All eyes were on Nezu.

He, of course, had expected such an outcome.

Shirai and Pantu hadn’t, which was why they looked so grim.

On the screen overlooking the monitor room, they could see All Might and Shoto, speechless, looking around as if they didn't know what to do.

Shoto really must have made a number on All for One if he didn’t even dare to come and see what would happen.

"You said he'd come", said Shirai calmly, though there was an edge to his voice. "I gave you free control over the operation because you guaranteed us he'd come"

"There were 95% chances he'd come", said Nezu. "It seemed close enough to a full success that I believed we couldn't pass on the opportunity"

Pantu inhaled slowly through gritted teeth, trying to calm down her nerves.

His plan had failed and he had the audacity of acting like a smart ass.

How much she wanted to strangle this rat.

“Now what ?”, she asked

Nezu, calm and collected, pressed a button on the panel.

“Now we start Plan B”

All Might's and Shoto's images slid to a corner of the screen, and a huge map of Tokyo and its surroundings appeared.

Red dots were scattered all over the place in a seemingly random pattern.

“What is this ?

“These are places that I believe to be All for One’s last nomu's hideouts”

They all froze.

Shirai shot Nezu an unnerving glance as if he wanted to rip his head off his shoulders.

“For how long did you know about this ?”

Nezu was brushing cookie crumbs that had fallen on his jacket.

“Since All for One’s last apparition in Tokyo”

Pantu was losing her cool.

"And you did not believe it necessary to inform us ?"

“No”

Shirai’s sharp gaze was strained on Nezu.

He knew that Nezu was trying to assert his dominance by giving them crumbs of information.

He wanted them to know he was a valuable asset and that

Shirai leaned back against his chair while he assessed him : was he doing this only because they didn't ask for his help when All for One had hit ?

“Even if I had told you", he explained. "It would've served no purpose except possibly jeopardizing my plan. All for One's right hand was monitoring these places frequently and I had to be sure there were no other hideouts hidden somewhere else"

Such a blow would hurt All for One far deeper than anything else could.

Nezu had tried to find All for One's right-hand man for years and had only managed to do so thanks to the recent events.

Rather than focusing on foolish things such as casualties and death toll like everyone else, Nezu had created a simulation in which he’d put all of the Nomus’s precise locations as mapped by the Commission’s Intelligence Department.

This had enabled him to work out where the Nomus had roughly come from and, thus, had reduced the perimeter of All for One’s hideouts.

Granted, he had to steal a few classified documents from the Commission, but it had been for the greater good.

He'd used one of his newly created AI to run background checks on every place of the suspicious zones before thoroughly investigating the most relevant (relevance being mostly determined by the size of the place, as Nomus laboratories necessitated important space).

“I believed the Commission found all of All for One’s hideout”, Shirai said, looking at the screen

“The Commission found all of the underground bases", explained Nezu. "They were so focused on the fact that a labyrinth was running through the city that they didn't stop to consider that there could be out-of-ground places that the labyrinth could not reach"

It was clever : if the authorities had found the above-ground bases, they wouldn't have known about the labyrinth.

If they found the labyrinth, they wouldn’t have even considered the utmost possibility of bases not linked to it.

“You do not have the clearance to hold this kind of information from us", said Pantu harshly

“I do, actually”

Nezu smiled, mirth dancing in his eyes, hands crossed behind his back.

“I am merely a civilian with no power whatsoever. How could I be held accountable for trying to help our beautiful country ?”

Pantu’s mouth twitched.

This rat and his obsession for Japan-

Nezu pushed another button, and a new picture appeared on the screen.

Pantu shut up when she saw it and Shirai frowned.

“What does that mean?”, he asked

While running background checks on the places he believed to hold Nomus, Nezu had stumbled upon the name of a prominent scientist he'd been following for years.

Nezu knew two things about him :

One, he'd been the most vocal and ardent supporter of 'The Origin of Quirks' theory.

“It means that we can deal a fatal blow to All for One”

Two, he was the one who had adopted Tomura Shigaraki.

Nezu looked coolly at Shirai and Pantu – even she was looking intently at the screen.

“This is Tokyo’s central hospital, and, incidentally, where our mole currently is"

*

Dr Garaki smiled and greeted his colleagues as he walked through the corridors leading up to his office.

As soon as he went past them, his smile vanished.

Today should have been a big day : they would've finally gotten their hands on the One for All.

Yet All for One had refused to take any part in it.

Garaki had argued – they had never been so close as to see how this Quirk transferring worked – but All for One hadn’t even listened to him.

It was out of caution, of course.

It had been the first time in centuries that All for One had been injured so badly.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

His regeneration hadn’t even kicked in.

Garaki had spent the night following Tokyo’s attack doing surgery after surgery trying to keep All for One alive.

He’d nearly lost him twice.

