Chapter 05: One for All - The Fourth
Hikage Shinomori panted as he trudged through the frozen tundra.
It had been four months since the Night he'd met Alex, been bestowed with {One for All} and been on the run.
There were times when he had slept off only to awaken with nightmares of All for One bearing down on him.
Even if Alex had told him that the power would grow stronger, Hikage didn't believe that he could face All for One with it. Both Alex and his sister were trained soldiers with their own Meta Abilities, but they had still been killed along with an entire army by All for One.
With a heavy heart, Hikage acknowledged that he would never be able to avenge the man who had saved him.
The best he could do... was cultivate the Meta Ability as much as he could before passing it on to the Fifth.
Still, that would have to wait for a long time due to recent issues.
Hikage had never been as grateful for both his Meta Ability and minimalist nature as he had been recently, ever since All for One had declared a bounty on him.
WANTED
SHINOMORI HIKAGE
ONLY ALIVE
¥680,000,000
With that kind of cash on his head, he definitely wasn't stepping anywhere near civilization for a long while.
Bounty hunters had become a common occurrence in his days. Sometimes, he was lucky to go weeks without seeing one. Other times...
There was a flash of purple light and and a loud crack as a figure in purple materialized and smashed down on an ice ridge near Hikage.
'If I didn't have {Danger Sense}, this guy would...' Hikage frowned as the bounty hunter nodded as if acknowledging his target before vanishing with a crack of purple lightning.
The bounty hunter instantly reappeared behind Hikage to cut his legs with the glowing blade in his hand, only to find his prey gone from his previous spot. Near instantaneously, a fist smashed into a hastily raised forearm, breaking the limb and sending the bounty hunter flying into another ice ridge.
Before the bounty hunter could recover, Hikage grabbed a frozen rock and lobbed it at full power, his aim ensuring that the improvised projectile smashed through the bounty hunter's head as easily as a bat smashing into a watermelon.
'That's the 17th one...' Hikage pondered as he walked away from the deceased body, leaving it up to Nature to deal with it. 'Ever since I started killing instead of beating them up, the numbers reduced but their quality went up instead.'
Fighting the chill that blew though him, Hikage bundled up, remembered and hastily returned to strip the bounty hunter of all the edibles he had on him and kept going.
Ten years after his bestowal, Hikage pushed through a rainwater jungle, sweating heavily in the heat. Normally, he'd have worried about predators but after receiving {One for All}, animals had avoided him like he was a walking calamity.
He had no idea how true that idea would become several years down the line.
Even so, such areas did not protect him from determined bounty hunters.
'Speak of the Devil...' With a handy warning from {Danger Sense}, Hikage ducked under a spiked and undoubtedly poisoned chainwhip. Tracing the weapon back to it's owner, Hikage merely raised his eyebrow at the sight of a woman with snakelike features, including a long tail where she should've had legs.
"SSSSurrender, SSSShinomori." The lamia spoke threateningly as she circled him. "Or you will ssssuffer needlessssly."
"I refuse." Without further ado, Hikage charged at her, dodging her chainwhip until he reached her. The lamia swiftly leapt upwards, using the terrain to her advantage as she wound and flitted across the surrounding trees.
"It's over, SSSSShinomori." The lamia's voice haunted Hikage's ears, sounding like it came from everywhere rather than one direction. "You made a grave misssstake, letting me reach you here."
"No, I didn't." Hikage breathed deeply, kneeling to place his hands right above the ground. {One for All} surged to life within his body, feeling him with far more energy than he might have ever had in his life in an instant. Coincidentally, he knew exactly what to do with it. "It was bait to deal with a troublesome woman like you."
With a grunt, Hikage then shoved his palms into the ground, creating an immense impact and unleashing enough concussive force through the earth to rip through the surrounding three kilometers.
The resulting shockwave leveled the area around him, causing the lamia to shriek as several tons of trees crushed her lower half.
"Urgh...!" The lamia feebly struggled, her serpentine features fading away to reveal a pretty attractive female as her Meta Ability disactivated in her death throes. "Not... bad..."
Hikage winched as she coughed up blood, her breathing becoming raspier as the internal bleeding cogged up her lungs. With an apologetic look in his eyes, he reached down to grasp her neck.
Recognizing the kindness in his seemingly cruel gesture, the woman chuckled and closed her eyes. "Even without... the reward... you were... a fine hunt..."
*CRUNCH!*
Twelve years had now passed since he had gotten {One for All}.
Hikage panted as he rushed behind the stone fence, flinching as bullets peppered the other side of his hiding spot.
Why was he doing this again? Hadn't he just snuck into the town for some fresh medical supplies?
"EEEEEK!" The teenage girl clinging to his arm shrieking, squeezing tight in her panic.
