Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Katsuki didn’t know how he’d escape the sludge villain. He’d come out of nowhere, after all. Not even the pros are coming to help! Katsuki is stuck here, held hostage by a bloody sewer monster! It’s idiotic, it’s shameful!

So, when Deku, of all people, runs out of the crowd towards him, it doesn’t help his shame. Then, something that no-one could’ve thought of, happens.

When Deku touches the slime, it actually glows! The slime turns into light, and starts morphing, changing. In place of the slime is a naked man crumpling down behind Katsuki.

He looks back at Deku to find him just staring at his hand like an idiot. Then, out of nowhere -yet again! - Deku’s hand changes into slime momentarily. The same slime that was just encapturing Katsuki moments prior!

“What the fuck, Deku! What was that?!” Katsuki runs at Deku, and tries to grab him… but Deku pushes him back from the chest, afraid.

Katsuki clenches his fists in anger -knowing he can’t do anything without it getting on his impeccable record- but he’s surprised to find a distinct lack of firecracker noises.

Katsuki looks back down at Deku, who clenches his own fist… and sparks appear. “What. The. Hell. How’d you do that, Deku! Give me my fucking quirk back!” This time, Death Arms holds him down.

“Young man, calm down. We’ll sort this out, you’ll get your quirk back.” The Punching Hero says.

“Let me go! Give my quirk back, DEKU! I’LL KILL YOU! GIVE IT BACK!” After some holding down from the pros and reassuring comments, Katsuki calms down enough to wait.

How the hell is this happening? Katsuki glares at Deku, who’s currently having a conversation with Kamui Woods and that other Baseball Hero, probably Kamui’s side kick.

———^———

Izuku doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s supposedly got a quirk, and his quirk supposedly allows him to take other’s quirks.

“Young man, what’s your name?” Kamui Woods -The Kamui Woods, ohmygosh- asks.

“M-Midoriya Izuku, s-sir.” Izuku says after a few moments of awe at the fact that I’m talking to a pro-hero!

“Do you know what your quirk is, Midoriya?” Kamui Woods’ sidekick, Slugger, talks to Izuku like a little kid, but Izuku doesn’t mind. He has no idea what’s going on either.

“Before today… I was quirkless, but it seems like I’ve got some sort of give and take quirk? Calling it ‘Transfer’ sounds fitting, I don’t know.” Izuku’s too busy in awe of the fact that he has a quirk to really ponder the implications of this very powerful and complicated quirk.

Unknown to him, inside the crowd is one very stressed out Yagi Toshinori.

“Kid, I want you to try giving your friend here his quirk back, ok?” Kamui Woods resolves.

“O-ok. Here g-goes nothing.” Izuku walks over to Kacchan as he makes his way towards him. “Y-you ready, Kacchan?”

“fucking just give me my quirk back, Deku.” Kacchan sounds a little upset and defeated, probably because he’s missing something that he considers a large part of himself.

Izuku takes Kacchan’s hand without another word and begins attempting to transfer his quirk back.

Inside himself, Izuku feels two different energies. He can tell what they are. One is a mutant quirk, the other an emitter, so it’s pretty easy to tell which one he needs to move.

He pushes the explosive emitter back into Kacchan’s empty slot, returning the quirk to its rightful place.

“Ok, y-you should have your q-quirk back now.” Izuku stammers, praying it worked because he really doesn’t want an angry Kacchan going after him in public. Moments later, he hears a familiar crackling noise; Kacchan’s firecracker sparks.

“Huh, good. Don’t fucking do that again, or we’ll have problems, Deku.” Kacchan walks off, shoulder-decking Izuku on his way off, nearly tumbling him over from the force.

Now, Izuku is alone with 4 pros and 2 sidekicks, along with a lot of reporters in the background. He feels like crawling into a hole and sleeping forever. Too much attention and there are 6 actual heroes around him.

“Kid, we’ll get you to the police station and get your quirk registered, and hopefully deal with the media.” Death Arms suggests. “Mt. Lady, Backdraft, you two distract the media. Kamui Woods, our sidekicks and I will escort the kid, stop any unwanted people away.” Izuku doesn’t notice the heavy and nervous looks between the heroes about to escort him, too busy fanboying and trying to maintain some formalism.

He gives up after a little and manages to get all of their autographs. After that, he remains quiet on his trip over to the police. Inside his head, Izuku’s mantra is ‘Don’t freak out. You are surrounded be pros, and supposedly have a quirk. Scream later, not in front of heroes.’ on repeat.

As the group of 5 head towards the nearest police station -not too far considering they’re in a commercial district- Izuku recognises a very distinct man heading towards them.

“Young Midoriya. Are you ok? Must’ve been a scare for you!” All Might looks at the escorts. “Hello, you can call me Yagi. I’m a personal assistant of All Might.”

“Sure, got any proof of that?” Death Arms scoffs and raises an eyebrow, feigning protection of the child, but truthfully more worried about the citizen’s safety.

He doesn’t want anyone losing their quirk accidentally because the kid freaks out. Especially him. He likes his quirk and job a lot and would like them to stay where they are, thank you very much.

“Yes, here’s my personal business card, as well as All Might’s one. His isn’t personal though, it’ll go through me and I can redirect it to All Might.” All Might explains. Izuku is struggling to hold it together, but the heroes around him pay him little mind.

“Very well, you may speak with him. We’re still headed over to the police station. So, you’ll have to follow us if you have anything to say. We’ll try not to listen.” Kamui Woods negotiates.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” All Might smiles before falling into footfall alongside Izuku.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Yagi?” Izuku looks up at All Might.

“I wanted to congratulate you on going out there and being a hero. You’ve got that natural spirit!” All Might faces away from the horizon and looks at Izuku. “You ran in there while the pros stood idly by, being useless bystanders.” Izuku pretends to ignore the way the four heroes around them grimace in either annoyance or guilt.

“I also have things to discuss with you in regards to your quirk. A friend of mine at the police station will join me. We can find some quirks that would be helpful for you in your path to become a hero, and get you some good quirk counselling. There is more I wish to discuss with you but I’ll wait until we get to the station, as it is highly classified.” Izuku only nods, not trusting his voice.

———^———

They make it to the station, and the six of them head inside. “Naomasa? Good to see you, old friend.” All Might makes his way over to one of the detectives’ desks, waving at a plain-looking officer. 

“Good to see you Toshinori. How can I help you?” The detective asks.

“I’m assuming you’ve seen the news?”

“I have. Is this about Midoriya Izuku?”

“Indeed, I have him with me, along with four other heroes. We need to have his quirk registered, and we could help him find some good quirks to use from people that don’t want them, or criminals that don’t need them. You, him and I also need to have a more private discussion.”

“Very well, thank you Toshinori. Death Arms, Kamui Woods, Slugger, Bird; you are good to go, Toshinori and I will deal with Midoriya here.” The four heroes bow and head out of the station, returning to patrol once more.

“Young Midoriya, let's head into an investigation room for some privacy while Naomasa registers your quirk. Do you have a name?” All Might begins walking over to the closest investigation room but pauses to ask his question.

“Umm. I thought of Transfer as the name of the quirk?” Izuku suggests, heading towards the investigation room All Might was heading to.

“I’ll place that in. I’ll join you two in a moment.” The detective says, turning to face his computer as the pair enter the room.

“Uh, what did you want to talk about, All Might?” Izuku is confused and nervous, but only a little.

“Sit down, this is gonna be a long conversation.” Izuku complies, and All Might joins him on the other side of the table. “Young Midoriya, your quirk is almost identical to the one that placed the very hole you saw earlier, in my chest-”

Izuku lands on the rooftop with a visibly annoyed All Might. Izuku doesn’t notice the annoyance, too busy trying to ask his question. All Might cuts him off multiple times before he manages to ask the question. “Can I be a hero even if I don’t have a quirk?”

Izuku starts mumbling an explanation for his question under his breath, so he doesn’t notice the smoke that forms around All Might’s form. “-but I want to be a hero that smiles and makes people feel safe, just like you!” Izuku looks up to find a bony tall man instead of All Might’s boisterous form. “uh, WHAT! WHAT HAPPENED?! WHERE’D ALL MIGHT GO?”

“I assure you, I am All Might.”

“That can’t be true…”

“I flex my body up, similar to those guys you’ll see at the pool from time to time.” All Might sits down. “I can only be like this for 3 hours each day… rest of the time I look like this.” He pulls up his shirt, revealing a red and welting weblike scar. “5 years ago, I got this injury. Lost my whole stomach along with half of my left lung. I can’t be fixed…”

“-I’m not saying that you yourself is a villain or that your quirk is villainous, but be aware: your quirk developed and was shown in public on television, meaning that followers of that villain -All for One- will very likely be coming after you. If All for One is alive, he almost certainly would.”

“That… is a lot to process.” Izuku is less confused, but has more questions. What happened to All for One? What do I do now? Do my mother and I have to move houses for our safety? Izuku doesn’t ask these questions yet. After a moment’s silence Izuku asks, “Who is All for One?”

“That is a big question to ask. For that, you must learn of my quirk. My quirk is called One for All. It is moved from user to user like an Olympic torch. The eternal nemesis to whoever hosts All for One’s original quirk. I am the eighth user of this quirk. It cannot be taken by All for One nor your quirk without consent, however. It can only be given willingly.”

All Might sighs for a moment.

“There’s an important story that explains this battle; you could call it the ‘Origins of One for All’. It starts with two brothers. The first user of One for All was All for One’s younger brother. This brother was believed to be quirkless. All for One had power throughout the country at the time, during the dawn of the quirked world. He took pity on his brother, who believed that everything he was doing was wrong. All for One gifted his brother an energy stockpiling quirk. 

As it turns out, the older brother did have a quirk. A useless one that allowed him to pass on his quirk to someone else. The transferring quirk and stockpiling quirk merged, producing One for All! All for One has been alive since then, likely using a combination of de-aging quirks and the like. We fought five years ago, giving each other fatal injuries.

As I am still alive here, despite that, it is -unfortunately- possible that All for One is also alive. I would appreciate a comrade in this endless fight against evil. Hopefully, you can become The Symbol of Peace, and guide the future holders of One for All when they have it. I originally planned to pass One for All on directly to you, but I think this is a better plan.”

“Indeed, I have to say I agree.”

Izuku was too busy listening to All Might’s story that he failed to notice Naomasa entering.

“If your quirk really is similar to All for One, having you work with the host of One for All would be a much better plan than just hosting One for All yourself.”

“Um, I… ok. Sorry, this is just… a lot.” Izuku thinks he’s gonna have a heart attack with all this heavy information; and the fact that he’ll be a hero! Wait, no. focus on that later, Izuku. Right now, All Might needs you. “What If All for One is dead? What would the host of One for All do? What would I do?”

“You’d go on as the symbol of peace, and the host of One for All would go on as a symbol too, hopefully. If All for One is defeated, you may take One for All for yourself and hold it until you think it is needed again.”

“I am questioning why you’re acting like I’m immortal. I don’t have a regeneration quirk and/or age-halting one, unlike All for One.”

“But you will. I have already got a list of quirks you can get from villains that we’ve captured and quirks that you can get from civilians that wouldn’t want them, or wouldn’t need them in reference to quirks that we’ll be picking up at retirement homes.” Naomasa says. “There’s a pretty powerful one that you’ll definitely enjoy having: Halt. ‘Allows user to send a beam of energy at a living thing. If this beam hits a living thing, it majorly slows down movement for a short period. Emitter class.’ And another: Crystallised. ‘Allows the user to change their body into a crystal-like substance. Transformation class.’ To be honest, you’ve got a good chance with everything here. U.A. would very likely be willing to assist in control over a range of quirks. I think we should get started on getting you some quirks and training you up for U.A.”  

He stands up, giving All Might and Izuku a small bow before walking over to the door.

Before he walks out, he turns around, “I’ve got to go; other things to do. Good luck, to the both of you. We’ll get you and your mother moved into a safe facility and I’ll start looking for quirks that can be donated. Goodbye, Midoriya, Toshinori.”

With that, Izuku starts visiting many different places, gaining quirks from nearly every visit. 

———^———

He’s no longer bullied at school for being quirkless, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t bullied; now it’s for the villainous capabilities of the quirk; thankfully, this is only at school; social media has been extremely supportive of his powers.

He’s started working with All Might to clear a large beach filled with rubbish in order to build up his strength and make the enhancer quirks more affective. With the quirks he’s gained, it should be finished about a week before U.A.’s entrance exam.

———^———

Seven months after his quirk developed, three months before the entrance exam, he has near endless unique quirks.

The ‘immortality quirk’ is a work in progress. They have found one component for a form of immortality; a vitality stockpile quirk, but it’s in use with keeping a coma patient alive, currently. The other part, a simple regeneration quirk would do, is yet to be found and willingly given.

In total, he has 30 quirks. 12 ‘unique’ and 18 ‘simple’ quirks. With the two mutant quirks he has, they act like transformation quirks but without a time limit.

Dagobah beach is almost completely cleaned by now. It seems Izuku will finish it a bit early. 

The public, thankfully, has taken well to Izuku’s quirk, for the most part. He became a celebrity pretty fast, which was not preferable to Izuku. Thankfully, they were able to get away with only having his name revealed and his face remaining a secret for the most part; only becoming known to those who know him personally or those who were there at the Sludge Villain Incident.

At school, Kacchan has barely looked in his direction since the sludge villain attack and most of the other kids just pretend to ignore him, knowing he has a very strong quirk and will near certainly get into U.A.

———^———

The morning of the exam is here, and Izuku is ready. He now has 31 quirks, having gained a surface connection quirk, and is about to head towards his dreams. “Move, Deku.” Kacchan shoulder-shoves Izuku, tripping him into another person.

“Oh, s-sorry! Here let me help you up.” Izuku grabs the brunette girl by the arm and pulls her up. “I’m Midoriya Izuku, n-nice to meet you!” Due to all his visits to different places, Izuku has gotten quite a lot better at greeting people but only if he’s prepared himself, he can still get across as nervous if caught too off guard.

“Oh, I’m Uraraka Ochako! I know who you are! You’re that famous boy with the transfer quirk, aren’t you?” The very bubbly girl asks.

“Yeah, I guess I am. It’s not always fun being famous, but it does sometimes have its advantages.” Izuku gives a little nervous laugh. “Well, good luck on your exam! Hope to see you in the same class!” Izuku walks on to the written exam locations after giving Uraraka a quick wave.

———^———

Izuku thinks he did pretty good in the written exams if he did say so himself. Now, he’s in the auditorium with the other examinees in preparation for the practical exam and Present Mic’s on stage. “Welcome, little listeners! Are you all excited? YEEAAAH!” No-one was willing to reply to him; they were all too nervous.

“Keeping it mellow, huh? Oh, that’s ok. I’ll just get straight to the point, ok? In this exam, you’ll have three different point levels. Three different robots, each assigned a different point value depending on their difficulty!”

On the screen above, silhouettes of the robots appear with their appropriate point value right below them.

“Your goal is to shred through these faux villains like a nifty guitar solo, sound good? Also, I should add. Midoriya Izuku is one of our examinees this year, and we’ve been given a notice that you should not take other people’s quirks during the exam if it can be helped ok?”

Oh, just great. Getting called out by a teacher and he’s not even a student yet. “Ok! All good, Present Mic.” Izuku’s voice carries down the auditorium and many people’s faces turn to him. He does his best to just ignore them, using Glacier to prevent -hide- his blush. 

Most of them are probably wondering why he wasn’t going through recommendations to get in; he was a famous celebrity figure after all. Izuku had refused any recommendations as he wanted to prove his place in the Hero course. So that’s what he’s doing.

Moments later, he’s outside the Ground Beta faux city for his entrance exam. Ok Izuku, let’s do this. He breathes in and out slowly, preparing himself. “Start!” Anyone that blinked would’ve missed it. One second, Izuku was standing there at the back of the crowd, the next, he’s in front of everyone already inside the city. Let’s get started.

Chapter Text

Izuku races down the main road, keeping one speed quirk and the acceleration quirk active. He also has the minor shock absorption active to serve as simple suspension. Finding three robots clamber onto the streets, Izuku passes by them and taps each of them quickly with Breakdown, causing them to shut down as the mother chip dismantles.

Izuku repeats this process or quite a few minutes before he gets bored. He’s stacked up a total of 37 points so far, but that’s probably not enough. Izuku runs towards a new bunch of robots and uses Glacier instead. A wave of ice emits from his left foot as he slams it into the ground. The wave collides with all of the robots there, destroying them and adding 11 points to his score.

“4 minutes remaining!”

Shit. Izuku runs off, travelling faster than a car now that acceleration has been active so long alongside his speed quirk. Izuku puts in durability to ensure his legs don’t break from accidentally hitting something or the quirks overwork and injure him. He also activated his stamina quirk a little while ago so that his speed doesn’t tire him out too fast. 

He deactivates his speed quirks -sans acceleration- knowing that he could end up seriously harming himself or someone else if acceleration keeps increasing the way it is.

Running into a few other faux villains, Izuku swipes the walls lightly with his hands and another stream of ice shoots forward, this time immobilising the robots, instead. He uses the unmoving robots as a jumping pad to punch down a third robot that came around the corner, using a single strength quirk to knock the head off. 

Izuku starts overheating with acceleration, so he starts his cool down process with Glacier; lightly covering certain parts of his body in patches of frost. He reactivates his speed quirks and keeps on going.

As Izuku works away at the faux villains, the timer ticks down until there’s barely a minute left. He now has 83 points.

Suddenly, a loud explosion is heard throughout the different exam grounds. Inside each exam centre, a new robot appears… the zero-pointer.

The sudden distraction convinces Izuku to stop for only a second, but that’s enough. All the momentum from his acceleration quirk dissipates.

Whether or not I’m gonna pass the exam, I need to stop that robot before it does more damage. Izuku runs towards it, activating both of his speed quirks, but ignoring his acceleration one. He jumps up using two jump quirks and his durability quirk, and slaps the zero-pointer in the face with Breakdown and Crystalized.

Unlike with the other robots, the zero-pointer has multiple control chips, so each sector collapses at a different time. First, it’s head, then it’s shoulders and elbows -of which dangle down, having a backwards lean due to the uneven weight- then it’s chest, followed by its legs, which collapse inside themselves. The robot falls backwards. 

While this is happening, Izuku is also falling. Rather than let his large amount of panic take over, Izuku activates all three of his shock-absorption quirks, his durability quirk, and his resistance quirk. This produces a slightly jagged appearance to his limbs as he falls. He hits the ground, causing an impact crater, but somehow still bounces up from the absorption quirks. 

Deactivating his shock absorption quirks, Izuku walked over to the girl from the front gate that he just realised was there. He grabs the debris holding down her ankle and lifts it with one of his strength quirks. She thanks him profusely as an old lady makes her way over. Izuku ensures he doesn’t deactivate the stamina quirk, as it will probably make him exhausted once he does. The quirk acts more like endorphins; holding off the tiredness for later then dumping it all on you at once. 

The old lady, as it turns out, is The Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl. She fixes Uraraka’s ankle, allowing her to stand up again. Handing everyone a few gummies, she makes sure everyone is all good before heading to the next exam centre. Izuku swiftly sneaks his way out of the centre, not wanting to have any ‘fans’ or anything focusing on him for his quirk -or quirks. 

———^———

It’s been two weeks now and Izuku’s very nervous. He should be getting the acceptance or refusal letter any day now, and he knows he did really good on both exams, but he can’t help but be nervous. What if I was given a discredit due to my usage of multiple quirks? What if I didn’t get past the counter-balance setback if they did make one? What if- “Izuku! Your letter! The letter is here! Your report… from U.A....” mum bursts into the room clutching a letter with the U.A. stamp signature on it.

In Izuku’s room, he sits, clutching the letter. Izuku hasn’t opened it yet. He’s just staring at it.

Moments pass. Izuku makes no motion to open the letter, just glaring at it for being the source of his anxiety for the past two weeks.

Izuku can hear his mum pacing outside.

Finally, Izuku grabs the letter, and tears the outer layer in half, revealing a few pieces of paper along with a small disc that fell into his desk.

When the disc roles to a stop and falls to its side, a projection starts up.

“I AM HERE, AS A PROJECTION NOW!” This alone scares Izuku, making him jump out of his skin and scream.

Thank god for the soundproof walls that came with the compound they got moved to.

“If you’re wondering why I’m here, that is because I came to this city for a reason! Not just for patrol, you are looking at U.A.’s newest faculty member! As for your test results, congratulations! You passed the written exam with flying colours. With the practical, you gained enough villain points to get first place already, but there was more than that! In our system was a secret point system; hero points!” 

To All Might’s left, a screen appears, showing Izuku jumping up and destroying the zero-pointer and inadvertently ‘saving’ the Uraraka girl.

“A panel of judges watch, deciding which heroic acts deserve certain points, and it’s safe to say you could have made it on these hero rescue points alone!!”

All Might gives his famous laugh, but it sounds more… personal, intimate.

“Midoriya Izuku, you gained 56 rescue points; earning you a total of 139 points in the practical, getting you first place! Excellent work, Young Midoriya, and must I say… Welcome to your Hero Academia!”

