Chapter 1

"Can't you see, Kenji?!" The younger brother had snarled, swinging his hand over the burning cityscape that lay before them. "It was always bad, but it's only been getting worse! More and more people are going to be born with powers, and more and more of them will use those powers for something nefarious! More villains have been appearing than ever before and you have the ability to change all that!"

"Crime has always existed, Yoichi! But even in the old world, police didn't just go around lobotomizing criminals. We aren't savages, there are laws that exist that let us take bad people down without cutting a fundamental part of who they are out!" The older brother had rebutted. But his argument only made the younger brother even more enraged.

"Laws?! OLD WORLD?! Both of those things are gone!" The younger brother had roared as he stormed forward to get up in his older brother's face. "This new world doesn't follow any of the logic the old one did, so the only people who can keep order from spiraling into chaos are people with the powers that the new world came with! PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"

"Enough Yoichi, I won't discuss this any longer!" The older brother had shouted back, pushing his brother away from him. "I refuse to take part in this madness you propose! All humans need to keep boundaries for themselves, and ripping the meta abilities out of every crook I find in the streets is a line I refuse to cross!"

"YOU HYPOCRITE!" The younger brother had howled. "The people who need their powers taken away are the very same people who have crossed those boundaries! This isn't about whether something is right or wrong at all. You just don't want to sully your hands with a moral dilemma, you COWARD!" He said, pointing his finger accusingly towards his older brother.

The glare the older brother had returned was stormy, carrying within it untold fury. But even so, he had no response to his brother's accusation. "...I'm done with this conversation. Goodbye, Yoichi."

The older brother turned his back on the younger brother and walked away. The younger brother had cried out in rage behind him but made no effort to follow. It was the last time the two would ever see each other, even if their fates were entwined so closely.

It was, of course, a dream that Rubedo had seen many times before.

In a near-featureless sterilized white chamber, a block of solid white material sat immobile in the corner. It was white as chalk, smooth in texture like marble, or some other polished stone. It sat at somewhere over five feet tall, and it was two and a half or so feet wide in both ways, making it a perfect rectangular prism. One might note that a small teenager could probably fit inside standing.

A crack appeared on the featureless surface of the white block. Then another, and another. The cracks began to spiderweb across the block's surface, with chunks beginning to break off and fall to the floor where they would crack open and crumble to dust. As more and more of the block began to fall away, a humanoid figure revealed itself from within. Like a statue carving itself from a block of marble, the rest of the block fell away as a body took shape.

And indeed, likening the process to a statue emerging from marble was an apt comparison. The quirk that created the block of nondescript material and the body within it was named 'Galatea', in reference to the Greek myth of a beautiful statue being brought to life. It was technically an emitter quirk, one that could encase an individual in a block of the white material and carve them out into a form of the user's choosing temporarily, but the user themself was also capable of applying the effect to themself. The body that was carved from this particular block had a very youthful appearance, with a height and face that would indicate a person of about twelve or thirteen years old, leaving behind their childhood and entering the transitional state between being a child and an adult. Aptly known as 'the teens'.

The youth was comprised of the same material the block had been, completely solid and made from the stony substance all the way through. How they still retained the functions of a normal human was anyone's guess, but this was the same world where some people were sentient liquids and gases, so a statue child seemed pretty tame.

There wasn't a single blemish or mark to be found on the youth's body, still as white and featureless as the material they stepped out of. In fact, if one were to take a second glance, one would notice that the body had no features at all. Fingers and toes had no nails. A navel was not present on their abdomen. The body was completely blank and lacking any sort of human anatomy, like a display mannequin. The only human attributes the youth possessed was their humanoid form and their face. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth with lips, ears, eyebrows, and long eyelashes were still there, framed by long straight hair that fell down past their shoulders. The youth's hair was the same marble-white as the rest of their body and most likely built from the same material, some inscrutable aspect of the Galatea quirk rearranging its molecular structure in a way that allowed it to take on the properties of hair instead of the body's chalky stone-like structure.

