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[Fate Will Be My Bitch]
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…
"My death?"
Taka's question echoed in the cold silence that had settled in the room.
Nighteye's pupils seemed to tremble slightly as he remembered it, his hand gripping his face tighter.
"The future I saw… it was still too detailed to be too far away in time. There's no certain number, but given the level of detail compared to other attempts I've made reaching into much further visions… I wouldn't give it more than a month."
Taka's eyes widened, startled by the proximity.
"…"
Yet, as he gave it more thought, it made a bit more sense.
The further into the future, the stronger he'd become.
If there was any moment he'd be vulnerable and killed, it would be now. When he still hadn't become the true strongest.
Yet, even as he glanced at himself right now, he couldn't see how.
Regardless of whether he still wasn't the strongest, the number of people even remotely capable of fighting him off were in the single digits.
And the only one strong enough who would also have some kind of motivation to kill him was…
"…!" A glint of realization crossed Taka's eyes.
After a brief pause in which his eyes traveled as his thoughts ran, he looked back at Nighteye, who still seemed to be recovering from the shock himself.
"What did you see exactly?"
After processing the question for a moment, Nighteye didn't answer outright. He seemed to revisit the vision first, his face growing grim.
And in a way, it was no wonder.
Taka—the answer to bending fate and changing the unchangeable—had been sentenced to die by the very fate he feared was unchangeable.
He had bet Taka was the key… but what if he wasn't? What if it was something else, something in the background he hadn't yet seen, that had brought the boy to this point? Would that help prevent this as well? Or would Taka too fall prey to fate?
Or even if Taka was the key as he hoped—would he be able to bend fate twice? Even more so when this time it was his own life on the line?
The hope that had begun brewing in his heart started to wilt, his stern and troubled look returning. As it did, he began explaining.
"You appeared to be in a battle, a fierce one judging by the destruction around you… Yet you were smiling, not looking the least worried. So I don't think it was particularly a struggle for you."
"With whom?"
"I didn't get to see. I only saw you standing over a destroyed landscape, glaring at a ruined building with a victorious look."
"… Then how…?"
"Something pierced your heart from behind. It was too sudden—nothing had been there, but suddenly, as the vision shifted like a change of scene, something pierced you completely… what came out of your chest was a grotesque-looking arm filled with sharp, spear-like bones that served as the piercer. Then you fell, blood seeping out of you—until the vision cut off."
"…"
Nighteye massaged his temple, looking like a migraine was coming. "So in the end, I wasn't able to see what was behind you or what killed you."
"Hah."
Taka's sudden laugh startled Nighteye, who focused back on him—only to see Taka smirking, though the smile didn't reach his eyes.
-Snap!-
The sound of the window latch giving way came out of nowhere, and the night breeze rushing in snatched Nighteye's attention, making him turn in disbelief before glaring back at Taka in confusion.
But before he could ask anything, Taka walked past him.
"Sorry, but I've got to go somewhere."
And, without letting him say anything—
—Boom!—
-Flutter-
—He shot out the window, the violence of his ascent making papers scatter off the desk and the entire room shake briefly.
Nighteye could only stare as, in less than a second, Taka's figure disappeared into the night sky, impossibly fast.
...
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| Minutes later, Kamino's Bar… |
...
Silence enveloped the bar—until recently a villain gathering place, now filled with nothing but the barely audible hum of machines still running somewhere.
Dust had gathered everywhere, a clear sign of how long it had been abandoned.
Then—
—BANG!—
—CRASH!—
Suddenly, the door to the hideout was sent flying off its hinges, crashing against a wall and shattering into several pieces. Behind it, Taka stood with his foot raised where the door had been, having kicked it clean off.
Then he stepped inside, eyes scanning sharply.
"..."
Yet no matter where he looked, he saw no one and nothing. Only an empty, abandoned place.
Still silent, he made his way through the few other rooms.
However, no matter what door he opened, all he came across was solitude.
And with it, anger began seeping in, his teeth gritting.
—BOOM!—
In an instant, his figure shot forward at blinding speed, still upright as if standing on solid ground, and crashed straight through the far wall, bursting out into the street.
