Howdy all! I'd just like to say thanks once again for reading another one of my little stories, and would like to put up a disclaimer here real quick. Firstly, this chapter is going to be the darkest of all chapters in the story, as Izuku busts out of prison. I actually intend for this to be a rather fluffy romantic love story with some comedy thrown in, but after being trapped in Tartarus for a long time Izuku's got a little damage in his skull. That being said, as a recap, this is the darkest chapter in the story and everything after it is going to be considerably lighter. Prepare yourself for a bit of harsh language, darker themes, suicidal thoughts, and a few graphic descriptions (nothing disgusting though, don't worry. I dislike gore.)

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing in this story, and all rights to the characters within go to their respective owners.

I'm not All for One, I swear! It's me, Izuku!

Chapter 1

I wanted to stop a prison break, not start one!

One year, four months, three weeks, four days, twenty-three hours, eighteen minutes and forty-three seconds, give or take the amount of time he spent asleep and lost track of his counting. Factoring in that information, it was reasonable to assume that he may have skipped over a month or two in his count, but he was beyond caring at this point.

In any case, he'd spent roughly that amount of time imprisoned here, restrained in this infernal chair. It wasn't even comfortable. Izuku had a lot of time on his restrained hands to think about random subjects, from the sciences to philosophical debate… but eventually even those trains of thought had reached their destination and he was forced to ponder others to occupy the time.

Namely random bullshit that didn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. If Izuku was being honest with himself, and he was forcing himself to do that a lot more in the vain hope that whatever God saw fit to deliver unto him this punishment would forgive him should he atone for… whatever it was he had done wrong.

Currently, the best guess for his sin was how dishonest he had been with everyone, even if he told himself it was for a good reason. Protecting All Might. Wait! He got distracted again, he was thinking about… the chair, yes.

He loathed this chair.

If he was being honest with himself, he'd prefer being stuck inside those plastic things bolted to the desks back in class 1-A. The one he was currently strapped into had no padding, no arch support, no ergonomics, and was the very definition of brutalist architecture in chair format.

Oh…

Class 1-A…

Izuku shook his head to dispel the intrusive thoughts, doing his best to disregard his past life. The medical mask on his face pumping oxygen into his damaged lungs slid uncomfortably around scarred skin as he did so. Simultaneously, the barrels of six different ceiling mounted machine guns adjusted their aim ever so slightly, zeroing in on his head and chest as they subtly shifted around.

Still, he felt assured that they wouldn't fire. So long as he didn't activate (or think about activating) any quirks, nothing would happen. He learned that the hard way mere minutes after he first woke up in the body of All for One. It was really drilled into his skull what would occur when his 'new' Super-Regeneration Quirk kicked in immediately after he was shot, causing every gun in the vicinity to unleash holy hellfire on the undying corpse sitting in the chair. It took a manual override from the control room situated off to his right to force the firing to stop and even then, he was subjected to painful electrical shocks until he fell unconscious. All of that just so the damned doctors of this facility could come and reconnect his battered body to that accursed life support machine.

Perhaps the worst part of this whole situation was that no one spoke to him beyond demanding he respond to the doctor that stopped by occasionally to ask questions about his health. Even when he was being fed by an attendant, he wasn't talked to, nor were his words acknowledged. Izuku was no stranger to social isolation, his childhood was practically filled with nothing but that in between getting yelled at and burned by Kacchan but even then, he had his mother to chat with at the end of the day. His lifeboat.

Here, he had nothing.

Of course, he tried to talk after the doctors were done strapping him back in a bullet hole-free straightjacket and explain the situation to them. How he had stupidly thrown himself into oncoming traffic to save the life of a little girl whose ball had rolled away from her onto the street, pushing her clear and taking the impact himself. How he was actually Izuku Midoriya, aspiring hero and All Might fanatic. How bringing down any one member of faculty from UA to just hear him out would clear up this misunderstanding, and they could work on a plan for fixing the situation he found himself in.

The first week of his constant pleading he was reminded with an automated message that prisoners should not speak unless spoken too. The second week, guards started loudly demanding over the intercom that he shut up and take his punishment 'like a man'.

On the third week, those assigned to guard him had enough and forced the mounted guns to fire on the restrained figure, and he spent three agonizing minutes in hell as Super-Regeneration kicked in, repairing all the damage he suffered at the cost of forcing the Quirk-activated guns to keep firing. He'd never felt so glad when the high-voltage electric shocks knocked him unconscious.

That was the last time anyone had talked to him beyond barking orders; when the Warden announced an annoyed and clearly insincere apology for his staff's behavior over the intercom, assuring Izuku that they would be going through a mandatory 'ten-minute corrective training course'. He could practically hear the sneer in his apology.

Unlike when he had broken his bones intentionally when he was still getting used to One for All, Izuku decided to actually take a lesson from the pain he had suffered through and shut the hell up.

All of this meant that for the last… ugh, what was it now? It'd probably been at least 10 minutes since his last count… yeah that sounded about right.

All of this meant that for the last year, four months, three weeks, four days, twenty-three hours, twenty-eight minutes and thirty-nine seconds, he had been imprisoned in Tartarus, unmoving and unspeaking unless directed to.

Izuku had a lot of time to ponder the battered body his consciousness now resided inside and explored every nook and cranny of its mind. What remained of All for One seemed… fragmented though. At least, that's the best way Izuku could explain it.