The youth's eyes snapped open like a machine being activated, and with measured, mechanical movements, they removed themself from the remainder of the white block they were encased in. Dusting the crumbling material from their shoulders, they marched to the far corner of the room nearest to the entrance, where the only thing in the room beside the youth themself and their slowly disintegrating block sat waiting. Like the youth had done thousands of times before, they slipped on the featureless gray scrubs and stood before the door to the near-empty room.

You're up early. A quiet voice at the back of the youth's mind quipped.

Well, perhaps quipped isn't the right word. It was less like there was someone speaking, but it was more than just a thought taking note of the facts. It was like there was a distinct flair of personality in the way it worded itself. The youth had at one point asked their supervisors what that voice was supposed to be, and they responded by telling them that it was their conscience.

Apparently, they weren't supposed to have one of those, so they were advised to ignore it whenever they could.

Clock says there's still about three minutes and forty-eight-point-two seconds until morning roll call. The conscience noted. When the conscience spoke objective truths, it became a lot harder to ignore. Yes, it was true. The Internal Clock quirk did indeed say that it was five fifty-six in the morning, meaning that they had emerged from their chrysalis early. That was the objective truth. But for what reason would the conscience point that out? There was no rule against waking up early. Galatea had finished the last of its routine maintenance on their body an hour ago. The youth had done nothing to break any sort of rule or jeopardize their own health, so why would the conscience feel the need to point that out? Did it just want their attention?

The youth quietly acknowledged that they still had no idea what the conscience was supposed to be, or what its function was. They assumed it was some sort of psychic parasite, but apparently was not enough of a concern to warrant any sort of treatment besides "Just ignore it." They had at one point considered inquiring further to their supervisors on what the conscience was, but if they were not supposed to have it but the supervisors did not consider it a threat, logic would reason that it was ultimately a benign phenomenon. The supervisors most likely had more important things to worry about than answer silly questions like that.

The clock struck six. From an unseen speaker, a buzz sounded before the tired voice of some faceless supervisor called out over the device.

"Testing, testing. Morning roll call. You up Rubedo?" the voice droned.

The youth, named Rubedo after an old alchemical term, responded with mechanical promptness.

"Subject- I am awake and alert. Prepared to perform the duties expected of me today."

"Great, great…" the voice muttered, not really paying attention to anything besides Rubedo's confirmation. Another buzz sounded and the chamber's door opened before Rubedo, and the pallid youth stepped out of the featureless room and into the equally sterile halls outside.

They passed guards, scientists, and other staff of all sorts as they marched down the halls towards their destination. Not a single one gave the youth a second glance. After all, this was normal. A standard ritual that had happened without fail every single day for years. Arriving before the door, Rubedo gave three sharp knocks and waited for the response. Once again, without fail, the room's inhabitant responded.

"Come in, come in! The door's unlocked!"

Letting themself inside, Rubedo stepped into a room that was very similar to their own- or at least, it would be if the plain walls weren't plastered with all sorts of jumbled notes, papers, and pictures, as well as that large, skewed corkboard that always seemed in danger of falling off the wall it hung from. The room also had a desk and a cot.

And sitting on that cot was Rubedo's mentor, Tartarus. The current wielder of the All for One quirk.

She did not look like a "Tartarus". The imagery of a burning hell from ancient myth that trapped gods and monsters were unsuited for the small, mousey-haired woman scribbling furiously in some notebook while cross-legged on some bland cot.

As Rubedo stepped in, she looked up from her notebook and gave a broad grin. Any normal person greeted by Tartarus' smile would immediately be unsettled. It was a wide, almost too wide smile that showed off teeth like a smiling predator. There was an almost sinister aura to her grin, like if the Cheshire Cat was a starving tiger. But Rubedo was not a normal person. Tartarus' smile was one of the few they had ever seen in person, and one they had been greeted with their entire life. There was nothing about her smile that made it any more unsettling or uncanny than any other smile to them.