The amount of blood he'd lost had been so important that Garaki had had to go back to the hospital – even though he was supposed to be on holiday abroad – in the middle of the night to steal precious blood.

All for One had been too frail to even steal a self-regenerative Quirk : his cells would not endure the sheer energy needed for him to self-reconstruct.

It had taken ten days for his body to mend the gaping hole in his chest.

Garaki had been so worried he was barely able to sleep, jolted awake by nightmares of maggots swarming and crawling across All for One's ripped stomach.

All for One had fallen off Black Mist's portal and onto the operating table like a bag of dead meat, making Garaki jump in fright.

The sight of him – limbless – had startled Garaki so much that, for an instant, he’d been frozen on the spot, watching blood pooling on the table and dripping down the floor.

He'd been a damaged head attached to a caved-in torso.

Garaki had believed himself numb to blood and human violence yet even he had felt nauseous at All for One’s sight.

Even the new, shiny, wide-opened red eyes, embedded in his head hadn't managed to elicit the slightest excitement from him.

He'd felt horrified when he'd seen the state of his oldest friend, horrified when he worked on him, horrified when, hours later, he washed blood off his hands.

It had been excruciating, painful months.

But they managed. They always did.

Garaki whistled happily as he went back to his office

He greeted a nurse and decided to take the staircase : his belly started to rest on his belt and it made him less attractive than he should be.

He said hello to a nurse and went upstairs, a certain gait to his walk.

All for One's limbs had finally all grown back, and he could now handle himself to a certain extent.

He’d still have to check on him tonight.

Garaki opened the door to his office.

It was pitch black.

He flickered the light on, but the office was still shrouded in darkness.

Certainly, the bulb had burned out.

He let the door open and went to open the curtains but hit his knee against his desk.

He cursed and hissed, rubbing the sore spot.

That’s when he noticed something move in the corner of his eyes.

He turned his head to the left.

There was nothing but his usual diplomas and academic rewards.

The door shut closed.

Garaki jumped, startled, his glasses falling off his nose.

He went on all four to find his glasses.

It was pitch black now, and without them, he was utterly blind.

His left hand brushed a solid surface. He grabbed it, relieved, before freezing.

Sweat started rolling down his neck.

This wasn’t his glasses.

“I hate shadow traveling”, grumbled a voice. “Truly makes me sick”

Darkness drowned Garaki.

*

Katsuki and I were at the back of a van.

It had been a few minutes since we had received our new orders, and we were already on the road to our first target.

He was sitting utterly still, eyes closed, yet there was a faint tremor in his hands.

“We’ll manage”, I said

His eyelids opened on anxious red eyes.

“There’ll be Nomus”

“Sleeping Nomus”, I said. “They’re not finished products. They can’t do anything”

“You know what they did to Mirko”

My fist lightly hit his shoulder.

“She was alone. We’re not. We’ll protect each other”

Katsuki, though hesitantly, nodded.

All Might had been deemed too strong to have a partner : he'd been sent alone, as well as Jin Woo who had disappeared who knows where.

The operation was called Blitz Kreig for a reason : we’d have to hit hard, and we’d have to hit fast.

We would bring All for One to his knees, and we would do it today.

“We’re here”, said the soldier driving

*

Katsuki and I stood at the threshold of an abandoned school.

The soldiers were securing the perimeter and would enter once we'd assured the first level was clear.

Yellow lightning started crackling around Katsuki ; his hair floated above his head, and veins popped along his skin.

I turned on my Sharingan and waited for our last orders, clenching my fists in anticipation, adrenaline rising like a raging fire through my veins.

Our radio crackled.

Pantu’s voice, loud and clear, rang in the empty hallway.

"Your primary objective is to destroy every Nomu tank without waking them up. You will certainly find documents about the experiments conducted here : bring them to me"

“Understood”, we said

And that’s when my earring turned on.

“You can’t let the Commission get these documents”, said Nezu. “Bring them back to me”

*

BONUS :

It was the first time in his life that All for One had come close to being killed.

He’d had his first share of fear during the early days of the Quirks’ Awakening War – there truly were mad men at this period – and he’d brushed death a couple of times back then.

He'd had to work hard to keep himself and his family alive.

Now and then he'd see the rise of an extremely dangerous individual : the last one had been Sangiorgi, a man who’d had telekinesis at an unprecedented level.

He’d taken his wife’s name when he’d married, which was why All for One had failed to connect the dots when he’d first heard of this Todoroki kid – that and the fact that both were a century and a continent apart.

All for One may have been a very smart individual, he couldn’t remember every person he ever met.

All for One remembered carefully backing away : the woman’s Quirk – a fire One - wasn’t worth getting such a man on his tail for the rest of his life, despite how monstrous of a Quirk it was.

Wasn’t it ironic how close to fifty years later the grandson of the man who’d already chased him down had nearly killed him ?