It was as if Izuku had moved into a new house (or in this case a body) and the previous owner left behind some of his furniture and personal belongings. As much as he wanted to deny it, he admitted there was a 99% chance that there was a subtle difference between the Izuku who had thrown himself in front of the truck and the Izuku currently strapped into this angular, blocky excuse for a chair.

Cementoss probably could've created something more comfortable for God's sake.

Wait, no. He was getting distracted again. What was he… yes! His mental shifts.

He recognized that his consciousness had a little something… extra glued onto it. He felt slightly different than before. That… that worried him. He had long ago abandoned the notion of understanding whatever happened to put his consciousness in All for One's body, but he never could shake the feeling this was all part of some elaborate escape attempt. Some days he tried to discard that notion, but it was honestly one of the few plausible answers he could come up with. Beyond divine punishment, of course.

In any case, Izuku recognized that there was likely a little bit of All for One inside him now, even as he assured himself that Izuku was still Izuku. His first clue came when he tried to analyze the events leading up to his consciousness swap, and how he had saved the little girl. Or at least, hoped he saved her.

Yeah, he saved her from the semi-truck, that much he could remember before everything went dark, but the little girl was still on the road, he only pushed her away from the immediate threat. Still, he liked to think that his bloodied corpse frightened enough of the drivers on the road into slowing down or stopping all together.

Heh…

He shook his head once more to dispel the humorous image of his classmates gazing down with tear filled eyes as the hero-wannabe Deku lay broken and bleeding in the road.

No…

There, that right there. That was exactly what he was talking about. What part of his bleeding and broken corpse was funny? That was… disgusting! Sighing, he forced his thoughts to go back to when he saved the child. As per usual when he thought of the event, a new, instinctive reaction appeared. A new thought that he knew he'd not had before.

Why?

Why would he dive in front of the truck?

If Izuku had tear-ducts, he'd be crying right now; and if he had eyes, they'd be watery. As it was, all he could do was take short, shaky breaths as his damaged respiratory system shuddered. He knew the answer, because it's what a hero would do. It didn't matter what happened to him, if he could save somebody, then he would do it without hesitation, no matter the person. If Shigiraki was hanging off a ledge and about to fall, Izuku knew he'd be the first person to reach out a hand and save him.

But why?

This was his life now. It was like… the insides of All for One had been scooped out and replaced with Izuku, and the remaining outer layer of the villain had combined with its new innards. The thought that All for One was entirely whole, buried deep inside his mind and just waiting to escape flashed through his mind yet again. But whenever he tried to search for the villain inside his head… he found nothing. Emptiness.

Izuku was certain that his old body was dead. Right before he found himself in this body, he felt… nearly everything inside his old one break. His organs exploded from the force of the hit, shattered ribs puncturing anything that remained marginally functional in his chest cavity.

One of the many theories he'd come up with during his time in the chair was that he underwent a consciousness swap, not just a replacement. By that, he meant that All for One's mind had entered Izuku's body, and Izuku entered All for One's.

He heard mumbling from the guards occasionally, sometimes they even purposely left the intercom on so they could taunt him with their conversation. Any attempt to communicate back would be met with a shock. They talked about their jobs and the prisoners they watched over, and even villains that were at large and expected to be transferred to Tartarus upon their capture, but he never heard anything about Izuku. Or rather, his old body.

Knowing All for One, he wouldn't just turn over a new leaf and try to live a normal life. He'd crawl his way back into a position of power by using Izuku's body and would've murdered everyone at UA by now, or at the very least All Might.

Plus, when the guards mentioned awhile back that All Might had made a rather emotional televised statement about traffic safety, citing the death of one of his students, Izuku knew. His old body was dead, and any consciousness that resided inside his body at that time had died with it.

For probably the millionth time in his relatively short new life, Izuku shook his head. It was so easy to get distracted. Right, All for One hiding in his head. What's the probability? About 8%, if he had to hazard a guess.

That was another thing he'd picked up. He now liked to think of things in terms of percentages, and found comfort in compartmentalizing information into handy numbers. Perhaps it was due to an intelligence boosting quirk or something, maybe one that allowed him to do math really well. It'd certainly explain why whenever he thought back to old math problems he'd done in the past, he readily found the answer popped into his head like he had a calculator on his person at all times.

He sighed again. It really was a low point in his life when he started redoing old math tests in his head just to stave off the boredom. Couldn't they have at least given him like, a TV or something? Wait… he had no eyes.

Ugh… how could he keep forgetting that?

There were exactly two things that prevented him from just offing himself. One, Super-Regeneration. That damnable quirk seemingly had like, no drawback whatsoever, besides being unable to heal scarred tissue or wounds that were cauterized. Basically, the wound needed to be fresh. In any case, there was the distinct possibility that Izuku snapping his own neck by utilizing one of his many strength augmentation quirks would just result in his neck being healed, and while he had an idea of how to permanently end himself, he didn't know how he'd be able to move his arm into a position that would allow him to decapitate himself. The restraints keeping him immobilized may have looked like plain cloth and nylon, but they were as strong as steel. He could undoubtedly break out of them, but not before the guns or electric shocks immobilized him.

Secondly, and more importantly, he had a new goal. While he couldn't use any one of the vast multitude of quirks housed in All for One's body due to the guns pointed at him, pain has a way of making one lose the concentration required to utilize a quirk properly after all, he was able to sort of… peruse his inventory.

Take stock of what he owned.

Izuku sighed. He didn't own these Quirks, every single one of them beyond the original was stolen. Every single one… besides All for One.