———^———

Izuku’s finally here… U.A. he’s on his way to be a hero. Oh, that’s a reminder. All Might needs a successor for his quirk, and he wants Izuku’s help.

So, he needs to choose someone that would benefit the quirk, someone that the quirk would benefit, and someone that would willingly fight what is only just short of being a deity. Just great…

Another thing, Izuku needs to get a map, or learn the layout. He can’t find the classroom for his life.

After some directions from older students, including a very energetic third year with a vitality-energy quirk, Izuku finds his respective class.

The door is about 3 metres tall, if not more. That is a very large door. 

Izuku opens the door, having finally gotten past its comedical size, and enters the classroom. Inside, he finds it nearly completely full, only missing him and one other person.

Kacchan is in the same class as him, less than preferable. The Iida kid is also in his class, he seems to be a bit of a stickler for the rules.

“It’s him.” The Iida boy says, after having pointlessly attempted to scold Kacchan for having his feet on the desk.

Many heads turn, now facing Izuku.

“You’re the boy that can take others’ quirks. Midoriya Izuku, am I correct? I am Iida Tenya from the Somei acad-”

“I-I know. I h-heard. It’s super n-nice to meet you!” Izuku goes straight into his old habit of stuttering from the very aggressive personality.

“Oh, it’s the multi-quirk boy! Nice job defeating the robots, that punch was amazing!”

“Oh, Uh, um… it was nothing, don’t worry about it.” Due to Iida’s personality taking Izuku back to his old self, he’s pretty self-conscious and Uraraka complimenting him is not helping. He hides his blush using Glacier.

“If you’re just here to make friends, you can pack up and leave.”

A deep and dead sounding voice interrupts the conversation. Looking down, Izuku discovers a yellow caterpillar.

“It took you all 8 seconds to quieten down, we’re gonna need to improve that.” The caterpillar sheds its cocoon as it stands up, revealing itself to actually be a very tired and annoyed looking man.

Izuku recognises him immediately, noticing the information on his quirk that Transfer picked up being in close proximity; massive quirk potential, small quirk factor, negative chronium.

“Eraserhead.” Izuku accidentally murmured it, but it went unnoticed by everyone except for the pro hero himself.

“I am Aizawa Shouta, your homeroom Teacher.” He grabs a gym uniform from his sleeping bag. “Put these on and meet me outside. We’re gonna be doing a quirk assessment test.”

———^———

Having gotten changed, everyone is outside looking at Aizawa-Sensei.

“Sir, aren’t we gonna miss orientation?” Uraraka bravely points out.

“You want to be a hero? You can’t waste time on leisurely ceremonies. Here at U.A. we aren’t tethered go any traditions, meaning I can teach this class however I wish. I know you’ve all taken fitness tests before, but they’ve always been without quirks. The government thinks this makes things fair for those with less or even no power, which is irrational. Midoriya, you placed first in the entrance exam, what score did you get for the hall throw during middle school?”

“Um… 57 metres, I’m pretty sure.” Izuku murmurs, but ensures his voice is still loud enough to be heard.

“Ok, now use your quirks. If you need us to, we can stand back, but you are to go all out. Do whatever you need, just no touching the floor outside the circle.”

Izuku catches the ball as it’s passed to him. He walks up to the circle, thinking of a plan. He solidifies his body to the max with Crystallised, resistance, and durability. He builds a floor of ice using Glacier, making a path going diagonally forward and up. He runs up the structure using all three of his speed augmentation quirks.

He activates Angel and Air Pressure, along with all of his strength enhancement quirks and his two power quirks. He adds in a shock absorption quirk to be safe before jumping off of the tip of the ice structure using all three of his jump quirks and throwing the ball as far as he can, using his mum’s telekinesis as a tiny added boost. The shockwave from the throw destroys most of his ice structure, which was already weakened by being walked on at a very high speed.

He lands back down in the circle with Angel, deactivating all his other quirks.

“This is the most rational way to see your potential.” Aizawa-Sensei holds up his phone, which has a number on the screen. ‘3,742.6m’ Wow. Izuku was not expecting a score that high.

Nor was anyone else by their reactions. From “how the hell did you get almost 4 kilometres?!” To “Aw, yeah. Getting to use our quirks, sounds like fun-!”

“Fun? Alright, how about this. Whoever comes in last place gets expelled.” Aizawa counters, sharing an ugly smile.

“Expelled?! But we just got here, you can’t just expel us on our first day! That’s unfair-!”

“Unfair? Life is unfair. Natural disasters, villain attacks, devastating events that clear whole cities. Nothing is ever fair; it is a hero’s job to combat that unfairness. You’re all here to become heroes, right? So, show me what you can do. Go beyond, and show me what ‘Plus Ultra’ really means!”

———^———

Everyone has finally finished the quirk apprehension test. 

“We’ve finished. Let’s look at the results, shall we?” Aizawa-Sensei clicks a button on his phone and a hologram appears.

Quirk apprehension test no.1 results

1. Midoriya Izuku       2. Yaoyorozu Momo

3. Todoroki Shouto    4. Bakugou Katsuki

5. Iida Tenya              6. Tokoyami Fumikage

7. Shouji Mezou         8. Ojirou Mashirao

9. Kirishima Eijirou  10. Ashido Mina

11. Uraraka Ochako 12. Kouda Kouji

13. Satou Rikidou    14. Asui Tsuyu

15. Aoyama Yuga    16. Sero Hanta

17. Kaminari Denki 18. Jirou Kyoka

19. Hagakure Toru  20. Mineta Minoru

“Looks like we all know who’s going home. Mineta, please come with me.” Aizawa-Sensei escorts Mineta off to the principal’s office to be expelled. “The rest of you, get changed and head back to class. Syllabus should be on your desks. You are dismissed.”

“I was really scared there, I just survived!” Hagakure says, sounding very shaken.

“You did pretty good! Remember, you were pretty much quirkless in the eyes of the exam, and you did better than someone with an emitter quirk.” Tsu -she insisted on everyone calling her that instead of Asui or Tsuyu- says, probably attempting to comfort her.

“All I got from that is that Midoriya is super powerful! Especially with what you did at the start, it was amazing! A full-on glacier!” A pink bodied girl -Ashido Mina- says, bouncing up and down.

“Yeah, it was super manly! Your quirk is amazing, combining power like that!” The spiky red-head comments. “How’d you make it so big? I swear it was even bigger than Todoroki’s!”

“Um, that’s because Rei -Todoroki’s mother- actually wanted me to have the quirk!” Unknown to them, Todoroki listens in. “She was really kind and wanted me to have the best opportunity to be a hero. Especially like using a powerful quirk such as hers.”

Izuku walks back towards the changing rooms with everyone stepping in line beside him.

“‘Glacier’ requires a lot of control and is more powerful than only half of Todoroki’s full power; the half that makes up his ice. That’s why my glacier was bigger.” Izuku gives a nervous laugh, having the attention of pretty much the whole class focused on him while heading back to the changing rooms.

“It was certainly an experience seeing multiple quirks under work within the same person.” Iida comments. “I’m sure my parents would be willing to give you their quirks if they met you. It would mean a lot that their powers are still being used for hero work even after they’ve retired.”

“Are your parent’s heroes, Iida?” Yaoyorozu asks quickly, as they are nearly back at the changerooms.

“Indeed. My elder brother is the pro-hero Ingenium, in fact! He’s a great hero and I strive to be one just like him!”

The students all head into their respective locker rooms to switch back into their uniforms when Todoroki pulls Izuku aside.

"How is she?" He asks.

"Um, sorry? W-Who are we talking about here?"  Izuku is pretty sure he knows who Todoroki is referring to, but he'd rather wait for another time for this conversation. 

"My mother. You mentioned seeing her to get your quirk. How is she?" 

"Todoroki, Rei is doing just fine… she does miss you, though. I visit her from time to time and the way she acts doesn't reflect her report card. Whatever reason she's in there for is false, or at least unreasonable. You should visit her sometime, even if you need someone else there." Izuku smiles at Todoroki, hoping the message got across despite the two only knowing each other directly for less than 2 hours. 

"I'll consider. Thank you." His appreciation sounds empty, rehearsed; and his expression is as blank as it has been the whole day, excluding a minor eye-widen at hearing that his mother misses him, revealing his shock. 

He promptly walks off, but pauses for a second, before continuing, leaving Izuku smiling while rolling his eyes at the 'Todoroki antics' as Rei called it. 

———^———

As Izuku heads home, he. Finds Iida and Uraraka waiting for him. "Hey guys, you didn't have to wait for me!"

"Course we did! It'd be disrespectful to you if we just left you to walk home alone.” Iida responds, chopping his arms.

“Thanks guys.” Izuku gives a warm smile of appreciation.

“Hey, Deku! Glad you’re ok!” Izuku winces as Uraraka calls him that.

“please don’t call me that. It’s an insult, not my name.” Uraraka opens her mouth to say something, “you can just call me Midoriya.” Izuku says, cutting off whatever Uraraka wanted to say. Thankfully she just nods and moves on.

With that sorted out, Izuku starts headed home with his two new friends. This year might be a good one.

———^———

Or so Izuku had hoped.

All Might came bursting through the door the next day for afternoon classes announcing battle training, and Kacchan was very, very pleased about that.

Izuku on the other hand, would rather bury himself in a hole. Sure, he’s powerful, but Kacchan’s… well… Kacchan! Izuku just prays that they don’t have to fight each other. If that request is fulfilled, he’ll be fine with it.

Of course, the world loves to hate him so now he’s standing outside of a building making a plan with Uraraka against none other than Kacchan and Iida.

Just great. Maybe this’ll be his chance to prove himself to Kacchan or… no. Izuku has to prove him wrong, not prove himself worthy of Kacchan.

Izuku is slightly eased by the nice design on his costume, though. Fingerless grey gloves and thick combat material for his body suit. The stuff is insulative too, so Glacier won’t cool him down too quickly. The only unfortunate part about that it’ll be harder to cool down when using his speed quirks. The material is a dark green colour with black stripes lining against the edge of his ribcages and his spine for a little detail. He also has white shoulder pads and grey knee and elbow pads. Of course, his shoes are the same as always: bright red runners.

Izuku stops thinking about his costume to talk to Uraraka while they still have time.

“Ok. You know my quirk. I know yours… When we go in, I know that Kacchan will instantly go for me. So, when that happens; you need to run off and find the bomb. I’ll take Kacchan’s quirk and immobilise him before following you if you haven’t found it. From there, we can take Iida two on one, easy.”

“sounds like a plan, Midoriya.” Uraraka smiles, giving a thumbs up. Izuku is glad Uraraka complied with his request yesterday. If she had continued calling him Deku, he would’ve lost his patience and friendship with her very quickly.

“Your 10 minutes are up, match one… BEGIN!” All Might’s voice rings through Izuku’s earpiece. They run through the door and up the stairs, slowly making their way to the fifth floor as they check each room.

Izuku is standing behind Uraraka so that if Kacchan sneaks up behind, Izuku can stop him and if he comes from the front, Izuku will see him coming.

The former comes true. Izuku pushes Uraraka out of the way just in time for them to dodge a right hook from a flying Kacchan. Izuku turns around and Kacchan runs at him again. “DEKU, YOU BASTARD!”

This time, Izuku grabs Kacchan’s arm and flips him over; taking his quirk while doing so.

“THAT’S NOT MY NAME! I WILL ONLY REMAIN DEKU IN YOUR EYES, KACCHAN!” Izuku calls out when he turns around and faces the still recovering Kacchan. He sees Uraraka running off in his peripheral vision.

“Deku… give me my quirk back, dammit!” Kacchan lunges forward but Izuku merely freezes him in place with Glacier. He ties a little bit of capture tape around one of Kacchan’s frozen wrists and All Might announces said capture.

Izuku turns around and calls into his earpiece. “found Iida yet, Uraraka?” Izuku begins running up the stairs.

“Not yet, but 1 through 3 are completely clear. I think he’s on the 4^th floor.” Izuku hear through the earpiece and runs up to that level. He thinks back to the floorplan they were given and runs towards the largest room in there.

“found him.” Izuku whispers into his ear as he looks at Iida talking to himself. Izuku quickly activates Glacier and swiftly sends a stream of ice across the ground with the intent to freeze Iida in place much like he did with Kacchan.

“Ha, I see you, do-gooder!” Iida jumps out of the way of the ice. “Whether you have Uraraka’s quirk or not, I have cleared the room to nullify e-” Izuku cuts Iida off by erecting an ice wall, allowing Izuku an uninterrupted path to the bomb. Uraraka arrives just then.

“oh. You did everything! Nice job.” Uraraka comments, the words make her seem disappointed or jealous but the tone is very happy and grateful, so Izuku leaves it at that. He makes his way over to the bomb as Iida starts forming cracks in the wall by kicking it with his high-speed quirk.

Izuku manages to touch the bomb just as Iida breaks through the ice. “The hero team wins!” All Might announces over the earpieces.

“nice job, you two. You really did amazing in your efficiency.” Iida says with a smile in his tone.

“come on, I think Kacchan will get even angrier -if that’s possible- if I let him stay in that ice any longer. And I should probably give him his quirk back.” Izuku gives a nervous laugh and makes his way back with Uraraka and Iida as friends.

Chapter Text

As they head back to the main group, Izuku can feel Kacchan’s deathly glare. If glares could kill, Izuku would be dead 10 times over.

They arrive at the observation room and the next group goes up. Shouji and Todoroki as heroes against Hagakure and Ojirou as villains. The match is over very quickly with a flashy move from Todoroki.

He simply coats the whole building in ice. He makes his way to the bomb room, ignoring the struggling Ojirou who’s feet are frozen to the ground.

As Todoroki touches the bomb with his left hand, the ice melts, turning into steam. There’s visible disgust on Todoroki’s face. Most people ignored it, assuming it was boredom from the simplicity, but Izuku guessed it was from using the fire quirk.

Izuku wants to figure out why Todoroki would hate using his fire… doesn’t like his dad, maybe. Who knows? Izuku decides to put that mystery off for another time.

———^———

The rest of the groups go through. Tokoyami and Asui vs Kirishima and Sero, heroes win; Kaminari and Jirou vs Yaoyorozu and Izuku -because there’s only 19 students now, Izuku has to step in considering his ‘multiple quirks’. A little justified but Izuku is a little insulted- villains win; Aoyama and Ashido vs Satou and Kouda, heroes win.

By the end of it, Izuku is really tired considering he had to go to Recovery girl to get rid of his electricity burns thanks to Kaminari.

Even though he has Stamina, it’s unhealthy to keep it going for extended periods of time or he could end up in a small coma.

The quirk does this to stop from accidentally killing its owner. Instead of shoving all the tiredness onto the owner at once, if the load could kill them, it’ll put them to sleep with exhaustion then keep them asleep until all of the ‘sleep energy’ is gone and stamina is no longer stockpiling anything.

Now, it’s the next day with the class in homeroom and Aizawa has just come up to the podium. “today you’ve got something that’ll change your career… you have to choose your class representative.”

Instantly the whole class jumps up announcing that they should be the rep, but Iida cuts them off saying that it should be voted upon to make it fair. Izuku doesn’t really want the spot but he doesn’t know who to give it to so he just picks himself…

…which turns out to backfire considering two other people voted for him and he now has three votes and is the winner. Izuku tries to deny but the whole class waves him off saying that he’ll be great.

Come lunch time, Izuku is sitting with Uraraka and Iida talking about the rep position. Uraraka makes a comment about how Iida would’ve made a great rep considering his glasses.

Iida replies saying “There is a difference between who wants something and who deserves it. Observing my family’s hero agency has taught me that much.”

“Hero agency? You know… I’ve been wondering about you. Admit it, Iida! You’re filthy rich!” Uraraka blurts out and Izuku winces slightly at her bluntness.

Iida, on the other hand, looks slightly ashamed. “uh… I was afraid people would treat me differently if they knew about my family.” Izuku and Uraraka look on excitedly and Iida sighs in defeat and acceptance. “You see, the Iida family have been pro heroes for generations. It runs in our blood. Are the two of you familiar with the Turbo Hero Ingenium?”

“Ooh, I know all about him! He’s a super popular hero with 65 sidekicks working alongside him in his Tokyo agency. Wait, I remember you saying…” Izuku looks on nervously excited.

“He’s my elder brother!” Iida announces proudly.

“your family’s famous!” Uraraka exclaims.

“Ingenium is an unmatched commander who honours the hero code. As the second oldest Iida son, I strive to be just like him! However -” Iida bows slightly in his chair towards Izuku. “- I think it might be a bit soon for me to be in a real leadership role.” Iida looks up at Izuku. “you, for example. You figured out what the judges were looking for in the practical exam. A rep needs that sort of insight.”

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile, Iida. You should do it more!” Uraraka says kindly.

“what are you talking about, I smile all the time?” Iida denies Uraraka’s claim as Izuku mulls over how to tell Iida and Uraraka that he actually had no idea that Uraraka was there and just wanted to actually put some effort in to fighting.

“yeah, so about that practical exam—” he gets cut off, naturally.

A ringing sounds out. “warning, level three security breach. All students please evacuate the building in an orderly fashion.” The automated voice repeats the message as Iida asks what a level three security breach to a gen ed third year.

“It means someone’s managed to get past the school gates! This hasn’t happened in my three years here. We should get going!” the boy from gen ed runs off, joining the mass of students running towards the emergency exit.

The three run off and join the mob, trying to calmly make their way through. Izuku gets separated from the two, unfortunately.

As Izuku is shorter than most, he has to take a lot of elbows to the face. It’s not fun, to say the least.

Thankfully, Iida takes charge. He floats up into the air from somewhere, presumably with the help of Uraraka’s quirk, and flies into the end of the passage.

He stands on the doorframe of the emergency exit door, holding a pipe above him for stability. When Izuku thinks back on it later, Iida looks like an emergency exit sign itself.

“Listen up, everything is ok! It’s just the media, outside. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine! We’re UA students, we need to remain calm and prove that we’re the best of the best.”

From there, everyone manages to calm down and Izuku doesn’t take any more elbows to the face. Unfortunately, he has to make a quick trip to Recovery Girl to get rid of the bruises but beyond that, he’s fine. The police arrive and clear away the media.

Now, it’s time for the announcements from the class rep and deputy to choose the other leaders. But Izuku has something to say first. “we need to d-decide the other leaders, but I want to s-say something first. I’ve thought a lot about this… and I think that Tenya Iida should be our class rep!” Izuku scrunches in on himself, as if expecting to be insulted for his comment. “He was able to capture everyone’s attention and get us in line. So, I believe that he should be the one leading us from now on.” Izuku looks up and smiles at Iida’s shocked face.

“yeah, you know what? If Midoriya vouches for him, I’m good. Plus, he was a big help. He totally manned up and took charge, right?” Kirishima comments.

“yep. Oh! Did you notice that he looked like the dude on the emergency exit signs when he was on the wall earlier?” Kaminari replies, laughing slightly.

“This is a waste of time, I don’t care who the rep is, just hurry up.” Aizawa says from his sleeping bag before promptly closing his eyes and feigning sleep.

Iida stands up. “If Midoriya is nominating me for this job… Then I humbly accept. I pledge to carry out the duties of class rep to the best of my abilities!” Iida bows to Izuku as a thanks.

“sounds good, emergency exit!” Kirishima cheers.

Kaminari says in a joking tone. “Emergency Exit Iida! Don’t let us down, man!”

Yaoyorozu complains to herself and Izuku barely hears, too busy smiling and being grateful for Iida.

———^———

The next day in the afternoon, instead of All Might coming to the podium to announce what they’re doing, Aizawa does. “Today’s training will be a little different from the standard. You’ll have three instructors. All Might, myself, and another faculty member will be keeping tabs on you.”

“Sir! What kind of training is this?” Sero calls out, asking his question as he pulls his hand up making the gesture pointless.

“Rescue. You’ll be dealing with natural disasters, shipwrecks, stuff like that.” As Aizawa says this, he pulls out a card saying the word ‘RESCUE’ in thick font and a neon blue shade.

“disasters, huh? Sounds like we’re in for a big workout.” Kaminari says nervously.

“totally!” Ashido shouts excitedly in contrast.

“Guys, I’m not finished yet. What you wear in this exercise is up to you. I know you’re excited about costumes…” Aizawa presses the button that opens the costume lockers. “but keep in mind that you haven’t gotten used to them yet, and they might limit your abilities rather than helping you. This special training is at an off-campus facility so we’ll be taking a bus to get there. That’s all, start getting ready.” Aizawa walks out of the classroom as everyone clambers for their costumes.

As Izuku makes his way outside, Iida starts his job as class rep by forcing everyone into an ‘efficient’ line and getting them onto the bus. As they take off, everyone sits down and starts talking to their friends.

“Midoriya,” Asui, sitting next to Izuku, says to get his attention.

“yes, Asui?” Izuku looks over.

“I told you to call me Tsu,” She says in an exasperated tone.

“Oh, sorry. Tsu. Um, what is it?” Izuku corrects himself and asks.

“Your quirks. How many do you have?” She asks.

