AN: I hadn't finished chapter six when I started writing this, but I'm not posting this until Marcidum is finished anyway, so I guess that's not particularly important to you guys. Please enjoy, and let me know what you thought! Kitty out.

Edit: I actually am posting this before I finish Marcidum, but not until I post chapter six, which, if you're reading this right now, is already up.

Title: Trucidatio

Summary: Golem – a clay figure brought to life by magic; from Hebrew gōlem; 'shapeless mass'

Characters: OC (Golem), All For One, Shigaraki Tomura, Bakugou Katsuki, All Might (mentioned)

Warnings: Blood, gore, implied death, mental instability, implied/referenced torture

Extra Note: It is entirely possible to read Golem's relationship with All Might as romantic. I would just like to state that it is very much not (I mean, if you wanna ship them, go for it, but there's nothing romantic or even sexual between them here).

He finds her drenched in blood, hunched over with arms dangling in front of her as though her hands are made of lead. Widened eyes, a smile that looks more like a gash through her face, surrounded by death – she stumbles towards him, says something in a language he can't understand, but he gets the meaning: Leave. Go away. Stay back.

The man who forsook his own name smiles kindly at her. You cannot harm me, he assures her gently. Not his native language, but he thinks she can understand – she shakes her head wildly. Her hair splatters the floor with blood, like a dog's fur wets the ground with water. He steps forward, and she crouches away, snarling (like a dog, he thinks again, amused). In the distance, he hears sirens.

The girl raises her hands, like a shield in front of her, and All For One feels something tugging at him. A moment later, her Quirk is his and she's unconscious in his arms. By the time the police arrive to provide back-up to the officers that already paint the floor with blood and viscera, the building is quietly burning, and there's no sign that the man or the girl were ever there at all.

Two years, and she's still wearing that ridiculously large hoodie. He can't blame her, though – he wouldn't want anyone to see his face either, if he looked like that. He tries telling her she looks fine, at first, but the look of derision she gives him tells him exactly what she thinks of his attempt to comfort her.

She's almost fluent in Japanese now, but she's yet to agree to let him teach her to read. A waste of time, she tells him. Weapons do not need to know these things. He wonders why she thinks she has to do this – he's made it clear that he won't make her do anything she doesn't want to do, but he can't deny that he appreciates the help. For someone who barely looks ten, she's shockingly lethal.

He has to wonder at that, though – how strange it must be to both look older than you are and, at the same time, younger. Physically speaking, she can't be any older than eight, but what little you can see of her and the way she behaves, both in speech and actions, give the impression of someone older. Chronologically, though… he has no idea at all. She's older than he is, technically – she must be, or she wouldn't have been where she was. But he hasn't asked for specifics. Better to let her come to him.

He thinks she's being too harsh to the boy – he's young, afraid of himself, afraid of his Quirk. She says the world won't wait for him to grow, and he can't really argue with her there. The boy follows her around like a puppy, even while recovering from training sessions so intense that he can barely walk. It says a lot about his life before that he so adores the girl who routinely throws him into the wall and calls him by a name he no longer wishes to be called by.

At first, All For One thinks she might hate the child, but after a while he notices an odd fondness in her sharp tongue, and wonders if perhaps she's starting to see the same potential in the boy that he does. The world has thrown away both of them, but they fit together, somehow – the boy who can't touch anything and the girl who hates being touched. She gives the child an awkward pat on the head once, and All For One worries for a moment that she's given the boy a heart attack, but the beaming smile that grows on his face is enough for Sensei to relax – and enough for Golem to yank her hand back, looking slightly embarrassed.

She's been seeing that boy more often – they spar, she explains, and he knows she'll stop if he tells her to. But when she tells him she's going out to see him again, All For One feels an odd sense of pride rising within him. It feels like only yesterday she was trying to figure out how to morph her mutilated face into a false smile, but it seems she's found a way to smile for real – her lips twist slightly, and her eyes gleam. He wonders if this is what it's like to be a father.

She calls him "father" once. Just once, and then realizes what she's done. He's about to tell her that he doesn't mind, but then he remembers what happened to her real father, and doesn't stop her from fleeing to her room. She's not crying – she doesn't really do that (he wonders if she can at all, after everything), but he knows she's doing her equivalent, whatever that might be. She disappears for a week after that (he knows exactly who she's going to go see, and it doesn't bother him nearly as much as it should), and nobody says anything when she returns.

Life goes on.

Eighteen years since he found her, and now she's leaving. It's bittersweet – he doesn't want to see her go, but he's glad at the same time. Tomura is furious, yelling and screaming and throwing things that sometimes crumble to dust before they even leave his hands. She promises to visit, and he eventually allows her to awkwardly pat his head (even though he's basically an adult now, according to him), but he's still sulking when she raises her hand in farewell.

All For One is fully aware who is responsible for her retirement from villainy, and he hates the boy (the man, now – he's become a full-fledged hero) even more than he hated the boy's mentor. He wonders if his brother is laughing at him somewhere.

Two years later and she's back, flying to his bedside – not crying, because she still doesn't do that, but there's horror in her eyes when she sees him (at least, he imagines there is – he no longer has the upper half of his face). He lets her know that he doesn't blame her and assures her that he still wants her to continue seeing the world (it's so different from what she remembers; so different from her own 'before', and it always brings a smile to his face when she texts him a photo – no words, because she still can't read, but Tomura has managed to convince her to learn the basics of modern phones, even if she's not very good at it). She stays for nearly a month, making sure he's okay and sparring with Tomura, who's better but still not good enough to beat her.

He tries to pretend he isn't slightly bitter that she's visiting him too. She doesn't tell him this time, because she doesn't have to. He knows.

