Heh, Heyo! I'm so sorry for being so late! I've been super busy lately, things are happening and stuff, and I'd hit a pretty bad writer's block, but i'm back, with another chapter! I hope y'all enjoy this one, the song above is well, Thrawn's Introduction from Ahsoka, by Jeremy Brauns Music! I love it so much! Enjoy!

Snug within the frigid warmth of the Void, Izuku sat, his eye focused solely on the ethereal blue flame before him, as some sort of Voidic meat seared nicely within the maybe hellfire that was burning before him.

Age had finally caught up to him, and where the rest of the Void lacked any semblance of time, this Paradox held time precious, a commodity envisioned and brought to power by the being in control of this place.

Unlike Reality, where Time was split around him like a vast ocean pierced by a lonely and immovable mountain thanks to the Void, this Paradox brought time from Reality into the Void, and because the Paradox was also the Void, equilibrium meant that Time now, for the first time in quite literal aeons, had meaning for Izuku.

His face, which was once smooth and unblemished, was now covered with thick, dark green facial hair that grew on him like moss on ancient stone. Wrinkles had begun to mar his brow, his youthful visage once kept within the confines of his teenage years, began to give way to a young man.

Vast landscapes Izuku had travelled, and his body aged more than it ever had and his body ached with the feeling of growing old. Still, he had yet to find Rell.

Precious years had maybe passed in but a moment, and Izuku was no closer to his goal; the massive collective of islands and lost lands held Izuku back, his search halting to investigate each and every island for Rell, yet none held his brother.

Around him, the Void contorted, twisted in a beautifully vile way, a seductive lullaby that battered at Izuku's mind's eye, the barrier within his mind a bulwark against the tsunami of terrible might. Even then, with his barriers at their utmost power, whispers and shards still leaked through, a singular voice boomed with the command of a lord, a master, who expected their little slaves to dance to their every whim.

"Again! Again! AGAIN!"

Each command was followed by time, which twisted around everything within the boundaries of the Paradox, everything but him. Ironically, once the command sounded everything around him was reset, they were all frozen in a time loop, forever kept the same from when they had first started the loop, all but Izuku himself, who aged normally for once, with Time now obeying his physical body, he aged, not enough to reach old age, but enough for him to leave his once teenaged body.

Like trying to find a grain of sand in a haystack, Izuku searched, his soul calling out for his lost brother. Weary bones ached as Izuku poked at the void meat, pulling it out of the fires as he looked to the fractured skies of the Paradox, a bone tired sigh leaving his cracked lips as he ate his meal.

Time, it turned out, gave Izuku time to think, to ponder, to delve into his truly shattered mind, it allowed him to poke and prod at his unhealed wounds that lingered deep within the recesses of his darkened mind. Was it any wonder the Void, the Man in the Wall, saw so much potential in him; his soul was tainted with the blood of billions, a darkness hung drearily inside the confines of his mind. Chaos was his calling, whether it was to be at the centre of that chaos, or the cause of it was up for debate, but Izuku had no doubt that his soul sang for chaos.

Was that all he was good for? Sowing the seeds of chaos, breaking bonds and reaping the souls of the innocent and the guilty?

Truly, was Izuku even in control anymore? Or was his body nothing more than a puppet to dance and sing to the song of a power higher than himself.

Thoughts collided as Izuku traversed, some days were better than others but collectively, the years caused Izuku's mental wellbeing to deteriorate rapidly. Alone in a Void, with no support, no one to talk to other than his potentially aware void borne horse John, and quite literally centuries of trauma and emotional damage to contend with his ever weakening mental barriers.

Memories of the Before and the War flooded his mind more often than his new life, they twisted with vile shadows as he relived memories of his darkest days.

Kra-thoom!

Fractures appeared before Izuku and he sighed, his mind slipping from his body as it slumped forward, dead to the world as memories came to life; in some sort of sick twisted way, Izuku was forced to actually relive his old life, live through the War again and again and again.

- A low murmur echoed through the warm metal room, an orange warmth illuminating a group of 6 individuals that had crowded around a smouldering fire as they muttered in low tones, iridescent with fury and tinged with bitter revenge the group was lost to their emotions, not once realising that they were under the watchful eye of the all knowing.

*BOOM!*

A ringing shot sounded, blasting a wicked hole through the head of one of the treasonous group, their blood splattering against the cold steel in a morbid painting of crimson and greymatter. Panic rose within the remaining individuals, finally catching on that they were not safe, and they had never been safe.

"Filthy Dax scum!"

The slur did nothing, nothing but echo uselessly against the metal walls, reverberating with nothing more than signal that blood was in the water, fear was woven into that single sentence, wafting out like smoke in the wind.