“Oh. I have 31 in total. 12 unique quirks and 19 basic enhancement quirks. Why do you ask?” Izuku probably should’ve told them before, but no one had asked until now. Izuku had to hold back from going into detail and reciting his quirk analysis book.

“just wondering. It is extremely powerful, your quirk. Able to take even mutant quirks.” Asu -Tsu comments.

“Yeah, I know, right? I wish I had something so flashy! Hardening’s super cool and all but it is nothing like any of your quirks, Midoriya.” Kirishima points out, looking at his hardened arm self-deprecatingly.

“that’s not true Kirishima. In fact, I have three quirks that are a lot like yours! Crystallised is almost identical, but it turns my skin into a crystal-like substance rather than stone. I also have resistance which is the same as yours but weaker, and durability which is similar to resistance but is more in stability in my joints rather than solidifying my skin. I need to use them all the time so I don’t injure myself! Just because you don’t have a visually stunning quirk, doesn’t mean it’s useless.” Izuku attempts to cheer Kirishima up, which looks to have been successful considering the large smile plastered on Kirishima’s face.

“Thanks, Midoriya!” He says gratefully.

The conversation continues on, eventually getting to the class just insulting Kacchan.

———^———

When they arrive, Izuku notices 13 standing outside. He gets excited. When he looks at the dome they’re now standing right outside of, he gets ecstatic. 13 introduces the building as the USJ -the Unforeseen Simulation Joint.

They walk inside and 13 quickly begins a lecture on the lethal capability of every quirk after having a quick word with Aizawa, probably about All Might not being here. When 13 finishes, there’s a shift in the air.

Izuku looks over to its origin and finds a black portal forming. The fountain behind the portal sputters and the lights of the USJ power down. A bunch of people begin walking through the wall sized black mist, including one with hands covering his body and another with a hulking form and an exposed brain.

“has the exercise started already?” Kirishima says, walking forward.

“No. Stop. Get back! Those are villains.” Aizawa says, placing on his goggles. “13, get the students to safety. I’ll deal with the villains.” He gets ready to jump down, but Izuku stops him.

“Wait, Aizawa-Sensei! Eraserhead’s fighting style is good for one on one fights or sneak attacks, not going against a group!” Izuku complains, worried for Aizawa’s safety.

“You can’t be a pro if you only have one trick.” Aizawa says and jumps over the side of the staircase. He begins taking down villains 3 at a time, moving efficiently and almost never pausing.

Izuku freezes, hypnotised by his Sensei’s fluid movements in battle.

“Midoriya, now’s no time for analysis! We need to get going.” Iida calls, and Izuku looks up before running over, joining the class.

Unfortunately, they’re stopped by the black mist that brought the mob of villains here. “There is no escape for you.  It’s a pleasure to meet you. We are the League of Villains. I know it’s impolite, but we decided to invite ourselves into this haven of justice to say hello.” The students and 13 get into a fighting position. “And, besides, isn’t this a fitting place for All Might, the Symbol of Peace, to take his last breath? I believe he was supposed to be here today and yet I see no sign of him. There must’ve been some sort of change in plans we could not have foreseen. Ah well, in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I still have a role to play.”

13 gets ready to attack with black hole, but Kirishima and Kacchan jump forward and attempt to attack the warp villain. “Did ya think we were just gonna stand around and let you tear this place to shreds?” Kirishima taunts.

“You live up to your school reputation. But you should be more careful, children. Otherwise, someone might get hurt.” The mist that was blown around by Kacchan’s blast reforms around the villain’s body, revealing a dress suit and neck armour.

“you two, get out of the way, right now!” 13 orders Kirishima and Kacchan, preparing an attack.

“I’ll scatter you across this facility to meet my comrades, and your deaths!” The mist from the villain expands and covers the entire student body.

When the dust clears, only Iida, Uraraka, Satou, Sero, Ashido, Shouji and 13 remain. The rest… are scattered.

———^———

Izuku feels the cold before the water. It’s funny, he has an ice and cold resistance thanks to said ice quirk, but when he’s not using the quirk, he can feel the cold like any other person.

He looks around the water, and notices something coming in to attack him. Before he can do anything, though, Tsu comes in and pushes the shark-like mutant quirk villain out of the way and grabbing Izuku with her tongue.

He’s dragged onto the boat with her, and the two of them take a breather for a second. “Ok… we need a plan out of here.” Izuku speaks after a moment.

“But what do we do? Ribbit.” She asks.

“Well, it seems they don’t know our quirks. They might know my base quirk, but they won’t know what any of my other quirks are. Yours, though, can’t be known by them.”

“Yeah, if they had, they probably would’ve sent me to the fire dome or blizzard dome. Ribbit. Not the shipwreck zone which is my specialty.”

“Exactly. So, here’s my plan. I jump over the side and use all my strength and power quirks to create a whirlpool and distract the villains while you-” A massive hand made of water slices through the boat. “woah!” Izuku nearly falls over, but Tsu catches him. “thanks, Asu-Tsu.”

“No problem. Ribbit. What were you gonna say?”

“You jump as far as you can and catch me in your tongue. Bring us to the edge of the shipwreck zone and from there we can do whatever.” Tsu nods in agreement.

“here goes nothing.” Izuku mutters to himself before activating one jump quirk and jumping over the edge of the boat.

He activates all three strength quirks and both power quirks alongside resistance, durability, Crystallised, -Kirishima really needs to learn how useful quirks like his are- and all three shock absorption quirks.

“DIE!” He shouts as he punches the water, the whirlpool he planned on creating was not as strong as the one he actually did make, but it serves its purpose.

The villains twirl around in the water, unable to do anything against the tides as Izuku is picked up by Tsu’s tongue and dragged across the zone. They safely land in the water near the edge.

They arrive just in time for Aizawa’s elbow to crumble under the hand-villain’s -presumably the ringleader considering the way he was standing when he came through the portal- touch. Then, the hulking mass from before comes over and slaps Aizawa’s face hard enough to break the nose and throw him to the ground. The ‘nomu’ -as the ringleader had called it- began breaking Aizawa-Sensei’s bones.

The warp villain from before appears next to the ringleader, on the side closer to Izuku. In fact, Izuku is right behind him. “Tomura Shigaraki.” The warp villain bows in acknowledgment.

“did you kill 13?”

“13 was incapacitated,” incapacitated, not dead. That’s good, “but one of the students managed to get out the door and escape.”

“Kurogiri… if you weren’t our escape... I’d kill you right now!”

Izuku runs in and tackles Kurogiri to the ground. Hand-man jumps back on instinct before calling over. “Nomu, kill that brat. He’s getting in the way.”

The nomu moves.

Chapter Text

“Nomu, kill that brat. He’s getting in the way.” The ringleader -Shigaraki, the warp villain had called him- says, pointing at Izuku standing over said warp villain. The monster standing over Aizawa-Sensei stands up strait again before running at Izuku with a blinding speed.

“NO!” Aizawa-Sensei calls as the nomu swiftly makes its way over. Izuku barely has time to activate enough quirks. Crystallised, resistance, durability, medium shock absorption x2, weak sho- The monster’s fist makes contact. Izuku lands many metres away with a large skid mark -more like torn up concrete- on the ground. He can’t even shift his body before the nomu is on top of him again.

The thing slams its fists into his chest over and over, too strong for the shock absorption quirks and even resistance quirks combined. Izuku’s ribs crack and shatter. Some of them shredding parts of his organs. All he can do is sit back and wait for his death… or… wait. Inside the nomu. Izuku looks, finding many, many quirks.

Izuku tries reaching for them. He gets one. He activates it. The punches become less affective. Another shock absorption quirk, but much stronger than the other three I have.

He reaches for another. By now, most of the bones in his body have degraded, and he’s moments away from death. He gets another. He activates it.

The bones heal. At least, they begin to. An energy flows through his body, starting to heal up all the scratches and holes in his organs. The pieces of his bones start moving back towards their original place.

Another. He reaches for another one. This time, it’s a speed quirk. It’s obvious the moment he activates it. It’s almost identical to the ex no.6 hero’s quirk, Overclock. Time around him slows down or, more accurately, he speeds up.

He can now see each individual punch that the nomu makes. He can tell that they’re slower than they were before, too. He can also tell that the temporal quirk effects his other quirks, as the healing quirk has sped up accordingly - not going as perspectives would presume.

He’s still being constantly battered and bruised, but he ignores the pain in favour of surviving. No use worrying about exposed and crushed organs and bones if you have a chance of survival.

Now, to fight back. Using his heavily shock absorption and resistance packed body, he activates all his strength, speed and power quirks, and hits the next fist that should’ve landed on him. The already broken arm gets slightly more damage, but the nomu is no longer easily destroying him. While the fists are locked, he steals another two quirks.

One instantly takes effect, doubling the speed of his regeneration, while the other seems to be a passive one. Until, that is, he takes another punch and shatters his left ligament.

He focuses the regeneration quirks on them, hoping to heal it to the best of their capability, when the third quirk brightens inside him. His ligament heals exactly as it was before. He would be able to tell if it was different. Ligaments are complicated, after all.

Due to this new quirk -Deep Heal, Izuku’s calling it- most of his ribs and organs have gone back into operation extremely efficiently.

Deep healing seems to order the regeneration quirks around, telling them what to do so that Izuku has the best chance of staying alive while also making sure he ends up with the same body he had before his injuries.

He gives another punch, the minor bruises that appear along the arm from the force of the nomu’s punch almost instantly heal up. Izuku’s almost back to full health now; only the skin on the front of his -now exposed- chest is to be repaired.

Reactivating his resistance and durability quirk, along with his stamina quirk, he connects fists with the nomu once more. This time, bruises appear along the nomu’s arm. They take only a little to heal. It probably has one more regeneration quirk. Izuku manages to stand up again, directly standing against the nomu this time.

“wha-what? HOW! YOU CHEATER!” screams Shigaraki. He starts running over to Izuku, but the warp villain stops him.

“Be calm, Shigaraki. We must remember that he could take your own quirk too, which would be unideal.” The portal places a reassuring hand on the hand-man’s shoulder.

“if you weren’t my escape, I’d tear you apart atom at a time, Kurogiri! FINE, let’s get going. The nomu’s useless to us now, without its strength or regeneration!” Shigaraki waves an arm off at the portal – apparently named Kurogiri- and steps through the portal made for him.

“very well, Shigaraki. Goodbye, heroes.” Kurogiri becomes enveloped in his own mist before disappearing completely, leaving the rest of the lackeys to be caught. Said lackeys yell in anger at Kurogiri while he is being enveloped.

Izuku keeps trading punches with the nomu, becoming faster than it with the combined usage of all his speed related quirks and the use of the new Temporal View quirk. He keeps taking quirks from it until he’s completely overpowering it and the nomu falls to the ground.

Izuku senses one more quirk inside the nomu, but leaves it for a moment and letting it be. He runs over to Aizawa-Sensei, who is still injured from the nomu earlier.

He grabs Aizawa’s hand, switching quirks with him. Izuku gives him the deep healing quirk as he knows that Recovery Girl can cover the speed aspect of the healing… that is, until he realises that Aizawa has enough capacity to handle a regen quirk, too. Just enough, but enough either way.

Most people can only handle one quirk in their system, some even unable to handle as single one too large for them, but a very small populous can handle two less quirk factor heavy quirks.

Izuku gives Aizawa one of the regen quirks, and it takes effect immediately. He can hear the bones grinding as they move back into place, see the broken parts of the skin starting to bubble and shift, moving to stitch itself together. The remaining lackeys are instantly attacked by the free classmates.

Leaving Aizawa-Sensei to recover, he runs up to 13, who is also injured. Probably from Kurogiri forcing them to use their own quirk against them. It is here that All Might makes his entry. All Might punches the door open, revealing a very angry and intimidating looking Symbol of Peace, only for that very rare frown but common intimidation to be pointless as the villains have mostly been knocked unconscious or left, like Shigaraki and Kurogiri.

All Might quickly head-knocks the remaining villains, rendering them unconscious while Izuku takes 13’s quirk and replaces it with a regeneration one. They’ll end up with scars, unlike Aizawa, but they should return to full health considering the injury appears to just be heavy lacerations, like large cuts with possible weakened bones. Regeneration should fix that up easy.

“Young Midoriya, nice job giving regeneration quirks to the teachers to heal them up! But I have a question… what is that thing?” All Might asks, pointing to the now weakened nomu.

“it was meant to be something to defeat you. That’s where I got the regeneration quirks from. The ringleader ordered it to kill me, and it tried to but I just kept taking the quirks from within it until I was strong enough and it was weak enough for me to fight back, and after that, I defeated it. Its barely alive and it still has a quirk within it, if I remember correctly, but I never checked what the quirk was.”

“Hold on… you said you took quirks from it, not a quirk… that would mean….” All Might almost weakens back to his true form in anger and fear along with a whole range of other emotions. He had thought of the possibility, but he had hoped…

“All for One, yeah. If you survived, then someone with near infinite quirks could easily survive, too.” Izuku points out while making his way over to the barely moving husk, which looks really skinny without its mutant strength quirks.

Izuku places his hand on the nomu’s slowly heaving chest. He feels around inside the monster, finding the quirk. It’s a vitality quirk, he realises. Not too different from the stockpile one they’re waiting on at a comatose hospital. This one, however, does not stockpile vitality. It creates it out of other forms of energy. It would act like a general booster for Izuku’s other quirks, depending on what they are.

The Regeneration quirks would be faster, the speed quirks would be slightly faster, the jump quirks would go slightly higher. It wouldn’t affect the power or strength quirks in a very significant way, but it would be very helpful. It would allow the stockpile quirk to do said stockpiling much faster, once he gets it.

“ok… it’s a vitality emitter quirk, similar to the one we’re waiting on at that hospital. This one, however, will turn other energies into vitality to use instantly. It wouldn’t let you stockpile the energy for that long, so if you ate something, you’d get the energy sooner and it’d give you more energy. It would act like a general booster quirk until I get the stockpile quirk. The only problem is… this quirk wasn’t supplying the other ones.

I think this quirk is being used to keep the whole thing alive. As you know, I can see how another person’s quirk works even while it’s in them, if I am touching them. Looking at what the vitality quirk is doing shows me that the quirk’s eating off of 4 different sources, all supplying each for other. It’s almost like whoever’s made this thing enjoys cannibalism on the spiritual level. There are four half living humans stuck inside this thing, forcibly eating away at the spirits of the other three in order to keep the whole nomu alive. Wow.” Izuku rambles, but ensures to keep his voice clear and at an understandable pace and, thankfully, no one stops him from finishing it.

“That is… messed up on a whole new level. I knew All for One was an evil man, considering how many people he’s killed. But torturing four people in the name of experimentation! That’s outrageous. Its vile!” All Might resounds his passion for the ‘ending-All-for-One Church’.

“Now… if I take the quirk, the four people will die, but if I keep it in here, they will all suffer for as long as they do live. I’m asking you if I should really take this quirk and kill four people in doing so, All Might?” To be honest, Izuku wants to do it. He wants that quirk. Its powerful and it’s not really doing anything otherwise, but Izuku has morals, dammit! He won’t give into his quirk’s wants. He won’t just kill people in the name of power.

“Izuku, wouldn’t it be a mercy to end it here for them? If you want, I bet you could even use the quirk to kill All for One in their vengeance, when you get around to it!” All Might gives his laugh, empty in comparison to normal, faux comfort to Izuku’s ears.

In the background, the rest of the class has nearly completely rounded up the villains and themselves, and the rest of the U.A. faculty just arrived, helping out the students. Izuku takes the quirk and the difference is almost unnoticeable, but there.

The two make their way to the principal in order to give their details as the cops arrive, and Izuku agrees that All Might, Nedzu and Tsukauchi can all learn the details at the same time.

Izuku makes his way back to the nomu and closes his eyes.

He takes the quirk.

He feels the beating heart of the beast.

1,

2,

1,

2,

1…

2…

1.

It stops.

It doesn’t start again.

Later on, Izuku off-handedly shares his contact with the rest of the class; so that Iida can make a group chat, before heading home.

———^———

After a three-day break and some experimenting with his new quirks, Izuku is excited to go back to school, again. In homeroom before the day starts, Aizawa-Sensei gives a quick announcement, and an annoyed reminder. Oh… I forgot to give Sensei’s their quirks back.

“Quieten down, class has started. You may have survived the USJ, but there’s still a fight ahead of you…” The class share a look of anticipation and nervousness. “The U.A. Sports Festival is coming up.”

After a moment of silence, the class bursts into noise “YESSS! ALRIGHT! I’M GETTING PUMPED U-” Kirishima is stopped by a light shove to his cheek from Kaminari.

“wait. Is it really such a good idea to host the Sports Festival so soon after everything happened? It’s the perfect place for another major villain attack.” Izuku has to agree, Kaminari is right -surprisingly- and Izuku can see quite a bit of the class does, too.

“The board believes it’ll show that U.A. hasn’t lost their cool. That we’ve managed to keep our security and classes going full-steam-ahead. This year there’ll be beefed up security and such, as a counter-measure against the USJ attack.” Aizawa explains. “also, Midoriya…. You still have my quirk and I still have that healing quirk. Same with 13.”

“oh... sorry. I’ll fix that.”

———^———

The week is full of training and classes with sleep in between until the weekend. This is Izuku’s free time. Before he started UA, Izuku went to Rei’s place every three weeks or so, but he agreed to go fortnightly once he started.

With that promise in mind, Izuku makes is way into Mustafa’s hospital nearby. He walks up to the counter and sees Tsukue Josei; the long-time working front desk lady of the hospital.

“Hey Tsukue!” Izuku walks up to her and smiles brightly.

“Hey, Midoriya! You’re here sooner than usual,” She replies in a cheekily suspicious tone.

Izuku scratches the back of his head and looks away, “I promised Rei that I’d start visiting fortnightly once I started at UA…” He justifies.

“That’s all good, Midoriya! I trust you don’t need me to tell you the directions?” Tsukue asks.

“Nah, I’m all good; thank you!” Izuku starts towards the elevator and Tsukue waves him off, turning back to her screen to -definitely not play solitaire- continue her work.

———^———

Izuku walks up to the door and knocks. Upon hearing the cheerful “Come in!” He opens the door.

“Hey, Rei!” Izuku smiles at the white-haired woman while she rests in her bed, holding a book.

“Hey, Izuku,” She smiles calmly and closes the book. Her expression becomes mischievously curious, “So, tell me; how has UA been so far?”

Izuku huffs a laugh and sits down in the chair of the desk next to Rei’s bed, “Hectic, to say the least. First day; strait up physical assessment. I mean, it wasn’t too much of a struggle but it wasn’t preferable.”

“Oh, and how did you do in this assessment?”

“I came first; but only because I used so many quirks! The others were so much more deserving of their places. Kacchan came fourth, by the way!”

“Who came second and third?” Rei smirks.

Izuku pauses for a second, “A girl named Yaoyorozu came second, and uh… Your son… came third.” He whispers the last part.

“Izuku, I know the hospital has rules, and I do prefer them being used; but my son is not that man. You don’t need to avoid talking about him to me. Actually, I would like to know what my son is like nowadays.” Rei smiles comfortingly. Izuku’s always seen Rei as a second mum, and its in moments like this that this connection shows.

“Ok, if you’re sure, Rei,” Izuku smiles in return, “From what you, Natsuo and Fuyumi have told me about how he used to be; he’s changed a lot. He’s detached and cold, definitely smart. He’s stopped using fire, only using his ice factor,” Izuku grimaces.

“That does make sense, he was only five when everything happened, so the natural stubbornness of a child must have held on in his anger…” Rei murmurs to herself.

“He is pretty powerful, though. His glacier was almost as large as one from your own quirk. It’s a magnificent sight to see his quirk at work,” Izuku responds.

“How about the next day, how did that go?” Rei asks, changing the subject.

“We did our first hero training lesson! We had All Might as our teachers, no less!” Izuku opens his mouth to ramble but Rei stops him.

“Ok, Izuku,” She giggles, “I’ve heard enough rants about our number one hero, I want to know how your experience was in UA, not your experience with All Might,”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Izuku smirks abashedly and scratches the back of his neck, “we did a sort of battle trial! We fought in teams of two; it was me and a girl named Uraraka -who had a zero-gravity quirk- as heroes against Kacchan and someone named Iida -who is the younger brother of Ingenium- as villains! Our team won, thankfully – and pretty easily, too.

The next fight was your son and a guy with six arms as heroes versus an invisible girl and a guy with a tail who played the villains, Shouto’s team won that fight. After that was a frog girl and a guy with a demon spirit who were the heroes fighting someone who could produce tape from their elbows and a guy with the ability to make their skin rock solid! That was a pretty even fight but the heroes won in the end.

Next, someone who could shoot lasers from their tummy and someone who could produce acid from their pores played heroes against a very strong person and someone who could talk to animals. That fight was a little up in the air but the heroes won. Lastly, an electric dude with a girl who had earphone jacks on her lobes posed as heroes and fought against Yaoyorozu -who had a creation quirk- and myself as villains -this was because someone got expelled on the first day, so we had uneven numbers. We won the exercise that time.”

