One Hero For Them And Nine For All

Feliz Navidad

"How?" All Might asks simply.

"Hm?" AFO turns his head. "How what, you blonde buffoon?"

All Might smirks. "You actually resemble a human again. But with all those stolen powers floating about in you and that endlessly annoying wannabe villain talk, it's hard to tell."

AFO smirks back. "You're gonna make me do the thing where I explain how I did the thing? All things considered, I suppose it would fit in with my agenda."

Between adoring his own voice and being able to see and breathe properly again, AFO would thoroughly enjoy using his new body.

"It started after my attack on the USJ..."

-

PAST

-

The Demon Lord's one and only apprentice, Tomura Shigaraki, had just told him of what happened in the USJ. From his angry word salad, AFO picked out multiple important details.

1) It was only by sheer luck that they managed to get away. Everyone was so distracted by the two mossheads fighting each other that they had forgotten about them. Shigaraki managed to grab the unconscious Kurogiri and narrowly escape after the latter had awoken.

2) The mossheads. Shigaraki annoyingly never caught their names, but there were two of them, and they were almost identical aside from a few differences.

AFO, for the first time in a while, was genuinely confused by the two teens. They weren't related at all, and after a one-sided conversation, they got into a large-scale fight.

So, assuming the doppelganger was some guy with a weird transformation quirk, why would they use a face like the original mosshead's to infiltrate UA? Were they a villain from a larger group?

That couldn't be it. If it were an info gathering mission, they wouldn't bother facing Tomura's underlings in the USJ. And it couldn't be for the original mosshead since he apparently wasn't a student, and using his face would be redundant.

So, again, what the hell? The imitator and the original were connected in some way. But in what way? And what was the point of his actions?

AFO puts that thought on the backburner. He was genuinely interested and curious. Either the doppelganger did what he did for fun, or it was for some grander purpose he wasn't grasping. He'd learn eventually.

3) The mosshead who could talk, the real one, had One For All. Shigaraki made it obvious from the way he was describing it.

Pink smoke? The sixth. Flight? Seventh. Dark strands of energy? The fifth. He was stunned when he came to the realization that he could not only use the past user's quirks but also use all of the stockpiled power just fine.

Either All Might picked him up and trained him vigorously ever since he was four, or he's always been dangerously efficient with the quirk. A prodigy. Either way, the longer he existed, the bigger problem he would end up becoming.

The rest of Shigaraki's angry word salad was tossed out of his mind as he left him alone. At least he was uninjured.

"What do we do, Master?" The Demon Lord's most trusted companion, Garaki, asked. "Every day that passes, the Ninth holder grows exponentially. We can't take too long in dealing with him."

"I suppose this is my fault." AFO responds. "I created a quirk I couldn't control, and I kept trying to force it instead of just eliminating it. Once the Ninth is gone, I'll never make that mistake again."

No quirk or hero in existence, aside from Star and Stripe, could stand up to him except for One For All. Had he never created it, he'd be ruling the world by now.