A smile came to his thin, damaged lips which he quickly crushed. It was ironic, really. The more Izuku thought about it, the more he realized that the names should have been switched around. One for All and All for One… it would've been a more apt description if their names were swapped.

All Might's former Quirk, One for All, contained the very souls of those who had the Quirk in the past, in addition to any Quirks that the users themselves had. They combined into the 'core' of One for All, and gave its current user that incredible power. All of its previous users Quirks… for one person to use.

Meanwhile the Quirk All for One certainly had the capability of stealing Quirks from others, the several hundred that Izuku could feel inside of him was a testament to that, but it could also give them to people. One single Quirk, that could give power to anybody.

If only All for One had been a nicer person. He would've made for a great hero. Wait! He got distracted again…

His head shook more, finding the ability to chuckle lightly as he imagined what the guns pointed at his head looked like as they danced with his movements. He'd have used his Infrared Vision Quirk to actually see it, but he'd have been shot for doing so.

As he had been in the past.

For now, he'd just have to continue to suffer in the darkness.

He sighed. Idly, he noticed he tended to do that quite a lot. Right, right, his goal, his new dream. The one thing he had to keep him going in this world.

He didn't want to be a hero anymore. Maybe it was that little bit of All for One that was now stuck atop his consciousness, maybe it was the deep-seated hatred he had begun to fester within himself when the guards read a letter addressed to him written by his former homeroom teacher. The one where he spelled out his complete and total disinterest in meeting with the man, in addition to the lack of caring showcased by apparently every other staff member at the school, a not at all subtle warning to never speak Izuku's name ever again, accompanied by a very nice reminder to 'eat healthy and exercise properly'.

Exercise in Tartarus amounted to the electrodes placed around his body being activated at a low voltage to keep his muscles from atrophying, plus a foul-tasting cocktail of drugs and vitamins to eat with his nutrient slop that was served in place of actual food.

He didn't blame Aizawa, or anyone else for that matter though. He knew exactly what it sounded like. Still, if they had just sent down somebody, anybody at all, he might have had an opportunity to get out of here. They denied him even that. Weren't Heroes supposed to help everybody, even their worst enemies? That's what being a Hero was all about. Butting into things where they didn't belong if they noticed something was amiss.

Still, that didn't mean he wanted to be a villain. The very thought of hurting someone, even the idea of taking someone else's Quirk forcefully… it sickened him. He could never do that. With… one exception. But he'd get to that later.

No, he had one very simple goal, and a plan for the future. Searching through his vast inventory of Quirks, he'd stumbled across one he'd worked with in his past life. When he was still Deku. He'd found Search; Ragdoll's stolen Quirk.

Curiously, he also understood that it wasn't the original Quirk he had, but rather a copy. He didn't have access to All for One's memories beyond a few fragmented bits and pieces, and all of them were random. The fact that about twenty of them appeared to be of him eating food was testament to that. But one of the memory fragments he had was of All for One talking with his close confidant and doctor, about his Quirk replication procedure.

Izuku instinctively knew that All for One was currently holding onto a carbon copy of Ragdoll's Quirk, as well as his own Quirk, All for One. The current holder of the original version of both of those Quirks… was Tomura Shigiraki.

Or he soon would be. Through the scraps of memories he could pick through, Izuku understood that All for One wanted Shigiraki to have his quirk and follow in his footsteps, whether or not that had occurred yet was something that Izuku was unsure of. He didn't really get access to outside information in here. Still, the guards weren't acting like the world outside was ending, so he felt confident Shigiraki wasn't in control of the power yet, and quite possibly never would be.

In any case, Shigiraki wasn't his problem anymore. Was it callous to think that? Perhaps. But Izuku was tired. Tired of everything. He just wanted to wake up, go to school with his friends, and be happy. He hadn't felt happiness in a long time until he went to UA and acquired his first honest to goodness friends in too many years.

He missed his friends…

As of now, he hadn't felt happiness for one year, four months, three weeks, four days, twenty-three hours, thirty-four minutes and eleven seconds.

He'd take the raw deal of waking up as a Quirkless weakling again too, at least then he'd get to hug his mother, tell her he loved her, and eat her katsudon once more.

He missed katsudon…

He smashed his skull into the back of his chair, eliciting a warning beep from the machine as the guns trained more closely on him. He knew the guards were on alert as well, intently watching his movements.

But he didn't care. He just needed to forget all of that. Izuku Midoriya was dead.

His goal was simple. He was going to get out of this hell hole, somehow, someway, and he was going to do one final act of good. He refused to die in this body without having helped anybody. He was going to find Ragdoll and give her back the Quirk she had forcefully ripped out of her body, so she could resume her work as a Pro Hero. He knew what being Quirkless was like. But having a Quirk all your life and then having it ripped away… it must be some kind of hell. Especially when her teammates continued to operate just fine without her direct assistance.

As for Izuku himself… well he wasn't sure. A part of him was screaming for him to just end it, to kill himself. But he'd been in situations like this before. Well… not like Tartarus but… suicidal thoughts. He'd battled with them before, so he knew from experience that waiting for a new day can really change one's outlook. So, while right now he couldn't find a reason to live beyond helping Ragdoll, he did understand that he may find a new one after he completed his goal. One thing he was entirely certain of however, is that he wasn't going to try and go back to his old life.

