just a tiny crumb, only if possible,,, the prettiest pretty please 🙌✨❤
I respect you and your decision to ask for this off anon. This is the homebrewed fantasy AU (based off @boss-the-goofball's fantasy otome isekai prequel) featuring Demon Lord of Evil All for One and 'Bro, Seriously? This Guy?' Knight Torino.
in-universe context: AfO is a Demon Lord who fell off the radar a long time ago. He's passing as a human but the bulk of his divinity (really love religious terminology; I'm gonna be accused of blasphemy someday) is in the sword that Sorahiko agrees to carry/ferry to the 'vault'.
wc: 1,615 | rated: a mild m but i'm tagging as lemon for decency's sake
//
Ever since those loathsome paladins of One for All started dispelling the curses and cultic practices that All for One had embedded into the lands long ago, there was a distinct decline of zealots vying for his attention. Gone were the acolytes who dreamt of having him as a patron; exiled (if not summarily executed) were the cultists who praised his generosity and lavished him with their worship. The world had learned to treat All for One as taboo, and as useful as it was to be the unspoken embodiment of evil, it was also just that: unspoken.
Unspoken, then unacknowledged. The consequence of being deliberately ignored (forgotten!) is his current reduced nature: he’s still more than a mortal, but he’s also become nearly as vulnerable as one.
“Are you testing me?” Torino demands. The hedge knight dogs All for One’s footsteps as All for One leads the way back to an old follower’s home. That follower is dead, but property is eternal, and All for One’s claim never fades.
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe so you could get off on seeing your damn sword in action. Not that you could’ve seen much, considering your position in that mess was directly underneath a dogpile of idiots.” A brief pause, and then Torino says in resignation, “Except you didn’t have to see it.”
“I feel it all,” says All for One smugly. “You wield the blade well.”
“Oh, so you were getting off on it.”
“And there’s the romance of the whole encounter, gone,” he laments. Just as they reach the door, too!
Located on the outskirts of the village, his old follower’s home is a rough-hewn hut surrounded by overgrown bushes. There is no light shining from within, no smoke exiting the mud-and-stone column protruding from the roof. Somewhere in the dirt, All for One can sense a buried idol that wards off any do-gooder’s attempt at arson.
All for One pushes at the wood, sweeping an arm out in a gesture for Torino to step in first.
“A real lightning bolt of attraction,” Torino says, dry, and instead of agreeably following All for One’s direction, he stops in front of his (well, it’s not locked in just yet, but All for One can seal this deal; the blade is just one aspect of several for Torino to truly become his champion) patron and tilts his head. Their eyes meet.
There’s blood on his face still, streaking up from a stubbled jaw and staining the arch of his nose. A few abrasions mar the overall visage, but overall…
All for One smiles. He’s always been partial to those who spilled blood for him.
“What are we doing here?”
“Resting,” he answers, innocent. “After all, we’ve made enemies among the villagers. You can’t pay for a room until they, hm, forget the beating you’ve delivered.”
Torino’s eyebrows draw together in a clear, if silent, curse. His thin mouth tightens into a bloodless line, and then he blows out a rough sigh. “The owner?”
“Long dead.”
“... Provisions?”
All for One blinks down at his knight. “You’re here.”
“Ah,” says Torino, sounding as though puzzle pieces have finally slotted into place. Whatever revelations have occurred in Torino’s head, they certainly haven’t come from All for One, who is now dearly wishing for that mental backdoor access. One step at a time, though. Torino’s only just promised to bear the sword to the vault.
If he plays his cards right, he can tempt Torino a little further down.
“It's a shelter from the elements,” he says.
“And only that,” Torino mocks.
“I offered you what I have. See what I’ve lost now?” All for One reaches for Torino’s forehead--an old habit--and deftly switches tracks to card the silver hair with his fingers. And Torino lets him. “All my tributes, my riches, oh, they all claimed it was going to be redistributed. But then they said it was cursed, and they hoarded it for themselves.”
“Because you parted with your gold so easily.”
