshinori was finally able to think logically. "Go somewhere where All For One cannot reach you, go somewhere where you can gain experience as a hero and then come back strong enough to be able to defeat him. This is the only thing that you can do now. If not for yourself, then for Nana."

"But…"

"Gran Torino and I will keep an eye on him. And after you come back, we can send him to hell."

As much as they want to keep a vigil over Nana's grave, they have to depart eventually.

"Not coming with us, squirt?" Gran Torino asked the boy who had not even reached ten years of age. What does it say about the current state of their society, if even the HPSC found it necessary to rope in children to do their dirty work. Even then, Japan is barely able to prevent itself from crumbling entirely.

To think that one villain is all it takes to reduce Japan into a living hell.

"The HPSC called, I have work to do," The boy lifted up his phone for him to see. Gran Torino and Toshinori grimaced, knowing very well the kind of "work" that the HPSC will assign the boy to complete.

It's wrong, Toshinori could hear his heart telling him so as he watched the young boy's departing back, that small little shoulders of his carrying such a huge burden. This world is so wrong if even the HPSC thinks it is okay to use a little boy to help do their dirty work.

"Kazuya!"

The boy with shaggy grey hair stopped in his tracks and turned around. Toshinori recomposed himself by taking another deep breath as he made his resolve.

"I will be the Symbol of Peace! I will stop All For One! And then, you won't have to work for the HPSC anymore! We… We can be heroes! Together! Until then, wait for me!"

Toshinori could see how the boy's facial expression shifted from mild surprise to a small smile.

"I know you will, Toshi."

The boy turned back and continued his journey, knowing very well that this is the last time in a long while he will see the future Symbol of Peace. If his foreknowledge serves him right, America is the place that will bear witness to Toshinori's rise in becoming All Might.

Until then, he will wait. After all, not only did he promise Nana to keep an eye on the reckless blond, fate seemed to have played quite a cruel joke on him by dropping him into this world with a very unique identity.

"Wait, Shigaraki Kazuya… Shigaraki?!"

"What's with the overreaction?"

"It's… have you ever heard of All For One?"

He remembered that his family name was the start of how Shimura Nana filled him in on many secrets kept away from the public. About All For One, about One For All, and more importantly-

"The original user of One For All, the very first user, his name was Shigaraki Yoichi."

That was the moment he learnt that he's blood related to the greatest villain in Japan's history.

He knew that the HPSC is not as upright as it seems to be ever since he realised that he was dropped off into a world of heroes and quirks. He might have forgotten quite a number of details, but he still remembered the generic outline of Hawks' and Lady Nagant's history in the original story.

Just his luck for somehow attracting the HPSC's attention at the tender age of four.

Assimilate, that's the quirk he was born with. The ability to copy someone's quirk upon contact, and then also having the option to choose whether he wants to permanently keep the quirk or not. There is a limit on the number of quirks he can permanently keep, quite unlike how All For One can seemingly store an entire library of quirks.

The best part of Assimilate, in his opinion, is the ability to combine multiple quirks into a brand new quirk. The combined quirks will then be considered by Assimilate to be one singular quirk, thereby freeing up the "storage space" in Assimilate and allowing him to continue copying and assimilating new quirks until he hits the quirk capacity limit once more.

As quirk factor types tend to run in families, Nana had theorised that Yoichi's original quirk had the ability to assimilate quirks all along, which is similar to how All For One is able to absorb quirks. The ability of Yoichi's original quirk was what probably allowed the possibility for One For All to absorb the quirks of each and every of its previous holders together with the stockpiling quirk.

Well, not that it really mattered to him right now.

Assassinating the target assigned to him by the HPSC became laughably easy ever since he finally created the perfect stealth type quirk through the assimilation of many stealth based quirks. The ability to silence noise and camouflage into his surroundings are abilities that are indispensable in continuing his work as the HPSC's favourite hunting dog.

Unlike what the HPSC claims, telling him that he is an unsung hero that society needs, he understands that he will never be able to be a proper hero, not with the kinds of classified missions the HPSC trains him for and sends him out on.

He is no hero, he is just the HPSC's hunting dog that hunts down whoever the organisation points him to in the name of the greater good. He is a tool to be kept on a tight leash until a better and more suited tool can be found.

If this is the kind of life Hawks and Lady Nagant led in the original story, he can understand why Lady Nagant went nuts and killed the HPSC President in cold blood.

Rifles are his favourite weapons as they give him the option to assassinate his targets from a safe distance. The act of holding and steadying his breathing, pulling the trigger, and then subsequently making his silent getaway with his perfected Stealth quirk is a routine that he is all too familiar with.

"Kill confirmed," He spoke into the comms the moment his target fell with a bullet embedded in between his eyes. He made himself invisible and jumped off the top of the building that he was perched on, using the Float and Jet quirk he copied and assimilated from Nana and Gran Torino respectively to easily make his getaway.

"Roger that, Cerberus," He heard his supervising officer over the radio. "The cleanup crew will take over from here, rendezvous at the pickup point. Command over and out."

Cerberus, the hellhound that guards the gates of the underworld, the gatekeeper that prevents the living from entering the realm of the dead and to keep the dead from escaping according to Greek mythology. That's the Hero name he chose for himself, because if he has to be a hunting dog he might as well choose a name that is the best fit to his job.

At the very least, Cerberus is a guard dog, and in his opinion a guard dog sounds slightly better than being a hunting dog.

Thankfully, that mission was the last job and he can finally take a short break after what seemed like forever. He simply let himself fall onto his bed in fatigue when he finally reached his room within the HPSC's secret base, his thoughts wandering to his mentor.

Are you looking over me, Nana? I killed another villain today.

"Why are you always so gloomy? A child your age should smile more! Smile! Because people who can smile are always the strongest!"

A faint smile finally appeared on his face when he remembered those words she told him. At that moment, who he is, who he was, what he knows will happen in the future, the current situation that he is stuck with, none of it mattered at the moment.

He can still smile, so things are still a-ok.

Things will turn out to be okay.

Name: Shigaraki Kazuya

Quirk: Assimilate

Hero Name: Cerberus

Quirks created through assimilation:

Stealth Flight ?