Izuku Midoriya was dead. He'd been dead for quite some time. Ignoring that little voice in the back of his head that told him nobody cared, Izuku understood that people mourned for him. His classmates. His mother. All Might. Aizawa himself probably skipped school for a few days to hide in his house; Izuku knew that the gruff man actually did care a great deal about his students.

That was just it though. It wasn't fair to them. Izuku couldn't just try and step back into those bright red shoes he always wore and go about life like nothing happened. Not to mention, he was now in possession of one of the most powerful Quirks in existence.

And several hundred others.

He was a liability. A major security risk. Even if through some magical means, the entire truth about Izuku's situation came to light, and people believed it, it wouldn't matter. He was a walking nightmare on legs, and all his friend's— no. All his former friend's hands would be tied on the matter. No amount of rep with All Might or UA would prevent Izuku from just being thrown back in Tartarus or some other similar prison for safety reasons.

And to be honest, Izuku understood. Truly. He knew the man whose body he now inhabited. Plus, with the possibility that All for One was still lurking somewhere in the depths of his mind, he could potentially be a ticking time bomb.

Coincidentally, Time Bomb that was another Quirk that Izuku understood he possessed. It was one he had filed under a mental cabinet labeled 'useless' because the quirk activated upon his death and would cause all of his organs to swell with blood and then explode. Not even in a destructive blast either, they'd just swell and burst pathetically.

Why All for One ever decided he needed to steal that Quirk from somebody, Izuku didn't understand. It was, however, nice that All for One (the Quirk) seemed to come with the ability to have a basic understanding of how to utilize any Quirks that were stolen with it.

Izuku shook his head again. He kept getting distracted… right, his life after succeeding with his goal.

To recap, didn't want to be a Hero, was never going to be a Villain in this life or the next, and wasn't entirely sure he wanted to kill himself. That left one last option he could think of, and it seemed pretty appealing to him. Just… running away.

Going off and living the life he seemed destined for at birth, that of a nobody. Not that he was saying being a nobody was bad, mind you, but just… being your average citizen. Didn't get in trouble with the law, maybe had a family, and never accomplished anything noteworthy in life.

That… sounded quite appealing to Izuku right about now. A family was something he hardly gave a second thought to in the past, since he was so young, had so many goals and desires to fulfill. Now that he had literally nothing but spare time on his hands though, he often thought about the what-ifs. What could have been. What may come!

Izuku liked the idea of being a Dad, it sounded… nice. He couldn't even remember what his own father looked like… and that hurt. All he had were pictures and the occasional phone call. It hurt when his Mom dodged the question of whether or not Izuku could be a Hero without a Quirk. He wouldn't make those same mistakes. If his son or daughter happened to be Quirkless and still wanted to be a great Hero… well who was Izuku to deny them that wish?

After all, he had a literal arsenal of Quirks they could freely pick and choose from. He could probably give them multiple ones if they really wanted.

The idea of suicide receded farther and farther back in Izuku's mind as he imagined a life where he had someone he loved at his side, and a beautiful child or two between them. Perhaps it was the social isolation and borderline torture he was going through that brought out all these thoughts, but the idea of family, the inseparable bond of blood and love… he wanted it more than he'd ever wanted to be a Hero.

Well… maybe not more than his previous desire to be a Hero. But that was in a past life. The world had moved on from Izuku Midoriya, and it was time he moved on too.

The only thing standing between him and Ragdoll, and by extension his eventual quiet life after helping her, was several thousand tons of steel reinforced concrete, armed guards, automated defense systems, and his crippling injuries that literally kept him more restrained than the actual physical restraints to this WORTHLESS EXCUSE OF A CHAIR!

The life support monitors rapidly beeped as his heartrate skyrocketed and he momentarily lost his cool, thrashing about in a desperate bid to achieve any modicum of comfort on the slab.

Prisoner 5687, cease your actions at once and—

"Maybe if you FUCKS invested any money at all into, I don't know… GODDAMNED PILLOWS, I might consider CALMING DOWN!" he screamed, devoid of any emotion beyond blind rage. His voice, deep and hollow, resonated throughout the cell he called his room.

Izuku missed his old voice…

He was rewarded for his actions with several painful electric shocks. He didn't care anymore though, he simply cackled madly as his body convulsed. It almost hurt more, all the tubes and wires jammed into his throat being jostled around by his rancorous laughter, not to mention his lungs failing to intake the necessary amount of air for his actions.

Surprisingly, after ten or so more seconds, the electricity actually cut off.

Code Lavender? Understood sir we'll be—

Izuku managed to make out the sounds of several chairs being rapidly shoved to the side and boots trundling out of the observation room, likely leaving just a skeleton crew behind the observation window. Code Lavender… Izuku believed that to be code used when a prisoner was being difficult to move from room to room and presented an escape risk.

He was quite thankful that the guards decided to give each other a pop quiz two months ago with the intercom on, it gave him quite a bit of information on what all of the code phrases meant.

Taking a deep breath, or as deep as he could without hurting his damaged lungs and throat, Izuku managed to calm himself down a bit once he realized no guards were going to rush into the room to… beat him up or anything.

That hadn't happened yet, actually. Though they could be liberal with their automated firearm usage. Their electricity bill must be pretty high too!

He chuckled at that, a small pitiful chuckle that hurt his ragged and abused throat, but he chuckled all the same.

He was going to escape this place, even with the risk of All for One waiting for exactly that to happen. He knew he should care, but he really didn't have it in him to think about others right now. He needed to be out of this godforsaken place.