Bakugou Katsuki is uncharacteristically silent after the heroes fail to rescue him (after fingers slipped through fingers, after he was forcefully – painfully – dragged back down to earth, tossed through the portal, and ripped away from what might have been his only chance at escape). All For One thinks he's putting most of his energy into trying not to cry, though he can't tell if it's from pain or despair. The League isn't going to make the same mistake twice – everyone is checked for tracking devices, and what little freedom Bakugou had had before the rescue attempt is gone. His hands have been locked away once more, and while he's no longer strapped to a chair, he isn't going to be walking around for a while. Not with a good chunk of his right leg having crumbled to dust beneath Tomura's deadly fingers.

They'll have to replace that at some point, All For One thinks absently, since he'll be more useful to the League with all limbs functioning properly, but that's not a priority right now. He knows exactly what Tomura plans to do, and he knows that that goal will be accomplished more quickly if there's a doctor in the house. They don't have a doctor, not exactly, but they do have someone with extensive knowledge of the human body. So he calls Golem and asks her to come back.

She doesn't approve – that's obvious to everyone, but she does her job efficiently regardless. Her presence is helpful in more ways than one. Tomura is glad to have her back "in the party", the other villains are more comfortable now that there's someone who can and will tell Tomura when he's being an idiot without getting killed, and Bakugou has someone he can talk to, because regardless of Tomura's video game-themed comments, Golem has made it clear that she hasn't really come out of retirement. Bakugou will talk to her – will tell her things, because he knows she's not going to share. She's never been the type to spill other people's secrets.

As All Might walks away from his cell, All For One sees Golem quietly stepping into the room. He's positive she's not supposed to be there, but All Might doesn't look surprised to see her. All Might steps outside to give them privacy, but the way Golem's eyes flicker towards the door indicates that he – and possibly several others – are waiting outside in case either of them tries something.

"I'm sorry," Golem says after a moment. It's been a while since she's spoken the language of her birthplace, but she likely wants this to stay between the two of them. He understands that, even though those watching and listening will be able to find a way to translate if necessary, and responds in the same tongue.

"Are you?" he wonders.

"For some things. For– for this," she gestures towards his immobile form, and he sees disapproval flicker across her features (this is necessary, though – they both know that anything less would enable him to escape). "Not for helping Katsuki. He's a child, Sensei. But I'm sorry that I hurt you, and I'm sorry that I hurt Tomura and Kurogiri. I couldn't let that happen to him."

"You and Tomura were children once," All For One says, and he knows what she's going to say before she even opens her mouth.

"We were," she agrees. "But I stopped being a child a very long time ago – that was stolen from me. Tomura… is the opposite, I think. I do not believe he has reached adulthood, despite his actual age. I find it unlikely that he ever will."

"Do you still think taking him in was a mistake?"

"I haven't thought that for a very long time. Both Tomura and I are alive today because of you. My gratitude for everything you've done for me is boundless. My loyalty, less so."

"Evidently," he nods, smiling. "Does Bakugou-kun know why you agreed to help him? What your intent was at the beginning?"

"He does," Golem tells him. "Because I told him so. He was not surprised – I believe he'd already guessed as much." She's silent for a moment. "Do you hate me?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"I do not. I do not think I could ever hate you. What you have done is despicable, but I would be a hypocrite to judge you for it. I have always had options with you, even if I chose to pretend otherwise." She pulls her hood off, and her face is just as startling as it was when they first met, even if he can't see it the way he once could. "I cannot claim the moral high ground here. My actions impacted Tomura just as much as yours, and I have been responsible for just as much bloodshed, if not more."

For a brief moment, both of them are back in a country across the seas, surrounded by corpses, in a building that will soon be nothing but rubble, where a man extends a hand to a child covered in blood and offers a world to her.

"I do not hate you," All For One says, snapping them both back to the maximum-security cell. "I am saddened that we have ended up on different paths, and I am saddened that you and Tomura will most likely kill one another, but I do not hate you. He will, though I'm sure you're already aware. You cannot go back now. There is no place for you within the League any longer."

"I know." She tells him. "And there will never be a place for me amongst the heroes either. But then, some would argue there is no place at all for me. I do not belong here, in this country or in this world. I am here today because terrible people did terrible things and I allowed myself to become one of them. I have seen things, now – I have seen the glasses and shoes of my people, stacked within museums, I have seen the recordings of survivors long-dead by now, and I have seen the writings in a language I've forgotten how to read that speak of a god I no longer remember how to believe in. I was not alive when the glass was shattered and the night was painted with crystal, but I am here now. I am here, and I remember, and I cannot allow it to happen again."

"You see yourself in Bakugou-kun, then?" he asks.

"I see what could have been, for myself and Tomura and maybe even some others," she replies. "I see what he could become, and I will not let anyone create another me. Not even you. I love you and Tomura and Kurogiri. You are the closest thing I have to family. But I have not forgotten my blood. I have not forgotten where I came from, and I have disrespected their memory enough." She rolls up her left sleeve, and amidst the scars that cover her arm (and the rest of her, as he knows all too well) All For One can see the burned skin – a star with six points, branded over a number that could no longer be read. "It will not happen again. Never again."

He watches her walk away, and is silent. Neither of them has ever really known how to say goodbye.

AN: When I was planning out Frigidum, it occurred to me that while it wasn't a bad idea, it didn't really fit in with everything else. So instead, I decided to write this, which is far more relevant. I think the implications here are pretty obvious, but I'll definitely be writing more with Golem, possibly even after this series is done. I mentioned this briefly, but the reason Golem is a lot less direct when talking to AFO than we've seen her at any point in Marcidum is because she's speaking a language she's more familiar with than Japanese, so it's easier for her to be metaphorical.