I don't own One Punch Man, nor do I own My Hero Academia. Each Franchise i owned by their respective owner..

...

'Everything you have,

I will now take from you.

Everything that you thought you were,

Today...

I have proven that you are not!''

..

Garou's eyes shot open as the ghastly words passed his mind, glancing at the incoming fist headed straight into his direction. He swiftly intercepted the attack with the head of his knuckle, a sparkle of electricity emitting out of it.

'Better not dwell on whatever came through my mind for a sec.' Garou spoke internally, focusing his mind entirely on the brawl at hand.

However, he couldn't put aside the familiarity in that voice. When it spoke, it tugged something at him. As if a ghost from the past decided to haunt his mind, infiltrating it, filling it with a false sense of blissfulness. The feeling that he'd lost since. A longing for something that he didn't know what it was.

But at the same time, he felt an overwhelming sense of resentment. Towards who? He didn't know.

"Mind wandering somewhere else?" A voice cut through his thoughts.

Before Garou could react, his head was slammed against the floor, his nose bruised, the grain of dirt suffusing with his nostrils. He twisted his head, breaking free from the villain's grip, redirecting the energy of the quirk to his leg, before hulling it towards Muscular's legs, inflicting a slight damage on the fibers of muscles there.

He leaped in the air, slamming his One For All powered fist downwards, into the sickly man's head, causing the ground below to form a large crevice that extends largely into the other side of the forest.

As he recovered, he felt the air breezing against him. He could hear an array of footsteps to his right flank. His eyes shifted to the specified direction..

A silhoutte of a man could be seen walking in the woods. A man sporting the attire of a businessman with a flourishing ashen hair, though his skin is as pale and decadent as moon.

"Wha..."

He took a step back, recoiling from what he just saw.

What the fuck is happening?

It seems that everytime he uses this quirk..

Is this some sort of shitty side effect of the quirk or something?!

He could feel something ramming against his head once again, as the view of the ground began to pan out. He was suspended in the air, and time began to seemingly freeze in his perspective..

His mind stagnated, and another voice could be heard..

'Man. Being good isn't fun at all.'

"What the hell...are you talking about?" Garou asked to himself. He can't deal with this right now. He had an unhinged murderer to deal with, and a kid to babysit. How the hell is he supposed to-

Before he could finish his thought, he was already on the ground, landing as he slid over the ground.

As his eyes landed on his adversary, suddenly..

An image of another person that he didn't know flickered, replacing Muscular momentarily, before flickering back to it's original form. He quickly returned to his feet.

These visions of him seeing a dead person that he came to abhor, it kept happening. It made him question the intactness of his mental state. Was it deteroriating? Or was it simply just...

Fuck if I know!

"Spacing out in the middle of a battle ain't gonna do you any favour, Hero Hunter." Muscular spoke, his sturdily built body stood a few inches away from Garou, planting his feet into the dirt like a bamboo shoot, "You don't want to lessen your entertainment value in front of me, don't you? I made an example out of that Midoriya kid to further illustrate my point."

His focus sequestered, not registering any of the words uttered by the man. He kept seeing it. That man. That despicable man from his past.

He shook his head, trying to cast his thoughts away. He then sprinted forward, then...

Multiple tendrils shot out into every direction from his body, propelling himself forward. They ejected themselves into the ground, causing Garou to stay intact in midair.

What the hell is this?!

"I see now! You've got more tricks up your sleeves, hm?!" Muscular's muscle fibers began to extend even further, to the point of almost enveloping his body, "I got a few of my own as well!"

Muscular propelled himself forward, and when he covered the distance between him and the Hero Hunter..

Suddenly, the tendrils moved on it's own, wrapping itself around Muscular like a cobra ensnaring it's prey. It began to squeeze him, using the force of the muscle fibers to further enhance the pressure.

His lungs let out a scream, blood trickling down his lips profusely.

Garou attempted to regulate whatever it was that came out of him, but it was to no avail. He couldn't tame it, nor could he deactivate it. His body wasn't responding, neither did his quirk. He couldn't switch back to Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist either.

I'm busted.

Then, his mind shifted, drifting away, as the tendrils began to lash out wildly, destroying a large portion of the forest in the process, then..

An explosion followed.

...

Izuku's eyes shot itself open, registering it's surrounding environment, his mind coming to. As he sat, he saw a massive amount of smoke obstructing the sky.

How long has it been since...

Oh. Right. That villain..

He clenched his fists, standing up to his feet as began to move towards the source of that smoke.

But he couldn't bring himself to move even further. His body ached for him to settle for a bit, to suppress his undying urge to push himself.

He didn't know why he said the things he did. All the outrageous statements that he spouted, the lethal measures that he was willing to pull off for the sake of his twisted sense of justice...

And furthermore, his disregard towards the promise that he made to his Sensei..

But that man..

He just couldn't help it. The amount of atrocities that he'd witnessed over the past few weeks, it was a bit overwhelming.

Once upon a time, he would've been against everything that he's ever done, from his involvement in the Monster Association base raid, up until his encounter with Muscular.

Mom would be disappointed. He lamented internally. His expression deflated, his shoulders hung low.

He needed to go back to the dorms

Thinking back into the person who's currently handling the situation, he couldn't help but feel a sense of mild contempt towards him. But he was more than capable to deal with a villain of that caliber, seeing how he almost destroyed the entire world in another timeline.