He'd actually conjured up some pretty grandiose escape plans that had been thought out thoroughly and down to the last detail. He always skipped a single step though.

How to initiate them.

He knew exactly how to escape as soon as he was able to exit the room he was currently in, he could probably even squeeze out of here riddled with bullets assuming he was freed from this chair.

That was just it though, he couldn't get past the first stage of the game.

Ugh, now he was sounding like Tomura…

He was going to disregard that information for now however, and just go over what he'd do assuming he wasn't tied to the chair.

Two months back, he purposely thrashed around until the wires in his neck fell out, and his ventilator ceased functioning. Before the shocks knocked him out so the medics could re-enter and plug him back in, he noticed something.

He could still breathe.

It hurt like hell, and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up forever like that, but he could still breathe. He wagered he could force himself to do that for about five minutes before it became too much for his body, and then he'd need external assistance in the form of an advanced respirator.

At first, he figured he'd break free and meander his way towards the nearest medical station and force one of the doctors to jury-rig up some sort of breathing apparatus to keep him steady, or perhaps bust out of the prison altogether and make a beeline for the closest hospital he could find and demand treatment.

Eventually though… he remembered something.

Kai Chisaki was imprisoned in Tartarus. He'd seen the news report, Chisaki was found screaming on the highway and missing both hands, unable to use his Quirk; the handiwork of Tomura. But… he still possessed it. His Quirk was still in him, it's just that his Quirk factor, his hands, were gone, leaving him unable to activate it.

If Izuku could get out of this room, he'd be able to find Kai. How? Quite simply, he'd warp Kai right to him.

All Might had told him about the Warping Quirk utilized by All for One on Kacchan after he was kidnapped by the League of Villains, where he vomited a foul-smelling black liquid and was teleported away.

If the Quirk sensing guns all around him were turned off, he'd be able to activate Ragdoll's power, locate Kai with literal ease and then warp his body right in front of him. He'd steal that child harming bastard's Quirk, and then use it to heal himself.

He'd seen Kai use his abilities to fix damage to his own body and those of others, and he'd painfully sat through some of Eri's therapy sessions in a show of support while she described how Kai would rip her apart molecule by molecule and then piece her back together as if nothing had happened. But just because the damage was healed, didn't mean the pain being vivisected was any less excruciating.

Once he got ahold of Kai's Quirk, he'd be able to repair all the damage that this body had acquired and then GTFO… assuming he didn't pass out from the pain of using Kai's quirk on himself.

Well… he'd GTFO right after tearing Kai's body apart a few times and piecing him back together.

No… he'd fix him. He'd give him back the hands he lost to Tomura on the highway. Right after… right after he stole his precious Quirk from him!

It'd be the perfect torture! He'd have the tools to utilize his quirk back, and he'd be unable to do anything at all with it! Then again… why couldn't he tear Kai apart, put him back together, and then return his hands? Yes… yes that was good. He'd make sure he suffered for what he did to Sir Nighteye, Mirio, and Eri!

He really was thinking like All for One now, wasn't he? Honestly though… he didn't care.

"yes… Yes, YES! HAHAHHAHAA—guhk!"

Sputtering, Izuku hacked up a small amount of blood as his emotions continued to get the best of him. Hey… at least he was acting more like All Might now. It was practically that man's hobby to spit up blood. Izuku couldn't stifle the chuckle his dark thoughts caused… nor could he stop the consequence of said chuckle, namely the tube he noticed falling out of his neck. That probably wasn't good. Any second now the shocks would come though, and the doctors would have him hooked back into his life support system so he could get back to his fantasizing.

At least, that's what should have happened.

Instead… well. The rapid beeping on the heart monitor was probably a good sign of how Izuku was feeling.

While Izuku couldn't see it, the lights in his room shut down and beyond the dull thud of his heartbeat, he could swear he heard the sound of all the ceiling mounted machine guns suddenly going slack, banging their chassis' against the wall as they powered down.

Deciding he really didn't have anything to lose beyond suffering a bit more pain, he took a risk and activated his Infrared Vision.

Deep blues, bright yellows, clear greens, and burning reds filled up his vision, as the Quirk quickly kicked in. The heat emitted from the objects changing the colors he saw, and quite simply, red meant hot, blue meant cool. He was able to easily distinguish everything in the room, and could perceive the depth, distance, and the size/shape of everything as well. Honestly, it was exceptionally close to what normal eyesight looked like, just with thermal imaging layered atop it.

Hey, Izuku wasn't about to look a gift Quirk in the mouth. Another great thing Izuku had noticed… he wasn't getting shot. He wasn't being shocked. He could faintly hear the sounds of panic from the guards coming through the glass of the observation window… but this was it. He could fulfill his goal if he acted now. If he channeled his inner All for One and was truly ruthless. He would try his best not to kill or harm anyone… but he was getting out of here. Tonight.

Oh, and Kai was the exception to his self-imposed rules.

"Sorry not sorry, Chisaki…" he rasped, before putting his plan into motion.

Izuku quickly activated one of the Quirks he had seen All for One utilizing against All Might in his final battle, Spearlike Bones. Izuku barely gave a passing thought to the… well, spear-like bones as they protruded through the skin on his arms and was pleasantly surprised to find that they didn't hurt him at all as they exited his skin. The flaw in his plan was soon discovered however, as Izuku realized he couldn't exactly cut his way out of the exceptionally strong straightjacket with his immobile limbs. He did succeed in making two holes in the side of his straightjacket though.