“Sounds like a lot! Nice job with your victories!” Izuku tries to downplay himself, but Rei cuts him off, “No, I know you’re going to say that this is just because of the quirks you’ve collected; but those quirks are useless unless you know how to use them, you won those matches because you deserved it; you earned it, ok?”

Izuku just nods in response.

“Good, now, how about the next day?”

“That was a much easier day. We decided on the class representative -we ended up with Iida- and, other than a false alarm, it was completely relaxed,”

“That’s good, you deserved a break,” Rei smiles, “After that?”

At this, Izuku rolls his eyes and groans, “Then, we had a villain attack. I got a few new quirks, too,” Izuku sees Rei’s worried gaze and tries to reassure her, “No, don’t worry! It wasn’t that bad! No-one got any permanent injuries and we won in the end!”

Rei sighs, “Well that’s a relief. You mentioned that you got a few quirks, what are they?”

Izuku smiles wide, “I got quite a large array. For simple enhancers, I got; 4 heavy transformation strength quirks, 2 mutant muscle quirks, 4 emitter speed quirks, a medium shock absorption quirk, 3 stronger shock absorption quirks, and 3 regeneration quirks. For the unique quirks, I got Deep Heal, which allows the body to heal efficiently and correctly; it’ll always do its best to ensure my survival, although it doesn’t really enhance the healing factor of my body but it does help dedicate cells to areas faster than the body normally would,” Izuku stops his oncoming rant and moves onto the next quirk, “I also got Temporal View, which allows my relativity to enhance so that I’m travelling twice as fast as everything else, but I get heatstroke if I do it too long, from what I can guess through my current symptoms of use; a large headache and high body temperature.”

Rei nods along, interested. “And there’s one more unique quirk?”

“Yep! This one I named Vitality; it allows the user to give and take vitality from living things and organic objects! It also improves my metabolism and increases the energy intake I get from eating! It’ll work really well with the vitality stockpiling quirk that I’m due to get once its owner gets out of their coma,”

Rei laughs, “I’m never going to get over how ironic that is; someone with a vitality quirk getting stuck in a coma!”

Izuku fails to supress his giggles, “Rei, that’s rude! He’s a patient in this very hospital; you shouldn’t make fun of people like that!” Izuku tries with a scolding tone but the effect is nullified with his laughs.

“I’m going to guess that that’s all?” Rei asks.

“Yeah, we do have the sports festival coming up, which will be fun. I hope they’ll let you watch!”

“I’ll ask them, but they’ll probably say no,” Rei grimaces.

“Probably. Well, that was my last two weeks, how was yours?”

Rei and Izuku chat for hours, almost until visiting hours finish before Izuku leaves and returns home. Yeah, no doubt about it, Rei is Izuku’s best friend.

———^———

The following week is more training, studying, classes, and sleep non-stop, for everyone. In the blink of an eye, the week is over, and Class 1-A is in the locker-rooms getting changed.

“Midoriya.”

Izuku looks up to find Todoroki looking at him, but not looking at him. As if he doesn’t truly see him and is busy scowling at whatever he is seeing. “Todoroki?”

“Objectively speaking, I’d say that you’re stronger than me. But don’t hold that against me. Either way, I’m going to beat you.” Izuku doesn’t know what to do with this. It’s obvious that Todoroki’s angry at something. Considering that he refuses to use his left side, his mother is in a mental hospital for insanity -despite being very sane- and he’s got the strictest and least kind hero as a father… Izuku can guess what he’s angry at.

“Todoroki,” Izuku speaks up as Todoroki turns to leave, “I’m glad you’re wanting to push yourself. But remember, everyone one wants in. The other courses too. All of us want to win this thing, and I’m gonna give it my all. I won’t hold back against anyone, so… right back at you. I’ll be aiming for the top, too.” Todoroki only acknowledges Izuku with a small nod, before turning around as the class is called out.

Heading out the gate, it’s obvious Class 1-A is a bit of a spotlight. Present Mic, over the speakers, gives a very detailed and tailored intro to their class, but only skims over everyone else.

The stands also show a fair bit of favouritism, shouting loudest at 1-A’s introduction. Unfortunately, not every spotlight moment is positive. It’s clear that the other courses, and some members of the other heroics class, hate 1-A’s guts. Izuku’s not sure why they’re jealous about not being attacked, but he can’t be too focused on that now.

Izuku is imagining their thought line to be something like: What, am I not good enough to be brutally murdered? Do I need a death wish or something to do so? Or do I need to piss of someone enough! That’s it! I’ll glare at the people who did get attacked, so that they’ll attack me and then I’m spotlighted too for being attacked by class 1-A. With that thought, Izuku struggles to hold in his laugh as he comes to a stop. On the stand is The R18+ Hero: Midnight. Probably not the best hero choice for umpire of a high school competition, but it’s the school’s decision.

“Now the introductory speech! If Midoriya Izuku may come up for the student pledge!” Izuku’s thought process screeches to a halt. A student pledge? I wasn’t told of this! Izuku walks up onto the stage, thinking of something to say. He draws a slow breath as he decides on his speech.

“I know we’re all here to win this. I want to win, so does everyone else. No matter your beginnings, show yourself to the world and bring who you want to be into reality! Remember our school motto though… always remember to go beyond… PLUS ULTRA!” Izuku is so glad that worked. Everyone in the stadium called out the motto alongside him, cheering, and even that lavender haired guy in general studies from a while ago was giving a small, but genuine, smile his way. Now that’s a good sign.

“Without further ado, it’s time for us to get started! The first round is what you call a qualifier, this is where you begin feeling the pain! The first fateful game of the festival!” a hologram showing a randomiser appears behind Midnight as she makes a pose. “What could it be?” after a moment of anticipation, the needle lands on something. “Ta-dah!”

“so, it’s gonna be an obstacle course. Alright, I can do this.” Sero said aloud, but probably only meant for himself.

“All 11 classes should participate in this grandeur contest. The track is four Kilometres around the outside of the stadium. The business course, as always, can participate optionally, the rest of you, though, don’t have much of a choice! I don’t want to restrain anyone -at least in this game,” at this, Midnight licks her lips slightly, “As long as you don’t leave the course, you’re free to do whatever your heart desires! Now then, take your place, contestants!” Midnight finishes her… interesting speech and the students participating walk over to the red gate leading outside.

Everyone stands right outside as a noise comes from the gate. Everyone quietens down in nervous excitement. Izuku prepares some quirks. 1 jump, Air Pressure, 1 power, 6 speed, durability, resistance, and 1 regeneration to be safe.

“3

2

1

START!”

Izuku instantly jumps over the crowd, pushing his palms behind him and creating an air pressure wave combined with power to propel him forward. Meanwhile, everyone else was busy getting their feet frozen in Todoroki’s ice.

Izuku lands in front of Todoroki only by a few metres, but immediately runs forwards, having no need to duck and roll thanks to his copious amounts of shock absorption. All of his quirks related to speed instantly activate, along with glacier to make sure he doesn’t burn up travelling as fast as he was. Namely, nearly 200kmph. He instantly runs past the robots and strait towards the second obstacle.

He only has time to activate his 3 jump quirks and 2 power quirks due to the blessing of a quirk that was Temporal View. From Izuku’s perspective, he was only travelling at 70 or 80kmph, as Temporal View completely doubles Izuku’s time in everything, allowing him to do twice as much in the same amount of time.

He jumps and lands on one of the islands, three quarters through the second obstacle. He jumps one more, using Air Pressure along with his 2 power quirks at the peak of his jump. Instantly, he is propelled forwards and strait over the third obstacle; the landmines.

He clicks his heels together, using Glacier to make a small bit of ice while falling into what would be a death trap. He uses his 3 jump, Air Pressure, and 2 power quirks to throw himself forwards. The shockwave of moving at his speed with those quirks blows up the mines in his path, not that it would matter, as he’s blown all the way through the end gate, claiming first place for the first round.

He patiently waits for everyone else to go through the gate. Todoroki claims second just barely beating Bakugou, who is surely angry that he couldn’t even beat Todoroki, let alone his ‘Useless Deku.’

Finally, 42 people pass, Aoyama coming 41^st and someone from general studies coming 42^nd. Izuku’s completely happy coming first place.

Until, that is, Midnight revealing the next round; human cavalry battle, and 1^st place gets 10 million points. Well I’m screwed. Izuku does have his quirk, but he doubts that’ll be enough. Maybe…

“Uraraka! Can you team up with me?” Izuku runs up to his friend, who came in 16^th, which is nice!

“You got it, Midori!” Uraraka calls excitedly.

“I personally think we could make it just the two of us, but getting one or two more people may be helpful. I’m fast, but going too fast would hurt everyone else on the team -including you, so we need a good defence. We also ne-” As Izuku thinks up a plan, someone cuts him off.

“Team up with me, person in first place!” a very excited support course girl says, obviously just looking for a way to get her stuff recognised.

“Sure, but I would like to warn you that I can go very fast. I’d recommend only using auto-defensive tech and anti-nausea medicine if you can get carsick, cause that’s how fast we’ll be travelling.”

“Unfortunately, I do not have some defending arms, nor do I have any medicine, but I do have these earphones that reduce nausea! I’ve tested them and they work perfectly. Oh, by the way, I’m Hatsume Mei. Make sure you tell people that name when they’re asking about the equipment!” Support girl goes on.

“ok, Hatsume, thank you.” Izuku takes the earphones that Hatsume held out and gave them to Uraraka. They should not only help with travelling as fast as we will be, but should also help with her quirk drawback -that’s pretending she was going to be even using her quirk this round.

“we still need a decent defence… ha! Got it.” Izuku walks over to a friend, and they agree to work with him. Time for a game plan.

———^———

Izuku’s team prepares to fight, Izuku in front, Uraraka on the right, Tokoyami on the left, and Hatsume on top. Izuku’s pretty satisfied with the quality of their team if he does say so himself. Midnight calls the start of the match and instantly, Uraraka lets Izuku take her quirk and make everyone weightless.

He activates only 4 of his speed quirks along with acceleration and Temporal View. It’s funny, seeing the world move at half its normal speed, Izuku thinks. It’s like watching a painting being done.

He can see that blonde Class B student sneaking in the points from different groups. He can see Todoroki ordering his group around, preparing to attempt to take Izuku’s headband. He can see all of them.

As Izuku moves around, taking up the minutes, the blonde from Class B makes a wrong choice; taking Kacchan’s headband. Izuku can already tell that that’s not gonna go down well. With only a few minutes left, Todoroki makes his move freezing everyone around them and attempting to electrocute them, but Dark Shadow leaps in the way, taking the attack.

“we’ll be taking that headband now.” Todoroki says coldly.

“I don’t think you will,” Izuku retorts, “unless you’re willing to use your fire, see ya!” he instantly throws up one of Glaciers special moves: Ice Wall. A massive glacier appears, pretty much cutting the stadium in half. “That’ll stop them. Todoroki’s not gonna use his fire, its more than likely.”

Todoroki appears yet again, having instead of melting the ice, making a ramp to climb over it.

“Ok guys, we’ve got less than 60 seconds and I’m gonna do something that’ll make me useless to you.” Iida tells his team. Izuku only just manages to hear him.

“what are you gonna do?” Todoroki asks, not taking his eyes off of Izuku.

“just make sure you get that headband.” Iida says. Todoroki does his best to oblige. Todoroki’s team instantly zooms forward at a blinding speed, but they either forgot or Izuku never told them -the latter- because they’re still visible to him, with him seeing them move at half the speed they are. Izuku uses 1 jump quirk to leap over them as they try to capture the headband.

“I’ve got to say, that move was fast, Iida, but you forgot. One of the nomu’s quirks allows me to perceive reality as slower than it really is, so I could see you coming! Nice try, though!” Izuku calls, sprinting away as fast as a car with his team.

“Time’s up!” Midnight calls time just as Kacchan flies over the ice wall to take the headband.

Mic presents the teams places. “In first place we have Midoriya’s team! In second place, we have Todoroki’s! in third, Bakugou’s! and in fourth, we have Tetsutets – oh wait what! Sorry, in fourth place we have team Shinsou! These four teams will move on to the next round! Congratulations! For those that didn’t make it in, we have the extra games in a moment, taking place during lunch!”

With that, Present Mic turns his mic off, and Izuku congratulates with his team, crying in a very Midoriya way. Even with what he’s been through, he’s still gonna be the same old cry-baby. Nothing can change that.

“Midoriya, a moment please.” Todoroki says as they head out of the stadium, long after Izuku’s tears have dried. He doesn’t look back to see if Izuku follows. Izuku follows anyways.

———^———

Several minutes later, some of them spent just standing there, Izuku is wriggling around at Todoroki’s unchanging glare in the hallway entrance. “so… lunch has started. We should get down there quick before it gets too busy…” Izuku suggests, trying to prompt Todoroki to either talk or let Izuku go but Izuku stops after only talking for a moment, dragging his voice.

“You wanted me to break my promise from a long time ago. You’ve met my mother.” Izuku has, indeed, met Todoroki’s mother, as the two of them had discussed it before. Izuku decides to reply to the first statement.

“promise?”

Todoroki sighs, not exasperated, but tired and angry. “Have you heard of quirk marriages?”

The instant Todoroki said those words, Izuku knew what happened. “I do…” Even so, Izuku lets Todoroki explain for himself. Let’s him explain how his mother was always crying in his memories. How he was forced to train by Endeavor, how he was burned by his mother with boiling water while she called his left side unsightly.

“I vowed never to use my left side. By taking first place without using it, I’d have denied him everything. Good luck, Midoriya. If we face off in the last round at some point. I’d like you to use your all, but either way… I still want to win. That’s all I had to say. Sorry for wasting your time.” Todoroki gets up from his leaning on the wall and mechanically walks away.

Izuku has a few things to say to him, but it can wait. They would probably face in the third round at some point, so he’ll say it then. The obvious things that are so invisible to those blinded by something behind them. It’s nearly disappointing, but Izuku still believes in Todoroki. He just needs a friend. And he needs to learn who he is. He needs to learn that he is him, above all.

———^———

Time for the finals. Everyone is in the stadium again for the announcements of the matches. His matchup… that Shinsou guy. The lavender-haired kid from gen ed. Izuku has to say he’s impressed that the guy made it this far.

Izuku was always about being clean and pure, so he’ll wait until the match starts before possibly taking the guy’s quirk momentarily. He could use Air Pressure and power right at the start and just blow him out of the stadium, but that’d be unfair to Shinsou. Izuku will see what he can do.

The matchups are, in order:

Midoriya Izuku vs Shinsou Hitoshi

Todoroki Shouto vs Sero Hanta

Iida Tenya vs Yaoyorozu Momo

Kaminari Denki vs Hatsume Mei

Ojirou Mashirao vs Kirishima Eijirou

Tokoyami Fumikage vs Ashido Mina

Shouda Nirengeki vs Aoyama Yuga

Uraraka Ochako vs Bakugou Katsuki

“um excuse me! I’m stepping out.” Ojirou calls out, surprisingly. “I don’t feel like I deserve being in the third round. I don’t remember anything about the second one -I think it’s that guys quirk- and it just doesn’t feel right.” Ojirou uses his head to point to Shinsou.

Izuku gets a proper look at him and sees him with a similar set to Eraserhead; small quirk factor, large quirk potential, negative chronium. Could it be some sort of memory quirk? Or is it mind control…

“why not just prove yourself in the third round?”

“yeah! Show them that you deserve to be here!” Hagakure and Ashido both attempt to persuade him, to no avail.

“we’re talking about my pride here; it’s more than just proving my worth!” Ojirou passionately points out.

“I think I should hop out for the same reason!” a kid from class B calls out. Izuku can’t remember his name but his quirk is powerful; twin impact.

“Such vigour.” Midnight murmurs to herself before announcing loudly. “Very well! Ojirou and Shouda are both out of the competition. We’ll take from 5^th place team, Kendou’s.”

“Actually, going by the logic of Shouda and Ojirou, you should pick team Tetsutetsu. They were the ones who kept fighting the whole time.” Kendou points out.

“Thank you!” Tetsutetsu calls.

“Don’t thank me, it’s only fair.” Kendou shrugs the appreciation off.

After little debate, Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki take Ojirou and Shouda’s places.

“Hey, you’re Midoriya. Right?” Shinsou calls. Izuku can see his quirk flare up. He can feel it. Instead of verbally replying, Izuku just nods, trying to convince Shinsou that he already knew -which he did- and that he shouldn’t bother trying.

Ok, so it’s definitely some sort of mind control. Must be verbally induced.

Shinsou only smirks in reply, probably to hide his, fairly placed, anxiousness. Izuku smiles innocently in response before waving to him as he turns around and walks over to his waiting room in preparation.

———^———

Izuku makes his way onto the stadium, not firing up any quirks just yet. “must be nice, having all this attention on you and your quirk, hmm?” Shinsou is already trying to trap him.

“Alright everyone, the rules are simple. You can win simply by getting your opponent out of the ring, completely immobilised, or to cry ‘uncle’! We have our gracious Recovery Girl here today so don’t worry about pulling your punches! No kill shots, though. We’re heroes, not killers!” Present Mic recites the rules as Shinsou and Izuku get ready to fight.

“‘I give up’ huh? That’s kind of funny. That monkey back there was talking about his pride back there,” In the background, Midnight calls start, “but I just think he’s stupid for throwing away his chance like that, don’t you?” Shinsou baits Izuku a second time…

But this time, Izuku takes it. “Don’t you talk about Ojirou that way!” he calls out as he freezes Shinsou’s body and his own right foot in place with ice.

“I win. Now, get me out of this ice.” Izuku, while not in complete control, still has some influence for some reason. Thank you for not being specific on how to get you out of the ice. Izuku pulls up his right hand and activates Air Pressure and both of his power quirks, along with Crystallised for some stability and prevention of injury.

The blast does get Shinsou out of the ice, but it also gets him out of the stadium. The shockwave snaps him out of the trance, and he quickly stomps his left foot over the ice covering his right using a single strength quirk. He runs over to Shinsou and makes sure he’s ok.

“you good?” Izuku calls.

“yeah, I’m fine. You got me there, somehow. Guess you had more control than I thought, huh?” Shinsou asks, still on the ground.

“I suppose. Come on, let’s get you to Recovery Girl. Even if your attempt failed, it was a nice try.” Izuku tries to cheer him up, but it’s ultimately the heroes in the crowd and his classmates telling him he tried really hard -which Izuku agrees with, non-begrudgingly- that brings a smile to his face.

Time for the next round.

Chapter Text

Shouto has always hated his father. Always. So, when going up to do his first battle of the last round, Shouto is not happy to find the old bastard standing there. Not surprised, but not happy.

Enji says something about being a disgrace, Shouto doesn’t really listen. Yep, he mentioned Shouto’s left side again. That bastard doesn’t understand a thing! 

When Shouto’s name is called up, he walks out slowly, repressing his anger. He ignores Midnight re-announcing the rules.

“START!”

Shouto is immediately caught in a bunch of tape. Oh, that’s right, he’s going against the elbow guy, Sero was his name if Shouto remembers correctly. Shouto charges up his right side, trying to hold down the anger at the same side. Instead, the anger funnels through into power.

The next second, the stadium hosts a glacier larger than one Shouto’s ever made before. He’s already getting frostbite.

“D-don’t-t y-you t-think-k y-you w-went-t k-kind o-of ov-ver-r b-board-d?” Sero stutters out from the very front of the glacier.

“C-can you move, Sero?” Midnight calls from her stand, her whole right side frozen to it.

“A-are y-you k-kidding me-e? O-of c-cours-se not-t, I’m f-freezing over-r here!” Sero, still trapped in ice, manages to say.

“Sorry. I was angry, is all.” Shouto mutters as he walks over and bitterly uses his left side to melt Sero from the ice-prison.

———^———

As Izuku watches Todoroki melt the ice-prison he created, he can’t help but notice how much grief surrounds him; how sad he looks.

After the ice structure was melted, the crowd prepares for the next round. Up next is Iida and Yaoyorozu. This should be interesting… 

As the two hop on stage, Izuku can instantly tell who’s going to win. It doesn’t matter about skill at the moment, it’s about focus. Iida is confident and focused on winning, Yaoyorozu is nervous and too busy focusing on Iida’s advantages to think about her own.

The match begins and Yaoyorozu barely creates a staff before she’s pushed out of the ring -literally- by Iida using Recipro Burst.

The next two matches drag on. Kaminari, who was running around trying his best to electrocute the support girl -Hatsume Mei- ends up overcharging after 7 minutes and thereby allowing Hatsume into the next round. For some reason the results didn’t please her as much as one would think.

After that, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu did an all-out brawl, fighting for a total of 17 minutes. It was funny how they both have the same quirks. Kirishima came through with a win, just barely. He fell unconscious 3 seconds after Tetsutetsu.

Now, it’s Tokoyami vs Ashido. Pretty interesting matchup. The quirks don’t really negate or improve each other in any way so this match will mostly be of skill.

As the two get onto the pitch, one looks excited whilst the other about ready to fall asleep… although, Tokoyami produces that vibe all the time so not much difference. 