Suddenly, the door slid open, revealing a new group of four, their faces glowing with youthful vigour, yet where normally the faces would be different and diverse, these were all one of the same, a copy of another. A clone.

Grineer.

The four clones all stood stock still, their eyes glaring ever forwards as their armour reflected the harsh light above them, their harsh white armour almost too bright to look at, with bulbous shoulder pads and a huge shell-like backpack on their back. Within their hands was clasped an ornate single barrelled weapon, a Strun, the classic Orokin footsoldier weapon.

Suddenly, like the ancient Red Sea, they parted to reveal a white haired boy. He had a single eye glinting with a frigidity that none had ever seen before, like the icy bite that chilled the void of space held within that single green eye. The Imperial regalia that dressed his form was pressed tight and professional, the ivory white suit gleaming under the harsh flickering light of the room as the golden medal that swayed on his chest, right above his heart, glinted. The fur cloak wrapped around his right shoulder, connecting to the fine silk cloak that drifted in the small breeze that left the room.

Like that of a panther, the boy stalked up, his stride long and unburdened, long and sleek, hands folded tightly behind his back as his mouth twisted into a polite smile.

"Gentlemen, gentlelady. My name is Israfel."

If they thought the boy's eye was cold, nothing could prepare them for the subzero that filled the room when that name was uttered.

Israfel, the Seven's personal Grim Reaper, their pet demon, their puppet General. Death personified.

"My Liege has sent me some rather interesting news." The boy's hand raised up, admiring the fake wooden mahogany that made the fireplace. "He whispered words of treason. That you, my dear friends, were working against the Seven. Plotting an insane plan to overthrow the Orokin Empire."

Snapping his fingers, the Grineer that had come with him lifted their weapons, his eye glinting.

"Oh no, no no. They did not like that, and I have been oh so graciously sent to end your... Lives." Almost in a distasteful fashion, Izuku looked the people up and down, eyeing their tattered clothes. "But, before you die, let me tell you all the little itty bitty details of the project you intended to break open." The boy grinned, a deep malice radiated the room.

There was no point in not telling them, they were going to die. It allowed him to buy time for Cedrick to get all the information from them and their pathetically protected servers and inform them of the truly foolish nature of their plan before he put them out of their misery.

"The Warrior caste Grineer and the Labour caste of Grineer were to be the Seven's disposable army and slave labour force. Cloned from the best Dax soldier that the Seven have ever created, they were to be the bones that made their empire. Cheap, easy to maintain, and produced in the millions." At this, Izuku walked around the room, eyeing the window.

"Only... The Grineer were too headstrong, bred from a man too stubborn for his own good, they rebelled soon after they were put into their working conditions. It was quickly quashed, the Orokin had expected it. So, a number of failsafes were embedded deep into the Grineer's DNA. Rapid cellular degradation, total loyalty to the Seven, intelligence dampeners and the like. They aged within days and died within a month if not cyber-forged. Infinite manpower, bred and grown to feed the Orokin Ambition." Now, Izuku was overlooking the group.

"What you are doing is something the Seven can not allow. Something I cannot allow." Izuku held up a file. "How you managed to steal this from Executor Thorne is beyond me, but releasing this data... It would make the Grineer worse than the Orokin." Wrinkling his nose in displeasure, Izuku overlooked the file.

Their plan was rather simple, undo every single failsafe integrated into the Grineer's DNA and let them free to battle against the Empire. From the absolute loyalty bred into their DNA to the control hormones and the cellular regeneration, all of it was to be removed, leaving the Grineer a blank slate to develop as a normal human would.

"Where the Orokin preserve some life, if only to expand their growing interest and Empire, the Grineer merely destroy for the sake of destruction. Quite literally, they are children with no sense of Death or Morality." This time, Izuku sighed.

"Tis a shame really, your espionage skills are beyond many, but your lives are forfeit. You are too risky to leave alive. This collective you have put together jeopardises everything I have put into motion." Mournfully, Izuku looked at the group.

"Be at peace, knowing that greater forces than yourself work to dismantle the Orokin Empire."

Gun fire filled the room as the treasonous group fell to the ground with meaty thuds. Grimly, Izuku turned.

"Cedrick, did you record that?" A voice crackled on the other side of the line.

"Yessir. Spliced it together to show your mission completion and not your secret plots." Nodding firmly, Izuku snapped his fingers and the room exploded, with the Grineer clones within; any evidence was incinerated and Izuku left the blazing apartment with his hands folded behind his back.

-

Gasping back to unreality, Izuku clutched at his chest as he wheezed, his lungs grasping for any kind of air greedily as he held his head in his hands.

