The cracked mirror above the console trembled, its fracture spreading like veins of molten glass. The hum of machines faltered, screens flickering with static as if reality itself were choking. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, the crack widened, splitting the reflection into shards that bled golden light.
From that rift, something stepped through.
Not a man. Not a shadow. A distortion wearing the shape of power. His silhouette shimmered like fractured glass, every edge bending the air around it. The room plunged into silence, broken only by the slow, deliberate sound of boots against the floor.
Grey froze. His breath hitched, his pulse pounding like war drums. For a heartbeat, he couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Then, almost involuntarily, his lips curled into a nervous smile.
"…Well," he whispered, voice trembling, "that's new."
Hana's eyes widened, her body rigid as the figure emerged fully from the crack. The golden glow dimmed, revealing a face carved from calm malice, a face the world feared, now wearing something stranger than rage.
All For One.
But his eyes… they burned with revelation.
All For One stepped fully into the room, his voice rolling through the silence like velvet over steel.
"Thank you."
Grey stiffened, his nervous smile freezing on his lips. Hana's breath hitched, her pulse pounding like a war drum.
"…Thank us? For what?"
All For One tilted his head, a smile curling like smoke across his scarred face. His tone was calm, almost reverent.
"For giving me the truth of this world."
He spread his arms slowly, and the walls rippled like liquid glass.
"I heard every word. A script. An author. A world built on lies. And now… I see it." the truth."
The room seemed to shrink as his words hung heavy in the air, a palpable tension settling over them. Hana's eyes widened, realization dawning on her as she exchanged a wary glance with Grey. This was no ordinary gratitude; it was a harbinger of something much darker and more sinister. The air suddenly felt charged with an unspoken threat.
"You… see what?" Grey's voice was barely a whisper as he spoke, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Hana felt a chill run down her spine as she realized the gravity of the situation. It was clear that they were now entangled in a dangerous game.
All For One's eyes burned with revelation, his voice deepening into something that felt older than time.
"That I am not a god. Not a king. Not even a villain. I am… a character."
As the word "character" slithered from his lips, All For One slowly straightened, his silhouette elongating like the shadow of an invisible flame. Then, with a sudden, violent flourish, he thrust his arm outward, fingers splayed like talons, as if clawing at the invisible strings of fate. The fractured walls trembled, shards of glass hovering midair, orbiting him like planets around a dark sun. His cloak billowed unnaturally, pulled by a wind that wasn't there, and his voice thundered:
"But if this world is written… then I am its editor. And you… you're typos."
The silence after his declaration was deafening, broken only by the distant hum of failing lights. Then, the world itself seemed to recoil. The air thickened, heavy with static. Monitors bled white noise, their screens cracking like brittle ice. Hana felt the floor shiver beneath her boots, rippling like molten glass as reality bent under his will.
All For One's presence pressed against their lungs, a weight, a verdict. His steps were deliberate, echoing like a judge approaching the gallows.
"You've strayed too far from the script," he whispered, voice curling like smoke around their ears. Each syllable was a blade. "Now… let me correct this world for you."
His arm convulsed, flesh unraveling into a grotesque storm of tendrils and molten blades, dripping with raw intent. The marble floor liquefied under his swing, a tidal wave of destruction aimed to erase Grey in one merciless strike.
The impact was thunderous. A tendril smashed into the marble where Hana had stood, detonating shards like shrapnel. She rolled hard, instincts firing, and snatched a steel rod from the wreckage. With a feral snarl, she slashed at the writhing appendage, severing its tip in a spray of molten ichor.
"You'll have to do better than that!" she spat, eyes blazing.
But then, everything changed.
Grey's scream tore through the chaos, raw and primal. Pain lanced his skull, white-hot, blinding. His body convulsed, every nerve screaming for mercy. And then… something broke. Not inside him, but around him.
The distortion froze.
Fractals of black and white erupted from his skin, jagged shards slicing through the golden glow like broken code. The air fractured, reality stuttering as if rejecting All For One's rewrite. Monitors shattered in silence. The ink retreated. The mirrors stabilized.
Grey's voice trembled, but his words cut like steel:
"You're not the only one who can edit the script."
His Quirk, raw, chaotic, and terrifying, manifested like a paradox: Narrative Override. The power to reject imposed changes and rewrite causality within a limited radius. The room bent to his will, the laws of the world rewriting themselves in jagged pulses.
All For One stepped back, not in fear, but in fascination. His laughter rolled through the fractured chamber, layered and infinite.