“START!” Tokoyami sends forth Dark Shadow and Ashido leaps forward with her acid streaming out of her feet. 

Ashido slides just underneath Dark Shadow’s swipe using what looks to be some sort of dance move. Tokoyami moves across, now diagonal from Ashido.

Dark Shadow swings by again, this time just managing to nick Ashido. It’s still a hit. Ashido tumbles down but picks herself up using a roll. Unfortunately for her, Dark Shadow won’t give her the time to recover. She’s pushed just back and lands on her backside, outside of the ring, from trying to stay in on her tippy-toes.

Dark Shadow is a very powerful and smart quirk, Izuku must say.

The next match finishes instantly, becoming extremely one sided. Shiozaki’s vines do get burnt by Aoyama, but she can easily trap him, and trap him she did.

———^———

Ochako can do this! She knows it. She has to win this. If she can beat Bakugou, she can finally prove herself worthy of attending UA. She can make a name for herself. She can eventually get a good agency, and finally pay back her parents for everything they’ve done for her.

If she wins, maybe Deku will like her for defeating his tormentor! She walks out on stage. It’s show time. On the other side is Bakugou. Intense ruby eyes glare at her with almost killing intent. Ochako swallows her fear.

“BEGIN!”

Ochako runs forward, staying low to the ground. Bakugou rushes towards her. There, the right hook. Ochako tries to run out of the way, but the blast reaches her. She’s flung back.

Moving forward again, using Bakugou’s smoke against him, she lightly touches the debris his explosion caused. She jumps forward again, attempting to dodge. Fail. She rushes forward, adding towards the pile of rocks floating above them.

The third time, she takes off her UA sports shirt, leaving her with her undershirt sports gear. She throws the shirt at Bakugou from the side, then rushes to the other side.

Bakugou takes the bait.

She rushes forward, now’s her chance for Plan A!

It fails. Bakugou turns around instantly and a large explosion flings her back once more.

Time to continue Plan B, then.

She charges forward, again and again. Staying low to the ground and tapping debris at every passing opportunity. The crowd is saying something in the background, but she doesn’t hear. She’s focused on winning.

Again, she charges. This is her last one before taking action. Bakugou should be pretty dehydrated by now so he won’t have much sweat. She charges, gets blown back. She stands up, holding her hands together.

“Thank you, Bakugou, for giving me this opportunity. RELEASE!”

Every bit of debris that built up over the match flung down all at once. She charges forward again. Come on, win this! You can do it, Ochako. Win and be just like Midoriya!

Bakugou crouches low, holds his arm up, and explodes.

Ochako is flung back once more.

No…

This can’t be it…

I put in everything I had…

Ochako gets back up. I have to win this… “Come on, Uraraka! Show me what you’re made of!” she hears in the distance.

Her right foot clips her left and she falls.

No…

I can’t…

I have to…

Everything goes black.

———^———

Watching Uraraka’s match was difficult for Izuku. Even more so when seeing her afterwards, faking a smile to hide her sadness.

Now, it’s time for Izuku’s match. The one against Todoroki. This will be difficult.

As Izuku heads towards the stadium, he’s interrupted. Interrupted by non-other than the Flaming Trash-bag himself. Yay.

“You. I know you’re pretty powerful. Probably more powerful than All Might. You’ll be a good testing ground for my Shouto. I want you to put in your effort.” Endeavor growls.

Izuku walks past him before pausing. “I am not All Might.”

“Well, yes that’s obvi-”

“That’s obvious, right? Shouto isn’t you either. Goodbye, Endeavor.” Izuku growls before continuing on his way.

As he steps onto the stadium, he looks across at Todoroki. Indifference is plastered on like a mask, always hiding his true feelings.

Hiding the hate, the despair, the pain.

That mask stops now.

“BEGIN!”

Todoroki sends forth, predictably, a giant glacier. Izuku responds to it with a supercharged punch; 4 Strength, 1 Shock Absorption, and Resistance.

Izuku rushes forth with 3 speed and Temporal View. He jumps over Todoroki and kicks him in the back with a weaker strength quirk.

Todoroki flies to the other side of the ring. “Come on, Todoroki. Don’t waste your time. Your already getting frostbite. You could easily melt it off with your fire.”

Todoroki looks up, setting aside his mask for an angry glare. “You want me to use his flames? What, did my monster of a dad bribe you or something, now I’m mad!”

He jets forth using his ice like a jump pad. Another glacier flies Izuku’s way. He deals with it the same way he did the last one. An ice barrage follows, popping up everywhere in the shape of jagged boulders.

Izuku jumps over them. “I’m giving this my all! Just like YOU SHOULD BE!” He incinerates all of the ice with a fully powered blast. Todoroki only just manages to not fall out thanks to a new ice wall he made behind him.

Todoroki charges forward again, using another glacier like a buffer. Izuku shatters it, easily. He pushes Todoroki back with a simple Air Pressure and power quirk combo. Todoroki looks up to him, pausing for a moment to breath. Now’s Izuku’s chance to say what the boy really needs to hear.

“DON’T YOU GET IT, SHOUTO! IT’S YOUR QUIRK, NOT HIS!”

One instant, Shouto’s right side is covered in ice. The next, his left side is coated in fire. In the background, someone shouts something victoriously. Neither one of them hear it.

“I- I want it, too. I’ll be a hero!”

Izuku just replies with a smile. “You ready, Shouto? Let’s give this our all!”

A single, happy, tear rolls down Shouto’s cheek, unnoticed by everyone except Izuku.

Izuku charges forth, activating quirk after quirk. All speed quirks, jump quirks, strength quirks, Air Pressure, all Shock Absorption quirks, Angel. He builds the largest dome that he can behind him using Glacier before jumping up.

Concrete walls prop up between the two. Neither of them care. Izuku punches the walls.

Everything goes white in a supercharged explosion.

———^———

Shouto’s sight goes white. Then black, for a moment. He feels something behind his back. He opens his eyes and finds a decimated arena. The audience is shocked silent. Between Shouto and the ring is grass. Still inside the ring, right at the edge of it and barely conscious, stands Midoriya, looking over at Shouto with the widest and happiest smile on earth. “Todoroki is out of bounds, Midoriya is the winner!”

Shouto’s eyesight blurs and blackens at the edges. Well, at least he has that nice smile to go unconscious to.

———^———

Izuku waits for his next match inside the infirmary, having discussed with Recovery Girl how they should heal Todoroki. It was decided that Izuku take his quirk and provide him with Deep Heal and a regeneration quirk. Todoroki will be untouched by Recovery Girl’s quirk.

A sudden intake of air alerts Izuku to Todoroki’s awakening. “Hey.” Izuku gives a small smile.

“Hey.” Is Todoroki’s response.

“How are you feeling?” Izuku asks apprehensively.

“Like a brick was shoved into my head. My back hurts pretty bad too.”

“I’ve given you regeneration and deep healing. Working together, they should get rid of all of the damage soon. I’ve got your other quirk at the moment.”

After a moment of silent. “How many matches did I miss?” ‘How well did everyone else go?’ was left unsaid.

“Hatsume forfeited, saying she had shown everything off already, so Iida moved on. Kirishima and Tokoyami fought each other for a while, Kirishima only just managing to pull through by gripping the ground with hardened hands and coming in for close combat. The match between Shiozaki and Kacchan is about to start. Recovery Girl said you’ll be fine to walk around when you wake up so we can watch it if you want?”

“Sure.” Todoroki gets up and heads towards the door, Izuku follows. They walk side-by-side on the way back to the rest of the class.

“You called me Shouto.”

Oh, that’s right. Izuku did. Instantly, a blush forms on his face. “Uh-uh, y-yeah. Guess I d-did. S-sorry, Todoroki.”

“No, it’s alright. It was nice… it helped me forget my father. Out there, on the field, fighting you, I completely forgot about him so it was nice to hear my name without malice inside it, or hearing it from my sister.”

“So, y-you want me to call you Shouto?” Izuku looks over at him, blush faded slightly.

“uh, y-yeah.” Shouto looks over at Izuku with a small smile, his shoulders completely relaxed and mask non-existent.

“Uh, t-then it’s o-only fair t-that you c-call me I-Izuku.” Izuku averts his eyes, blush coming back full force.

“U-uh, Ok, sure thing, Izuku.”

“S-so, we’re friends now, r-right?” Izuku looks up hopefully.

“I’d like that.” Shouto returns the look with a small smile.

———^———

The two make it back to the class uninterrupted, having a peaceful silence the rest of the way. It was calming. Izuku looks over at Shouto. Izuku’s really happy for him. He managed to overcome his past and use his fire for the first time in probably a decade. He managed to throw away that mask almost completely. Unfortunately, the mask came back up when the got back to the rest of the class. He looked really peaceful without that cover.

“BEGIN!” Izuku looks over and finds Kacchan flying towards Shiozaki at top speed. Vines instantly go up and protect her from his first attack. More vines swipe up and attempt to grab him. Some do but are quickly blown away by some small explosions.

Shiozaki creates more vines and develops another wall in front of her. The vines become thicker and thicker. Kacchan uses a larger explosion on the wall and, while it burns majorly, it stays put. Kacchan uses another explosion, larger than before, and the wall disappears completely. It’s replaced by two fresh vines shooting forwards at high speed towards Kacchan.

He quickly jumps back and dodges them. Shiozaki runs forth, using her quirk on him to trap him down by the elbows. Kacchan is forced to the ground. Shiozaki stands over him. She places a foot on his chest.

“Bakugou is unable to mo-” Midnight is cut off by one of the largest explosions Kacchan has ever produced. It’s similar to the one he used on Uraraka earlier.

Shiozaki is flung back and out of the ring. Where Kacchan was once strapped down by vines, now stands, hunched over and gripping his hand. He holds a vicious smile on his face.

“Shiozaki is out of bounds. Bakugou moves on to the next round!”

“I guess it’s me versus Iida and Kacchan versus Kirishima. Wish me luck!” Izuku calls, rushing out of the class to the prep. room.

———^———

Tenya had just tried to call Tensei, but unfortunately, he didn’t pick up due to hero work. Now he has to face off against what is likely the most powerful quirk in the world. Midoriya’s quirk; Transfer, allows him the ability to remove a person's quirk. Even Tenya’s own quirk, a mutant one.

Walking up on the stage, he is afraid. Midoriya can dodge Recipro. This was proven during the Cavalry Battle when he dodged Tenya’s team. All he can do is try his best, that’s what Tensei would do.

“GO!”

Tenya forces his rpm into overdrive and charges forward. Midoriya, instead of dodging, charges forward and turns into slime. Tenya jumps up and tries to kick the still solid head but the head is shifted to a different part of the body. He’s caught in the slime. 

“Sludge, Freeze, Steal!” Midoriya’s voice shouts.

“What the-” ice coats his body completely, almost like it’s secreting from the slime encasing him. The slime dissipates, leaving his friend standing in front of him with bulky shins and exhaust pipes.

“What’s this?! Midoriya uses a combo move and completely traps Iida in a frozen prison!”

“Iida is unable to move, Midoriya is one of our final competitors!”

“Sorry, Iida. Uh, here, let me get you out of the ice.” Midoriya places his left hand in front of Tenya’s chest and the ice melts away.

“I didn’t know you had a heat quirk?”

“Oh, Uh… I don’t, this is Shouto’s quirk. He’s still recovering with regeneration.”

“Ah, right.” Midoriya gives Tenya his quirk back and they both walk off the platform and into the hallways.

Next match: Bakugou and Kirishima.

———^———

Katsuki walks towards the gateway opening into the stage, just seeing Deku’s and Glasses’ heads turn the corner. His match is in a minute, he’s already been waiting in the preparation rooms long enough. Time to win against Shitty Hair. The only problem is how tired he is. Recovery Girl’s quirk took a number on him after healing his torn apart sweat glands twice -once for Uraraka and again for Vine Hair.

A minute passes and his name is called out. He walks on stage and finds Shitty Hair beaming back at him with a shark-tooth filled smile. “Hey man, good luck!”

Katsuki just grunts in response. 

“START!”

Katsuki charges forward and shoots a hit towards the optimistic bastard. Shitty Hair just tanks it, escaping it without so much as a scratch. Huh, he wasn’t kidding when he said his quirk was the perfect tool to support him during the Cavalry Battle. 

But, like every quirk, he has a limit. Katsuki barely dodges a punch thrown his way, coming away with a cut on his cheek. Kirishima’s actually pretty good, huh. Katsuki presses forward, using his quirk constantly and as much as possible without damaging his glands. 

Eventually, Kirishima’s quirk topples, and a blow knocks him out. There, that’s how it’s done. “Kirishima is KO’d. Bakugou moves on to the final round! Our finalists are Midoriya and Bakugou!”

———^———

Izuku walks on. Time to face Kacchan. He stands across from him, providing a small smile. Kacchan sneers in response. “Welcome to the finale of the sports festival, folks! We have the famous quirk stealer; Midoriya Izuku! Versus, the boy with explosive power; Bakugou Katsuki!”

“3, 2, 1, NOW!”

Kacchan rushes forward instantly, Izuku activates all 6 speed quirks, temporal view, and acceleration, using them to dodge below his childhood tormentor. Turning around, Izuku is confronted with an explosion to the face. Activating Crystallised before the explosion itself could reach him, Izuku ignores the explosion and grabs the hand behind it. 

He throws Kacchan to the other end of the stadium using a few strength quirks. He instantly gets back up, flying up into the air. He’s creating a tornado of his sweat, Izuku realises. Izuku jumps up with his quirks and activates Angel to stay afloat. “Howitzer Impact!” 

The explosion vaults forward. Izuku counters. He activates Air Pressure, both power quirks and all of his strength quirks -alongside Crystallised, resistance and durability to counteract the drawbacks of so many quirks- and forces a massive beat of his wings. The explosion breaks in front of him, barely sending him back a few metres.

Kacchan lands back in the stage, thinking he’s won by the looks of it. Izuku flies down, too. “Hey, Kacchan.”

Kacchan turns around and his eyes widen. He moves his hands forward for an explosion, not fast enough. Izuku struts forward with all of his speed quirks and takes Kacchan’s own before freezing him in ice. 

He punches the air with a power quirk and Air Pressure, dissipating the still hovering smoke from Kacchan’s previous attack. 

“Bakugou is incapacitated, Midoriya Izuku wins the UA tournament!” Present Mic’s voice rings through the stadium and everyone cheers. 

Izuku did it. He stood up to Kacchan. He fought him all out, and won. It felt amazing.

———^———

The award ceremony goes by fast, blurring past Izuku like a dream. He won the sports festival. He, Midoriya Izuku, won the UA Sports Festival. The golden metal on his chest feels amazing, given to him by All Might, no less. Even more so when he hangs it up in his room at home that night. Thankfully, he remembered to trade back Shouto’s quirk unlike with what happened to Aizawa and Thirteen.

———^———

It’s the day after the sports festival. It’s also the day Shouto is visiting his mum for the first time in 10 years. He has a lot to apologise for. “Shouto, where’re you going?”

“Just to the hospital, Fuyumi. I’ll be fine.” Shouto says as he puts his shoes on.

“Why now? Why go after all this time?” Fuyumi looks at him pleadingly. Shouto ignores the question.

“If father wants me tell him I’m on a walk and won’t be back for a few hours at most. Goodbye, Fuyumi.” Shouto walks out the door and closes it behind him. 

He makes his way to the train station, passing small families every now and then. So that’s what it looks like to have a functioning family. He hops on the newest train, using his transport pass to allow him into the station.

Arriving at the hospital is awkward. He’s never actually been here before, it’s weird. He walks to the front desk. “Uh, hi.”

“Hello, are you visiting someone?” The lady asks kindly after looking up from her computer.

“Yes, Todoroki Rei.”

“Have you visited before?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Can I have your name?”

“Todoroki Shouto.”

“Thank you! Ok, that’s room 237. Third floor, on your right when facing the elevator, down the hall and on the left.”

“Thank you.” Shouto makes his way to the elevator and follows the lady’s instructions. Sure enough, a plaque on the wall states ‘Room 237: Todoroki Rei’.

He makes his way to open the door, but pauses.

“You’re weak. How can you surpass All Might if you can’t even take a punch?”

“His left side… sometimes looking at it is unbearable to me…”

He breathes in and out slowly.

“But you still want to be a hero, don’t you?”

“It’s ok to be the hero you want to be. You are not a prisoner of your lineage.”

“It’s your quirk, not his.”

“We’re friends now, right?”

He opens the door, and faces his past to embrace the future.

———^———

Two days after the Sports Festival, classes return. Aizawa is already in and about to announce something.

“Hello, class 1-A. Good job at the sports festival. As you know, internships are coming up and the sports festival is where they scout out the options,” he grabs a remote and presses a button. Names next to numbers appear on the board behind him, “These are the amount of people that have scouted each of you. Normally its more balanced but this year there is an obvious scaling difference.”

Midoriya Izuku: 6,543

Bakugou Katsuki: 3,791

Kirishima Eijirou: 1,713

Iida Tenya: 947

Todoroki Shouto: 879

Tokoyami Fumikage: 594

Uraraka Ochako: 458

Sero Hanta: 209

Ashido Mina: 132

Kaminari Denki: 82

Aoyama Yuga: 73

The rest got none. It seems that Sero got quite a few pity invites. “Those without any invites will still be doing internships. But first you need t-” The door slams open.

“You need to choose your hero names first!” Midnight walks into the room, swinging her hips.

“Uh, Sensei, why aren’t you helping us out?” Kirishima asks.

“I’m not good with these sorts of things. I didn’t even make my own hero name.” is the last thing 1-A hears before Aizawa is consumed by his yellow sleeping bag.

Midnight passes out boards and markers for everyone to write out their ideas. “Remember, the shorter the better! A smaller name is easier to call out and to remember.”

After a few minutes of silence, only filled with the occasional squeaking of markers on whiteboards.

“Alright, who’s up first?”

“wait, we’re presenting these things?” Kirishima whispers to himself, but everyone hears it in the silence.

“I’ll go first, mademoiselle!” Aoyama hops out of his seat, taking his board up to the front. He places it down. On the board is:

‘ザー・シャイニング・ヒアロー・アイ・キャノット・ストップ・トウィンクリング’.

“I’m The Shining Hero: I Cannot Stop Twinkling!”

Everyone is stunned into silence. She said a short name.

“Not bad, but shorten the cannot to can’t, and remove the ‘I’,” She fixes the writing up, “there. Nice job, Shining Hero!” she adds with a wink.

The board now reads: ‘ザー・シャイニング・ヒアロー・キャント・ストップ・トウィンクリング’.

Aoyama walks back to his seat happily. “I’ll go next!” Ashido calls from her seat before jumping to the front of the room. On her board writes:

‘ザー・アシディック・ヒアロー・エーリアン・クィーン’.

“I’m the Acidic Hero: Alien Queen!” She shouts, emphatically punching a finger into the air.

“like from that horror movie?! No! choose something else!” Midnight says, her voice betraying… is that fear? Guess she doesn’t like horror movies.

A moment’s silence. “uh, I’ll go next. Ribbit.” Tsu pops up and hops to the front.

Her board says: ‘梅雨入りヒーローフロッピ’.

“I’m the Rainy Season Hero: Froppy!” She stretches her face as much as possible to produce a small smile, tilting her head slightly. Everyone cheers her on, believing it to be an amazing name.

“I’ll have a try?” Kirishima says from his seat. He walks up and places his board down. “I’m the Sturdy Hero: Red Riot!” A smile wider than the sun beams down on all of them.

“Taken as inspiration from Crimson Riot? That’s a lot to live up to!” Midnight warns.

“I accept the challenge!” Kirishima’s smile turns fierce.

Next up is Jirou, who goes with ‘The Hearing Hero: Earphone Jack’. Following is Shouji with ‘Tentacle Hero: Tentacole’, Sero with ‘Tape Hero: Cellophane’, Ojirou with ‘Martial Arts Hero: Tailman’, and Satou with ‘Sweets Hero: Sugarman’.

Ashido then comes up and changes her hero name to ‘Pinky’. The next few are more creative, Kaminari going with-

“I’m the Stun Gun Hero: Chargebolt!” He taps the top of the board as he presents his hero name.

“Electrifying choice!” Midnight says.

After is Hagakure, who simply chooses. ‘The Stealth Hero: Invisible Girl’. Not very creative.

Shouto hops up next.

“Shouto.” Is all he says. On his board is:

‘焦しょう凍と’. At least he uses the Kanji in his name to make a pun. 焦 means burning and 凍 means frozen, so it all checks out. You could see it as both extremely creative or uncreative depending on how you look at it.

Tokoyami goes next. “I am the Jet-Black Hero: Tsukuyumi.”

“God of the night!” Midnight clarifies the origin of the name.

Shinsou then walks up. A sigh, “I am The Mastermind Hero: Puppeteer”.

That’s… really good. Really good. For the first time since Tsu’s name, the class cheers.

Kouda goes up and lets everyone read it, still too uncomfortable to stop his Selective Mutism.

‘ふれあいヒーロー アニマ’.

“The Petting Hero: Anima… huh, not bad.” Izuku murmurs.

Kacchan, of course, goes up and announces his name. “KING EXPLOSION MURDER.” Three big kanji letters are splayed on his board, each representing a word.

“Maybe a different one, Bakugou.” Midnight tries, hoping the child doesn’t explode from her rejection.

Bakugou just grumbles off, muttering something about how it’s the perfect name and kings and lords. Izuku’s not sure.

Uraraka goes next. “uh… Here’s my hero name: Uravity.” She gives a small smile, hesitant in saying her name.

Izuku smiles up at her in silent support, hoping she gets the message. “Ok, all that’s left is Midoriya and Iida. Hurry up, you two!” Midnight announces.

Iida seems to write something down for a moment before rubbing it out and writing something else.

Izuku focuses on his board. He already chose his hero name, but was too distracted with everyone else’s. He finishes writing his down just as Iida goes up, choosing his name, but only using Hiragana and not taking advantage of the Kanji-based pun that Shouto used for his own name.

“Are you sure, Iida?” Midnight asks, looking… worried? Did Izuku miss something?

“Yes, I am sure.” Iida says curtly, moving back to his desk.

Izuku hops up and walks to the front. “I am… I am The Transferring Hero: Norikae.”

———^———

After the hero names, everyone goes to looking through their list of heroes. Izuku’s own list is 467 pages long. Each page (sans the front, which only has 7 on it) only holds 14 offers. These offers are more of a curse than a blessing.

As they head out to lunch, Izuku is stopped by All Might and pulled aside. “What’d you need, All Might?” He asks as they walk around a corner.

“You’ve received an offer…”

“All Might, I’ve received 6,543 offers. Please be more specific.” Izuku deadpans.

All Might chuckles nervously. “Uh, well, you see… This is a late offer… from my former mentor… he knows about One for All, you see… and All for One…”

“So, you’re saying I should go with him?”

“Not at all! I merely wanted to tell you about it! You’ve got plenty of other options!” All Might mumbles something under his breath, suspiciously sounding like ‘safer options’.

“What is this hero’s name?” Izuku asks.

“Uh, it’s uh… Gran Torino.” All Might mutters that last part under his breath. What kind of training did All Might go through for him to be this afraid?

———^———

The next Monday, 5 days later, Izuku and class 1-A find themselves at the train station. “Everyone has their uniforms and remembers their appropriate train?” Aizawa calls out.

“Yep! Sure do, Aizawa!” Ashido cheers, emphasizing with a thumbs up.

“It’s ‘yes, Sensei’, Ashido.” Aizawa glares.

“yes, Sensei…” Ashido says, subdued and melodramatically depressed.

“I expect all of you to be on your best behaviour, you represent the whole school here. Understood?”

A chorus of “Yes, Sensei!” is heard from their class, making a few heads turn before going about their day.

“Now, head to your platform.”

Izuku looks to Iida as he walks away. He quickly chases after him. “Wait, Iida!” He pauses, but doesn’t turn around. “If you need to talk to us… were here, ok? I’m your friend, right?”

Iida turns, a glare of light blocking Izuku from seeing his eyes behind the glasses. “Of course,” is all he says, with a flat tone, before turning around and walking away.

Izuku hopes that whatever’s going on with Iida is dealt with. He heard about what happened to Ingenium but now it’s getting worrying. Was Ingenium really hurt so badly that Iida -the stickler for the rules- is out for revenge?

Izuku moves over next to Shouto, as they have the same platform. “I know you chose your dads agency… if you ever need to talk, I’m there, Shouto.”

Shouto looks away from the middle distance and gives a soft smile to Izuku, “Thanks, Izuku. If you ever need or want to talk, my chat will always be open.”

Izuku beams a smile, and he swears he hears Shouto mutter ‘so bright’. Oops.

———^———

Izuku arrives at the address. It looks really worn down. The neon sign saying ‘welcome’ has fallen on one side and is nearly completely faded in colour. He walks up to the door and knocks.

Nothing.

Izuku tries again, getting nothing once more. “Hello? Midoriya Izuku is here for your internship, Gran Torino!” Nothing. Izuku tries the door, finding it unlocked. Huh, that’s weird.

Looking inside, he finds an old man on the floor in a red liquid.

Chapter Text

Izuku swiftly transfers the -thankfully- still living man’s quirk to him and switches it with a regeneration quirk before pausing. The quirk is passive. The man’s uninjured and perfectly fine. Izuku looks closer at what’s on the floor; red sauce, a fork, and sausages.

“wow, tomato sauce and sausages… nice try, Torino.” Izuku looks back at the short man.

Gran Torino gets up, grumbling something about young people. “Who are you?” the tone changes instantly, Torino looking confused at him.

“I am Midoriya Izuku. You applied to me for internships. All Might told me we were discussing some options for owners over One for All. Let’s get to it shall we?” Izuku can tell it’s an act, it’s not too hard to tell and Izuku’s experience meeting people from all sorts of places while getting his quirks taught him how to read people pretty well. “give up your act, Gran Torino. It’s wasting time.”

“Hey, what happened to my quirk? Give it back, you zygote!” Torino shakes his fist in Izuku’s direction whilst following him to the table.

“Sorry. I took it when I saw you on the floor. I switched it out for regeneration in case you were injured. False alarm, I guess.” Izuku giggles nervously at the end, his true personality breaking through the stoic mask he’s come to use when meeting new people. “here, I’ll switch it back.”

“Thank you. Now. We need to discus One for All. Who are your current candidates in your class? Names, quirks and a little bit about their personality is all I need, don’t give me any more than that.” Torino grumbles as he takes a seat.

“Well, my first candidate is Kirishima Eijirou. His quirk; Hardening, allows him to strengthen his body into a rock-like substance. It’s a powerful quirk, capable of defeating things easily and would match well with One for All and its potential backlashes. His personality is a bit difficult. He appears stubborn and kind, always facing reality with a smile, even when being insulted. He always has this mantra about ‘being manly’, taking inspiration from Crimson Riot. His name is based off of them too, naming himself Red Riot only recently.”

“Not a bad choice… keep going.”

“Candidate two is Uraraka Ochako. Her quirk is Zero Gravity and allows her to nullify the gravitational affect on an object. Her backlash is nausea. She used it to create a meteor shower in the sports festival with debris. She’s a kind but fierce opponent, always doing her best to win. She looks out for her friends when she can and is pretty smart. I chose her more for her drive than quirk compatibility.

Candidate three is Asui Tsuyu. Her quirk is Frog. A mutant quirk giving her the general abilities of a frog, but scaled up to human size. She is probably the most rational of everyone I’m considered, choosing to be as logical as possible. Extremely level-headed and reliable to work with, she is a very capable person. More for skill and rationality than quirk compatibility and drive, but still a good option.

Candidate four is Shinsou Hitoshi. His quirk; Brainwashing, allows him to take control of another person’s or people’s bodies. He simply needs to ask a question that the target answers and boom, he wins. Combined with One for All, his abilities would be extremely powerful. He has a drive to prove himself as a hero because he was bullied as a villain all of his life thanks to the nature of his quirk. He does have some progress to go on himself physically. Being in general education at the moment is also an issue for training. His hero’s heart makes him an amazing candidate

Candidate five is Hagakure Toru, purely because of her quirk. It’s called Invisibility. I hope I don’t need to describe it. She herself is very outgoing and laid back, probably won’t take it seriously.

Candidate six is Todoroki Shouto, the one I think would be the best to take it -besides possibly Shinsou- even if it is up to All Might. His quirk is Half Hot, Half Cold. He’s capable of making flames hot enough to cause huge pressure drops and explosions in the air when combining his quirk. You’ve seen his quirk in action at the sports festival so I shouldn’t have to explain much. He himself is calm, collected, and extremely skilled. His intelligence is almost unrivalled in the class and he has a hero’s heart as arrogant as All Might’s own.

Candidate seven is Kuroiro from class 1-B. Slightly different choice as he’d likely become an underground hero. His quirk; black, allows him to go inside dark objects and hide there. If two objects are touching each other and both have dark colouring on them, he can sort of teleport between them. He is a pretty dark person from what I know, and enjoys scaring people a lot.

Candidate eight, my last one, is Kendou Itsuka from 1-B, also. Her quirk allows her to manipulate the size of her fists, creating a very interesting fighting style that would be tough to go against and if backed up by One for All could be devastating. She is pretty similar to Tsu -Asui, that is- being smart, kind, level-headed, and reliable. She is probably more expressive than Tsu and is better at reading situations for emotional support. Unfortunately, I have little to go off of for Kendou and Kuroiro due to them being in 1-B rather than 1-A.”

Gran Torino pauses for a moment, absorbing all of the information before replying. “All of these are interesting options, but there are too many. We need to reduce this to three, at most. Todoroki will be one of those three considering he’s your personal choice. From what you’ve told me, Kirishima or Kendou would be the best choices here. Shinsou isn’t bad either.”

Izuku nods at the pro. “Well, I’ll let All Might know after the internships. Now, what training do you have in mind?”

Gran Torino gives a sharp grin.

———^———

The next two days are filled with an array of quirk usage. Izuku gave Torino a list of his quirks and then Torino started restricting his usage to certain quirks. This allowed him to increase his body strength, reaction time, situational creativity, and even his quirks’ own ability!

It is now mid-afternoon and they’re having Takoyaki, as they did the night before.

“We should patrol.” Gran Torino says out of nowhere, almost giving Izuku whiplash as he turns to him.

“W-W-What?! Patrol?!” Izuku squeaks, surprised with Gran Torino’s unpredictability. 

“Yeah, to Tokyo.” He says it so nonchalantly that Izuku just gapes at him for a minute.

Eventually, he speaks. “When?”

“Right now, we can head to the station and get their around 11 o’clock. That’s the perfect time to fight as it has the most villains out.” The last part is said with a suspiciously malicious tone. 

Izuku blinks at him for a moment. “...ok, I’ll just get my hero gear, get changed, then we can leave. I’ve made improvements to it so that it has some style.”

Torino only nods, facing the door and stretching. The old-timer’s excitement is almost tangible. Izuku runs upstairs and into his room, grabbing the costume box for the first time since arrival. Opening it up, he finds his planned design.

Inside is a professional white shirt, looking like a standard dress shirt but actually being a stab-proof and bullet-resistant vest. Over the top is an insulative and fireproof designer vest. There is also an aesthetic green tie to complete the look. The tie, of course, is not a proper one as of Izuku’s request. He is yet to learn how to properly tie a tie.

The boots are leather combat boots, disguised as dress shoes. The last piece of clothing, the pants are similar to the shirt; bullet-resistant and stab-proof but it also breathes easier to let his legs cool down slightly better after -and while- he uses his speed quirks.

Izuku places on the hero gear and heads back downstairs. “Ok… I’ve gotten changed. Where are we patrolling, exactly?”

“Minato, Tokyo. Don’t worry about the patrol route, we’ll just walk around and find some villains.”

“O-ok…” They walk outside and Gran Torino waves a taxi, “I’m guessing we’ll be taking the train to get there?”

“Correct! We wouldn’t get there until tomorrow morning if we used the taxi!” They hop into the taxi, Gran Torino notifying the driver of their destination.

After that, it’s a silent journey.

I wonder how Iida’s doing… We’ll be passing through Hosu on our way there.

———^———

Tenya chose Manual as his internship mentor. Not because of his kindness or intelligence, because his agency is in Hosu… the same place that the bastard who paralysed Tensei is.

When Tenya finds him, he’ll-

“Hey… uh, this is kind of hard to ask, but… you’re looking for the Hero Killer, aren’t you?” Manual looks at his internee, worried for his mental health.

“W-what are you talking about?” Tenya tries to deny.

“Look, Iida. I don’t blame you; he’s a villain. He hurt your brother. But you need to remember that it isn’t your job to find him. He will be taken care of and your brother will be avenged, ok?”

Tenya only nods, being sure not to portray his true thoughts on what Manual said.

———^———

As Izuku passes by Hosu, he realises something… Iida hasn’t replied yet. Iida always replies within 5 minutes of getting anyone’s messages. Izuku checks his phone, ignoring Gran Torino’s complaint about young people being addicted to their phones.

All of Izuku’s messages were left on read. No response though…

“The train is coming to an emergency stop, please hold onto your seats,” The overhead speaker announces before being cut off by a loud screeching; presumably the wheels of the train against the tracks.

The doors in the middle of the trailer burst inwards, a pro hero flying through them. A murky grey hand latches onto the corner of what’s left of the doorframe before another hand grabs the hero’s head and slams it into the ground.

“Stay here, kid!” Before Izuku can react, Gran Torino grabs onto the -now identified- nomu and flies out of the train.

A conductor goes and checks on some of the fallen passengers. Izuku runs to the edge of the blown-in doorway. “Make sure everyone’s ok!”

“Wait, kid!” The conductor calls, but Izuku is already jumping out of the train and activating his wings.

———^———

Izuku arrives in a central plaza, flames are almost everywhere… and there are two more nomu. One of them throws a bus onto a pro-hero duo. Shit!

Then he hears it. “Tenya! Where are you, Tenya?! God damnit, we could really use the help right now.”

“Manual! Iida’s not with you?” Izuku runs over to him. If he used a speed quirk or two, no-one took note of his illegal quirk use.

“Kid, it’s not safe here. Get back!” Manual runs off and breaks open a water-valve and manipulates the water towards the flames. “Tenya better not be after that guy…” Izuku manages to hear him say.

Wait… Iida… Hosu… Ingenium… Stain!

Izuku quickly runs off, going at top speed and alerting the class’ group chat, just in case.

OverpoweredBunny: Iida Hosu Stain. if location help.

OverpoweredBunny: Should be ok. Just in case.

He closes his phone and runs around the corner. Just in time to see Stain kicking Iida in the shoulder.

———^———

Tenya sees him. It’s him. The one who caused Tensei’s paralysis. The one who stopped Ingenium from ever being able to work again; Stain.

Tenya charges at him with a wordless shout. One moment he’s running at him, the next second he’s on the ground with his helmet flown off of him.

“A child? Leave, you have no place here,” The criminal states without emotion.

Tenya slowly stands back up. “Red scarf, blades all over your body… You must be the Hero Killer: Stain! Am I right?” Tenya gets back up and glares with all his heart at the Hero Killer. “I’ve been looking for you… I didn’t expect to find you so easily. I am-” A katana inches from his face cuts him off.

“Your eyes are filled with vengeance… be careful about what you say next. If need be, even a child will be my prey.”

“You’re talking… like I’m not even a threat to you?! Listen up, you criminal. I am the brother of a hero who you attacked! He can no longer work as a hero thanks to you! He told me I should inherit his name… so remember this! I am Ingenium, and I will defeat you.”

Stain looks on, unimpressed. “Is that so? Very well…

Die.”

———^———

Chizome did not accept such an insolent child to become a hero. This younger brother of Ingenium will serve as a testimony to that. “Is that so? Very well… Die.”

He easily pushes the boy back with one leg before jumping up and kicking his shoulder with his studded boots… Then he’s flying back and hitting the wall.

“Don’t worry, Iida. I’m gonna save you!” Chizome looks up and finds a boy with green bushy hair standing in front of the unworthy hero-wannabe. That’s the famous guy with the quirk stealing ability; Midoriya Izuku. That Shigaraki guy was after him, too, wasn’t he? The kid’s powerful and dangerous… but from what Chizome has seen, he looks to be growing into a true hero.

The other boy -Iida, as Midoriya called him- grabs Midoriya by the shoulders and almost throws him back. “NO, this is my fight!” Chizome rolls his eyes. Such arrogance.

“Shouldn’t you be worried about saving that guy?” Chizome points to the false hero he had planned to kill tonight; Native, “You were so caught up in vengeance that you didn’t even notice he was there. You fakes must be eliminated.”

Iida tries to run forward, but Chizome licks the front of his boot. There’s just enough blood there for him to get a good taste. The boy drops like a puppet.

“Iida, are you ok?” Midoriya looks to his apparent friend, grasping at him worryingly.

“Leave child, while you still can. These fakes must die, but you need not.” Chizome glares at the young hero.

He glares right back, contempt and passion burning in his eyes. “No, I’m going to save them.”

“NO! I said I’d defeat him! This is my fight! Leave, Midoriya!” Iida screams from the ground.

“All Might once said; ‘Heroes are people who save those in need, no matter what. Even if they don’t want it.’ Iida, I will not just leave you here to die. He has you paralysed, as soon as I leave; he’ll kill you.”

Chizome smiles at Midoriya’s statement. I like this one. Plenty of heroic spirit. “Very well, child. The weaker of us will be culled.” He rushes forward and sends a misdirect both forward and upwards. Midoriya easily dodges the dagger that flies over his shoulder, and jumps back to avoid getting hit by the flying katana. But that’s exactly what Chizome wants. He grabs the katana and swings wide.

Midoriya dodges again… but it nicks him. Just a smidge of blood.

“I win.” Midoriya realises the mistake a moment to late. Chizome presses his tongue to his sword and the hero crumples to the ground.

Chizome walks back over to the Iida-child. Finally, no interruptions. “Goodbye, child; may your death bring upon a better world.” Chizome smirks as he says this. He brings his sword down…

A stream of fire flies towards him and he just dodges in time. So much for no interruptions. “Izuku, I was almost too late. I apologise. Thankfully, the other classmates have already alerted their mentors so the pros will be here soon.”

Huh, the child managed to sneak a message to his classmates. How smart… He’ll have to do this quickly.

“Shouto… your flames.” Midoriya smiles at Endeavor’s prodigy. Chizome doesn’t hold grudges through bloodlines. While Midoriya is friends with the Iida boy, the difference in reactions says that Todoroki could also be more heroic in nature than his father.

“Hold tight, you two. I’ll hold him off until we’re safe.” Todoroki announces, flash freezing the ground and, using slants, manages to get everyone tumbling behind him.

From there, it’s a pattern. Chizome breaks through the ice walls. Todoroki sends forth flames. Chizome dodges the flames and hits Todoroki with a weapon. Chizome attempts to get in closer. Todoroki forces him back with an ice wall.

It repeats three times before Chizome finally gains some good ground. The scratch on Todoroki’s cheek and the two holes in his left arm are oozing blood. “Has anyone ever told you that you rely on your quirk too much?” He taunts. “You’re worth keeping alive… unlike him.”

Chizome leaps down while Todoroki ices over his wounds, aiming for his original target; Native. But he’s stopped by Midoriya. A blast of wind blows him to the end of the alley.

Standing across from him is Midoriya and Todoroki.

“You broke out?” Todoroki looks at Midoriya, mildly surprised. “Must be a time limit…”

“No, it can’t be. If it was time then that kid should’ve been the last one of us to be free…” Native strains out.

“I have a few guesses. It could rely on the amount ingested, or become less effective against more people, or maybe even depend on blood type.” Midoriya comments, his eyes not leaving Chizome, glare unending.

“If it’s the last one… I’m type B.” The pro-hero replies.

“I’m type A…” Iida struggles out.

“Type O. you, Shouto?”

“Type O, too.”

Chizome smiles at them. “Congratulations. You’ve figured it out.”

———^———

When Shouto saw the initial message from Izuku, he was apprehensive at best… when he actually got a location drop; He was downright terrified. He instantly ran off, ignoring his father and skimming the messages from some of his classmates with one eye while he looks for the address with his other.

Ok, good. Kirishima has contacted Forth-Kind and Shinsou just told Aizawa. They should be safe.

IcyHotBastardette: I’m nearby and engaging. He’ll need help.

He sends his message and closes his phone.

“Congratulations. You’ve figured it out.” The villain sounds impressed? Shouto doesn’t understand. Why would a villain be impressed that they figured out more, shouldn’t they be more aggressive, prone to lashing out?

“Izuku, remember; knowing won’t change much. We’re still at a disadvantage.” Shouto looks to his new friend.

“You’re right. We can’t run away now. He’d chase after us, you’re too injured to drag them away or fight. So… you support from behind while I go frontal. You’re still injured and there’s no point getting it worse; I can just heal up.” Izuku cuts Shouto off before he can argue.

“Ok. Let’s do this.” Shouto sends forth a flame as Izuku jumps up, probably to land a vertical strike on Stain.

“Two against one, now that’s a bit unfair.” Stain grabs to knives from his chest holsters and dodges Shouto’s flame by going forward, unlike what they’d both thought he’d do. Izuku quickly loops around and sends some ice towards him, but he simply dodges above both it and the following flames from Shouto’s palm.

Once again, it’s back and forth. Stain being more and more aggressive than before; dodging almost every attack Izuku can aim at him. Shouto would question why he hasn’t taken the quirk yet if it wasn’t for the obvious reason; it’ll take up too much mental space and he could get paralysed and be unable to use his quirk.

If that happens, Shouto will quickly lose. No matter how soon the heroes will come; Stain is merciless. If they falter for even a second, they could lose their lives.

Shouto looks over at Iida’s and Native’s prone forms as he performs his attacks. He’d been worried about Iida. Sure, they aren’t friends yet, but Shouto can tell he’s a good friend of Izuku’s. He could recognise the hatred and vitriol on his face. Afterall, it’s not hard to notice it on someone else when you’ve seen it in a mirror for 10 years of your life.

“Stop! Both of you, just stop it! I am Ingenium, this is my fight!” Iida, still paralysed, screams from the ground.

“So, your Ingenium now?” Shouto just manages to dodge the throwing knife flung his way, “Funny, the Ingenium I know wouldn’t speak like that.” Izuku swipes a punch at Stain that just misses, but the shockwave from the air pressure flings the villain towards Shouto. He props up an ice wall that Stain just manages to turn and cut the top off of.

Shouto grunts as a knife imbeds itself in his right foot. That’s going to make it harder to produce his ice walls, shit. “If you want to fight,” Shouto blasts a flame towards Stain, the villain forced back to tackle against Izuku once more, “Then stand up and be Ingenium.” Stain manages to cut Izuku and paralyse him, “Become the hero he wanted you to be!”

Shouto charges forward, blasting his hottest flames yet towards the villain… but he gets inside Shouto’s defence. The katana he holds comes out, about to cut through his left arm. Shouto leans back to avoid the inevitable.

He feels the blade touch the front of his shoulder length. Then… nothing.

A clatter is heard throughout the empty alleyway. Standing next to him… is Iida. Huffing with hoarseness. His engines are puffing out smoke. He must have gone Recipro. Shouto turns back and faces Stain once more.

“The fake stands once more.” The Hero Killer snarks.

“I won’t let either of you bleed anymore for me, tonight. I will stop this; this was my fault.” Iida’s scratched up voice states.

“Shut up, people don’t just change completely in an instant. You’re still the fake from moments before.” Stains glare is piercing, almost as paralysing as his quirk.

Shouto cuts the villain off with another ice wall, smaller due to his foot injury. The whole thing is sliced apart instantly. “Did nobody tell you that it’s naive to blind yourself from someone faster than you!”

Another knife flies at them, snipping Shouto’s left earlobe as he dodges. “Todoroki, can you regulate temperatures?” Iida asks.

“Not well with my left, but yeah, I can.” Shouto sends forth a constant stream of flames to keep Stain away. Through the flames, another blade comes. It’s glowing hot, charging right towards his heart. Before he can even breath, Iida shoves his arm in front of him. The blade imbeds itself inside Iida’s forearm.

Iida grunts but bears no more reaction to the pain. “I need you to ice my engines without blocking my exhausts.” Stain charges forward, but Shouto produces another ice wall; pushing himself and ignoring the dulling pain in his foot. “Now!”

Shouto obliges. Over at the other end of the alley, Izuku gets up. Stain jumps up and tries to reach over Shouto to get to the still paralysed Native. Izuku creates a strait vertical ice wall right in front of him.

Stain is too surprised by the sudden closeness to destroy it and decides to jump off of it. Big mistake.

“RECIPRO EXTEND!” Iida charges his legs into overdrive, the ice coating his legs almost completely instantly evaporating as blue flames jut out of his exhausts. He jumps up. Over at the other end, Izuku rushes forward too, barely noticing the small cut on a bit of jagged ice that pierces his ankle.

Shouto smirks, “Go, guys.” They both arrive at Stain at the same time. Izuku’s punch lands. Iida’s kick too. A shockwave booms through the suburb, very likely heard over at the main road. Stain starts falling, but swipes his katana at Iida, snipping a bit of his hair.

Shouto blasts more flames at him, the temperature lower than normal due to his lack of stamina. The licks of golden energy engulf the villain, but the lack of heat only evaporates the sweat on him and dries the blood, providing minimal to no burns.

Shouto sends up one last ice wall that encases Stain as he falls and one that Iida uses to get down safely. Izuku lands beside him, crouching from instinct at the height drop. “Get up, watch him!” Izuku warns.

They all look to the Hero Killer. “He’s… unconscious.” Iida remarks with disbelief.

“We can celebrate later.” Shouto says, “We need to disarm him first.”

“Right,” Izuku nods, “I’ll take his quirks and we can check him over for his knives.”

After Shouto melts the ice, Izuku takes some of the knives and lays them on the ground. Shouto helps him out while Native and Iida look for some rope in nearby dumpsters. In the middle of doing this, an old pro-hero -presumably retired, from his beard- and several of the bastard’s sidekicks appear.

“Holy shit… you defeated him?! We got the reports through the coms but we thought you’d be dead!” One of the sidekicks say; Candlelight, if Shouto remembers correctly.

“Well, we did,” Izuku says with a nervous laugh.

“Boy, what’d I tell you! I said to stay on the train!” The old hero kicks Izuku in the shin. Izuku doesn’t react to the kick in the slightest.

“I needed to do something. You can’t just tell me to sit by and do nothing when I can help,” He argues.

Native and Iida come back from the nearest dumpster, carrying some rope. “Here, hand them to me to tie him up,” Shouto commands lightly. Taking the rope from Natives hands, Shouto expertly ties Stain up; arms behind his back and layered over each other.

“I’ve gotten rid of his knives; as best as I could, at least.” Izuku announces to the group of pros.

Together, the group of people walk out of the alleyway.

“Todoroki, Midoriya.” Shouto turns around and sees Iida looking at the ground with an unreadable expression.

“What is it, Iida?” Izuku asks.

“I apologise deeply for what I did. I was arrogant and blinded by my anger, incapable of seeing basic logic. Both of you were injured due to my actions; even if yours healed up instantly, Midoriya.” Iida bows as deep as he could with the new gauze around his arms and shoulder.

“Iida…” Izuku looks at Iida with kind sadness in his eyes, the irises shimmering with unshed tears.

“Stand up, Iida. You’re the class rep. Pull yourself together.” Shouto looks towards his representative with a quiet support in his eyes.

“Yes, sorry. Thank you both.” Iida wipes his tears away, as does Izuku.

Candlelight supports Shouto’s right side to evade the pain from the hole in his foot. They start walking, headed towards the safety of the closest civilian checkpoint.

“WATCH OUT!” A winged nomu swoops down, aiming for the nearest victim; Iida.

Izuku pushes him out of the way just in time and is lifted into the sky.

———^———

Izuku was relieved when they’d finally defeated Stain. Now, he’s just pissed. They just defeated the Hero Killer; can’t they get a break? No. No, they can’t, according to the universe… which brings Izuku here, flying off and being carried by a nomu with suspiciously familiar wings.

A mutant quirk. Izuku looks through the nomu and finds two mutant ones. He takes one. The nomu starts descending and flapping his wings harder. Must be a weight manipulation quirk of some sort. Izuku focuses on the nomu’s other quirks now that the main problem of capture is mostly dealt with. He manages to take two more quirks from it.

Then, Stain appears. The bastard cut off the ropes and ran after them, stabbing the falling nomu right in the brain. He’s also grabbed by Izuku as they land.

“Fakes and convictionless criminals like you only cause turmoil to society,” He rips the knife out of the nomu’s brain, causing blood to spurt from the fatal injury, “Everything I do… is for the betterment of society; to make a stronger world,” Stain turns and looks at Izuku, “You challenged me and won in a fight, don’t let yourself be defeated by such disappointing opponents, true hero.”

Izuku’s eyebrow raises, but he doesn’t dare move an inch.

Stain turns over to the new crowd consisting of many of Endeavor’s sidekicks, a few unnamed pro-heroes, as well as Native, Gran Torino, Shouto, and Iida. Just then, Endeavor himself arrives.

“The villain, where is he? You would’ve seen him fly by here!” He shouts.

Stain glares in the hero’s direction. “Endeavor…” The word is said with such hate that everyone stops moving instantly.

“That can’t be… Hero Killer!” Endeavor steps forward, creating a spear with his flames.

“You false hero!” Stain stands up and lurches forward. The mask around his eye’s fall off, revealing a nose that looks like is was shoved right into its own socket. “I’ll make this right…” He stumbles forward, glaring at the mass of people.

“COME ON, JUST TRY AND STOP ME; YOU FAKES!” The pure force of conviction and bloodlust convinces the crowd to take a step back or otherwise fall down to the floor. “There are only few people I will let kill me! ALL MIGHT IS WORTHY… AND,” Stain turns to face Izuku, lifting a finger that aims right to his chest, “YOU.”

A clattering noise is heard. The knife in the Hero Killer’s hand had fallen. Stain is frozen in place. The street falls silent. Nobody moves.

Nobody was able to stand up to Stain in that moment. He was the only one with any fight left.

Chapter Text

At the hospital, Izuku was forced to stay despite his perfect health. For some reason, he wasn’t even allowed to switch Todoroki’s quirks out for regeneration and deep heal. They’ve been in there a whole night. It’s the morning after that whole incident.

The nomu that had grabbed Izuku was killed by the hero killer so Izuku wasn’t able to get anymore quirks than the ones he did before the nomu was stabbed.

Shouto and Iida had both only just woken up. Izuku, to be honest, was up most of the night. He only got two hours of sleep. “G’morning, Shouto, Iida. Did you two sleep well?”

“I slept as well as I could, considering everything; thank you for asking, Midoriya.” Iida’s response has the same tone as his standard school one, but lacks all of its energy.

“I slept alright, thanks for asking, Izuku.” Izuku looks over and sees Shouto giving an almost smile. One meant to comfort, but still shows sadness too. “How about you?”

“I slept the best I could do. I di-” A knock at the door cuts him off. It opens. Standing there is Gran Torino and Aizawa.

“Uh, Sensei… I wou-” Iida starts off but Aizawa cuts him off.

“I will speak to you all in a moment. For now, you have a visitor,” He motions to the door, where a third person comes in.

“Hello, I am Kenji Tsuragamae; Hosu’s chief of police,” Iida, Shouto, and Izuku all stand up, “There’s a lot to discuss today so, please, sit down,” They oblige, “So, you’re the UA students that took the Hero Killer down, eh? Stain has some serious injuries, including burns, broken ribs, and deep cuts. He’s currently in the hospital under strict guard. Woof.

I’m pretty sure this is something you’ve already learned; when quirks became the norm, the police force sought to maintain status quo and regulate such weapons. They wouldn’t be used to fight or as combative mechanisms in any way without legal consent via hero licenses.  That’s why you’re going to a hero school at all! Woof. It would be impossible for the police to condone the use of deadly quirks, after all; our job is to stop harm from being done. The only reason pros can use their powers at all today is because of the strict code of ethics that the early heroes chose to abide by.

That’s why it’s against the law for uncertified people to use their quirks in public, especially for combat. Whether you were up against the hero killer or not; none of you have the authority to harm the villain! That means the three of you and your supervisors; Endeavor, Manual, and Gran Torino; will all receive harsh punishments for this gross abuse of your powers. I am, most of all, disappointed in you, Midoriya. You have worked with us before in order to build your arsenal of quirks so you of all people should know this.”

Shouto gets up to talk, but Izuku grabs his shoulder, causing him to falter. “I couldn’t just let Iida or Native die, not to mention that all of Stain’s injuries are completely recoverable. I think that’s better than a permanent injury such as death,” Izuku says.

“So, you’re saying that it’s ok to break the law as long as it goes your way?” Tsuragamae raises his eyebrow at Izuku.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s also what American law agrees with, if you want an official opinion,” Izuku says.

Tsuragamae rolls his eyes at that. “We’re not in America, Midoriya. We’re in Japan. Aizawa here will help me dish out and decide the details of your punishments. Your praise for defeating such an enemy should easily make up for it.”

“You will both be suspended from school next week, excluding Monday, but you won’t be expelled. I convinced them not to. You have potential; your arrogance to use such potential shouldn’t completely nullify it. But I will still be harsh on you,” Aizawa steps forward and explains the punishments, “There is one punishment that I cannot explain to you without giving secrets away, so I won’t tell you much about that one. During your suspension, I expect a minimum 10,000-word essay on quirk regulation law and why they exist; You will be expelled if you use your quirk for public use without a license again; lastly, you need to pass the provisional license with a minimum of 80% rather than the normal – which I will not tell you.”

“Your supervisors’ punishments are much less extreme; a yearlong teaching license suspension and two months with a reduced payrate to 30% of normal,” Tsuragamae finishes.

“I would like to remind you that this is getting you off lightly. If something like this ever happens again to anyone in your class, the police and myself will not be so lenient. Understood?” Aizawa glares down at them with disappointment but also… pride? He can’t seriously be proud of them for doing this!

All the students chorus a “Yes, Sensei.”

“Good. Now, I think I’ll leave you guys to rest up. Midoriya, you should be good to go this afternoon. The two of you,” Aizawa points to Shouto and Iida, “Will likely be here for another night. Goodbye-”

“Sensei, Tsuragamae, wait!” Izuku calls to them both. He slowly inhales to centre himself, “I can heal Iida Tensei… if you will let me.”

Aizawa looks to Tsuragamae questioningly. “Kid, he’s paralysed. How’re you going to heal him in the first place?” the police chief asks.

“I have a quirk called Deep Heal. It knows what the body should look like and is capable of making it so. It could even bring back amputated limbs. As long as the injury hasn’t scarred over, it’ll work. Trust me, I tried.”

“You cut off your arm?!” Iida screeches.

Izuku sighs. “Not at first. I was testing my regeneration quirks; seeing how fast they heal, et cetera, when I accidently cut off a chunk of my finger. I activated all of my regeneration quirks and boom; the missing chunk of flesh reappeared. I then cut of a part of my finger at the joint; it healed back. I tried from the wrist; it healed back. So on and so forth, I cut my arm from my shoulder and had a new left arm within a second of cutting it.”

Aizawa looks at Izuku completely done, probably preparing to drink a whole bottle of liquor tonight. Meanwhile, Tsuragamae looks disgusted, conflicted, and deep in thought. “Very well, if you heal Ingenium back to full health, I will remove the punishment of expulsion upon public use for you and you alone, but you will still be punished for doing so. Todoroki and Iida will not have this luxury. Understood?”

“Yes, sensei,” Izuku replies, thankful.

“We will come back once you are released, Izuku, and take you to the hospital that Ingenium is placed at. Until then, sit tight and wait,” Aizawa commands. Izuku nods in reply before walking back to his bed. “Goodbye, Iida, Todoroki, Midoriya.” Aizawa closes the doors, leaving the room empty of adults.

The three students mingle for a while before going to their phones to see what the media said.

The very first thing that comes up on the news is, of course:

HERO KILLER: STAIN CAPTURED BY UA STUDENTS; MIDORIYA IZUKU, TODOROKI SHOUTO, AND IIDA TENYA

They decide to just deal with that when they get to it. Soon enough, nurses come in to get Iida and Shouto properly tested.

Izuku is released from the hospital only moments before they’re do to return to the room. He finds Aizawa and two other people standing outside waiting for him.

“Aizawa-Sensei,” Izuku bows to him as he arrives in front of him. Looking closely at the other two, he realises that they’re Present Mic and Midnight without their hero costumes, “Present Mic-Sensei and Midnight-Sensei?”

Present Mic’s signature hairstyle is gone and replaced with a casual and loose hair bun with two decorative needles through it. Midnight looks almost like a casual business lady, wearing casual but comfortable clothes. They look like completely different people to the pro-heroes that they are on tv. “Yep, that’s us, little listener! Keen eye, you’ve got.” Present Mic winks to him.

“Oh, also. Just call us Yamada and Kayama respectively when we’re dressed like this, alright?” Midnight says with a very out-of-character tone for the dominatrix hero. She points to Present Mic -Yamada- and herself as she says their names.

“Yes, Kayama-Sensei,” Izuku smiles. Present Mic -Yamada, dammit- snorts as he adds the honorific.

“No need for that, listener. We aren’t your teachers out here. Come on, in the car so we can get over and heal Tensei already.” Yamada points to the back seats and Izuku obliges. Kayama hops in next to him while Aizawa and Yamada take the driver’s seat and shotgun respectively.

Soon enough, they’re on their way to another hospital. Izuku finds it awkward sitting in a car with three of his teachers so he doesn’t say anything. None of the teachers push him to either. The trip is filled a mostly comfortable but slightly nervous silence.

Just as the nervousness starts taking over the comfort factor, they arrive. Izuku jumps straight out and follows the group of old friends -his teachers- to the front desk. Izuku barely hears what they say before they move on and into the elevator. They head up two floors before hopping out. The three adults are pacing themselves so fast that Izuku has to sneakily activate a speed quirk while walking in order to keep up with them.

As they arrive at the room, a lady outside hands them medical masks. “These are to keep Ingenium safe. His immune system has decayed massively so we need to take extra precaution.”

The group of four simply nod before placing the masks on.

They open the door and walk inside.

On the bed, Iida Tensei lies.

Covered in tubes and wires, with a huge patch covering his chest and an oxygen mask on his face.

It looks horrible.

Thankfully, he’s awake.

“Ingenium, hey,” Izuku waves to him and Ingenium slowly shifts his gaze to him. He must be slightly high on the sedatives, “I’m Midoriya Izuku. I’m going to switch out your quirk and replace it with one to heal you, ok?”

After almost 20 seconds of silence, Ingenium nods.

“Ok, good. Three… two… one.” Izuku pulls and the exhaust pipes on Ingenium’s elbows instantly vanish, replaced with smooth skin. Izuku pushes Deep Heal out of him and into Ingenium.

Instantly, the quirk takes effect. The drunkenness from the sedatives weakens a visible amount and his skin colour warms slightly.

“It won’t do much too quickly. It will make his overall body functions more efficient and such, but healing the spinal cord could take a long time. He doesn’t have enough quirk potential for a regeneration quirk, too, so I can’t speed it up that way. All we can use is external healing quirks; mostly Recovery Girl’s,” Izuku explains.

When he doesn’t hear any responses, he turns and sees all three of his teachers with tears in their eyes, grateful tears. Aizawa faces him, smiling one of the most genuine smiles Izuku would probably ever see, on his face, “Thanks, kid,” His voice is croaky, like he’s trying to hold down a fountain of liquid emotion.

Izuku smiles back and nods. He opens his arms to suggest a hug. Instantly, he’s piled on by three teachers. He almost tumbles over, causing Yamada -and someone else- to laugh, wetly.

They look over at where the second laugh came from. Ingenium looks back, smiling. “Thank you, a lot, Midoriya.” His grateful smile swells Izuku’s heart and, just as his teachers’ tears finish, he starts his waterworks.

The three teachers hold him tightly while Ingenium looks on, grateful as can be.

Happy.

———^———

Izuku doesn’t head back to Gran Torino’s agency, instead being driven back to his apartment. On his phone, 1-A’s group chat is exploding. He also has messages from Iida and Shouto each. He looks at Shouto’s first.

MyPowerIsMine: Hey, Izuku. I just got back my results…

MyPowerIsMine: I have minor nerve damage in my right foot but it should heal over time.

MyPowerIsMine: I hope you’re doing well.

MyPowerIsMine: [REDACTED MESSAGE]

MyPowerIsMine: See you at school.

Izuku replies.

Hey, Shouto! Thanks for letting me know. :AllMightJr

At least it’ll heal! Thanks, I hope you’re ok too! :AllMightJr

What was that redacted message about? But, yeah, see you at school! Bye! :AllMightJr

Izuku switches over to Iida’s chat.

IidaTenya: Midoriya, I hope you are doing well.

IidaTenya: I received my results…

IidaTenya: I will have long term issues with my left hand’s refined motor senses.

IidaTenya: It should heal naturally overtime, but it’ll be damaged for a few years before I recover.

IidaTenya: I’m glad that your injuries won’t ever be permanent.

Izuku winces as he reads that. As long as Ingenium has Deep Heal, Izuku is prone to permanent injury. That is, until he gets Deep Heal back. The quirk would heal even old damage to the body if it has been in him before.

IidaTenya: I’ll see you on Monday for school.

Hey, Iida! I hope your injuries won’t be too habilitating, at least… :AllMightJr

I’ll see you on Monday! :AllMightJr

Izuku closes his phone, deciding to check the class chat later. After all, he’s just arrived at home.

———^———

His mother had held onto him like a leach when he got home, sobbing all over him. Rightfully so, but Izuku did internally cringe when his teacher had to see that.

Dinner was katsudon, which was nice, but Izuku is just tired. He had headed to bed as soon as he had finished.

Now, he’s just finished scrolling through the class chat. The whole class has been worried about them. Fair, but Izuku just wants to sleep until Monday. Society can wait. Nap time is more important.

He falls asleep pretty quickly after that.

———^———

Izuku spent the next three days doing almost nothing but watching movies and messaging his classmates some confirmation that he’s ok. He can tell that his mom is worried so, on Sunday morning, he asks her what’s wrong.

“Hey, mum?” Izuku asks as he starts eating breakfast.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“I’ve noticed that you look a little worried… are you… are you ok?” Izuku pauses eating and looks at her carefully, worryingly.

His mother stares right back, caught a little off guard. “I-I’m fine, Izuku. Just a little shaken up by what happened in Hosu…”

“And?” Izuku asks carefully. He can tell that Inko has more to say.

“It’s nothing. I thought that I had.” Inko shakes it off, waving her hands around before trying to go back to eating.

Izuku grabs both of her hands, forcing her to look at his worried eyes. “You can tell me...” He whispers.

