The rest of the week passed quickly and soon it was time for the students of UA to return home, all of them excited to share their own stories.
"Man, talk about an awesome week!" Sero said.
"Yeah, it was sure something. Meta Knight had me refine my Quirk into a style that fits my personality." Eijirou said.
"We got to eat a giant cake monster!" Mina laughed as Kyouka blushed. "Me and Jirou lost the weight but Yaomomo figured she'd stick with the big beautiful angle to better use her Quirk!"
"Sengoku kicked my ass pretty good," Katsuki smirked. "But I was satisfied."
"Mipha from Class 1-B and I were able to deal with drug smugglers that were masquerading as stowaways," Tsuyu said.
"Hawks provided some enlightening lessons during my internship with him," Fumikage said.
"Uraraka, how were things with the Psychic Sisters?"
"It was very enlightening..." The brunette said, surrounded by a battle aura. "I also got to train with Gunhead at his dojo at their request."
"Yo, Killer Bee taught me some pretty sweet moves, see?" Minoru said with a funky rap pose, having enjoyed his time with the Pro.
"Drive Knight was pretty fair but firmly cruel with me," Denki said, rubbing the back of his head. "That guy doesn't mince words, that's for sure."
"Snow Mother was really good to me and Kouda." Rikidou smiled. "Helped me expand my sugar palette to help with my Quirk."
"Still, I have to say, the real MVPs are Midoriya, Torekuroshi, Polendina, Todoroki, Iida, and Yasakani!" Tooru said.
"Oh yeah, the Hero Killer!" Sero chimed in.
"Heard about that on the news," Katsuki smirked. "Didn't think you guys were so damn insane!"
"I saw on the news that the Hero Killer was connected to the League of Villains. Imagining someone as scary as that coming to USJ freaks me out." Oujiro commented as he scratched the side of his head, sending a small shiver down a few spines.
"You guys saw him firsthand, what was he like?" Kirby asked.
Tenya sighed. "He's...rather difficult to describe. His tenacity is certainly to be admired, and his motives are understandable. The trouble is he's fanatical, narrowed-minded, tunnel-visioned, and completely out of touch with how the world works."
"He talked a big game about changing the world, but he was just another lunatic blindly devoted to All-Might," Ben said. "Even the big man himself would be disgusted at all the kills Stain did in his name."
"Hobo Alert!" Izuku suddenly said to everyone as they quickly got in their seats.
Later in the day, the class was out in the industrial simulation with All-Might.
"Good to see everyone had a productive internship. And now's the time to put that learning into practice. We're going to have a little race across the Industrial Zone." The #1 Hero excitedly said. "Now this is rescue training, but it's a little different than the disaster training you had at the USJ."
He brought up a nearby screen, everyone turning their attention to it.
"You'll be competing in groups of six, with each student having a different starting location on the outskirts. The interior is like a maze, and your only means of navigation will be a distress signal I'll be broadcasting from the center of the zone." All-Might explained. "The first one to reach my location, a simulation of a citizen seeking aid, will be the winner!"
The first group to start things off was Izuku, Hilda, Oujiro, Tenya, Sero, and Mina.
"All five of them have good mobility options," Momo noted while snacking on potato chips. "Especially Sero and Yasakani thanks to the former's tape and the latter's black whips."
"Wanna take bets on who places first?" Ben asked.
"Deku, hands down," Katsuki said, folding his arms. "The damn nerd is gonna pull some magical power out of his ass to get to All-Might in less than ten seconds."
"AND BEGIN!"
As soon as All-Might activated the distress beacon, the race began. Sero and Hilda took to the air using their special skills, Tenya raced through the lower parts, Mina skated along some of the pipes, and Oujiro kept slamming his tail against the various roofs to leap from building to building.
"This is gonna be a breeze!" Sero bragged. "It's like this course was made for me!"
"Don't count on it, beanpole!" Hilda called out, racing past him like a cannonball.
She was doing well but wound up slipping on a pipe. However, instead of just falling, she suddenly found herself floating in midair.
"Wait...What the-?!"
Everyone else watching this on the screen was left flabbergasted before turning to Ochako and Ben for some kind of explanation.
"It wasn't either of us." Ben shrugged.
"Could this be...Another facet of OFA that Deku and Hilda were telling us about?" Ochako silently wondered.
All-Might was also surprised to see Hilda floating as she regained her bearings, righting her direction and using [Blackwhip] to catapult herself to All-Might...however, Izuku popped out of an Air Door made by the [Door-Door Fruit] before she landed, giving a cheeky smile.
"You're lucky you're so cute!" Hilda pouted as she picked up Izuku and hugged him while All-Might smiled, though Hilda's new power was making him think.
"OFA chooses now of all times for Young Yasakani to unlock [Float]? The Quirk belonging to my Sensei?"
"All-Might, do you mind giving the winner's sash to Hilda? I just cheesed this." Izuku said as his mentor chuckled in agreement, giving Hilda the winner's sash.
