POV AIZAWA
The last time I saw All For One was three days ago when he broke out of prison and into my house. He was planning to drag my Tenko back into the sick twisted castle of fear he'd been raising him in for the past two decades, give or take. I overexerted myself, balancing my quirk with my hand-to-hand combat when I was already so physically and mentally drained. Right now, if I didn't have backup, I probably would've been defeated in a matter of seconds.
But I do have backup. Dabi to my left, Compress to my right, charging down the hallway to Tenko's room where I'm praying my student is still alive and at least semi-well. Dabi heats his hand and throws the door open, revealing the gruesome sight. Uraraka laying lifelessly with a knife plunged into her temple.
Not just any knife. Himiko's knife. The one she had used to stab All For One three days ago, right before she was shot. All For One had taken it and used it to kill Uraraka like the sick bastard that he is.
Dabi must've noticed the knife, too, because he hesitates. His feet lock in place, and his hands and shoulders erupt with blue flames. Compress is the only one that makes a move, tossing a marble out in AFO's direction. As he dodges, I activate my quirk, hoping to decrease the amount of damage he can do.
I don't think about Uraraka right now. I don't even look at her. Physically, I can't, or else I'll shut down and lose this fight. If I lose, we die. And dying is not an option anymore.
"Gentlemen, please," All For One chuckles. "No need for the hostility."
"Hostility is a bit too sugarcoated," Dabi snaps, tripling the heat of his flames. "I'm going to torture you in ways that would make the devil fucking vomit, you disgusting motherfucker."
"Oh, do be careful with those ugly flames of yours, son. You don't want to burn down a third house, do you? First your childhood home, and then Eraserhead's place? You walk around parading your righteous cause and tragic backstory, but you're leaving out many important details. You tried to murder your younger sibling when you were eight years old. It's your fault that your father was never proud of you, Touya-kun. You're a monster that destroys everything in his path."
"Don't listen to him, Dabi," Compress mutters. "He's stalling for time, planning something probably."
All For One shrugs. "Am I? You give me much more credit that I deserve, Atsuhiro. I'm not waiting on anything. I just wanted to chat before I squash the pathetic remnants of you worthless creatures I used to call allies. Tell me, Atsuhiro, what would your great-great grandfather, the infamous Fearless Thief, think of you now? You came from an impressive family with a flawless lineage of top-tier criminals. Aren't you the least embarrassed that you turned out to be nothing more than a burnt out theater kid?"
Compress doesn't say anything, and I have to say, I've never seen him so silent. He's a gossip, a taunter, a big talker. He's theatrical and confident and eccentric. He was built for the spotlight, and here he is beside me, forcing himself not to cower in the presence of this monster.
"And you," All For One says, his voice dropping from a passive-aggressive swing to a threatening growl. "You, Aizawa Shouta, have cause me so much trouble, do you know that? You took my son from me! You corrupted him with your altered sense of justice! You heroes aren't anything beyond flashing lights and shiny material for glossy billboards! You are a fraud!"
"You talk too much," is my half-hearted response.
All For One laughs, almost hysterically. "You know who else talked too much?!" He grabs Uraraka's lifeless body by the hair, his fingernails digging into the drying blood on her scalp. "This stupid little bitch! She kept screaming and crying and begging for you to come save her, Aizawa-sensei! She said she was afraid to die, that she still needed to apologize to Mina and Kyouka and on and on and on! God, the bitch just wouldn't shut up!"
Compress grabs my sleeve and gives me a stern look. "Think rationally," he whispers. "Can't fight in here. We need to get him outside first so Dabi's flames are effective."
I clench my jaw and fight back the urge to vomit. I'm getting dizzy, light headed. The room looks like it's swaying, like I'm on a small boat in the ocean slowly getting queasy. I hate it here. I want to rewind back a year or two, back when Hizashi, Nemuri, and I were Christmas shopping for all the kids. Back when we first learned about Eri's love for candy apples and Hitoshi's stupid schoolboy crush on Kaminari. I wish I could be home with my family, with my students, with my cat Lucy, and with Tenko.
But God forbid I get what I want, right?
"I have a friend who I helped escape from prison," All For One continues. "She's a riot, really. An ex-hero that worked for the Hero Commission, much like that little lovebird of yours, Touya."
"Don't call me that," Dabi snaps. All For One ignores him.
"Her name is Lady Nagant. She's obedient and spunky. I think I'll have her be the new leader after I kill off the rest of you. Well, Tomura specifically."
"You're not gonna lay a fucking finger on him," I say. "You've done enough damage."
The smile that creeps over his scarred face is enough to fuel my nightmares for the rest of my life. "Enough, you say? Oh, Mr. Aizawa. There is no such this as enough."
3rd person POV
Kaina Tsutsumi. Better known as Lady Nagant. Smart. Witty. Gorgeous. Powerful. She used to be an accessory of the Hero Commission, but she managed to break free and do as she pleased. Now she's an accessory of All For One, and there's very little chance that she'll be able to do it again.
While in prison, Kaina convinced herself that she didn't want to be her own person anymore. What had independence ever gotten her, anyways? Besides poverty and then a life sentence. Sure, when she was a soldier for the hero commission, she had gallons of blood on her hands and severe PTSD, but at least she had a place to stay. A warm bed to crawl into and the promise of a balanced breakfast in the morning. Being a pawn was dehumanizing, but at least it wasn't lonely.
So Lady Nagant is okay with doing All For One's bidding. She doesn't care about the nameless, faceless people he's ordering her to kill. She doesn't know them. And even if she did, prison numbed her out. She doesn't care, couldn't care, not even if she wanted to.