“I made exchanges based on equal value.”
“So in your eyes, is this shelter worth my tender love and care?” Torino glances at the sparse interior--a hearth, a cobwebbed cauldron, a dusty bed with moth-eaten covers--and looks back at All for One with a challenging stare. The sting of his question fails to hurt, though. A part of All for One exults at the phrase ‘tender love and care.’
“Not alone,” says All for One slyly. “Why, you’ve been given the whole package, Sir Torino. The weapon, the house, and the god, all at your disposal.” With his hand at Torino’s nape, he draws him forward until their chests make contact, and All for One bends his own neck in order to give Torino a kiss.
Torino makes a noise, somehow startled in spite of all the signals having been sent his way. His hands go to grasp at All for One’s waist. He kisses back tentatively, then hungrily. As All for One pulls away for air, Torino takes the opportunity to urge him into the hut, kicking the door shut behind them.
“Air’s not as stale as I expected.”
“Mm,” he hums, distracted by the influx of power. It’s quick to recede, so All for One’s using it fast to make this living space more bearable. Cycling a sharp, cold breeze to kill any small, leggy intruders is the first item on his agenda.
“You’re doing something,” Torino realizes aloud, and he follows that profoundly redundant statement with an explorative trail of his mouth to All for One’s throat. Breathed against that flesh, Torino says, “Is it the action, or the intention?”
“It’s more fun when it’s both.” The deflection earns him teeth, almost immediately soothed by a tongue, and All for One clutches at Torino’s neck with a gasp. “Bed. Now.”
“What, you’re not going to fuss about the sheets?”
“Torino.”
“I don’t have supplies,” Torino says, a hint of warning entering his tone. “Give me more time in the next town, and maybe I’ll get away with more than a jar of salt.”
“If you’re following along,” All for One retorts, “then you can predict how I’ll fix it.”
The thing is, All for One thinks as he takes a step back, Torino does follow along. He’s grasped that worship isn’t just for ego’s sake. But if All for One spells it out, Torino will act contrary just to poke fun at the Demon Lord of Evil.
Closer to the bed. He thinks of undressing himself, but Torino’s pointed question holds true: All for One does want to fuss about the sheets. So instead he sits on top of the covers and watches Torino shuffle off his traveling gear: the boxy pack, the cloak, and the belts attached to the sheath of his blade. The boots come off one at a time, and after a moment, so does the top half of his outfit.
“You’re folding your clothes?”
“In the loosest of terms,” Torino says. The linens and the mail are rendered into neat squares sitting on top of the cloak; with no other way to delay the inevitable, Torino finally gives all his attention to All for One.
“Well?” All for One says, imperious in his invitation. He cocks his head and parts his legs.
“I gotta undress you too?”
“Perhaps passion could win out over propriety just this once,” he suggests.
Torino huffs out a laugh, but he approaches All for One without hesitation and climbs into the bed, carelessly tugging the Demon Lord of Evil to the center. For easier access, he rucks up the skirts of All for One’s robe.
“Hey, look at that. You do wear pants.”
“You’ll want to take my shoes off before that.”
The click of a tongue is hardly a reprimand, not when Torino so agreeably catches one of All for One’s legs and starts feeling for the seam where the hems were tucked into a road-worn boot. He drags a nail over the bunched fabric when he finds it, and is terribly gentle while pulling linen from leather.
It feels like worship, for all that Torino says no prayers.
All for One basks in it. His vision blurs slightly, going out of focus as Torino occupies himself with divesting All for One of his shoes and pants. The flow of power is only a trickle, and this mortal vessel can’t even hoard it, so he has to use it now. Priorities, priorities… definitely the bed first.
Using magic to mend and launder fabric would have earned his ridicule once, but it’s not as though All for One has the capacity to weave it anew just this second. He thinks longingly of the fine things lost from his castle: the furnishings, the meals, the painted-black plates of armor his armies donned to induce fear.
“Still here?”
With a start, All for One feels the cold air brush against bare skin. There are hands stroking up and down his legs, and Torino shuffles closer on his knees. Power licks through his veins like a dog slavering for its first meal of the day.