"Perfect," he whispered, eyes burning with hunger. "A rival author."
The cracked mirror detonated, shards hanging mid-air like frozen stars. Shadows writhed across the walls, stretching like ink veins as the world trembled under the weight of two forces rewriting its laws.
Grey stood trembling, Hana at his side, her breath ragged. Across the fractured room, All For One loomed, his silhouette a cathedral of malice, smiling like a god who had just discovered his cage.
"Let's see," he murmured, voice dripping with anticipation, "whose story survives."
The floor convulsed. Tendrils lashed out like serpents, but Grey's fractals intercepted, slicing through them with jagged precision. The collision was cataclysmic, code against chaos, rewrite against rewrite.
Walls buckled, and furniture disintegrated into streams of broken syntax. Hana dove for cover as a shockwave ripped through the salon, splintering the ceiling into a rain of glass.
Grey and All For One clashed at the center, their powers devouring reality itself. Each strike warped the room, with gravity bending, time stuttering, and colors bleeding into monochrome. Then, with a final surge, their duel tore through the house like a blade through paper.
The walls collapsed outward in a roar of fractured dimensions. Light and shadow spilled into the night as the two figures vanished beyond the ruins, their battle spiraling into the open world to a storm of rewriting wills.
Silence fell.
In the midst of destruction, Hana stumbled to her feet. The salon was unrecognizable, an almost-destroyed husk of marble and ink, mirrors shattered, and air thick with static. Alone, she gripped the steel rod tighter, her pulse pounding.
"Grey…" she whispered, staring at the void where they had vanished.
The night ripped apart as Grey and All For One crashed through the walls, rain pouring like shards of glass. The ground cracked under their feet, glowing lines spreading like veins.
Grey moved first; fractals burst from his skin, sharp black-and-white shards spinning around him like blades. He hurled them forward, slicing through the air. Each strike carved deep scars into the earth, leaving glowing geometric patterns behind.
All For One answered with chaos. His arm split into a storm of tendrils tipped with molten blades, whipping through the rain. Every swing shattered trees and ripped chunks of ground into the sky. When Grey's fractals met them, the collision bent reality, gravity flipped, stones floated, the sky fractured into jagged gold and black, and the ground trembled under the force of their clash.
Grey blinked out of sight, skipping frames like broken film, and reappeared behind All For One with a spear of fractals aimed at his spine. All For One twisted the laws, time reversed for a heartbeat, and the spear shattered before it touched him. The fragments slammed back into Grey, throwing him across the field.
The battlefield became a nightmare: trees uprooted, earth torn into floating slabs, and pools of liquid time shimmering in the grass. Lightning ripped the sky as they clashed again, each strike shaking the world like an earthquake.
And above it all, the storm raged, wild and merciless, as if the world itself feared who would win.
Grey slammed into the fractured ground, fractals spiraling around him like jagged shards of broken code. Rain hammered down, flickering like static as the battlefield twisted under their powers. He gritted his teeth, eyes locked on All For One—an obsidian titan surrounded by glyphs of golden script, rewriting reality with every gesture.
"How…?" The thought tore through Grey's mind like a blade. He doesn't have this power. Not in the story. Not anywhere.
Grey ducked under a whip of molten tendrils, fractals slicing back in retaliation, carving glowing scars into the earth. But the question burned louder than the storm: What changed? How is he doing this?
Then it hit him like lightning.
Eri.
Grey's breath caught. If he's rewriting causality… then he's using her power.
He lunged forward, fractals spiraling into a spear, and shouted over the chaos:
"Where is Eri?! What did you do to her?!"
All For One's laughter rolled like thunder, layered and infinite. He raised his arm, molten blades dripping, and the glyphs around him flared brighter, twisting the rain into spirals of ink and light.
"Ah… so you've noticed the missing piece." he said, voice dripping with satisfaction.
"She's not gone, Grey. She's mine."
Grey's heart slammed against his ribs. He took her. He took her before us… and stole her power.
The realization burned hotter than the storm. Every fracture in reality, every impossible move, it wasn't just All For One's will. It was Eri's ability, twisted into something monstrous.
Grey roared, fractals erupting violently from his body, jagged and furious:
"Then, let's see who wins!"
The battlefield convulsed, trees shattered into dust, rivers flowed upward, and lightning froze mid-flash as their powers collided in a storm of paradox. The world was no longer a battlefield; it was a canvas, and both were fighting to claim the pen.