It's better this way, isn't it? Not caring? Kaina thinks so.
It's midnight when she arrives at Japan's National Prison. She and All For One were being held on a remote island away from the mainland in an attempt to make it harder for them to break out. And it was hard, Kaina could admit. But not hard enough to stop her from trying.
Stiffen your spine, soldier. Turn off your mind. Aim, breathe, and shoot.
She took out the six guards patrolling the area. With her quirk allowing her to extend a rifle from her left elbow, along with the air-walk quirk AFO gave her, Lady Nagant has no trouble breaking into the prison. Shoot a guard, take their key, enter the building. She breaks away at the prison layers like it's a video game, beating each pathetically easy level like it's child's play.
After fifteen minutes, give or take, Lady Nagant reaches the cell holding the former number one hero. He's in an orange prison jumpsuit with a quirk-cancelling cuff around his ankle. The walls of his cell are fire-proof, and the entire area is freezing cold. And it smells disgustingly sour, so much so that Kaina has to plug her nose as she approaches.
"Hey, shithead," she says, knocking on the cell door. Enji glances at her, confused, through the small gaps between the iron bars of the steel door's tiny box window. "You wanna get out of here or what?"
Enji furrows his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
"All For One sent me," she explains. "Says you might help us out in exchange for some revenge. Uh, you wanna kill that bird guy, right? Hawks?"
Enji's eyes flare with unadulterated rage. "Who told you that?"
Lady Nagant shrugs. "Big boss man. He said you had some grudge or something. I don't know the details. I've been in prison."
Enji turns his attention to the cement floor, scowling hard enough to kill. "I've been locked up for two years," he says. "Nobody, not even my own family, has visited me."
Lady Nagant shifts awkwardly on her feet. "Right... So, uh, are you in or what?"
"I've had a lot of time to think," Enji continues. "I've done horrible, horrible things to the people I was supposed to care for. To the people I was supposed to protect."
"Look, man, you're sad. I get it. Prison life is a bitch. But I seriously don't give a fuck. I either break you out of here and you help me some kill some people, or I leave you to rot in this cell for the rest of your life."
"You don't understand," Enji grumbles. "I hit my wife. I hit my kids. My family. My eldest son, he... I turned him into a monster. And Hawks... I never meant to hurt him. The alcohol a-and my hero ranking, the numbers and the money and the stress..."
Lady Nagant scoffs. "So what? You killed another hero? It's not that big of a deal. People fuck us over, we retaliate. Shit happens. It doesn't make you the bad guy just because--"
"You don't understand," Enji repeats, colder and sterner. "He didn't do anything to me. He was just a kid, maybe seventeen years old. He... I was pissed off and drunk and..."
Kaina freezes. She pales, feeling the colour drain from her face. "Y..you didn't...?"
Enji squeezes his eyes closed, pursing his lips into a thin line. "I raped him," he says. "Twice. And I sent bounty hunters after him. I manipulated his only friend into betraying him. And I feel awful for everything I've done, but I understand that it's too late for me to make amends. I need to stay here, in this cell. I need to rot here because I know that it's best for everyone. For Hawks, for my sons and daughter, and for my wife. So you can go on without me."
Kaina scowls at the floor. "I don't know you," she whispers. "I don't know what kind of man you are outside of your crimes. But I gotta say, if the man who sexually assaulted me opted to stay in a jail cell rather than get revenge, I think I'd be able to forgive him, just a tiny bit."
"You were--"
Lady Nagant holds up her palm, silencing him. "Don't. I don't want to talk about it, let alone with a fucking rapist. You still disgust me, man. But I see your progress. If you want, I could kill you."
Enji scoffs. "You act like it's doing me a favor. I hate myself for what I've done, sure, but I'm not suicidal."
Lady Nagant rolls her eyes. "It's either I put you out of your misery or you wait another thirty years and die in here anyways. I am doing you a favor. So just- yes or no?"
Enji purses his lip, cursing himself for even considering it. A few beats of silence roll over them, and slowly, Enji nods. He sits deathly still on his ragged cot as Lady Nagant unfolds her rifle arm, aiming the barrel of the gun through the iron bars. A bullet, small enough to dive through a keyhole, plunges into his head. And just like that, Enji Todoroki is dead. He flops over to the side, eyes dull and lifeless. Kaina has done this enough times to not feel guilty. She's killed so many people that it doesn't affect her anymore.
But she does stand still for a moment, just looking. She wonders if she should find this Hawks guy and tell him about Enji's guilt and regret and self-loathing. Or maybe the sons and daughter and wife. Would they want to know? Would they care?
Lady Nagant doesn't care. Well, she did, for a split second, but the second passes. She leaves the prison just as the reinforcements arrive, sneaking through the midnight shadows. Her orders from AFO were to break Endeavor out of prison and have him help her kill Hawks, Kurogiri, Recovery Girl, and Twice. She was told they were on their way to a warehouse in the mountains out west.
So Kaina sets out west and tries her best not to think about how pissed AFO will be when she tells him of his oh-so unfortunate, untimely death.
A/N: Another arc and new character that literally nobody asked for. I swear this story is gonna end soon T-T
I keep stalling because I keep getting ideas but I'm not used to writing fics this long and I don't want people to get bored so I'm sorry if this sucks </3
Also, the soundtrack for this chapter:
"Wait For It" from Hamilton
"She Keeps Me Up" by Nickleback
"Candy Rain" by Soul For Real
"I / Me / Myself" by Will Wood
"Sugar Rush" by Addison Grace
"Judas" by Lady Gaga
"Like Toy Soldiers" by Eminem
Lol look at that line up. My music taste is all over the place.