The Kamino Ward district had always carried the faint scent of rust and old concrete, even before it became a graveyard for villain dreams.
James stepped out of the portal onto a cracked rooftop three blocks from the League's hideout—the same derelict bar that, in another timeline, would have hosted their early meetings and eventual downfall.
Tonight, the neon signs flickered weakly, half the letters burned out. No police tape yet. No hero patrols sweeping the area. Just silence and the distant hum of the city pretending nothing was wrong.
He knew the location from memory. The bar's basement stretched into a warren of tunnels and reinforced rooms—Kurogiri's warp gates had made it a perfect rat's nest. In canon, this place would burn later. Tonight, James would make sure nothing crawled out of the ashes.
He descended the fire escape in silence, boots barely touching metal. At street level, he paused outside the bar's front door. A faded sign read "Closed." Through the grimy windows he could see dim movement inside—shadows shifting, voices low and tense.
They were licking their wounds from USJ. Shigaraki probably still seething about the lost Nomu, the easy defeat, the way All Might had humiliated them without breaking a sweat.
James raised his right hand.
A fireball coalesced—larger than any he'd thrown in the alley or the Shie Hassaikai labs. It grew until it was the size of a beach ball, swirling orange and white-hot at the core. He didn't hesitate.
The fireball slammed into the door.
The explosion was deafening—wood and metal shredding outward in a spray of splinters and molten slag. The front of the bar caved inward, flames licking up the walls. Alarms didn't even have time to scream before the blast wave rolled through the interior.
James stepped through the smoking hole, firelight dancing across his face.
Inside, chaos.
Spinner—Shuichi Iguchi, the green-scaled lizard-man with the sword fetish—was closest to the door. He spun, blades already drawn. "What the—?!"
James didn't speak. A water whip lashed out from his left palm—sharp as a razor, pressurized to cut steel. It caught Spinner across the chest, cleaving through scales and ribs in a single motion. The villain staggered, blood spraying, then collapsed in a wet heap.
Dabi was next.
Touya Todoroki leaned against the far wall, blue flames already flickering along his fingertips. His scarred face twisted into a sneer. "Get out before i kill you."
James met his gaze. "You talk too much."
Dabi launched forward, blue fire roaring in twin streams. James countered with a wall of water—limited, but dense enough to turn the flames to steam. The hiss was deafening. Dabi pressed harder, trying to overwhelm with raw heat.
James closed the distance in a blink. A point-blank fireball struck Dabi square in the chest. The impact hurled him backward into the bar counter. Wood splintered. Bottles exploded. Dabi coughed blood, flames guttering as his own fire turned inward, burning his already ruined skin.
He tried to rise.
James drove a water trident through his heart.
Dabi's eyes widened—shock, then nothing. He slumped, blue flames dying to embers.
Kurogiri materialized from a warp gate behind James—mist swirling, yellow eyes glowing. "Intruder. You will not—"
A fireball to the core of his misty form. The purple-black haze ignited, burning unnaturally bright. Kurogiri screamed—a distorted, echoing sound—as his warp essence destabilized.
James followed with a concentrated water blast, forcing the mist to condense, then freeze under pressure. The mist solidified into a grotesque, half-formed statue before shattering into harmless vapor.
Gone.
The hero killer Stain—unexpectedly present, probably dragged here by Shigaraki's obsession with "true heroes"—lunged from the shadows. Katana flashing, tongue extended to taste blood and paralyze.
James sidestepped. "Not today."
He caught Stain's wrist mid-swing, twisted, snapped bone. Stain grunted. James drove a knee into his gut, then summoned a fire whip that coiled around the killer's throat. The flames seared through flesh and sinew. Stain's eyes bulged. He dropped, sword clattering, body smoking.
James stepped over him without a glance.
The basement stairs beckoned.
He descended.
The lower level was darker—dim red emergency lights, concrete walls scarred from past warp-gate experiments. Shigaraki Tenko Shimura sat at the head of a battered table, hands buried in his hair, scratching furiously. The decay quirk had already claimed patches of his own skin. His red eyes lifted as James entered.
"You."
Shigaraki's voice cracked—half rage, half disbelief.
"Who the hell are you?"
James stopped ten feet away.
"Someone who's ending your game."
Shigaraki laughed—high, jagged. "You think you can just walk in here and—?"
He lunged, hands outstretched, decay ready to crumble anything he touched.
James didn't dodge.
He met Shigaraki head-on.
A water whip wrapped around Shigaraki's wrists, yanking them back before fingers could make contact. Shigaraki snarled, thrashing.
James closed the gap and drove a fire bolt straight into Shigaraki's chest—not enough to kill instantly, just enough to burn through clothing and sear skin.
Shigaraki screamed.
James released the whip, grabbed him by the throat—careful not to let fingers touch skin—and lifted him off the ground.
