As the building midway between All for One, Shoto and Endeavour collapsed, a mighty bolt of lightning split the sky.

"Swap !"

Three lightning bolts struck almost simultaneously where All for One had stood a split second earlier, digging a crater and turning the earth upside down.

All for One leapt backwards four times in a row, thunder crashing behind him each time.

His senses sounded the alarm in his head.

On his left the wind whistled.

He barely had time to turn his head to the side and raise his hand to shield his face before a sword, bathed in a whitish, sizzling light, cut through his shoulder like butter.

All for One blinked in shock.

The sword sliced cleanly from his shoulder blade to his collarbone, went out of his torso, whirled and swung towards his throat.

Simultaneously, All for One heard the air crackle as if a thousand birds were chirping behind him.

The surrounding shadows stretched, driven away by an intense bluish light.

The sword grazed All for One's throat and froze, barely touching his skin, a trickle of blood rolling down his throat.

Standing behind All for One, sword in his left hand and chidori in his right, Shoto was once again immobilised by the invisible force.

All for One turned slowly and cautiously towards him, a triumphant glow in his eyes.

Shoto's gaze was cool, impassive.

All for One's fingers stretched towards him.

"You-"

A fireball as wide as the street slammed into All for One's back.

The second the flames struck All for One and sent him staggering forward, making him lose control of his Quirk, Shoto brought back his sword towards himself with a thread of chakra and shunshined to the nearest rooftop.

All for One was catapulted straight across the street.

He crashed through two parked cars which flipped several times from the collision then got turned to charred metal skeletons by the fire.

Endeavor walked slowly in the wake of his fireball, face hard and skin blue, flames running accross his forearms.

Shoto appeared to his left.

"Are you alright ?", Endeavor asked.

Neither of them looked away from All for One.

"Yes, I merely need to find a way of escaping his vigilance long enough to get inside his guard"

Shoto had a couple of seals on him.

If he got close enough, he could blow up All for One.

"I'll distract him", Endeavor said. "You finish him off"

Under normal circumstances, he would have made the safety and rescue of the civilians his first priority : yet All for One was far too dangerous for them to wilfully split their focus.

Shoto's sword blazed white, as if a thousand different winds blew back and forth across the blade in overlapping, opposing layers.

His sword sounded like a chainsaw.

"Alright", he said.

Between one thunderclap and the next, Shoto was gone.

All for One, who barely got through a second car, struggled to his feet, one hand on the ground for support.

Jaws clenched, he raised a bored eyebrow at the chaos before him.

He had landed at the foot of a road : civilians screamed at the sight of him and ran from their cars to escape.

The air was hot, for Endeavour was not far away, and even the tarmac beneath All for One's palms was warm.

Truly, he should have stolen his mother's Quirk when he had the opportunity.

The skin between his shoulder and neck swarmed as if alive while his flesh rebuilt itself.

His blood dripped down the hot tarmac, coagulating before his own eyes.

As soon as the rain hit the ground, it turned to hissing steam.

All for One's head snapped sideways : Shoto was half a step away, sword raised, red eyes glowing.

All for One decided on a new strategy.

He raised his palm then held it out towards Shoto.

The concrete beneath their feet rumbled then detached itself like a comma whose tip steered towards Shoto, before tearing itself fully off the ground and slamming into him.

The teenager's eyes widened.

All for One, his eyes irritated by the heat, blinked.

Shoto teleported to the wall of the neighbouring building, crouching vertically.

The building behind him was torn apart and chunks of cement and wall came crashing down on him from all directions.

Pieces of the street road broke off the ground and rushed towards him.

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The boy dodged them, slicing some, hitting others and reducing them to dust, but soon everything turned into a hellish tornado of which he was the magnetized epicentre.

All for One didn't wait : he lunged at Endeavour, standing in the middle of the street.

Endeavour looked startled.

His flames went out.

Then a wicked smile stretched his lips and he rolled up his sleeves.

"You want a repeat of your last beating, don't you ?"

All for One, surprised at first, smiled contemptuously.