"Ruby! Lil' Ruby, tiny little Ruby, Rubedo, Rubedi. C'mon, come- come sit over here, have a seat, sit down, c-c'mon over, sit!" The woman giggled patting the cot beside her. Of course, it would stand to reason that her speech was just as frazzled and unkempt as the rest of her demeanor.

As they had done so many times before, Rubedo sat upon the bed next to Tartarus as she tossed her pencil and notebook to the side to grab a hairbrush off her desk. Brush in hand, All for One's wielder set to grooming her ward's hair while chattering about this and that. Rubedo tuned that chatter out. Rarely, if ever, would his mentor talk about important information, such as news regarding the current geopolitical status of Japan, or orders regarding their service and advice as to how to perform their duties as servants to the public. If she did, Rubedo still had countless mental quirks running in the background to collect and store the data as well as alert them when she began to speak about something of substance.

She really cherishes her time with you, you know.

…And there it was again. Rubedo did not know whether they had let themselves become lax in ignoring the conscience, or whether it slipped through because it was telling the objective truth. But that most likely wasn't the case. Rubedo had never been informed, be it through a direct statement from Tartarus, nor gleaning from conversations she had, that she was cherishing the moments where she mindlessly rambled about nothing in particular while brushing hair that was already completely straight.

You would be able to tell if you just looked at her.

Rubedo was looking at her- through a quirk that allowed them to perceive anything within a four-foot radius around them. Nothing about her said that Tartarus now was acting any differently from when she was paying attention to someone other than them.

You can see it in the way she smiles.

She always smiles like that.

She cares about you.

Rubedo tried to ignore their conscience harder.

"...and today is a real big day for you too, huh? Lil' Ruby isn't gonna be such a lil' Ruby anymore. Big Ruby! Big strong Ruby! T-taaaaallll Rubedo, jumbo-sized lil' Ruby! Gonna big wearing them big boy shorts! Or big girl shorts… uh, pants! Yeah! Everyone wears pants. Pants, pants. You're gonna be wearing pants, Rubedo!"

Ah, it seems like she started talking about something important. Jargon about pants aside, today was an important day indeed. For both of them. One could even say that the event in question would be more significant for Tartarus than it would be for Rubedo. Yes, one could say that. Rubedo should say that, in fact.

"You are aware that the procedure that will be carried out today will have a one-hundred percent chance of terminating you utterly and completely, correct? And that you have waived all rights and given your full consent to being killed and your body being disposed of without burial." Rubedo said, phrasing their question more like a statement of absolute fact.

Rubedo did not need an enhanced timing quirk to detect the brief pause in Tartarus' brushstrokes.

"...Yeah," Tartarus responded curtly, before resuming the brushing and returning to her usual frazzled, chipper tone. "Oh well, them apples, it's them apples. Or something like that. Kinda knew what I was doing, y'know, I'm aware of these things, I'm savvy, I'm in-the-know. Don't worry about yourself kid, or about me, or about you!"

She cares about you.

In a body without muscles, involuntary muscle movements were a non-factor. Even so, Rubedo had to suppress the urge to let their eye twitch.

Tartarus continued brushing their hair, but she spoke much less. Rubedo was in her care until she had to be called up to take away someone's quirk, or if Rubedo needed to take some sort of test or participate in some sort of experiment. Before, she was supposed to use this time to slowly deposit quirks into them bit by bit, while also training them on how to use All for One and manage the vast archive of quirks. But she didn't need to do that anymore. Rubedo had completed their training. Tartarus had deposited all but the few essential quirks she needed. There was nothing more to do, and so the two simply sat together in silence.

"You're really growing up, y'know. Getting real big, real fast, like a growth race, or a growth spurt, competitive growing, professional grower." Tartarus giggled. "Isn't it about time you started looking the part? Your fifteenth birthday is today! Right now! You're a big man! Woman! Rock-chalk statue thing!"