For the first time in a long, long while, All for One had truly been close to dying.

He’d been so shocked he’d turned completely hysterical.

With unnerving accuracy due to his regenerative Quirks, he'd felt his organs shut down one after the other and had felt his burnt flesh collapsing in the pit that was left of his stomach.

He’d felt the breeze of the air against his wet intestines and had heard ants crawling up his body as if he were already dead.

His self-regeneration Quirk had kicked in and tried to get energy from his cells to restore him but he'd been hurt so badly it had felt as if his Quirk was eating him from inside out.

It had taken weeks to regenerate properly. Weeks.

It should’ve taken a mere few hours.

And once he’d grown strong enough, All for One had learned that Tokyo was under Martial Law and that all of the Nomus they’d sent had been wiped out.

Utterly wiped out.

It had been a massive loss.

Creating Nomus took months of refinement even for the weakest of them : finding a body strong enough to hold onto the mutations and additional Quirks was difficult enough without even considering abducting people without raising any red flags.

And this was without considering the time and resources spent on finding said individuals.

Each Nomu lost had hurt All for One deeply.

Getting Eraser's Quirk had barely been any consolation: the kid was immune to it.

Then they’d learned that he would get the One for All.

The shock he'd felt had nearly sent him back into a coma.

His heart had skipped a beat and, in his condition, it'd sent him into cardiac arrest.

Thankfully Garaki had been there, but it had been a close call.

All for One knew that if he had had the strength, he would've gone if only to avoid the kid getting his hands on it.

He was already a monster, and such Quirk would only propel him to unheard level of power – level All for One could not compete with.

Yet he couldn’t stop it.

All for One may have been an extremely ambitious man, he was far from foolish.

Crashing the One for All’s passing down in his state would’ve been utter suicide.

It had made him bitter.

It was the first time in his life he would’ve been so close to getting the One for All.

Considering how young the kid was, he would probably live at least for the next fifty years – and that was without considering any hidden immortal ability he may have had.

God how he hated this fucker.

He’d have to hide and wait, gather his strength in the dark like he’d always done.

As things were, All for One wouldn't be able to get out of hiding for at least the next decade.

He was used to it.

But how much he hated it.

He'd have to stay in Japan until he grew strong enough not to be fodder – which would take at least until next summer – before scouring the world and searching for new talents.

Shigaraki had been interesting but too unstable.

If-

Suddenly, all of the monitors in the control room rang.

It meant emergency.

All for One hardly managed to get himself out of bed.

Wheezing, he pushed his body in a wheelchair where he collapsed.

Through great efforts, he managed to drag himself to the monitor room.

He stopped short in front of the various screens, beads of sweat rolling down his body.

His cheeks were hollowed, so much so that every breath he took in made him look as if he were sucking his skin inside.

Recordings of their last bases scattered throughout Tokyo showed soldiers and Heroes alike destroying Nomu’s tanks.

On the bottom corner, he saw Todoroki burning down the place ; and then, suddenly, a blond teen emerged from above in a burst of explosion before hitting a glass tank.

The tank shattered like rain, shards flying everywhere.

The impact his fist had made sent a tornado of wind flying everywhere.

All for One blinked.

Oh.

He couldn't even bring himself to be angry. The painkillers numbed him.

He understood, now.

The rat had set a trap.

Todoroki would have never gotten the One for All – they’d spread misinformation to lure him.

If he'd gone, they would've killed him.

And because he didn’t, they-

His eyes slid to the right corner of the screen.

The life monitor of Dr Garaki’s grew wild before shutting off completely.

All for One watched in silence as his last hideouts were ransacked.

He should have, what, one last hideout left in the whole country?

All of the Nomus would die peacefully in a matter of months.

Garaki had been the one to monitor the scientific aspect of their project.

All for One understood to some degree what it entailed, but there was a reason why he had a right-hand man.

He watched passively as all of the work of the last decades was destroyed in front of his very eyes.

He wouldn’t be able to recover from that.

This era was over for him.

He’d tried, and he’d lost.

Yet he didn’t play on the same scale.

His eyes slid back to Todoroki and his blond friend working side by side.

Truly a fearsome duo – and they weren’t even at their prime yet.

All for One smiled.

“You won”

He wasn’t even bitter about it.

He’d been outsmarted, outclassed at every level.

One day, he’d come back – but he’d come back once they were all dead.

He may have been checkmated, but the next century would be his.

*

A/N : All for One is basically immortal (in terms of life span) and what do immortals have spades of ? Time.

No way he'd throw his life out the window to fight when he knows he'll lose when the pettiest thing he can do is outlive his ennemies and dance on their graves.

Three chapters left until I finish Part 2 and take a one week break everyone.

Anyway, thanks for reading the chapter everyone, and commenting, check the story's P@treon if you're not too broke and see y'all in the next update !