Canceling the Quirk, he rapidly applied two separate strength enhancers through his body, grinning as he felt his muscles bulge and tighten a bit in response. Well… he supposed one last callback wouldn't hurt too much, right? One last hurrah, as it was.

"Just like All Might said…" he whispered to the empty room, "Clench your butt-cheeks and yell… SMAAAAAASH!"

Izuku's arms easily broke free of the jacket, the X-shaped keypad buckling him into the chair flew off as well, smashing against the farthest wall and crumbling into various mechanical bits and circuitry. While standing up after not having moved one's legs much for over a year may have been difficult for others, Izuku's strength enhancers thankfully augmented the miniscule muscles that remained behind in the limbs.

What all of this really meant though was that Izuku had no issue at all with standing up and kicking that infernal chair directly through the observation window where a skeleton crew of two guards cowered away in the corner from the deadly force now freed from his restraints. Izuku didn't even feel pain when the tubes were ripped from his throat, so great was his excitement.

He had no time to get distracted though, those guns could come online at any time…

Glancing behind him, he vetoed the idea of punching his way through the likely locked vault-like door that served as the entrance to his cell. It wasn't that Izuku felt he couldn't do it, but he was already feeling a bit tired from how he had exerted himself. He needed to get somewhere without the automated turrets, so he could warp Kai to him and heal himself.

Turning back to the now smashed widow of the observation room, Izuku ignored the burning in his lungs and throat as he vaulted over the shattered glass, not bothering to cover his hands. He just let Super-Regeneration heal the deep cut his palm suffered from grabbing onto the jagged material as he bypassed the terrified guards and opened the door that was the staff entrance.

Time seemed to freeze as soon as he stepped into the somewhat narrow hallway that connected all the observation rooms to one another. On either side, Tartarus guards froze in fear at the scarred figure of All for One panting heavily in the middle of their walkway, unsure of how to proceed.

Their hesitancy allowed Izuku all the time he needed to apply Springlike Limbs to himself, before pointing his open palms up and down the hallway. Activating All for One's favorite Quirk, Air Cannon, he found himself unable to keep the smile from his face as everyone in the hallway was blown respectably far away from Izuku's position and off their feet; additionally, any doors that happened to be open in the hall as well found themselves slammed shut or ripped off their very hinges. Because he hadn't applied as many quirks to himself as All for One had in the Kamino Ward, it wasn't nearly the destructive typhoon that the cameras had recorded in his fight against All Might, but it was still a force to be reckoned with.

He'd just need to hide inside one of these rooms for a moment to complete his plan…

Taking a few steps to the left, he entered the observation room next to his own and slammed the door shut, quickly jamming an office chair that was unlucky enough to be next to him under the door handle to buy himself a bit more time. By now… he could hear panic all over the place. He was pretty sure that the way the entire building seemed to shake and the flickering lights above him meant that there were plenty of other criminals loose. Plus, he could hear the prison guards panicking out there in the hallway, loudly debating on entering the room or waiting for armored support before proceeding.

The loud alarm blaring over the prison's intercom system also clued him in.

Izuku frowned as he finally noticed the single guard that was still in the room, slowly reaching for the gun on his waistband. There were always complications in Izuku's life…

"Touch that… and your quirk is mine." Izuku managed to rasp out, finding it more and more difficult to breathe by the second.

It seemed like something All for One might say, in any case. Even if it wasn't, it certainly had the effect he wanted as the trembling man's hands suddenly shot up directly in the air, a clear sign of surrender. Izuku approached and disarmed the guard, readying himself to toss the gun into the corner of the room.

A quizzical look crossed what remained of his face right before he did though. Shrugging, Izuku activated another Quirk he had made a note of, Hot Hands, and turned his palm into a biological smelter. The gun rapidly became red-hot in the face of such astonishing temperatures, quickly turning to metal sludge.

The mortified look on the guard's face was all the reward Izuku needed to know his plan had worked. He wasn't going to be trying anything heroic.

Turning off all non-essential Quirks, meaning everything beyond a single strength enhancer to keep his legs stable, he activated Ragdoll's Search. Perhaps it was because he had fought the Villain before and met him in-person, but Kai's presence was rapidly located. In fact, it was the first person he sensed.

Actually, there was an 87% certainty that Search was locating those he had previously interacted with in the past because after that, he zeroed in on Muscular, Moonfish, and the presence of someone young, whom he somehow instinctively knew to be named Mustard, from the attack on the training camp all those months ago.

He chuckled, the horrible raspy sound emanating from his throat failing to convey any form of amusement to the horrified prison guard held captive in the room with him. Perhaps Villains needed to stop picking names that started with the letter M. They didn't seem to be having a good track record here.

Izuku was just going to ignore the fact that he sensed the Hero Killer Stain and Kurogiri moments later, it'd have ruined the small amount of humor he found it the situation. Shaking his head, Izuku focused in on Kai's location, activating his terrible warping Quirk. It wasn't quite like Kurogiri's Warp Gate, in that it could only bring people to and from the Quirk's user. Still though, it was all Izuku needed.

He sensed that a puddle of exceptionally dark blue liquid pooled on the floor in front of him, which meant that the stuff must've produced next to no heat. As the pool transformed into a large pillar of goo, he noticed a struggling red and green form thrashing about inside the mixture, tainting the deep blue with shades of color as the struggling transferred enough energy into the liquid to signify a temperature change.