Half-dazed, he says, “Yes,” and, “More.”
“Greedy,” Torino accuses, and even though it’s not the vow of devotion that All for One starves for, it’s a shade closer to fondness than Torino would probably perish before admitting. His knight digs his fingers against the pliant flesh of All for One’s thighs, bites his throat hard enough to earn a gasping moan. “Selfish.”
“You’re here to please your god,” All for One manages.
“Aren’t I,” says Torino, and he slides his mouth against All for One’s in a rough kiss.
machia and yoichi, you say 👀 could you tell us more about this ship, please? i smell a lot of fun here - they both were close to afo, had some emotional attachment to him, experienced extreme violation of their body autonomy because of it, however they had very... well. rough start. but any romantic relationships between them would be based on something more than constant manipulations, lying and lust, i bet
My thoughts are more half-shaped vibes than coherent sentences but I'll do my best. I see two main sets of options for this ship
1- where they do indeed have a very rough start lol. Machia is one of the few trusted with the Vault's location and purpose and brings food when AfO is too busy elsewhere, and sometimes they talk- neither of them think very highly of the other, but I think actual conversation could break out after Yoichi asks where his brother is when it's been longer than usual since he visited, and Machia picks at the concern in his voice, to Yoichi's protests. Yoichi would also ask his name and not get it, but two days later realize Machia never refers to him by name either. "I'm Yoichi, by the way." And Machia never heard his name out of AfO's lips before (never heard AfO's name either, though, surely he doesn't need it, to serve his lord...) but something's gotta shift then, even if it isn't much. Perhaps it is something different, to hold down someone for force feeding when you know their name. (Something different when he shot an angry look at you first, for telling AfO about the hunger strike, even though you aren't the one who got him locked down here and he was skinny enough before-). Also I don't think Yoichi is actively trying to seduce his guard to escape (which is also something fun but anyway less so here) BUT he does have this urge in him. This "I can fix him" urge, or maybe this "I can save him" urge is a better way to put it. Also, Machia had to have seen a lot of quirk exchanges, thefts, and rewards in his time guarding AfO. He's also not that dumb. I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch for him to begin to pick up on the different reaction to someone without a power getting one, someone with a power getting another one that merges, and someone with a power getting another one that overwhelms them. So after Yoichi has a power forced onto him, I think Machia might be one of the ones who realizes what happened first- even if he's in denial, thinks it could be an unusual reaction because Yoichi's body was weaker than expected, surely AfO would know if he has a quirk and they merged together- but after reporting the reaction to AfO, who suddenly can't take it back out of Yoichi, well... clearly AfO isn't perfect. I don't know if it would go fully romantic before Yoichi's rescue from the vault but I think it could be heading that direction. And, Machia would feel guilty enough for Yoichi being taken from the vault even though he was guarding AfO at the time as ordered, more so if Yoichi dies soon after. Guilty and grieving enough to submit to AfO giving him more powers, even as it hurts while they're still merging, he'll survive it, get stronger, never notice how much of his mind AfO clawed back under his control, how little he thinks of Yoichi years later.
2- the second option is that they actually had a rough end. This is one where Machia was Yoichi's friend first, and AfO suffered a bad case of "can't let him have his own toys". Perhaps Yoichi started out as a villain, or closer to it, and recruited Machia in. Perhaps they were friends when younger. Either way, AfO slowly gets in between them, charismatic and manipulative. Maybe seems a more capable villain than Yoichi, who gives Machia powers while Yoichi keeps losing the forest for the trees, trying to ensure each lower member of the group is in the right spot, helped in return, something Machia had appreciated when it benefited him early on, found good, but now finds irritating, as AfO clearly does. Or perhaps Yoichi was always too sweet, and AfO poked and prodded about how he needed more protection, about how only he had the power to do more, speaking of things Yoichi couldn't understand but they, the metas, could. And then it's easy to join, and easy to be betrayed when Yoichi tries to leave. After all, if he'd turn on his own beloved family, who was there before you were, of course he'd turn on you too eventually, and maybe you were more of a project to him than a partner- memories easily rewritten, when pretty green eyes are glaring at your fiercely as if you're the traitor, when you never left, carrying him down to the vault (gently, as ordered, even though you know Yoichi could handle more than his brother's protective instincts want to admit.) And then he doesn't even say anything to you again, never- not in the vault, not after, not when he's dead.