"You wanted to destroy everything," James said quietly. "You wanted to hurt kids. You wanted to break heroes."
Shigaraki clawed at James's arm. Decay tried to eat through the sleeve—fabric crumbled, but James's skin held. The quirk had limits against someone who wasn't purely organic anymore.
James tightened his grip.
"Then you should have stayed out of my way."
He slammed Shigaraki down onto the table. Wood cracked. Shigaraki gasped, coughing blood.
James raised his hand.
A final fireball formed—small, precise, hotter than the sun.
He pressed it to Shigaraki's chest.
The villain's eyes widened.
The explosion was contained—contained to one body.
When the light faded, Tenko Shimura was gone. Only ash and a cracked table remained.
Silence.
James stood amid the bodies—Spinner, Dabi, Kurogiri, Stain, Shigaraki. The League of Villains, reduced to corpses in less than ten minutes.
He exhaled.
It was done.
__________________
Few moments later
The basement air tasted like ash and ozone.
James stood amid the cooling corpses of the League—Spinner's blood still pooling, Dabi's charred husk smoking faintly, Shigaraki's ashes scattered across the cracked table like gray snow. The silence was absolute except for the slow, mechanical rasp of breathing from the far end of the room.
All For One stepped fully into the dim red emergency lighting.
His silhouette was massive, warped by old scars and support gear. White hair hung lank over the featureless black helmet that covered what remained of his face. Tubes snaked from his coat into hidden ports.
One arm dangled uselessly; the other flexed with restrained menace. He looked like a man who had been carved apart by All Might decades ago and stitched back together with spite.
He regarded the bodies without emotion.
"You killed my successor," he said. The voice was calm, almost conversational, but layered with something ancient and cold. "And you ended my League. For that alone, you die."
James didn't answer. He simply raised both hands.
Fire and water coiled around his palms—orange flames spiraling into tight orbs, blue liquid twisting into razor whips. No words. No taunts. Just the promise of violence.
All For One moved first.
His good hand swept upward. A stolen quirk activated—Harden. His skin shimmered, then turned glossy black, veins of obsidian running beneath the surface. The quirk wasn't just armor; it was density, resistance, a body turned to near-indestructible stone.
James hurled the first fireball.
It struck All For One square in the chest. The explosion lit the basement like a forge—flames roaring, heat warping the air. Concrete cracked behind the villain. But All For One didn't stagger. The hardened shell absorbed the blast, dispersing the force in a shower of harmless sparks.
"Pathetic," All For One said.
He countered.
Lightning cracked from his fingertips—another stolen quirk, summoned from thin air. Bolts the thickness of arms slammed into James. He dove sideways, rolling behind a collapsed support beam. The lightning scorched the floor black, left the air smelling of burnt copper.
James came up firing water whips—two at once, razor-edged, aimed for the neck and knees. They struck All For One's hardened legs and torso with wet cracks, slicing shallow grooves into the obsidian skin before rebounding harmlessly.
All For One laughed—low, echoing.
"Two hundred years," he said. "I have stolen more quirks than you have drawn breaths. You think fire and water will suffice?"
He clenched his fist.
Earth Manipulation—another quirk. The floor beneath James buckled. Watery mud erupted from the concrete—thick, clinging, sucking at his boots like quicksand. It rose fast, trying to bury him alive.
James leaped, summoning a water trident mid-air. He hurled it downward—piercing the mud, turning it to steam. The trident shattered against All For One's hardened chest, barely leaving a scratch.
All For One advanced.
Wind howled next—Wind Control. A gale-force blast slammed into James, hurling him backward into the far wall. Concrete shattered on impact. He hit hard, ribs creaking, but rolled to his feet.
Blood trickled from his lip.
He was fast. He was strong. But All For One had centuries of combat experience, a library of quirks, and a body that had survived worse than anything James could throw.
Another lightning bolt. James dodged, but the follow-up wind gust clipped him, sending him skidding across the floor. He countered with a barrage of fireballs—five in rapid succession. They exploded against All For One's hardened form, lighting up the basement in strobing orange.
The villain didn't even flinch.
"You're strong," All For One admitted. "But strength without variety is meaningless."
He raised his hand again. Lightning + wind combined—charged gusts crackling with electricity. The storm rushed forward.
James threw up a water shield—dense, curved, reinforced with whips. The lightning struck it, arcing wildly. The wind tore at the edges. He held for three seconds—four—then the shield shattered. Electricity grazed his arm, burning skin. Pain flared white-hot.
He gritted his teeth.
This wasn't working.
All For One was too durable, too versatile, too experienced. Every attack James landed was shrugged off. Every counter hit harder than the last. The villain was toying with him—testing limits, savoring the inevitable.
James's breathing grew ragged. Blood dripped from his scorched arm. He could feel the fight slipping.