He turned around, heading back towards the dormitory grounds. His classmates might need him.

But then...

A rippling explosion occured from not too far from his location. He tilted his head slightly towards the source of the explosion..

Only to see a couple of gargantuan tendrils extending itself into every direction.

...

'Get up. Is that all you have?'

'No fuel left to keep you afloat, hm?'

'You've been causing problems left and right for me, so I figured that the best thing for me to do, is to dispose of you.'

'Someone with your meta powers have no place in this society. Everyone deems you to be a threat. I can't fester a villain like you among my abode, can I?'

'You steal meta powers, and give them to those who needs it. Hah. HAHAHAHAHAHAH! The absolute audacity! Who do you think you are, to place yourself in such a high regard?! Do you think of yourself as the nurturer of the people, their place to confide in, or worse, A GOD?!'

Garou's eyes snapped open, taking in the massive abyss he was floating around in. He couldn't make out the details that this place entails.

A massive fog formed ahead of him, and a hand stretched forward from within. Instinctively, he swatted the hand away.

Then, a voice came out of it, "Is this how you greet your most endeared father?"

"Father?" Garou uttered the word, "You mean, you're.."

"Yes." The fog cleared, revealing a man with a businessman suit and a sickly smile plastered all over his face, "You're right on that one."

"This is a dream." Garou stated, shaking his head, "I was in a fight with that lunatic. Maybe he did something that knocked me out, I'll wake up in a second, and you'll be-"

"It's me." The man clarified again, "Take a good look."

Garou's eyes discerned the frame of this man who was supposedly his father.

"Dad?"

"Yeah." All For One replied, "Long time no see, huh?"

"Y.." Garou's fists trembled, as he took a good look again at his father.

"Pardon for the intrusion. In hindsight, I never planned to ever see you again ever since my departure. But unfortunately, we had to cross paths again due to unsavory circumstances." All For One sighed.

"How? You're fucking dead!"

"Or am I?" All For One's lips curled, "Maybe in a literal sense, I'm dead. But unfortunately, Shimura's quirk has a perk of it's own, including retaining the consciousness of it's past holders."

"Past holders?"

"Well, I'm not really a..past holder, so to say, but technically, I gave this quirk to my brother, which in turn, transferred my consciousness into his psyche without my consent. This whole stealing and bestowing quirk business is a lot complicated than you thought, and it's infuriating, I know." All For One chuckled.

"So you've been lurking around my mind ever since.." Garou's eyes widened. All those times, from the moment he saw him back in the Monster Association's hideout, and that one dream that he had..

The moment he caught the glimpse of Shimura's quirk and added it to his own arsenal of quirks...

"That was all you?!"

"Not really. I mean, I never planned to reveal myself to you. It's involuntary, more like, a side effect that I had no control over." All For One explained, "Though, watching you over your mind was a bit amusing, if I admit."

"Fuck off." Garou told him off, "I still hate you, you know that right?"

"Of course, by all means, continue in doing so." All For One said in dismissal, "I never expected for you to reciprocate any form of affection that I've displayed over the course of your childho-"

"Affection?!"

"Yes. Affection. Or was I inept enough to express it?" All For One inquired, his brow raising, "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't notice. I was never the family type, anyway."

Garou was taken aback by that statement. He felt compelled to ask, "...did you even love mom?"

All For One stopped short, his expression froze, his body unmoving. Then, after a few good seconds, he replied, "Did I?"

"Stop being cryptic. You know the answer to that."

"Maybe, maybe not." All For One shrugged.

"Then why'd you leave?"

All For One's eyes glued itself towards Garou, as he exhaled, "I didn't have the time to settle in a quiet life."

"What, you had a reputation to uphold?" Garou said, seething with indignation, "Your pursuit of adversaries that can stimulate your battle-obsessed self was far more important than us?!"

All For One sighed, "Don't you have far more important things to deal with rather than screaming at me for things that already came to pass? It's not like it matters, anyway. I'm naught but a ghost in everyone's mind."

"It mattered when you infiltrated my brain like a fucking parasite."

"Not like I had the choice in the matter, didn't I? Like I told you before." All For One spat back, "Besides, you will know soon enough, anyway. Our respective consciousness are rapidly clashing against each other as we speak, driving itself to assimilate into the other, and once that is achieved, it will merge into a singular mind."

"How?"

"I don't know myself." All For One said with a hint of uncertainty, "And I don't know either what will happen to the either of us once that happens."

Before Garou could get another word at him, he felt a ripple in the air around him, then, something beckoned for him to turn around, as if it was sucking him away from the abyss.

He perceived it as his time to go.

He turned around without a word, but All For One managed to halt him just for a moment, "Wait."

"Hm?" Garou slightly peeked his head towards the man behind him, and he could practically see the downtrodden look on his face, for some inexplicable reason.

However,

It wasn't as inexplicable as he thought it to be.

"I'm sorry."

Garou felt the shivers as those words came out of All For One's mouth. Him. Apologising. The idea in itself seemed a bit surreal, if not far fetched.

Before he could say anything, the light around his eyes stretched into every direction, as he was pulled out of his subconsciousness, back into the real world. He didn't know what awaits him ahead, but all he knew, is that once he opens his eyes, he would expect the area around him to be scorched beyond recognition.

And the fate of that villain was uncertain.

All he could think of before the light of the real world reached his eyes, was the words from his surrogate father.

'I'm sorry'.'

Huh.