A Fatherly Hug and The Prince's Throne for the ask game, please 👀🔥
I'm sure I'll be able to post them, but before I do imma check with some people! ANYWAY, those two were both of my pitches for the cover for the DFO Anthology Zine! And no matter what came of the vote, I said I'd be finishing them
Also @l-anna-art, your ART IS AMAZING AND YOUR COVER FOR THE ZINE HOLY SHIT PLEASE HAVE MY SOUL - not me buying the zine so I can have that gorgeous cover on my bookshelf
So they've sat in my art folder since December? I think. And I definitely need to redraw them because I can totally do better than the sketches I did then, so whenever I have time and am not fixating, but I digress-
Oh awesome I got the go ahead to post them
Posts coming rn, stay tuned, mainly because I wanna throw them on my socials without so much text 😂😂
All his life, Izuku had lived apart from people. It wasn't that he didn't like to be around them, but rather the vast majority were uncomfortable in his presence. Beyond the familiar tenderness of his mother, he had only known the oppressive silence and sidelong glances, the mocking, frightened whispers and... ignorance.
But it was okay. He was used to it after all, and even if no one wanted to play with him, there was always the old library and the Curator. He had been going there for several months now. It was welcoming and warm, and although it was probably a private property, the owner had never kicked him out.
If anything, Izuku had the feeling his visits were appreciated.
So, every day, he walked back to the road, going deeper into the singing woods that bordered his neighborhood, until he reached the ancient building which might as well have been abandoned.
Reaching the overgrown entrance, he knocked three times on the marked wood, then made his way into the small hall that led to the central area of the library. It was made up of rows and rows of books, lit by ancient lamps, stretching far deeper than anyone could ever have imagined from the outside.
And in the center was the Curator.
As always, the tall, frail man with long silver hair sat in one of the old armchairs by the crackling fire. On his lap, a book was open, the writing half-faded and the corners of the pages yellowed and scratched. The man's cloudy, faded eyes - which once might have been a bright green - focused on the boy as soon as he entered, wearing his quiet smile as Izuku walked down the flight of stairs to join the ageless man.
The Curator watched him the whole time, and Izuku wondered again if he was really blind. His eyes, yet blurred, tired but intense, seeming able to pick up any nuance in his movements.
"Well, he can read, after all."
He finally reached the center of the room, where a new selection of books and collections were displayed.
"Welcome, Izuku."
It was a soft voice, barely a whisper sliding into his ears, like a breeze spinning the air.
He was again immersed in his volume.
"Good morning Sir," Izuku replied, carefully grabbing a book and taking a seat beside him.
……………………………….
Aka, First is an old spirit who collects the Memories and keeps them in his territory where his brother is forbidden, Izuku is a boy unconsciously able to alternate between human and spirit realms and All For One, who deeply hates humans, wishes to make them disappear by destroying the Memories protected by his little brother.
Ghoul (it gives me strong Grimm’s fairy tales vibes) 👀
So, he took, he cooked, he seared the meat and packaged it away, for later, for dinner with friends. It was his lifeline, his every reason for standing here today. And tomorrow. And the next.
If he didn’t eat, they would get worried. If he didn’t eat, he would perish.
I really want to participate in your contest, but now this is almost impossible due to the unexpected irl stuff :(
sorry to hear that :( like i said, i’m considering extending the deadline, so feel free to let me know if that would be helpful!
regardless, you are welcome to create related content after the contest ends that i’d still be happy to boost (a la ‘celebration of gen content), it just wouldn’t count as an entry. if that’s an option that floats your boat.