Then—
A blue holographic screen flickered into existence between them, visible only to James.
[Would you like to gain an injection?
(Filled with liquid containing the effect: Rewinds the person's age back to an infant, then out of existence—similar to Eri's Rewind Quirk when it malfunctions)
Note: One-time use]
James stared at the words.
No hesitation.
"Yes," he said aloud.
The screen pulsed once.
A small glass syringe materialized in his right hand—cold metal plunger, clear barrel filled with a faintly glowing silver liquid. It appeared from nowhere, as if the universe had simply decided to hand him the answer.
All For One froze.
For the first time, genuine surprise crossed what little could be seen of his expression beneath the helmet.
"What… is that?"
James didn't answer.
Instead he spoke the words he'd saved for the perfect moment.
"I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye."
He flicked his wrist.
A handful of ordinary dirt—summoned by the Level 1 Dirt skill—shot forward in a perfect arc. It struck All For One directly in the eyes(Imaginary eyes).
The villain roared.
Instinctively, his hands flew to his face. The hardened quirk faltered for a heartbeat—long enough for the dirt to blind him, clog his vision, force him to blink and swipe uselessly. Lightning flickered erratically from his fingers. Wind howled in confusion. The mud on the floor stilled.
James moved.
He closed the distance in three strides.
All For One sensed him coming—swung blindly, hardened fist whistling through the air.
James ducked under it.
And plunged the syringe straight into All For One's exposed neck—right where the tubes met flesh.
He pressed the plunger.
The silver liquid vanished into the villain's bloodstream.
All For One staggered back.
"What… have you—"
The effect was immediate.
His body began to shrink.
Not collapse. Not burn. Shrink.
The hardened skin softened, flaking away like old paint. Scars smoothed. Muscle melted. Bones shortened. The massive frame contracted inward—two hundred years unwinding in seconds.
All For One's helmet cracked as his skull shrank beneath it. The tubes tore free, dangling uselessly. His voice—once deep and commanding—rose in pitch, becoming panicked, then childish, then infantile.
"No—no—nooo—"
He dropped to his knees, then to all fours. Limbs shortened. Hair fell out in clumps. Skin tightened, smoothed, became baby-soft.
Within thirty seconds, what had been the most dangerous man alive was no larger than a newborn—naked, wrinkled, helpless, lying on the ash-strewn floor.
Then the rewind continued.
The infant form shrank further—smaller, smaller—until it was barely visible.
A final pulse.
And then—nothing.
No body. No ash. No trace.
All For One had been erased from existence.
James stood over the empty spot.
Silence.
Then he started laughing.
It began as a low chuckle—disbelieving—then grew. His shoulders shook. Head thrown back. The sound echoed off the ruined basement walls—raw, triumphant, almost manic.
He laughed until his ribs hurt.
Until tears stung his eyes.
Until the absurdity and horror of it all crashed together and became something cathartic.
All For One—the boogeyman of hero society, the collector of quirks, the architect of decades of suffering—gone.
Not defeated.
Not imprisoned.
Simply… unwound.
James wiped his face with the back of his hand, still chuckling.
"Fuck you," he whispered to the empty space.
He stood there for a long minute, breathing hard, letting the adrenaline bleed out.
Then he opened a portal.
Stepped through.
Two hours later – Soul Space
The golden light was softer now. Calmer.
James emerged into the main living area—quiet, warm, smelling faintly of chamomile tea and fresh bread. His wives were scattered around: Hayley lounging on the oversized couch with Eri curled against her side, reading a picture book aloud in her low, soothing voice. Hope sat cross-legged on the floor, sorting through a pile of stuffed animals she'd conjured earlier. Jozie was in the kitchenette, humming as she stirred something on the stove.
They all looked up when he appeared.
No questions. No demands.
Just quiet relief.
Eri's red eyes brightened. She slid off the couch and ran over—small feet pattering—wrapping her arms around his leg.
James knelt, scooped her up easily.
"Hey, kiddo."
He ruffled her silver hair, then reached out with his free hand to pat Hayley on the shoulder as she stood. Hope rose gracefully. Jozie wiped her hands on a towel and joined them.
They didn't ask where he'd been.
They didn't need to.
James looked at each of them—his wives, his daughter—and felt something settle deep in his chest.
"I'm feeling better," he said quietly. "Way better."
Hayley's eyes searched his face for a moment. Then she nodded—once, sharp, satisfied.
Hope smiled—small, knowing.
Jozie leaned in and kissed his cheek.
Eri just hugged him tighter.
James carried her back to the couch, sat down with her in his lap. Hayley settled beside him. Hope took the other side. Jozie curled up on the floor, head resting against his knee.
No words about Kamino Ward.
No mention of bodies or lightning or injections.
Just family.
James leaned back, closed his eyes.