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I  shook my head. “Okay, so I'm going to explain this in a roundabout   way. Hopefully it'll distract you and make the whole thing not hit you   as hard.”

As if.

But I suppose I could try.

Even  as All Might looked ready to object again, I waved him off. “Your   friend, David Shield.” His mouth snapped shut while Izuku snapped to   attention, the boy's eyes seeming to shine with interest. “He's under   the impression that your impending retirement from heroism will   destabilize society at large.” From what I knew, he was right, too.

All Might grimaced and sighted, shaking his head, “Oh, Dave...”

“To  prevent you from needing to retire,” I continued, sipping at my  drink,  “he's invented a nifty little gadget that amplifies the user's  quirk.”  Both of their eyes widened in shock. “Except, the I-island board  of  directors made the decision that this kind of technological  development  would potentially destabilize various geopolitical hotspots  if it ever  proliferated into wider use.”

All Might slowly nodded. “I  can see why they would. Dave really is a  genius, but he's always been a  bit of an idealist, too. For him,  technology is only ever used for the  good of humanity.”

I stared at the man and decided that, no, I didn't really have enough time to dig into that.

“So  he's decided that, for the good of the world, he needs to steal it and  smuggle it out to you. He's already in contact with a group of   professional high-end thieves that are going to assault I-island and   help him recover his own invention from where it's been locked up.”

All  Might's jaw dropped as he stood and began pacing. “Dammit Dave! No,   you can't... ugh. I'll have to do something about this.” Yagi turned   back to me, “thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'll-” he  took  in my grim expression and his fists clenched, “there's more to  this,  isn't there?”

I shrugged. “So, here's the  billion-yen question. One of the very few  people All Might considers  friends is planning to break bad and destroy  his life by masterminding  the heist of the century. I want you to think really hard about what I'm  going to ask next.” I dipped my glasses to look him in  the eye again.  “Who, in the criminal underworld, would hear about this  and realize  that forcing you to arrest your best friend and throw him in  jail would  be the absolute most amusing thing ever?”

Confusion and incomprehension clouded his expression for a long moment, before...

If  I'd thought that All Might had frozen before, I would have said my  new  question almost turned the man to a pale, haggard statue. Very   quietly, a raspy whisper left his mouth, the one word encapsulating the   desperate denial of a man wanting to reject the truth he knew to be   real.

“No.”

I leaned back against the  rusting shell of a washing machine and  sighed. Yeah, there it was. The  existential dread that I'd been hoping  to engender as some kind of  vicarious revenge for what I remembered of  Shigaraki's youth and the  revelations I'd brought with me. Actually  achieving what I'd set out to  do, though, felt hollow. I just couldn't  enjoy it.

“It  gets worse,” I stated, because of course it did. All for One knew   nothing if not how to twist the knife. “Because the real mastermind of   this entire plan doesn't actually care if your friend survives to  give  you his invention.” All Might grimaced, practically trembling with   rage. “In fact, maybe the thieves he hires make sure he suffers an   'accident' just so he dies in front of you.” I narrowed my gaze. “Just   so his daughter sees you unable to save him, unable to stop him from  destroying his life trying to help you.”

“I'm going to tear him apart-” All Might began, his skeletal arms nearly bulging with an involuntary activation of his quirk.

“Because  then you've got a young, socially isolated, quirkless girl  who's  father just died or was imprisoned at the hands of her greatest  hero.  The man she considers family as well. And someone offers her a way  to  take control of her life back, something to let her strike  back at the  system that punished her father for wanting to do the right  thing and  help the world's greatest hero. Because people like that,  well....  those have to be the real villains, right?”

Yagi looked on  the verge of throwing up, and if he'd had anything in his stomach I'm  sure he would have. Really, if the man had a stomach in the first place,  I'm sure he'd have given it the old college try.

“Because,”  I continued, propping my feet up on something that might have once been  part of a car, “he already did it once and it worked out pretty well  that time. Why not try it again?”

There was real horror in  his eyes now, as he looked at me. It  was a dark and visceral,  gut-churning thing that threatened to eat alive  a man who believed in a  good, kind, and just world. Spitting that kind  of poison out... I  wouldn't be surprised if it really did kill just a  little bit of hope  and faith in humanity.

“Ah... Shi-shimura-san? Who... who  did all this?” Izuku asked into the  lingering silence. He was shaken by  what he'd heard, smart enough as he  was to put together a few missing  pieces in the story, but he was  also... yeah, there was steel in him. I  knew that. I didn't know why I was surprised, but... maybe it was just  that he was so perpetually-easy to underestimate.

“He told  me to call him 'sensei' when we met.” I replied. “The name he  goes by  is All for One. I'll let All Might tell you all of the gritty  details  later, but suffice to say he's the guy who put a hole in your  mentor's  side.”

Izuku's eyes widened at the revelation, but he  nodded slowly and,  looking between All Might and myself, he asked.  “And... your grandmother  was someone important to All Might so he  kidnapped you when you were  young? So that he could use you against All  Might later?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Kid, you  don't get it yet. He doesn't need to kidnap people. That's amateur-hour  stuff for him.” I waved at my footrest. “But where are my manners? Kick  back, put your feet up.”

Izuku blushed, “A-ah, that's okay. I mean, I'm, um...”

I sighed. “Put your feet up, Green Bean, I'm trying to make a point.”

The  teenager frowned, but after a look at the still-comatose All Might,  he  slowly stretched his legs out and rested his feet on the same piece  of  debris I was using.

I grinned and snapped my fingers,  pointing at our now-mutual footrest.  “Now that I think about it, those  are some sweet-looking shoes. It's  kind of weird that we have the same  taste in shoes.” I wiggled my feet  and showed off the bulky  red-and-white sneakers they were encased in,  identical to Izuku's own.  “Why do you think that is, Izuku-kun?”

The greenette  frowned as he looked at our footwear, realizing what I'd  pointed out  was true. “I, um... I don't know? It is weird, though,  because-I just  mean, I wear these because they're comfortable because-”  His eyes  widened. “The extra toe-joint! You're quirkless too!”

He  slapped a hand over his mouth as he realized the unconscionable  taboo  he'd committed. To be fair, in any other circumstance, being  'outed' as  quirkless publicly would have been the kind of thing someone  would get  truly angry over, so I couldn't blame him.

I casually  reached over and picked up a broken children's toy and held  it up  before making final contact with my pinkie finger and allowing it  to  disintegrate into dust.

Izuku's eyes widened again, this  time in a mix of confusion and some  nebulous hurt for being 'tricked'  into a wrong conclusion. I returned  his expression with a cold, cruel  smirk.

“Five-point disintegration quirk,” I stated. “See,  it's weird because I was a late-bloomer. Quirk didn't emerge until I was  seven or so and, well...” I picked up another piece of junk. “It just  so happened to be a quirk that was both completely anomalous and would  seriously injure, or even kill anyone who came in contact with me. Like  my family.”

Izuku inhaled a shocked breath and I saw Yagi close his eyes, a stricken expression on his face as he listened.

“Because  that's what All for One does,” I explained. “Coincidences, random  accidents, and tragedies that all just happen to further his designs.  With a quirk that remove quirks, stores them, and gives them to other  people, well, I'm sure it's just serendipity that the grandson of the  woman who taught All  Might how to be a hero, a boy who was born with an  extra toe joint that  meant he was almost certainly quirkless, just so  happened to develop an anomalous quirk that meant he could never fully  embrace someone.”

Izuku shivered under my gaze as the truth of what happened set in.