Those dark days, where he played the double agent, playing all sides of the Great Game to unbalance the scales so much he could make his own power play and oust the Orokin from their rot ridden throne.

In the beginning, Izuku despised the Game, the playing of life as if people were but pawns on a Komi board, and even now that hatred burned through him with the might of a thousand stars, but he knew that he also had to play their sick games. It was play, or die.

Yet, even in the depths of his hatred, Izuku played, and he played well.

Intelligence was Izuku's bread and butter. Mind games and analysis was ingrained deep into Izuku's DNA, and he used that to manipulate and slowly, like a deadly viper hiding in the grass, poisoning the Orokin Empire from within. He may not be the strongest, the fastest, the best, Tenno, but he was the most intelligent of them.

Mind over matter.

Using his forced ascended position, Izuku fractured the Empire, and turned their greatest weapon, the Tenno, against them during the waning days of the Great war; On the eve of the Fracture, the Tenno forces gathered together on the capital world of the Orokin Empire, Lua.

All had been summoned to receive their great honours for fighting to the death against the Sentient horde, and in the very halls of the Orokin Empire, what was was the Immortal might of the Seven fell, collapsing overnight from the darkest of betrayals, the Night of the Black Knives.

Soon, Lua, which was once opulent and majestic, bearing great golden rings that wreathed the rocky plains, stagnated and was brought to ruin, as the Orokin Empire ruptured. The Grineer and the rising Corpus mega Corporation soon tore the Origin System apart, tearing the worlds apart in their bid for power, money and resources, as new threats arose from the ashes of the dead Empire.

Lua, with her only guardian and protectorate, Lotus, was suddenly spirited away one day after the Fracture, hidden from prying eyes within the many folds of the Void. The Cradle was lost and the Tenno, betrayers of the Orokin, were put to sleep, kept frozen in time, until the call of help awoke the slumbering warriors.

Shaking his thoughts away, Izuku came to, realising with a deep sigh that he was clutching something. Such as with the rest of his 'visions' Izuku was left with a pulsating shard of cool metal, each leaking wisps of blue energy, a memory forged into a dark steel.

Over the time he'd spent in the Void, Izuku had gathered quite the collection of the mysterious shards, almost a tracker of sorts for how long he'd spent in there, with over hundreds of the memory formed shards kept within the bags held by John. Still, they held no use, nothing more than a mere memento of his foye through the Void, the only constant in this ever-shifting unreality other than himself and John.

"Another one..." Izuku grunted, "Let's get a going John."

With a masterful grace, Izuku mounted his noble steed and heeled at his companions, urging the mount into a steady trot as they began to traverse the newest island they had landed upon. Just like the other islands, this one was alone in its sentinel guard, stationary within the tides of the Void, so far away from the others, yet displaced as if not moved but thrown, haphazardly and brazenly, uncaring in its abandonment.

Blue rained upon this island, a melancholy blue of old tears and forgotten torment, a scar unhealed with an ache to last an age. Like so many, this island was lost, not through the savage waves that crashed around it but by the utter command of that sole voice, the Command of Thrax, thrown away like a child would to a toy that has lost its illustrious interest.

Deep in his bones, Izuku knew he would only find desolation and ruin on this island, like all the others, none could survive on the island, they held no protections from the uncaring Void, nor the sustaining reality that the Voice brought, the unstable stability that the Voice brought, almost as it alone was both the glue that bound the lands together, but the hands that also tore said lands apart.

"No luck..." With one last weary glance, Izuku let out his power, letting the Void flood out, his eyes becoming one with his power as he reached out, looking for something.

Here...

Over here...

Listen to the sound of my voice...

Sharply, Izuku inhaled. It had been ages, far too long in fact, since he had heard that voice. His Voice. The connection between Izuku and the Man was weathered, worn and beat, frayed to the seams and stretched thin and Izuku hadn't been able to feel the Entity, no voice, no alluring whispers or exhaustion induced hallucinations. Nothing.

Until now.

The barrier that surrounded this land, thick and strong like the warm blanket handily woven by the hands of a loving mother, had weakened, or was weakening, the edges were fraying, grey and loose, fast and worn slowly being eaten away at by the ravenous Void and the monsters within.

Why now, all of a sudden? It could not be because of Izuku, he had been here far too long for it to be him, this would have happened far sooner if he was the issue, no.

Something had changed.

Something will change.

Something has changed.

Whatever it was, it was letting the Man enter this place, this oh so impossible place and that was a thing that Izuku can't allow, it would be tainted like so many other things if the Man touched it.

A flash of red.