Rubedo was caught off guard by that. That's right, today was their official fifteenth birthday. Time was so strange. It felt like they had only just designed the new body to suit their pre-teen age range, but in fact, they were already a teenager.

"An oversight on my part. Relatively inconsequential- I will create an older body for myself tonight."

"...But I won't get to see that."

Rubedo paused. That was true. But using Galatea to change or repair their body always came at the end of the day, in place of sleep. There was no changing it now. Or was there? It was never made a rule that Rubedo could only use Galatea at night. And even if there was, Rubedo had clearance to use quirks that did not have restriction levels when they were with Tartarus, so long as they did not cause any damage. So what was the harm in using Galatea to make their new body now? If they wanted to completely take apart their body and rebuild it from scratch, that would take about four, maybe five hours. But simply altering their size and twisting a few features to appear older would be much faster and much more efficient, maybe taking about half an hour, or even less.

"I can-"

Before Rubedo could speak, a buzz came in from over the speaker.

"Tartarus. Rubedo. Please report to the removal facility in the east wing. We have one removal to be performed, and then we can proceed with the official passing of the torch." The order was phrased without any room for negotiation. Both of the people in the room carried immeasurable power within them, and could easily have ignored the command with nothing that the supervisors could do about that. But without question, both Tartarus and Rubedo stood and heeded their supervisor.

"Well," Tartarus said quietly. "Time to go."

It was a quiet walk to the east wing. Awaiting them there would most likely be some heinous criminal who had committed unspeakable acts grave enough to warrant the removal of their quirk. It was something that both Tartarus and Rubedo had done many times already- Tartarus, for her job as All for One's wielder, and Rubedo, as the Rubedo. The magnum opus. The final result of the project that was devised when Kenji Shigaraki first selected a successor for his quirk's power. A perfect shell to contain All for One and every quirk it took.

The two stepped before the guards standing at the entrance to the removal facility. A brief nod from them and the doors opened up into a chamber where the prisoner was held down in restraints. On the balcony surrounding the chamber, supervisors and guards waited, prepared to oversee the standard procedure of removing a criminal's quirk and the ceremony that would follow.

"Ahem… now that you're here, we can begin." One of the supervisors from the Hero Public Safety Commission spoke through a microphone. "Tartarus, if you have not already, please deposit All for One into Rubedo."

Tartarus stepped forward and placed her hand on Rubedo's shoulder. Just as they had felt so many times before, an intangible weight seemed to manifest and settle over them. While all quirks had a similar feel when being transferred from one person to the next, the weight of All for One was always immense, no matter how many times they experienced its transfer.

"Thank you. Rubedo, you may now approach the convict."

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" The prisoner snarled as he began to thrash against his restraints even harder.

Even as the prisoner screamed obscenities at everyone in the room, Rubedo approached.

"File number one-two-four-three-eight, real name Gunpei Ishida, villain alias Toxic Chainsaw. Quirk: Toxic Hazard. Ishida is capable of producing two types of hazardous fluids from his body and can control them with deadly force and precision while they are within four feet of himself. The fluids are able to eat away and corrode organic and inorganic material respectively, but only one can be produced at a time." The supervisor prattled over Toxic Chainsaw's cries. "I don't think I have to explain why he's here, just know that this one definitely deserves it."

Even though Rubedo walked at a normal pace, it felt like time had slowed down. To everyone in the room, the soft pat-pattering of their feet touching the floor as they walked carried an immeasurable weight with it. The chambering of a bullet. A whetstone on the guillotine's blade. The creaking of the gallows' trapdoor. It was the sound of an approaching executioner. And as the metaphorical noose tightened around the villain's neck, he felt a surge of adrenaline.