"You kids are all showing great improvements, I have to say."
"Where did that come from, Yasakani?" Sero asked as he arrived next. "You were just floating in midair all of a sudden!"
"Hey, my Quirk just got supercharged is all. I'm Supergirl now." Hilda chuckled, flexing her plump but firm bicep and kissing it smugly.
The boys were now in the locker room, changing back into their school uniforms.
"That was some tough training," Rikidou said.
Our first class in a while made me sweat," Yuuga puffed as he wiped off his sweat with his towel.
"Drive Knight may have helped with my Quirk but I suck at mobility." Denki sighed.
"Don't sell yourself short, Kaminari," Fumikage said. "Considering you have enough control to propel yourself in the air now, it shows just how much of your power you have mastered."
"Yeah, with enough training, you could be like Cole MacGrath from InFamous!" Ben pointed out. "Heck, maybe the Support Course would be kind enough to make your own Amp!"
"You really think so?" Denki asked, sincerely touched.
"Hey guys, I just discovered something crazy, check here!" Minoru called out, revealing a small hole in the wall that had been covered by a poster, which had conveniently peeled off, "Look at this hole, Shawshank! It's probably thanks to the efforts of those who came before us! The girls' locker room!"
"Mineta, please don't commit such an indecent act!" Tenya admonished.
"Hey, my manhood is already an indecent act!" Minoru argued.
"Don't look at Penny," Ben warned dangerously. "She belongs to me."
"Yes, sir..." Minoru grumbled as he began peeking through the hole to admire all the girls' bodies...only to get stabbed in the eye by one of Kyouka's jacks through the hole.
"MINETA-KUN!" Izuku cried as the dwarfish boy screamed in agony, rolling on the floor while covering his injured eyeball.
"Hey, he was asking for it!" Ben said uncaringly.
After class, Izuku and Hilda were invited to the teacher's lounge by Toshinori along with Ochako, Tenya, Katsuki, and Kirby.
"All-Might, is everything alright?" You seem much more solemn than usual." Tenya asked worriedly.
"To be perfectly frank, Young Iida, no," Toshinori admitted. "I recently learned something that troubles me greatly. I heard that the Hero Killer swallowed some of your blood, Young Yasakani."
"Ah, don't worry about it!" Hilda reassured. "I wasn't planning on passing OFA to him anytime soon."
Toshinori nodded. "Very astute. OFA isn't something that can just be taken by force. The name itself has a double meaning. First, it's a reference to the saying, 'One for all, and all for one, and heaven bless the land.' Second, the name refers to how the Quirk works. One Quirk, for all people."
"So what does all this have to do with Stain getting a taste of Stay Puft's blood?" Katsuki asked.
"That, Young Bakugo, is the reason why I'm telling you all this," Toshinori explained. "It has to do with the origin of OFA. It wasn't made like other Quirks. It didn't spring up into existence out of the blue like some others. In a way... OFA was engineered."
"Engineering a Quirk?" Kirby asked. "Whoa! How so? Like mix and matching powers? Cause that's a thing on my home planet, actually!"
"How could a Quirk even BE engineered?" Tenya inquired.
"The reasoning goes back to the dawn of Quirks," Toshinori began. "I'm sure you know the story. How it all started with a young baby in Qing Qing, China who suddenly gained the ability to become luminescent. In those days, there was chaos. And out of the chaos suddenly came a different sort of Quirk. If there's a [One For All]... Then naturally there would be an [All For One], the exact opposite. All Quirks, for one man."
"A Quirk that can steal other Quirks..." Izuku gasped in realization. "The user could take them all for himself."
"He could if he wanted to, but he could also just as easily give the Quirks away to someone else." Toshinori clarified. "It was even possible for him to return a Quirk he had taken to its original user. The user of AFO, no one really remembers his name anymore, took advantage of the fact that during his youth, superpowers were cropping up in great numbers, making it impossible to say what was normal anymore. Laws and human rights were hotly debated, and civilization's progress stalled."
"Yeah, you had to have aliens visit you instead of the other way around," Kirby said. "Case in point, me~!"
"All For One, the man who owned the Quirk in question, rallied many people together. He was a child of the world's first supervillain, Thanoseid, and at first, he worked to quell the chaos for his own benefit. He took Quirks from people who didn't want them and gave them to people who did. All in exchange for favors. Some Quirks he kept for himself. Before long, he had total rule over Japan."
"But none of this was ever brought up in History," Tenya noted.
"Neither is OFA and we all know that certainly exists." Hilda pointed out.
"The past involving All For One is seen as a shameful moment in our history," Toshinori clarified before continuing. "Anyway, when a person gains true power, they enjoy showing it off. All For One's power went to his head, and he started to pull away from his father and siblings to commit evil for his own sake."
"Yeah, so we got this evil Quirk Thief who steals, keeps, and gives away Quirks, I get that," Katsuki said. "But what does all this have to do with OFA?"
"There were many people who couldn't bear the burden of the Quirks they were given. They became mindless living dolls, incapable of even speaking." Toshinori explained.