The sludge eventually disappeared altogether, leaving behind the lithe form of Kai Chisaki grasping at his neck with the stubs where his hands used to be. It was hard to make out with his Infrared Vision, but Izuku thought he could see the splotches on his skin where Kai was beginning to develop hives.

Izuku scoffed at the coughing germaphobe, desperately trying to take in a satisfactory breath of air.

"A-all f- haaa… ack… A-All for One?" the former villain managed to hack out, his eyes staring at the sunken splotches of scarred skin where Izuku's eyes used to be. Or were they where All for One's eyes used to be?

Izuku shook his head as he placed his hand on Chisaki's head. He didn't have time for this, it was getting harder and harder to breath by the second.

"DON'T T-TOUCH …a-arkhg… me…!" he cried, but it was far too late. For just a second, Izuku felt pity. Felt that what he was about to do was beyond cruel. But then he remembered what Kai had subjected Eri to, and what he had done to Sir Nighteye and Mirio.

The rest was surprisingly easy.

Pulling on that mental trigger that constituted the Quirk of All for One… Izuku felt a surge of power go through his hand on Kai's forehead. He noticed that in his Infrared vision, his hand actually dropped its temperature for a few moments before rapidly heating back up to one of the darkest red's he'd ever seen.

"AARRRGH!"

Izuku barely heard Kai's scream of agony as his dreadful Quirk was removed from the murderer's body, he was so in awe of the power he felt coursing through his veins and eventually… his entire body. While it only lasted about three to five seconds… he'd not felt a rush of power like that since he'd last used Full Cowl in his old life.

He really wanted to slow down, to have the time necessary to process… everything that was going on. What he was doing, if it was worth it… but he didn't have time. It was almost impossible for Izuku to get a satisfactory breath anymore, and he heard talk of hostages from the hallway, no doubt meaning they were already discussing strategies to bust the door down and take him out.

He could feel it inside him, Chisaki's Quirk. That terrible power of his; Overhaul. It really was a shame Chisaki turned out to be a horrible person, his quirk was exceptionally versatile.

"It doesn't matter…" he croaked, turning his own hand on himself and placing it upon his damaged throat.

Izuku would make sure to put Kai's quirk to good use. That man… he didn't deserve such power.

Thanks to All for One's capability of having a basic grasp of the Quirks he stole, Izuku was already mentally preparing himself for the task of repairing his damaged body. Somehow, he knew his lack of knowledge on biology wasn't going to impede him in his task, and it'd be a fairly straight-forward, if painful, experience of repairing himself.

It was odd when the Quirk kicked in, it was like… his thermal vision was switched off and he found himself in a blackened void, surrounded by nothing but greyscale representations of the object he was working on. In this case, it was himself.

The smile on his face grew a small bit as his hands moved with the skill of a dozen surgeons, pulling the skin of his chest away with practiced ease, pushing apart the muscle fibers, ribs, and other organs that blocked the path to his lungs.

They were pitiful lungs, Izuku realized. They looked blackened, veiny, and more closely resembled something he'd seen in those anti-smoking PSA's his middle school forced him to watch during health class. Even so… he knew what to do. How? He wasn't sure.

All Might always said that it was important to think about Quirk usage in an easy to understand manner, and back when he was wielding One for All, he went for the egg in the microwave, as he desperately tried not to make the egg (his old body) explode. In this case… the Quirk Overhaul was like… yes.

This was exactly like playing with Legos.

Every molecule was a brick, and while he didn't have an instruction manual to follow to piece things back together, he could see his lungs looked… crooked. All around him, he could see more than enough spare bricks to repair the damage, and it would only take a little trial and error before he assembled them into a decent-looking shape.

So Izuku did just that.

He touched his lungs, his own lungs, with his bare hands and rapidly disassembled them molecule by molecule; to the outside observer, his hands were moving faster than a speeding bullet as blood sprayed out of his chest. To Izuku… he was building his own Lego set, doing his best to make it look nice and neat.

Two seconds had passed in the 'real' world, but it felt more like five hours to Izuku. Thankfully, he'd yet to feel any pain but he knew that as soon as he stopped using Overhaul, his nervous system would kick in and it'd be a struggle to just remain conscious.

He had managed to assemble the Lego house that was his lungs, and in what he would consider a decent manner. Now though… it was time to test it out. He grabbed the ribs he had removed from his chest cavity and let float around in the void that surrounded him, clicking them back into place as easily as one would stick a magnet onto a slab of iron. His other organs were arranged in a neat fashion, the muscle fibers and skin gently laid back atop his chest like a blanket being slid over a mattress. Right before he finished, Izuku reached up to his neck and patched over the various holes and other scars that riddled his throat, resolving to mess around with his face another time. He simply needed functioning lungs to break out of Tartarus, he could focus on giving himself plastic surgery later.

With that in mind… he stopped using Overhaul and immediately fell to his knees.

Searing, startling, blinding white-hot pain flooded his every thought as he felt the skin on his chest ripped off his muscles, before those too were tossed callously to the side. Ribs popped right out of his chest and his lungs imploded and then rapidly expanded in a matter of seconds, before everything painfully reassembled itself to a state of perfection.

Just as quickly as that pain appeared… it ended.

Izuku had suffered from a condition known as sciatica in his old body, wherein the muscles in his leg would occasionally squeeze down, crush, or otherwise rub the sciatic nerve that ran down one's leg, even though said nerve was not meant to be crushed or squeezed. The end result was an exceptionally painful sensation that actually rivaled that of when he broke his bones. The thing about sciatica though, was the pain was instantaneous, and didn't linger.