He didn't even bother to reply and picked up speed.

His gaze landed on a piece of debris lying at Endeavour's feet.

"Swap"

The world distorted for a moment ; All for One blinked.

As the world stabilised, All for One was confronted by a curtain of flames crashing down on him.

Then a fist burst from the flames and slammed into his jaw with the force of four oxen, sending him headlong into the ground.

The blow didn't hurt, not really - All for One was too strong - but it hurt his ego, partly because Endeavour was a second-rate hero.

The moment All for One hit the ground, blackish protuberances sprang up from all over his body, lunging at Endeavour like snakes pouncing to bite.

The Hero made no move to retreat as his fire died.

Next the sword, accompanied by the hum of a chainsaw, sliced the protuberances perpendicular, shattering them as though slicing mirrors.

All for One, seeing Shoto, turned his head back to where he should have been, where a vast prison of concrete, rubble, lamp post and benches formed an uneven sphere.

A hole - as if someone had punched out part of the sphere - overlooked them.

All for One's muscles cracked as his head jerked back towards the teenager.

The chainsaw sword plunged into All For One's mouth, slicing the corners of his lips, going through his open mouth, shredding his throat until his neck.

Shoto, still holding the sword, raised his hand to the sky and twelve bolts of lightning rained down on him.

The lightning struck All for One and spread along the length of the sword, running across Shoto's crackling skin before he directed it all back at All for One.

All for One's muscles spasmed : the hole in his throat burned as if ablaze.

All for One, sword still in his throat, smiled, the corners of his dry lips torn by the blade.

It was the boy who had taught him that trick.

The lightning running on his skin turned black.

Shoto dropped the sword and stepped back, whirling towards his father.

All for One inhaled, storing the energy in his chest, then spat out a bolt of black lightning at Shoto.

The sword in his mouth was obliterated.

All for One blinked : the beam travelled in a straight line, bisecting the road in two and ripping through the ground for thirty meters.

Neither the boy nor his father were there anymore.

All for One got to his feet, red eyes sweeping the street, his damaged mouth and throat repairing themselves.

The boy was tenacious, he could at least give him that.

All for One wondered if he'd inherit his tenacity once he'd steal his power.

All of a sudden, his vision blurred.

He put his hand to his temple and blinked feverishly to clear his vision.

Had he made a mistake while transplanting the eyes ? Should he have waited longer before using them ?

But his healing Quirk should ensure that the grafting and assimilation went smoothly.

Even if he was unable to deactivate Aizawa's eyes, All for One had total and absolute control over them.

"Are you finally feeling the effects of it ?"

All for One raised his head to the sky where the voice had come from.

Shoto Todoroki stood on the edge of a roof, the dark, stormy sky, dancing in his back. White flashes of lightning tore across the sky behind him, colliding in a thunderous roar and then spreading out in a network of glowing webs.

One, stronger than the others, lit up the sky and Shoto's face.

His red eyes, alert, were locked on All for One, the black commas spinning lazily in his eyes.

He glared at him, chin raised, head tilted slightly to one side, damp hair falling across his forehead.

"You didn't think you were the only one who could use poison, did you ?", he asked

He pointed to his own throat, showing where he'd scratched All for One earlier.

Obviously All for One wasn't the only one who had learnt from his opponent.

'Two against one", All for One said, eyes going over the surrounding rooftops in search of the father. "It seems rather unfair"

The son didn't dignify the remark with a reply, and the father didn't show his face.

Bad idea. Endeavor was extremely dangerous if given time to do as he pleased with his Quirk.

Still, All for One smiled.

"You won't mind if I decide to shake things up a bit, will you ?"

All for One concentrated all his energy in his throat, then shouted:

"Rise !"

His scream - amplified by one of his Quirks - was so powerful that it drowned out even the roar of the storm, the echo reverberating throughout the city.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, across the city, blood-curdling bestial howls answered.

An army of Nomus emerged from the bowels of the city.

*

A/N : If you want to read ahead of schedule, go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG