It didn't take him long to get rid of the wings.
Just as he changed his appearance to help the grandmother find somewhere safe to hide, the wings vanished.
He didn't concern himself with it for long. He needed to get the woman to safety.
He managed to find an abandoned old shed in the slums, and he hid there for a while.
As she had a tendency to wander off, he spent most of the time with her, looking after her needs, and locking the door whenever he had to go out.
He felt responsible for her.
The woman, on her part, continued to ask him about her granddaughter every time he came back.
He couldn't tell her she was forever gone.
He didn't have the heart to.
So he continued to lie to her…
And himself too…
Perhaps it was easier to believe it rather than acknowledge what he had seen.
Several experiments with the wings allowed him to finally discern the true nature of his Quirk.
He wondered how he was able to change his appearance at will, even manifest extra appendages, and reached one conclusion.
He was modifying his body on the gene level.
He was continuously rewriting his DNA, however he wanted.
If possible, he could even manifest several more Quirks.
It was a forbidden power.
And finally, the reason behind All For One's invitation crystallized.
He knew.
He all along knew.
He wanted his Quirk.
With his ability to alter DNA, he could manifest any kind of Quirks, even combine several.
That was a rattling realization.
To think the one he believed in was just using him all along.
Tadashi would have liked to keep hiding and avoid All For One as best as he could.
After what he witnessed, he was not interested in picking any side or fighting for anyone.
His sole concern was the old lady he had saved.
Alas, All For One was one step ahead of him.
He returned one day to find the shed's door unlocked.
Fearing he might have forgotten to secure it as he went out, the man rushed inside to check on the old lady, only for his eyes to widen in fear.
From the beams of the ceiling, the lady's corpse dangled on a rope, swaying slightly midair.
Tadashi was gripped with horror.
He rushed over to her, holding her legs, trying to raise her.
But he could already tell…
He was too late…
" What took you so long, Tadashi-kun?"
The voice sent a shiver down the man's spine, and he looked back at the door, only to see a certain man standing there.
" You… you did this to her!?" Tadashi didn't think he could be that angry on behalf of a stranger.
But perhaps she was not a stranger.
Perhaps, even for the briefest of moments, as he tried to replace her lost family, he felt she was his as well.
" What are you talking about? I just healed her." The man flaunted his hands dramatically. " I healed her aged mind and restored her memories. You should have seen her face when she remembered the loss of her one and only granddaughter. She must have felt so desperate to join her in the other world."
Tadashi was fuming.
If anything, the man before him stopped looking like a human all along.
He looked like the devil.
" Why…" he mumbled through gritted teeth.
" I told you…" All For One smirked. " You were late."
Tadashi's eyes narrowed, and his fists balled in anger.
" You should have returned to me! But you chose that woman instead! And who did she choose?" The man laughed. " She chose her dead granddaughter over the one who had been trying to protect her so far!"
Tadashi could feel his blood boiling in his veins, searing him from the inside.
The woman he cared for…
The woman who smiled at him and welcomed him every time he came back as if he were a family member…
" How dare you!" In a blink, Tadashi covered his arms in crystals and bolted towards All For One, only to be stopped midair, as though grabbed by an unseen hand.
All For One stood still, hand clutched tightly.
The man's smirk faded. " Heh, so you finally figured out what your ability truly is."
" How did you know!?" Tadashi growled, and the man smirked.
" Your previous crimes. You were a thug and a thief. The fingerprints the police found, the bits of hair, all of them had different DNAs, although all the records and footages points towards you."
Tadashi's eyes widened. " What? You think I can't get access to all those details? Don't sell me short!"
Faced with an insurmountable wall of a monster, Tadashi forced himself to take in a deep breath, and the crystals fell from his arms.
" Have we seen reason at last?"
" Yes…" Tadashi's eyes met All For One, and they were full of defiance. " I shall never… Allow you to have my Quirk… No matter what… you're not harming anyone with it!"
The man's veins glowed red as steam rose from his skin, and All For One's eyes widened.
" Goodbye forever! All For One!"
And then, there was a bright explosion…
________________
All For One survived, needless to say. He had a strong shield Quirk stored up.
The charred human flesh left on the ground of the decimated warehouse should have been proof enough that only All For One came out of the explosion.
But something didn't add up for him…
________________
That night, far away from the city, someone was burying a corpse in the woods.
They were wearing a black hood and wrapping a cloth around their face, so only their eyes could be seen.
However, there were the unmistakable burns froking like veins on their skin.
Finally, evening the ground, they planted the shovel in the dirt and sat down, observing the night sky.
" Will this war… ever end…"
No one had an answer.
Not even the stars knew if it was possible.
And so, the man sighed.
He looked at his hand, still with the burn marks running across it.
" If I keep using it… he will definitely find me again… what should I do?"
He squeezed his head, trying to think of something.
When an idea crossed his mind.
" I can be Quirkless. I can remove it entirely. That way! He will never get it!"
Just as he was about to set the plan in motion, the old woman's voice played at the back of his mind, as if coming from the unmarked grave behind him.
" O honorable angel…"
And his eyes softened. " I told you I was no angel…"
Before he knew it, tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his face, wetting the cloth.
He cried.
He cried like the young boy who had just lost his mother.
And when his voice grew hoarse and his tears dried, he stood up, wiping the remains on his sleeves.
He could become Quirkless.
But then what?
Nothing would change.
And he would live to see more and more people die before him, be it by the hands of the Quirkless or those with Quirks.
He didn't want to see it again.
He had had enough of it.
He had had enough of waiting for someone to change the world.
He should do it.
" Thanks… Granny…" he closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts into a single thought.
" You're an angel…"
He had always believed in lies.
Ever since he was a child.
He might as well add one more.
His hair faded into white, a yellow aura of light manifested over his head, and his skin paled as he opened crystal blue eyes.
What he failed to hide were the burn marks left by his unorthodox escape. But with a creative touch, he made them glow in a golden light.
" If people believe in angels, then I shall become one. I shall become the force that helps the world come together again. For years, and years. For generations. This new Quirk will continue to exist, to help and support, but never to fight. And DNA writer… it will forever be buried beneath Angel, never to be used again."
That was the day Angel was born…
________________
Sora was back in the darkness, contemplating what she watched and felt.
She finally understood why none of their ancestors ever became heroes.
It was Tadashi's will.
And it had probably been inherited with Angel and DNA Writer as well.
" What are you fighting for?" The girl looked back, finding Tadashi, the angel version of him, standing behind her. " Fighting had brought nothing but suffering. Didn't it lead to you losing your loved ones and seeing them get hurt?"
It was probably true.
Still…
" If I don't fight… I'll lose even more… If I don't step up to protect what's precious to me right now, I will regret it."
" Fighting had only led to hatred, like how villains and heroes are now. Like how we were before. No one would stop to consider the other for who they were. Quirkless and Gifted, Villains and Heroes, it's all the same."
" You might be right…" The girl looked at him, but her red eyes were full of resolve. " Certainly, fighting had fostered more and more hatred. But it's also through fighting that this hatred is overcome."
She couldn't help but remember Midoriya and Bakugo's fight months ago.
How they both were changed by it.
" Some battles have to be fought. Some things can't get across unless wills are pitted together."
How they fought to bring Midoriya back to UA.
" Nothing would change if you don't take the first step to change it."
How she fought to free her father.
" It's not like we want to fight; we had to. For the sake of everyone standing behind us. Isn't that why you didn't choose to become Quirkless?"
Tadashi's eyes widened slightly as he saw several more people stepping out of the darkness and lining up behind the girl.
His bloodline, his offspring, all of whom were backing off the girl.
She didn't seem to see it, however.
Subaru stepped forth and, with a proud smile, placed his hands on his daughter's shoulders.
" Everything you worked for, everything every one of our family worked to build, I don't want to see it wasted. As the last Angel, I will fight to protect the legacy you started. To the very end."
She held out her hand to the man. " That's why I ask for your help. Let's, for one last time, unleash DNA Writer's strength."
The resonance between Over Modification and DNA writer, the one chance miracle, she was going to use up most of it while she could.
Tadashi looked down at the hand extending towards him.
" You think you can do it? Breaking and rewriting the DNA is a consuming task. You don't have energy for that."
The girl smirked.
She already knew about that. She had seen Tadashi wolf food down like a starved dog after his experiments with his Quirk.
But for some reason, she could feel strength welling up within her.
She didn't know how or from where it was coming.
But she knew…
She could do it.
Sora merely gave a firm nod of assurance, and Tadashi stepped up to her, reluctantly holding her hand.
" For the sake of everyone," he said.
" For the sake of everyone, who made it, and who didn't."
With that, the glowing veins began to crawl all over the girl's skin, as she felt her body growing hotter by the second…