Wicked and raw, like the spilling of old blood, the skies of this mysterious land glowed with that ominous hum, curdling and maddening, the heavens opened and metal rained down, rattling down with dainty chimes; chains, onyx black as if cut from pure obsidian and as thick as an old oak trunk.

Visions accosted Izuku's mind, realities crashing and merging, breaking and mending, a hand reaching out, and a deal struck and Izuku gasped as millions of himself stood stock still in line as another of him reached out, to another of him, a version of him with eyes black as the Void and that devilish grin Izuku knew so well on his own face.

It was himself, in another time, another space, another reality, forsaken and alone but connected and forever bound to each other like the chains that rained down from the sky.

The Man in Izuku was grinning, that ever grin that splayed horrible on Izuku face's, with his arm outstretched and in his hand laid another hand, this one glowing that eerie blue with tendrils licking and gnashing at the hand before they rose and attached to the Other Izuku.

A deal.

Tearing himself from the line, Izuku grit his teeth in agony as he broke formation, knowing what was coming; this happened, it will happen and is happening, all at once. Hands touch and all the Other Izuku's fall, their timelines torn and eaten by the Void, leaving only two.

Izuku Prime, the first who was taken, and the one who took the deal.

And in that moment, Izuku understood.

This Izuku was but a fragment, a shattered mosaic of himself, where the Orokin had long broken him down, stripping him of all he was and all he could have been and forcing him into the stingant mould of the other Tenno, locking away his potential, his mind and his powers. This was not him, but another Tenno, stock and still, with no memories of who he was, what he was and where he came from.

This was an Izuku who Fell.

This was an Izuku who followed the First Time.

This was an Izuku who made the deal.

Then...

"This land, it is connected to another reality? It is affected by the First Time, Red chains, Harrowing Chains."

Rell.

Urgency like no other filled Izuku, his heart began to thump rapidly as he released himself from the vision that had enraptured him, and he snapped at the reins as he growed.

"Hee-ya!"

Like the reeling of a tether, Izuku flew through the skies of the lands between reality and unreality, his mount carrying with nary a whine or a temper as they soared, following the call towards what Izuku hoped beyond all else was Rell. The pulses were getting heavier, the voices were clashing as things began to spiral into motion.

Green into blue into red.

Then, through the haze of a lilac purple, lands bobbed within the Void, and this time, the lands were joined and singing in tune with the Command Voice.

Colours burst to lift, the islands erupted with light as the monochrome burst to seize the light, a battle of wills had overtaken the lands as Izuku flew closer and he inhaled sharply, feeling two of the same Void signatures.

There were two Rell in this place, one of them was his own and the other was an imposter.

"I'm here, Rell."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Within a shadowed building, a blue light filled the room as a dozen individuals appeared, their forms hazy and light, holograms, as they eyed each other up.

"Morgana's Court has assembled once more, All for One stirs once more." The 11 people's faces all lit up with barely hidden glee.

Once, they had controlled the entirety of the world, hidden within the dark crevasses of the underworld, controlling every inch of the political spectrum to further their own power, all under the guiding hand of All for One.

At the height of All for One's reign, the near peak of perfection, they had near total control over the worldly governments, they had used the 2nd Quirk War to drum up support to put them all into power, and in doing so, merging the world into the first and only global empire under the might of All for One.

They had it all, the power, the money, the very world at their fingertips, and it was squandered when that bumbling buffoon All Might torn down All for One's Japanese network and then fought All for One himself, taking the Lord down and with him, so to fell Morgana's Court.

After the Fall, they had slinked back into the shadows, hatefully watching as the United Nations overtook them and built that in which was their goal, using the bones of their great plan to build their own hyper power.

"The Lord has returned! Do we begin with Operation Meta?" The 11 gathered all grinned, dark and malicious.

Just after the 2nd Quirk War, they had pushed for quirks to be highly regulated, pushing for a no use policy on quirks unless they were licenced, and using their connections within the underworld, stirred a hatred up of the regulations that they'd put in place, and all across the world people gathered in their hatred.

Hatred bred revolution, and revolution meant chaos, and they had worked ceaselessly to build up a massive revolution, one that they could use to overthrow the United Nations and place All for One at the top, as he should be.

And so, they created the Meta Liberation Front, with the express goal of allowing quirks to be freely used.

"I think it's time, call the Generals, let them know. As soon as All for One rises, the Revolution begins."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Underneath the unaware Kamino, All for One smiled, a cruel and gleeful grin that split from cheek to cheek as he chuckled.

"It seems that my Council has not been idle. They have formed a revolution. War is chaos and will ensure my ascension to Emperor." Humming, All for One glanced over his world map.

"Soon, very soon, what was once a dream will become a frightening reality to all that oppose us..."

(How are y'all doing?)