Endless

14. Three Sided Coin

All For One knows he is called a villain, and maybe the title is correct. He wants to see a new age come to fruition, a golden age. But the world is so resistant to change, anything that goes against what they have is met with the title of 'villainous'.

So they call him villain and they believe that is what he is but the title should carry more meaning than that. A villain should be more than merely someone who disagrees with the status quo. Being honest with himself though, he likely meets all definition of villain there are, even if he has good reason.

Despite all his time as a villain— a man feared by all, even the greatest hero of all time— All For One finds himself afraid of the whispers.

He doesn't remember when they started. One day they were there, and it felt natural that they were there, even with the terror in his stomach like a straight cliff drop.

They give him advice, the whispers. They have no one voice, they are many and they are none. It's paradoxical, but he has no reason to believe it should make sense. He wonders if this is insanity, he wonders if this is the price of the immortality he forced upon his deteriorating body— all those stolen healing quirks.

They're intelligent. It's a crucial word, not smart, not clever, but intelligent. Smart and clever are the words you use to describe how wonderful your daughter is doing in school, isn't she just spectacular? Intelligent is the word you use when it's wonderful, true, but intelligence can be deadly too.

The whispers are intelligent. It is wonderful, and it is deadly.

They whisper ideas, half-formed plans he can provide a smooth finish for until they are sleek and sharp. They're nudges into directions he's never considered but really should've done. He's really so glad he gets to now.

He used to ask the whispers questions. He distinctly remembers making demands once. The whispers ignore him, or they cannot hear him. It's hard to understand something that seems to exist only within the confines of his own mind.

Perhaps the whispers came with a quirk that he picked up, a stowaway, a side effect, a drawback. Perhaps they are the quirk of another, perhaps he is a target of some mental attack. If so, it's the most helpful attack he's had the pleasure of experiencing.

Helpful, he muses, ignoring the fear.

It's been a long time since All For One felt fear. He's had no need for it in such a long time. He is the apex predator, the mastermind. There is nothing in this world that can face him, especially with All Might so grievously weakened. Yet, the whispers scare him.

It's not what they say. It's not how they say it. It is merely them. This faceless disembodied thing that helps him also induces such terror in him that he finds himself unable to breathe when those many and none voices slither into his ear.

It's strange and nonsensical and illogical and it shouldn't be. That does not change the fact that it is.

The whispers tell of how the future will go, as they've been doing for at least seven years now. He has a plan full of steps and stages, and this today— as the whispers so kindly remind him— is the beginning of the end.

His successor, a scared little boy he's raised to be Shigaraki Tomura, takes a child. It happens under the nose of the great monument of heroics, UA.

Society is destabilising, the pillars that hold it up are crumbling. All For One grins, knowing the deterioration will only continue.

It takes destruction to rebuild a world, so that is what All For One must do.

Now, All For One stands tall, his protégée before him with the powerful League he has created— created twice, after the first attempt was thwarted by betrayal; it taught Shigaraki much— and the stolen child close by, the whispers behind him. The whispers are loud, almost cawing. He's never heard them sound so excited before. They know the time, they know the power, they know the importance. Today is a day of greatness.