Ochako gasped. "The Nomus..."
Toshinori nodded grimly. "Conversely, some powers evolved as they moved on, or combined with other power sets. Now, this evil man had a younger brother who was Quirkless. Unlike the rest of his family, he had no intention of being evil, in fact, he had a strong sense of justice. It pained him to see his brother's evil deeds, and he kept resisting him. For some reason, All For One decided to transfer a Quirk to his younger brother, one that would allow him to stockpile power over time."
"Stockpiles power...you mean...!" Hilda began in realization.
"It turns out the younger brother wasn't actually Quirkless, but on its own, the Quirk was useless." Toshinori finished. "It simply allowed him to pass on Quirks. The two Quirks merged in the younger brother's body and created OFA."
"Whoa..." The students all breathed in amazement.
Toshinori chuckled. "Ironic, isn't it? How the power of the Symbol of Peace could come from the ultimate force of evil? Justice often tends to spawn from evil, like two sides of the same coin."
"Wait, if All For One is as old as when Quirks first started appearing, shouldn't he be dead by now?" Izuku asked.
"You'd think that wouldn't you? But for one who can steal Quirks, the sky's the limit." Toshinori said. "More than likely, All For One has access to Quirks that can lengthen one's life. And with combat being what it was at the time, this Symbol of Evil seemed almost immortal. So the younger brother, calling himself One For All, decided to pass on his power. First, he sought out someone who could make him stronger. Then, when the time was right, he passed on the power to that man."
"He wanted to make OFA strong enough to defeat his brother." Kirby realized.
"That he did." Toshinori clarified. "The man he passed his power to was also the one who first saved him from his brother's clutches. He eventually passed the Quirk on to his closest friend and so on."
"Whoa..." Kirby said. "This is some deep lore!"
Toshinori suddenly became sad. "Each of us has fought All For One at some point. Thus far, only his brother, the first two successors, and my sensei and predecessor, Nana Shimura, died by his hand, though up until me none of the others were able to truly defeat him, only beat him back temporarily."
"Wait, Nana Shimura? The Gallant Hero: Nimbus?" Ochako asked. "She was my mom's favorite hero when she was a kid!"
"She was a truly wonderful woman, I can tell you that." Toshinori said with a melancholic smile. "But she made one fatal mistake; she fell for All For One's taunts."
"What happened?" Hilda asked.
"He had killed her husband, tricking her into fighting him on her own, something no other OFA user did. Especially not me, when I learned what had happened. I fought him five years ago, alongside Tsunade, Blast, Garp, and many of the other S-Rankers. It was a dangerous fight, and my friends knew that one wrong move and they'd lose their Quirks. Still, they fought, and in the end, they succeeded in making the perfect opening for me."
"But your scar..." Izuku noted as Toshinori sighed, placing a hand on his torso where the wound was.
"Yes, even in the final moments, he left a parting gift. But All For One wasn't as finished as we thought. The attacks on both the USJ and Hosu proved that. He was the one who was the brainchild behind the League of Villains. But while he is a threat, he probably doesn't have as much agency as he used to."
"So let's crush this asshole!" Katsuki said, standing up.
"Slow down there, cowboy!" Kirby said, pulling her boyfriend down. "There's still a lot of other stuff we have to worry about!"
"Young Sakurai has a point, Young Bakugou." Toshinori voiced in agreement. "All For One is certainly not going to be an easy fight. But he only survived against me by the skin of his teeth. Once Young Yasakani is able to access everything OFA has to offer, I've no doubt you all might be able to succeed where I failed."
"We won't let you down," Hilda said, firmly nodding her head.
"I'm not letting Hilda go against this guy alone," Izuku added, standing beside his girlfriend and squeezing her hand gently.
"Yeah!" Ochako voiced her agreement, holding Hilda's other hand.
"Your camaraderie is strong." Toshinori smiled proudly. "However... I won't be able to fight with you. OFA is yours now, Young Yasakani, I'm just using the leftover power. It should last me a few years, long enough to finish teaching you. But this fight is now for the younger generation. My time is soon to pass..."
"Just watch us, All-Might," Katsuki smirked. "We're gonna destroy that bastard and tear down the whole damn League doing so!"
Meanwhile, in a large tower building, Dr. Daruma Ujiko was checking on All For One's life support.
"I wasn't expecting the Hero Killer to be caught and in such a way that his ideals were shattered. If not for my siblings, Tomura wouldn't be able to gather needed allies for the true League of Villains." All For One admitted.
"The boy is leaning more towards your siblings and father each passing day." The Doctor said. "Not that it's a bad thing, Laughs and Murder Machine provided such wonderful aid in creating the Nomu with me."
"I don't know what Father has in mind regarding them, but regardless, those children had better enjoy their transient peace while it lasts..."
And so we get into the lore of One For All and All For One. Also, be sure to add to mtnetsurfer's TV Tropes page for My Hero SCP, he could really use the assistance!