"What?"
"W-what happened? A villain?"
"I think that building just collapsed!"
Several bystanders glanced at the destruction in confusion.
—But before they could catch sight of him, his figure blurred and shot across the air.
The city below stretched as his body moved at impossible speeds, warping the space around him.
He crossed half the city in seconds. And even as he did, he moved silently—as though air resistance and sound simply didn't apply to him.
Before long he stood in the air before another building. An abandoned residential block.
All For One's base from the show. The one where Nomus had been harvested, and from where the villain had emerged to wreak chaos during the arc involving Bakugo.
Just like the villain bar, it had been under his surveillance.
So, just like the bar, would it be…?
"…" His frown deepened at the thought.
Without a care for infrastructure, his figure shot straight through the wall, entering the building unimpeded and unaffected.
Yet, just as the previous one…
"Nothing." He spat.
Only dust and an empty place, not a soul in sight.
Holding onto some kind of hope, he extended his sensory aura through the building, searching for any hidden crevice, a secret entrance, any trace of movement from someone invisible.
There was nothing.
This empty, abandoned, desolate place. This was all there was.
The villains who were supposed to still be here… were no longer so.
And the reason was pretty clear.
"So they figured it out too," Taka said with a scoff, the grin on his face doing nothing to hide the anger bleeding into his voice.
Since when, was the question.
How long had the bastard known?
"My clones saw nothing abnormal in how they were behaving, even until yesterday."
Slowly, he walked over to a stair railing and dragged a finger along the surface.
As expected—it came away with dust.
"Yet they've been gone for far longer than that."
What did that mean?
It meant they had been fooling him. Showing him what he wanted to see, making him think he was in control.
As aura began seeping off him involuntarily like a red mist, his figure suddenly blurred.
—CRASH!—
A second later, the ceiling of the building exploded upward, and a vertiginous shadow shot into the sky, ascending unimpeded at impossible speed until it stopped at cloud level, swallowed by the dark.
Watching the lit city far below, Taka's eyes remained on the building he'd just left, his fist trembling.
After a few more seconds, he drew in a deep breath, the anger subsiding slightly.
As he calmed, his gaze dropped to his chest, picturing the arm of that man piercing through it.
'He will kill me, huh?'
The thought reignited his anger all over again.
Now that the bastard was aware of the threat he posed, he planned to dispose of him, just like that?
Like it was so easy?
"Nah."
He had lost that chance a long while ago.
And now that the bastard wanted to cash that chance, he wouldn't let him.
He hadn't come all this way just for All For One to kill him for flying too high.
Just because Nighteye's vision had predicted his death didn't mean anything.
For all he knew, Nighteye's Quirk couldn't predict the system given that he hadn't seen the future it had brought, so maybe it hadn't accounted for it this time either.
Maybe the Taka he saw was one in an hypothetical case where the system vanished, and he was forced to fend off All For One as he was.
And even if the Quirk could somehow now predict the system, just like everything else, he also knew firsthand that, in the show, Midoriya had shifted the outcome of a future Nighteye saw, through sheer strength of will.
He didn't know whether he was as strong as Midoriya had been at that moment, given that Midoriya at that instant had access to the full power of One For All thanks to Eri.
But he refused to accept that, even knowing his future demise, he couldn't do anything about it—even with all the power he'd amassed.
Just because the man's Quirk had said so.
Despite how strong he had become.
Despite the change in fate he'd brought, no longer just background noise in a story he wasn't even sure he appeared in, even as just a bland figure.
Despite how he had grown.
They were telling him nothing of that would be worth anything because the future had said so, and because All For One had decided he wouldn't put up with him anymore.
Like saying the control of his own life still wasn't in his grasp, being nothing but a disposable piece that any of the two entities could discard at any given moment.
"A fixed future my ass." Taka spat, his eyes gleaming with anger-fueled conviction as a deep aura began emanating from him. "Nighteye wants the key to bend the unbendable? I'll bend the unbendable."
His figure shot ahead from one moment to another, like a shooting star crossing the night sky back in direction to the agency.