Oh, right. There was a young lady being harassed by some guys and when they had responded to her shaky but constant rejections, one had nearly slapped a soaked cloth over the girl's face only to be punched into a car by a passing Hikage.
Recognizing that she was being rescued, the girl had offered no resistance as she was carried bridal style and hauled away. Unfortunately, the boys appeared to be gangsters, judging by the cursing and jeering bikers who soon chased after them on their dirtbikes.
"Listen up." Hikage quickly took the girl's attention as he relayed his plan. "I'm going to draw them away from here. You need to get away and find somewhere safe."
"What?! No!" The girl grabbed his arm tighter. "You'll be killed!"
"It's fine." Hikage patted her head reassuringly. "I won't die to these punks, I promise."
Without waiting for a response, he dashed away, leaping over his cover to dropkick one of the bikers in the face and speed off with {One for All} active.
With a roar, the bikers took chase, ignoring the fleeing girl as planned.
Hikage ran full speed into a garage building, running upwards until he reached the roof level. As he looked about and started to form an exit strategy, the bikers caught up, including the one whose nose had become broken from his kick.
"Piece of shit!"
"You've got nowhere to run, hippie!"
"Let's make a deal." The biker with the broken nose called out as he got off his bike. "You kiss my ass and we'll let you go!"
The demand was apparently very literal as the biker proceeded to turn around and pull down his pants, baring his tattooed butt. "Right there! C'mon, kiss my tattoo!"
Hikage recoiled in disgust before noticing a nearby discarded pipe. As the bikers jeered at Hikage, they were unprepared for him to suddenly blitz towards the biker and smack his exposed butt with the pipe, hitting him hard enough to send him flying into the bonnet of a car at the other side of the rooftop.
In an act of true camaraderie, the other bikers made a priority of laughing at their fallen comrade.
With that handy distraction, Hikage didn't allow them to draw their guns in time. He blitzed towards the closest one, whacking him off his bike and into the windshield of a car behind him.
The second biker tried to attack him from behind with a baseball bat but was dodged. Kicking the biker's shin to destabilize his footing, Hikage landed a vicious backhand that nearly ripped off the biker's jaw as he was sent spinning and flopping until he hit a metal pole facefirst.
Twirling his newfound weapon, Hikage swung his pipe just as the last biker shot at him, revealing the 'gun' to have been his transformed fingers as the bullets were deflected.
With a grunt, Hikage aimed and threw his pipe, beaning the biker exactly between his eye, making him go cross-eyed as he tilted backwards into Slumberland.
*Click*
Just as the first biker pulled back the trigger on his gun, Hikage was already spinning to dodge out of the way and break the offender's arm when-
*WHAKRACK!*
-the biker's head reeled to the side as the teenage girl Hikage had been trying to protect knocked out the thug herself.
Panting heavily and staring at the downed gangsters, the girl shook her metallic hand until it returned to normal and jogged towards him. "You're still okay!"
"Of course, I am." Hikage dropped his pipe with some relief as {Danger Sense} finally calmed down. "I promised, didn't I?"
"Y-Yes, you did." The girl sobbed in relief. "Thank you... Ah! I don't even know your name!"
"I'm Hikage Shinomori."
"Nice to meet you." The girl sighed, running her hand through her metallic hair. "I'm Chitan Tetsutetsu. You forgot these, by the way."
Hikage perked up in relief as she held out a plastic bag of bandages and medical tools.
Fifteen years passed since he had gotten {One for All}.
Hikage had now fought many bounty hunters and minions of All for One by now, all possessing a variety of Meta Abilities and skills that hadn't existed in the Dawn of Meta.
A person who could grow into a giant.
A woman who had wings that could shoot out her sharpened feathers like machine guns.
A man who manipulated the weather to call down thunderbolts.
It was a painful and perilous life but Hikage triumphed over them all and lived. Thankfully, {One for All} seemed to be growing stronger with each battle.
However, his body had started to ache and fail frequently.
Then, suddenly after eighteen whole years of being the Fourth, there was a bald guy in stylish goggles before him, calling himself not a bounty hunter or a supporter of All for One.
"What in the world is a Pro Hero?"
"What's up, Hikage!"
Hikage sighed as a familiar large figure thumped down near him in the wilderness.
Apparently, Daigoro Banjo (a.k.a. Lariat) was a Pro Hero. A recently created profession which allowed individuals to use their Meta- sorry, their Quirks in public as in order to combat villains.
Villains...
'Are the guys in the government so into this superhero shtick that they really couldn't find a better name for criminals with Meta Abilities?!' Hikage mentally ranted, wondering who was the maniac responsible for this strange endeavor.
"ACHOO!" All for One sneezed, accidentally blowing a hole into a nearby wall. Like the loyal and brainwashed henchmen they were, there were already several tissues and handkerchiefs at the ready.