It was now or never. In his desperation, the bound criminal overpowered the quirk suppressants holding him down for just a moment, allowing him to forcefully jettison toxins through his skin. Molding the liquids into blades he slashed his restraints apart, destroying the suppressants and tearing away his straitjacket. Driven by nothing but raw, primal fear, he lunged at the approaching youth with blades of toxic fluids spinning like chainsaws. It was all or nothing. Live or die. He heard the guards cry out, but they wouldn't have time to aim and fire their weapons. Not quickly enough for him to eviscerate the pale child in front of him

One step closer. Two steps closer. He raised the blade-covered arm over his head and began to bring it down as he made his third step-

And then he felt his legs vanish.

Looking down slightly, he saw that a triangular screen of light extending from the youth's index finger had just separated his legs from him below the knees.

His perception of time returned to normal as the pain hit him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHH!"

The guards who had panicked to focus their aim on the convict lowered their weapons seeing him neutralized. Rubedo lowered their hand and continued their approach, ignoring the man's screams of agony. Being a high-profile criminal such as him, Rubedo had a bit more… leeway in attempts made to neutralize him. Besides, the Laser Shape quirk had cauterized his wounds, and they certainly had the means to reattach his legs and heal him later, once he was safer to be around.

Bending down over the man, Rubedo calmly placed their hand on his forehead. With a quick, practiced tug, he pulled Toxic Hazard quirk out of him. His screams increased in volume.

"Procedure completed. Quirk removed." Rubedo confirmed to the supervisors.

As guards entered the room and collected the still screaming Toxic Chainsaw and his removed appendages, Tartarus approached.

"Thank you Rubedo." A supervisor quipped over their microphone. "With that out of the way, we can move onto the-"

"The final ceremony." Tartarus finished.

"...Er, yes. Thank you, Tartarus. Well, this isn't exactly standardized, even if it's practically tradition at this point. You two may proceed how you wish."

Tartarus stood before her young protege and knelt before them, like a warrior being knighted by their liege. She reached forward and clasped their face in her hands.

"Look at you, eh? Look at you. Already so grown up, but still so much growing to do! It-it's a real shame I won't get to see that. Hehe. A real, real shame. Real bad shame…" There was a glimmer of something in her eye, but it vanished just as quickly as Rubedo noticed it. Their own eyes stared back, an unchanging soulless white. There was no reflection in their eyes.

"Would you like me to proceed?" Rubedo asked in the same calm, monotonous voice they always spoke in.

Tartarus exhaled, and their breath wavered for a moment.

"Yes." She croaked. There was no cheer, no manic glee left in her voice. There was only dull, aching pain and exhaustion. She had carried this burden for far too long.

"Please."

With a tug, Rubedo pulled the last quirk out of Tartarus' body. Iron Will, her original quirk. A mental fortitude power that had gotten her scouted for the position of Tartarus to begin with. It let her hold on, despite the immeasurable mental toll holding onto so many quirks had on her. Despite holding onto All for One, she endured to perform her duty to the Hero Public Safety Commission and her responsibility to teach Rubedo, her successor. But Iron was not unbreakable. Now, she could join her own mentor and all the other wielders of All for One that came before her. She could finally rest.

Tartarus' brain shut down, and she collapsed. Her vital signs all ceased within an instant.

Rubedo stared at the lifeless body of their mentor as the guards once more entered the room to collect it. Their face, as usual, betrayed no emotion. Their thoughts revealed no empathy. They stood unflinchingly still, like a doll. And yet…

She cared about you.

"Congratulations," One of the supervisors drawled. "With that, you're officially the new wielder of All for One."

Do you feel like a hero now?

Cing Krimson's Qringe Korner: Ah, don't mind me. Just throwing an old idea at the wall. As the story's summary hopefully says, this is an AU in which the roles of AFO and OFA are swapped. More details about the world and history will come as the story progresses if I ever get to them. For now, just know that the setting that you once knew is flipped on its head. Well, some familiar aspects remain. But you'll just have to wait and see.

As for what the deal with our protagonist, well, they're basically a Nomu when you think about it, right? But like, they look nothing like one, so eh.