"Fate will be my bitch, as will be All For One."
With those words coming out of his mouth with spite, he took out his phone still mid-flight, and pressed a contact.
After a few seconds of ringing, someone answered.
{"Well well well, if it isn't my lifelong rival, Rockinesis. To what do I owe this pleasure?"}
...
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| The next day, noon… |
...
"Goddamnit, let me go!"
A man in a balaclava floated overhead, kicking and squirming futilely, unable to descend no matter what he did, a faint crimson aura surrounding his body.
"Well, that's one efficient way to apprehend someone." Mirio noted from below, nodding appreciatively as he watched their target rendered completely helpless without even a fight.
He turned toward Taka, who leaned against a wall, looking anything but interested in the man he had suspended mid-air.
"Something the matter, Auros? You don't seem to be in the best mood."
"I'm having some pest control problems."
"Pest control?"
Before he could ask what that meant, a police siren snatched his attention, and patrol cars began pulling up shortly after.
With them here, Mirio got right into his duties and gave his report.
Since the arrest had been smooth and quick, there wasn't much to cover. The officers could only stare between the still-floating suspect and Taka with stunned expressions.
Before long, both were cleared to go, and with little time left in their patrol, they made their way back to the agency.
As they arrived, Bubble Girl was there to greet them.
"Another fruitful patrol, right?"
"Yeah, the police are getting quite the workload lately. I guess that's a good thing though!" Mirio laughed.
She smiled cheerfully. Their agency had been doing remarkably well this past week, and all thanks to their newest intern. They were bound to rise a few rankings after this.
As she thought of Taka, something else came to mind.
"That's right—Sir Nighteye told me to let you know to come by his office once you were done, Takahashi-kun!"
Taka nodded, not looking particularly surprised.
Mirio could only tilt his head at the summons. He didn't remember his own internship being this eventful.
Before long, Taka bid them farewell and made his way directly to Nighteye's office, walking with calm in his step.
As he arrived, Nighteye seemed to have been waiting—he set down the papers in his hand the moment Taka entered.
"Takahashi, you've come. Good."
He stood up and walked over to him.
"I've contacted Nezu. I hope you don't mind, but yesterday was of enough importance to involve him. We've agreed that upon finishing your internship here in two days, you'll return to U.A. immediately and enter directly under the school's protection. It's the least we can do to prevent… what we've foreseen."
Taka didn't seem thrilled by it. But he didn't oppose it. He doubted he had much say in the matter.
Nighteye's description of the vision was almost certainly enough to alert Nezu and the rest about who would truly be behind his death.
He doubted they would just let him handle that on his own.
"However, if you prefer to bring this internship to an end right now, given the circumstances, Nezu clarified that that's fine too. You'll be evaluated with that into consideratio—"
"It's fine." Taka cut him off. "I'll finish the internship. Regardless of what may or not come."
Nighteye seemed surprised for a moment, but after a brief pause, he gave Taka a nod.
"I'll tell Nezu, then."
Taka nodded back.
And with seemingly no more content to the brief meeting, and no more words between the two of them, Taka gave Nighteye a nod and began walking away.
Nighteye could only stare at his departing back in silence, lost in his own thoughts.
Minutes later, Taka arrived back at his room, sat on the bed, took off the most cumbersome parts of his costume, and dropped fully onto it.
As he lay there, he stared at the ceiling.
'The school is gonna try and help me.'
They would probably have All Might watch him around the clock to prevent anything from happening.
He didn't know how effective that would be, though. He doubted whatever had led to his death in that vision hadn't accounted for All Might.
Although, in all his strength, the man might be enough to bend destiny. Especially now that he was healed.
But he wasn't going to gamble on that and leave it all to him. He wasn't just going to sit and wait for whatever was supposed to lead to that outcome.
All For One might have figured out that he knew about their bases—but he didn't know everything.
He was still the one with the advantage in information.
And he'd make sure to put that to use.
"Fate or not on your side, baldy—it won't be enough."
This time he wouldn't make the mistake he made with Shigaraki.
He'd wipe them out for good—their boss included and all.
...
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: I dunno what to put here.)