"So, you've been traveling around the world, trying to improve your Quirk?" Daigoro questioned, using his Quirk to latch on to the rocky mountain path as he followed Hikage and climbed after him. "Awesome! No wonder you fought so well against me!"
Hikage rolled his eyes. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"Nope!" Daigoro raised his hands and clasped them behind his head. "I'm on vacation!"
Hikage sighed. While Daigoro was a good sparing partner and a decent man, he was rather hotblooded and prone to fight. He wasn't sure if passing on an ever-evolving Met- Quirk to such a guy was a good idea despite having known him for three years now. "Still, you need to-?!"
Hikage suddenly buckled and clutched his face as an immense pain wracked his bones. This had been happening a lot frequently now. He knew he wasn't built as large as Alex but was {One for All} growing too strong for a small man like him to handle?
"Uh, dude?" Banjo stared worriedly at the top of his head. "Don't panic but some of your hair just turned white..."
"What?" Hikage panicked and strode over to the nearby lake. When he saw his reflection, Hikage groaned as most of his previously black hair was now stark white. Also, there were some age lines on his face that hadn't been there before.
'This confirms it.' Hikage gritted his teeth as he stepped back and started to pace back and forth with a pensive look on his face. 'I don't know why but I've been aging too quickly. Was it one of my previous attackers? What do I do?'
Hikage stilled and turned sharply to face Daigoro, who had just been standing by awkwardly.
"Yo. You done with your elderly life crisis?" Daigoro questioned, causing Hikage to grimace.
"...Banjo-kun. Even though you're impulsive and reckless sometimes, you're still a decent man with a good heart." Hikage placed a hand on Banjo's shoulder, pressing his index finger against the taller man's chest. "Plus, you aggravate me on so many levels despite being the closest thing I have to a friend in these last 3 years."
Daigoro narrowed his eyes in suspicious worry. "Where're you going with this, Hikage?"
"...the truth is... I have two Quirks." Hikage breathed deeply, hoping that his trust wasn't misplaced. "The name of my second Quirk is called {One for All}. It allows me to stockpile energy and is able to be transferred to other people."
"What?!" Daigoro recoiled out of Hikage's grip. "That doesn't make sense! Quirks can't be transferred! You either on some really good weed or some really bad crack!"
Hikage's eye twitched. "First off, I don't do drugs anymore-"
"So you did have some before!"
"-second off," Hikage pushed through. "I'm completely serious about this. Have you heard about All for One?"
"All for One?" Daigoro scoffed. "Please, that guy's just some urban legend. A guy with a Quirk that lets him use other Quirks like a cut-copy-paste program? No way."
"Yes way." Hikage emphasized with a haunted expression as his hands made grabbing gestures. "I've met him before and he is definitely as real as either of us are ever going to be."
"...so that's why that bounty of you in the black market kept increasing as time passed, huh?" At Hikage's questioning tilt of his head, Daigoro brought out his phone and displayed his WANTED poster except it was now updated.
WANTED
SHINOMORI HIKAGE
ONLY ALIVE
¥4,870,000,000
'B-B-Billion?!' Hikage's eyes nearly popped out, gawking at the ten-figure reward. 'My bounty jumped into billions?!'
Daigoro stared at Hikage, making the latter wonder what was going through the large man's thoughts before slapping a hand over his face and groaning before he spoke. "This {One for All} Quirk. You say that it stockpiles power, right? That's how despite your Spider-Sense-"
"{Danger Sense}."
Daigoro waved him off. "-Spider-Sense, you can still punch holes in mountains, right? Not some Tarzan superhuman stuff you get from living in the jungle too long, right?"
"Yes." Hikage nodded in confirmation. "As it stockpiles energy, it's only natural that it can only express itself through physical ability considering that my Quirk is mental based. That's why I've been training it up. As I am now, it's not good enough to face him. Plus, I'm now sick enough to look like I'm rapidly aging."
Daigoro raised a hand, creating orange-tinged tendrils of darkness across it. "Mine isn't. If I were to have {One for All}, it'd affect my {Black Whip}, wouldn't it?"
"Most likely." Hikage reached up to grab one of the still brown strands of his hair and held it forward. "It's only transferable via DNA so if you're willing..."
"...alright. Just one condition. You let me bring a medic here to you." At Hikage's reluctant nod, Daigoro took the hair and swallowed it, biting back his disgust with a grimace. "So do I have it?"
"It'll take a while to digest but yeah, you got it." Hikage gave a thumbs up. "Let's go have another spar. The exercise will make you digest quicker."
In a large plateau surrounded by various boulders, ridges and mountaintops, Hikage and Daigoro faced off against each other.
Just as Daigoro launched a bunch of dark tendrils to skewer him, Hikage blitzed forward, somersaulting over and sliding under each one until he was right before Daigoro. Just as Daigoro managed to wrap {Black Whip} across his chest for protection, Hikage's punch slammed into his chest and sent him flying int- no, through a mountain ridge and into the second one behind that.