It was pure agony for the split second when he felt it… but then it'd go away just as quickly, not even a hint of tenderness or soreness left behind. Of course, it'd return as soon as the muscles clamped down on the nerve, but the blinding pain was there and gone in a flash. That… that was exactly what using Overhaul on himself felt like.

Suffering on an immense scale… for but a few seconds. He felt… far better than he had before he used the Quirk, and while the pain was definitely seared into his memory… his chest felt perfectly fine. No pain, and for the first time in one year, four months, three weeks, four days, twenty-three hours, fifty-one minutes and eight seconds, Izuku took a deep, painless breath of air.

The smile that graced his face was probably thin and crooked… but it was made with genuine happiness. Forcing himself back onto shaky legs, Izuku's Infrared Vision noticed the guard still cowering in his chair with his hands raised, and Chisaki's red-hot body on the ground, motionless beyond some slight twitching.

It was time for Izuku to escape. He'd just use Chisaki's quirk to make a tunnel underground and escape through there. As a bonus, he could even use Overhaul to erase any evidence of his tunnel having existed as soon as he was done using it! Truly, the power to manipulate matter itself was a frightening one. It was too bad Chisaki seemed content to just build massive spikes to impale people with. He could've been a powerful doctor, or an infallible sculptor with a gift like this. Not to mention, all the possibilities of what he could have done as a Hero.

Izuku felt something bubbling up inside him, the rage he felt as Izuku stitched together with the calculating coldness of All for One. Words came spilling out of his mouth before he even thought of saying them.

"… I never thought I'd say this… but I must thank you, Kai Chisaki. You squandered your gift when you used it to torture poor, sweet little Eri and killed anyone who stood in your way. Now though… I see you for what you actually are. You were simply a vessel designed for the explicit purpose of ferrying me this wonderful Quirk, weren't you?" Izuku said, his voice crisp, clear, and devoid of the previous rasping that had plagued his every syllable. While it still wasn't his old voice… it was healthy. The voice of someone with undamaged lungs.

The terrified guard glanced down at the prone form of Chisaki with mild curiosity, obviously trying to piece together the meaning of Izuku's words. It almost saddened Izuku when the guard's attention shifted back to him, and he jumped away in fright.

Almost.

"Calm yourself, I have no intention of harming anyone in this complex aside from the pathetic excuse for a man beneath your feet."

The guard cocked an eyebrow at that, momentarily forgetting his fright as he glanced behind Izuku and towards the hallway.

Oh yeah. He blasted everyone away with his Air Cannons.

Coughing and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, Izuku felt something he hadn't felt for quite some time. Embarrassment.

"O-oh r-right. I-I uh… well see it wasn't intentional… wait no, i-it was, they were kinda in my way, see… b-but they're not hurt! Well… I d-did blast them pretty far away and that p-probably didn't feel g-good or anything b-but it's not like I'm trying to kill them! I-I was just…" Izuku's mumbling was thankfully cut off by the sound of banging emanating from the door behind him.

"All for One! We know you're in there! Release the hostage and surrender yourself peacefully, no one has to get hurt! It's impossible to break out of Tartarus!"

Izuku smacked his head to focus his mind, he was running out of time. He was equal parts relieved and disappointed that he wouldn't have the time he wanted to torture Kai for everything he put Eri through, but he had a prison to escape from. Still, he'd be leaving Chisaki with a parting gift.

"R-right, sorry all, but I've gotta go, I'm way too young to die in prison. Well… technically speaking anyway. I suppose it's not—"

Izuku smacked the side of his face before his mumbling got any worse, and quickly bent down and touched Chisaki, activating Overhaul. Like before, it was child's play to reassemble the Lego figurine that was Chisaki's hands and after but a second, perfectly functional appendages remained attached to Kai's prone body, twitching slightly with the rest of him.

"A parting gift," He nodded to the bewildered guard, who was beyond confused at the behavior of All for One. "This… is my punishment for him. His was unable to use his Quirk without his hands… but now that I have his power, I saw it fitting to give back to him that which he lost. Even so… he still can't use his Quirk. It's not his anymore. I… have a job for you," the guard tensed as Izuku directed his full attention to the uniformed man, terrified of whatever he was about to be forced to do. "Make sure to tell Chisaki when he's conscious… that this is what he gets for torturing Eri and killing Sir Nighteye."

As the knocking on the door grew louder, the bewildered guard could only nod at the terrifyingly scarred face of Izuku, who crouched down and touched the floor with his hand. As soon as he did, a hole appeared in the ground and swallowed him whole, not unlike something from those old Loony Toons shows. The door was finally kicked down, and several heavily armored riot guards charged into the room guns and Quirks blazing only to witness the gaping hole before them vanish in front of their very eyes, turning itself into a jagged mess of crisscrossing spikes that denied any and all entry into the escape route.

A twitching and hive covered Kai Chisaki, a befuddled guard, and a circular section of spiked, untiled floor were all that remained in the room besides the similarly confused guards. Everyone shared looks with each other, unsure of how to proceed but silently acknowledging the facts at hand.

All for One… had escaped Tartarus after nearly two years in captivity. For Izuku though, he knew the truth in that moment. All for One was gone.

Izuku had escaped Tartarus exactly one year, four months, three weeks, five days, zero hours, one minute and four seconds after waking up in the body of Japan's most notorious Villain.

It was time to find Ragdoll.