Slipping off the crater he had made, Daigoro barely managed to create some tendrils to cushion himself just as he landed.
At that moment, Hikage landed a small distance before him. He didn't attack his downed form but simply took a stance, a leafy green aura softly emanating from him.
With a growl that soon turned to a cocky grin, Daigoro let {Black Whip} propel him to his feet and took a similar stance as well, {One for All} activating to form a bubbling orange aura and cause {Black Whip} to thicken in size and width.
Returning the smile, Hikage charged and clashed forearms against Daigoro before going of an axe kick.
Daigoro dodged and wrapped his combat tendrils thickly around Hikage's arms and pulled him close, sending him rolling away with a {One for All} headbutt.
Just as Hikage took advantage of his roll to get on his feet, Daigoro was already before him with his speed enhanced as well, slamming an uppercut into Hikage's chest and sending him fifty meters skyward.
Even as he jumped up to meet him, Hikage blocked Daigoro's next attack, causing the duo to engage in a midair brawl as they descended back to Earth.
A resounding shockwave ripped through the ground as they touched down, ignored as the duo continued their fight without care as their missed hits caused even more shockwaves and blasts of wind.
Hikage threw a left hook, causing Daigoro to dodge to the side and step backwards as Hikage immediately twisted his unsteady form into an uppercut that missed.
Daigoro instantly retaliated with a straight right but was dodged. Thanks to {Danger Sense}, Hikage still hadn't gotten hit once since they had landed.
Using his smaller frame, Hikage bounced about, utilizing his speed to get into Daigoro's blind spots. As he slowly whittled Daigoro down, the latter's annoyance slowly grew with each landed hit until it finally exploded, releasing {Black Whip} with all the intensity and rage of an eldritch monster from the Deep.
After {Black Whip} had smacked a restrained Hikage into the ground and some boulders a few times, Daigoro landed a heavy uppercut, allowing {Black Whip} to release the nomad while sending almost as high as before.
As Hikage reached the apex of his flight, {Black Whip} instantly attached to him again before being whipped around at high speeds, sending Hikage into a crazy spin until Daigoro dragged him down with a great crash!
Even before the dust settled, Hikage burst out of the crater and dashed towards Daigoro, who reciprocated and yelled as he cocked up his fist.
It was when they were less than half a meter apart that blood suddenly bursted from Hikage's face, causing to trip and roll as he clutched his face in pain.
"Hikage!" Daigoro slid to a stop beside Hikage and lifted him up, aiming to take him to the nearby city for a long overdue hospital check.
"No!" Hikage gripped Daigoro's wrist, causing the man to look down and behold his now completely white hair. "No... hospitals..."
Before he could say more, his energy fled him, sinking him into unconsciousness.
When Hikage next awoke, it was in his self created cabin near the lake and waterfall. Next to his laying and bandaged form was a drowsy Daigoro who promptly cheered up upon noticing his friend's waking movements.
"Hikage!" Daigoro placed his hands over Hikage's left hand, gently squeezing it as he looked over his weakened form. "Did you know that this was going to happen? Why do you look so old when you just turned 40 this year?"
"One of All for One's minions must have gotten me with something." Hikage coughed deeply as he struggled to get off and look at the mirror. "It can't be contagious, otherwise, you'd have gotten it too."
Other than his now completely white hair and slightly more wrinkled face, he had now gotten two scar-like cracks stretching from the left side of his forehead down to his chin. Hikage gently traced his fingers down them. "What caused these?"
"It was probably {One for All} itself." Daigoro spoke up. "I've experimenting a bit with it while my nurse friend was fixing you up and after a while, I could almost feel my bones and muscles starting to wear down. This... stockpiled power... I don't think this thing's got a limit."
Hikage's eyes widened. "You mean...?"
"You said that you've been trying to make it stronger, right?" Gesturing for Hikage to follow, Daigoro stepped outside and swung his arm. A blast of wind blew into the lake, upheaving several kilos of it's contents and splattering water all over Hikage. But he didn't notice that.
His full attention was on Daigoro's completely reddened and bruised arm. "That was my full power just now. Assuming that it's gonna grow stronger from this without any limit holding it back, it's only gonna be a matter of years before a guy can't even twitch his fingers without blowing it off."
"It's like a hyper version of muscle strain." Hikage frowned in worry while tracing the lines on his face. "The human body can only grow so strong and durable... which means that {One for All}... is on a time limit?!"
The Intuitive Nomad
KingVessel: Poor Hikage. Having {One for All} long enough to feel the aging but not knowing the real cause... Please review. Also, if you noted the inconsistencies, such as Olivier having a Quirk when I wrote her to not have one, remember that this is all happening from Hikage's own perspective. There are things he knows and things he doesn't.