“I -uh- it’s just that,” A sigh, “I had a fleeting thought that UA is getting so much villain attention. I had thought of pulling you out,” Izuku’s eyes widen in surprise, “See, told you! It was a stupid thought. You love it there. You’ve been happier than you’ve ever been and you’re only getting stronger. I can’t just ignore your happiness in place of your safety.”

Izuku gives his mum a small smile, “Thanks for telling me that, mum.”

Inko smiles right back.

———^———

It’s Monday. Today, Izuku has to get to school. Today, he has to go in public. Dammit. The worst part; there won’t be anyone else he knows there to ground him. 

As Izuku finishes placing his blazer on, his mum calls him down for breakfast. 

He eats quickly, hoping to leave before the morning rush. He’s barely finished his last mouthful as he grabs his packed bag and rushes out the door. A slightly muffled -from the food- call leaves Izuku’s lips, “Bye mum!”

Arriving at the station, he’s very annoyed about his lack of a stealth quirk; the station is already packed full of people. He can’t use his quirks anyways… ugh, this is annoying. He tilts his head down and just prays that he doesn’t get noticed. 

“Look mommy, it’s the boy on the news!” Izuku sees a small girl pointing at him from across the platform. 

Quite a few people look in the girl’s direction before looking at Izuku himself. He shrinks into his shoulders even more than before. 

Hundreds of people from his platform and the neighbouring one all clamour around him and congratulate him. He likes the appreciation, don’t get him wrong, but he does not appreciate the lack of personal space or privacy. 

His train arrives and he has to shoulder through the crowd without using any quirks, at all. It’s a struggle, but he manages to get in just before the door closes. 

He turns around…

And is faced with a cartful of people. This is gonna be a long morning.

———^———

He arrives at school after having faced probably well over a thousand people congratulating him on defeating such a dangerous villain when he sees them.

The vultures.

The fucking press.

Izuku swears he’s gonna have an aneurysm soon. The crowd is larger than what the crowd was on the third day of school. At least double the size. 

He sees people from gen ed, business course, support, and hero course all being pulled over to ask about Izuku, Shouto or Iida. 

He moves away and decides to circle around the side of the gates. Maybe there’s a back entrance. 

As he moves around, he hears rustling. 

He turns to face the moving bushes and comes face to face with the school counsellor; Hound Dog. 

“Hound Dog-Sensei! Thank god I found you. Can you help me get inside?”

Hound Dog growls and rolls his eyes. “There’s the front gate for that, kid.”

As the teacher turns to leave and continue his patrolling of the gates, Izuku calls after him, “But, Sensei, it’s filled with reporters! I’ve already faced well over a thousand people just reaching the school. I’d rather not have to face any more than I need to. Please.”

The teacher sighs in defeat. “Fine, I’ll escort you until you’re inside the grounds; then, you’re on your own.”

Izuku, comparatively, sighs in relief. “Thank you, Sensei.”

They make their way to the gates and the horde of reporters turn to face them, attempting to crowd around Izuku instantly. Then, Hound Dog steps into action. He gives a deep growl and steps between the press and the student.

Every member of the media takes a step back. Hound Dog nods at them before shoving Izuku towards the gates. The pro-hero follows him until he reaches the gates -just as promised- before he turns around and continues his guard. 

Izuku rushes up to his class instantly. He does not want to have to deal with so many people. He was prepared for maybe one or two strangers alongside his classmates, but not this. 

As he opens the door, he finds Shouto and Iida both already being pestered. Shouto by Kaminari, Tokoyami, and Ashido; and Iida by Aoyama, Sero, and Satou. 

Everyone in the class turns to face him as he enters. He gulps. “H-hey, everyone.” He waves slightly.

Kaminari and Ashido move on from Shouto, deciding that he won’t say anything, and slide in next to Izuku as he sits at his desk. 

“So, Midoriya, how’d you do it?” The blonde says slyly. 

“Yeah, you must’ve fought really hard to take down the Hero Killer, of all people!” Ashido comments.

Izuku shrinks into his seat. “I-I just t-tried not to die. T-There w-was no secret move to it, really.”

Ashido and Kaminari try for more questions but quickly badger off when they realise Izuku needs some space alone; pretty obvious when he put his head on his desk and covered his ears with his arms. 

More people filter into the classroom, some giving him worried looks. Aizawa steps into the room next. “Hello, everyone. Please do not discuss the events concerning Hosu and Stain during my class. Also, get on your hero costumes; we’re doing a progress check with All Might.”

The students comply, Izuku only looking completely awake thanks to his use of Stamina. 

They get to the change rooms and switch out of their uniforms into their hero costumes. Izuku starts walking out when a hand lands on his shoulder.

He looks up the length and sees worried heterochronic eyes. “Are you ok? You don’t look like yourself.”

Izuku smiles sadly, “I will be okay. It was just a lot, too much, for me when getting to school. I couldn’t just ignore everyone. I’m also worried about you and Iida and both of your injuries.”

Shouto smiles back. They walk out of the room together, likely to end up being the last ones to arrive at the training ground. “My foot is healing fine. It could use some more healing but it’s mostly ok. You’d have to ask Iida for his injuries.”

Izuku nods. “I could speed up the healing for you.” It’s a silent question.

“Sure.” But Shouto answers anyways.

Izuku smiles gratefully at him. “Thanks, Shouto.”

Izuku doesn’t notice the way Shouto’s smile widens slightly as he says that.

“No problem, Izuku.” Izuku switches Hot and Cold for a regeneration quirk. 

———^———

They arrive at the grounds, and Izuku was correct, they were the last ones to arrive. Thankfully, they weren’t so far behind as to hold up the lesson. 

“Hello young heroes! Today we’re going to be doing some rescue training!” All Might cheers from the front. 

Iida interrupts any further statements with a question. “Sensei, shouldn’t we be at the USJ for rescue training?”

“HA! That would be for disaster rescue specialised training, young Iida. Today, we’ll be focusing on damsel rescue. I will be your damsel,” An image that most of class 1-A will never get out of their heads, “and you will race in groups of five to find me. Whoever gets to me first wins!”

“The teams will be selected by me, so don’t bother looking to fight your friends,” Aizawa announces from the viewing station, voice ringing through the zone.

“The teams are as follows:

Team A: Sero, Ashido, Ojirou, Midoriya, Iida.

Team B: Aoyama, Satou, Kaminari, Kouda, Tokoyami.

Team C: Bakugou, Yaoyorozu, Shouji, Todoroki, Uraraka.

Team D: Kirishima, Asui, Hagakure, Shinsou, Jirou.”

“Now, team A; Head to these designated spots on the map,” All Might shows them a map and points to the red dots on them, “inside the zone. From there, once Aizawa says to begin, you look for me!” All Might points to himself and laughs.

Izuku heads to his spot; on top of a water tower. The zone appears to be some sort of factory themed district.

“Begin.” Aizawa’s dead voice drags through the zone. Izuku activates all three jumps and instantly moves forward. From there; he activates all speed related quirks (Temporal View, Acceleration, 6x speed augment) and zooms across the grounds. He also activates Crystallised and Lightweight -the name he gave the mutation quirk from the nomu- to prevent injuries without hindering his speed from extra weight.

He moves along the ground, weaving between buildings. Far behind him is Ojirou, Ashido, and Iida. Sero is a different story. He’s only a little behind but catching up fast. Easy fix; Giant Ice Wall.

Izuku activates Glacier and forces it out at full strength, producing a giant glacier in the middle of the zone. Sero slams, face first, into it.

Izuku snorts at the view before continuing to find All Might.

Moments later, he did. All Might was only two buildings away, in fact. He was on top of another water tower.

“Congratulations, young Midoriya!” He hands Izuku a sash that really isn’t needed, but Izuku puts it on out of tradition. All Might whispers to him as he puts it on, “We need to discuss One for All, find me at lunch.”

Izuku nods in response as he heads back to the rest of the class.

———^———

The glacier was removed by the combined efforts of All Might, Shouto, Kacchan, and Ashido before they continued.

The rest of the races were pretty one-sided; Tokoyami came first, only almost losing due to Kaminari’s and Aoyama’s quirks; Todoroki won by cutting off Kacchan with glaciers, but they were both pretty close; and Tsu’s quirk was the most adaptive and obstacle based one there so she naturally won.

Izuku heads to the soundproof room that he agreed to meet All Might at. Inside, he finds not only All Might, but Aizawa, Nedzu, and Recovery Girl. “Uh… Yagi? Are they meant to be here?”

“Yes, they’re meant to be here, young Midoriya.” Izuku nods to All Might’s answer.

“So, how’d you find out about All Might’s weak form?” Aizawa asks suddenly.

Izuku looks to Aizawa. “Uh… I may have grabbed his leg as he was flying off after he saved me at one point right before his time limit was up so he transformed right after we landed.”

He said that in one breath and extremely fast, so both Aizawa and Recovery Girl still look confused, while Nedzu seems perfectly sated by Izuku’s answer.

“Ok… now to why we’re here,” All Might looks at everyone as Izuku takes a seat, “Aizawa is the only one who doesn’t know this yet.”

“Wait, what? How could Midoriya know about something so seemingly important when I don’t?” Aizawa interrupts.

“I’ll get to why in a moment, Aizawa,” All Might sighs, “My quirk is called One for All. It’s a quirk that can be manually passed from user to user. It’s a stockpiling quirk of energy and I’m the eighth user. The origin of this quirk goes back to the reason I have this hole in my side,”

He pauses his explanation to drink some tea,

“When quirks were just emerging, there was a villain called All for One. He had a quirk just like young Midoriya’s. He could give and take quirks at will. His quirkless younger brother had a much more just perspective than him. All for One took pity on his brother’s quirklessness and forced a quirk onto him. This was a slow-working energy stockpiling quirk,”

He takes another sip of his tea,

“But the younger brother was never actually quirkless. He had another quirk, completely useless; it allowed him to pass itself on to other users. When All for One gave him the energy stockpiling quirk, the two of them merged completely, forming One for All. From there it has been the main weapon against the villain. Now, he is back. He’s the reason those nomu exist. Somehow, he survived our battle six years ago. I am incapable of defeating him with my crippled body… I need a new holder,”

Once again, he drinks some tea,

“That’s where Izuku came in. He was quirkless and had a hero’s heart… until he had a quirk almost identical to my arch nemesis. From that point, he has been assisting me in finding a new holder for the quirk. That’s actually why he’s here today… I was going to ask him about his possible options.”

He lets Aizawa absorb the information for a moment. When Aizawa nods along, he turns to Izuku.

Izuku looks at All Might. In his peripheral vision, he sees Aizawa, Nedzu, and Recovery Girl all looking at him too. “Uh, ok, so. I’ve got around eight options, but Gran Torino and I reduced it to four; Kirishima, Shouto, Shinsou, and Kendou from 1-B.”

“We can cancel out Kendou, considering she’s from 1-B. It would just make this whole situation a lot more complicated,” Recovery Girl states with a firm tone.

Aizawa nods along. “I think Shinsou would be the best option. Having a diverse utility set would allow him to do a lot more.” The ‘more than what I ever could’ is left unsaid.

“I actually think he is someone to remove from the list.” This, surprisingly, comes from Nedzu.

“Uh, Sensei, why do you think that?” Izuku tilts his head at him.

“Because, Midoriya, he may not appreciate it. He’s already worked so hard to get into the hero course. If he was told that he could just be given a quirk that enhances his physical prowess considerably, it would appear as more condescending rather than appreciating,” The principal explains.

“I see…” Aizawa says, “Very well, we will cut him from the list.”

“So, that leaves us with young Kirishima and young Todoroki,” All Might exclaims.

“I believe we should go with Kirishima. His quirk would counteract backlash from One for All the best, and he’d likely learn to control it quicker than Todoroki,” Recovery Girl says.

“I can see your point there, Recovery Girl-Sensei, but Shouto is pretty smart. He’s only just started using his fire after nearly 10 years of not using it and he’s already gotten good control of it. Learning to control another quirk would help him more than not.”

“If he’s only just learning to use his flames, wouldn’t it be better to let him focus on that rather than giving him another thing to worry about?” Aizawa counters.

Izuku mutters “He’s already got too much to worry about, to be honest…” But he says, “He’s more capable than you think if you really lack that much faith in your student, Aizawa.”

Aizawa raises his eyebrow at Izuku’s passive aggressive insult. “I’m not saying Kirishima should take it or that Todoroki shouldn’t. I’m just saying that Todoroki would have a lot to handle if he did take it.”

“I still think Shouto should take it.” Recovery Girl opens her mouth, but Izuku cuts her off, “Hear me out; One for All not only enhances the physical strength and speed of a person, it also enhances their quirk. If Shouto got One for All, he’d be unstoppable. Easily more powerful than All Might. The point of the holder of One for All nowadays would be to be the next symbol of peace. Someone with the energy of nine holders alongside an already extremely powerful quirk would be almost undefeatable; the perfect symbol of peace.”

Nedzu puts his two cents in, “If he’s meant to be the symbol of peace, then shouldn’t he be smiling a little more?”

Izuku smirks at that, “That’s what I’ve already been working on and, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s working very well. He’s already smiling all the time with me and my friends. He’s had a dementing childhood, so some social stuntedness is expected. Besides, my immortality would make me an accompanying symbol so if Shouto really lacks the ability to smile the way you want him to, that role can be filled by me. Oh! Also! I’ve got a theory about One for All; it will eventually evolve to host the quirks of previous users to some degree, so having Shouto’s power be added to that would be a lot more valuable than if Kirishima’s quirk was added, I’m not going to lie.”

“You’re saying that Kirishima’s quirk is worthless in comparison to Todoroki’s?” Aizawa raises his eyebrow, not judging Izuku too fast, thankfully.

“No, Kirishima’s quirk is very valuable, but it is not as diversely usable. Shouto’s, in comparison, can be used in almost every situation. Having that extra tool would give the user of the quirk more comfort.”

“I think I’ve heard enough from everyone.” All Might’s voice cuts through everyone’s thoughts. They all turn to face him. “I choose… I’m going with… I’ll give One for All to Todoroki Shouto.”

———^———

 It’s the next day that they decide to give it to him. Of course, Izuku, Shouto, and Iida are all suspended from school during these days but to do this, the school changed the suspension to ‘full day intense training’ for Shouto and Izuku exclusively. They didn’t contact Iida.

Shouto and Izuku are both standing in gym gamma without any sign of teachers. Just as Izuku about to suggest they go to the staff room, All Might, Nedzu, and Recovery Girl pop in. “Hello, students! It is I, the principal!”

“Hello, principal Nedzu.” Shouto says.

“Now, uh, Shouto… don’t freak out.” Izuku warns with a nervous tone.

Shouto looks at Izuku, confused. “Why would I freak out?”

All Might coughs into his hand. “Just, please, don’t. Ok… ready?”

“When you are,” Izuku replies. Recovery Girl and Nedzu move over and stand by Izuku as All Might explodes into smoke.

As it dissipates, it reveals the dishevelled form of All Might’s weakened self.

All Shouto reacts with is a very small and high pitched “oh.”

“Hello, young Todoroki.” Yagi waves at him.

“Uh… hi.” Shouto’s voice is so quiet, Izuku can bet that not even Jirou could hear it if she was in the next room and inserting her plugs.

“Shouto?” Izuku asks, bringing Shouto back to reality.

“Y-yeah?” He asks, his voice back to its normal pitch and loudness, but nervousness not completely gone.

“You ok?” Izuku reaches out to grab him in case he falls. He does look like he’s about to.

“Y-yeah, yeah, I-I’m fine, I’m good. I’m good.” Shouto relaxes to what he was before they arrived, with the addition of curiosity.

“That’s good.” Izuku smiles at him, trying to provide some comfort.

“Uh, why?” Shouto, ever perceptive, asks.

“I’m showing you this for a few reasons. It’s a little complicated,” Yagi explains, “Let’s sit down for this.”

The five sit down in a circle, Recovery Girl getting some assistance from Nedzu.

“About six years ago, I was involved in a fight against a powerful villain. This villain and I fought valiantly. The fight itself was kept out of the media. While I destroyed his face, he destroyed my stomach,” Yagi lifts his shirt, revealing his unique scar, “I lost my whole stomach, and part of my left lung. There’s no fixing this.”

“I see… Who was this villain?” Shouto asks.

“He’s a powerful and dangerous man named All for One. His quirk is similar to mine,” Izuku points at himself as he says this, “He can give and take others’ quirks. Like me, however, he can’t take All Might’s quirk. This is something he should explain.”

“Yes, thank you, Midoriya. My quirk is called One for All,” Shouto nods along, “it’s an energy stockpiling quirk that can be passed on manually. I am the eighth holder of this quirk… I plan to make you the ninth.”

As soon as Yagi says that, Shouto’s eyes widen to the limit. “Wait, w-what?”

“I wish to give One for All to you so that you can become my successor,” Yagi says confidently.

Surprisingly, Shouto starts laughing. A laugh filled with humour. “S-sorry, it’s,” He wheezes, “It’s just that my father wanted me to become the guy to overthrow you and become number one, so ending up as your successor is very beautifully ironic.” He wipes the tears from his eyes.

Izuku hears Recovery Girl mutter, “Oh, so he can laugh…” under her breath.

“So, will you accept it?” Yagi asks hesitantly.

“Yeah. Yes, I’ll accept One for All.” Shouto composes himself completely before nodding.

“Good, ok,” Yagi poofs up, becoming All Might. “Now, eat this!” He grabs a hair from his head.

Both Shouto and Izuku choke on air.

Chapter Text

“Ok, so… I just… swallow it?” Shouto is holding onto the hair that All Might just gave him. He looks over at his new friend, Izuku.

Said friend looks like he’s trying not to die of laughter; his cheeks are glowing red and he’s biting his bottom lip extensively.

“Yep, that’s how it did it!” All Might says, his voice weaker now that he’s turned back to his smaller -weaker- form.

“Uh… ok…? Here goes nothing.” Shouto puts the hair in his mouth and regrets it instantly. Since when was All Might’s hair so greasy?! He forces it to the back of his throat and swallows it exaggeratingly.

“Are you… ok?” Izuku says, looking at him worryingly. Shouto will never get used to how much his first friend cares about him.

Swallowing a second time to make sure it went down -he’s pretty sure he can still feel it in his mouth- Shouto nods. “I’m perfectly fine,” he croaks, his voice sounding horrid.

“If you say so…” Izuku looks like he wants to deny it but doesn’t mention anything. He turns to All Might, “So, now what?”

“Now, we wait.” Is the response.

“We just wait?” Shouto asks, his voice returning to normal.

“Yep. It’ll take two maybe three hours to pass on into your body. That’s when we’ll test it out!” All Might grins weakly.

Izuku nods but looks confused, “What do we do until then?”

“You can either stay on the grounds or head off, just come back when it manifests so we can train,” Nedzu comments from the side. Sitting next to him, Recovery Girl nods in agreement.

“Cool! Come on, Shouto. I heard there’s a cat café nearby that we can hang out at while we wait!” Izuku cheers, getting up too fast for there not to be a quirk involved.

The two students walk off, oblivious to the knowing smiles of their teachers.

———^———

Half way to the café, Shouto asks, “What is a cat café?”

Izuku pauses and looks at Shouto like he’s grown two heads. “Well, its only the best place to go when you’re an insomniac,” Izuku starts walking again, Shouto automatically walking in line with him, “I usually go to them when I can’t sleep, but I haven’t been to one since school started! This one’s a new one, though. It’s basically a café with cats roaming around in them and it also serves as a cat rescue place!”

Shouto nods, “Ok, that makes sense. But I’ve never been to a café either…”

Izuku sighs, “Of course, you haven’t,” Suddenly, his face bursts into an excited smile; producing a very cheeky aura, “You’ll have to try every coffee flavour there!”

“I’ve never had coffee!” Shouto calls, but Izuku is already running ahead and doesn’t even hear the last bit. Shouto smiles and chases after him.

———^———

They arrive at the café. It looks very new, with shiny windows and the scent of fresh leather and polish still in the air. Izuku opens the door and Shouto walks in. He hears the door close behind him as his new best -and first- friend steps in beside him.

“Come on, Shouto. Let’s find a seat!” Izuku swiftly walks towards a booth with leather seating.

Shouto follows him, forcing the thought of why the hell they’d use leather in a place with animals that have sharp claws out of his head. “What type of coffee should I get?”

Izuku hums in thought -and Shouto definitely doesn’t blush at the cute face- “I feel like you’re a pumpkin spice latte kind of guy… or maybe a cinnamon flat white…” Izuku’s voice speeds up as he devolves into muttering.

Shouto smiles softly at his friend for a moment before cutting off his ranting, “cinnamon flat white sounds nice.”

Izuku looks up in surprise before blushing and muttering some apologies, “I’ll go order, then!”

With that, Izuku jumps up and runs to the counter.

Shouto sees him go in line – there’s only a few other people at the café and only one person in front of Izuku in the line.

Then, it happens.

Shouto feels something fluffy and big brush against his leg and he completely freezes on instinct.

A meow.

Shouto looks beneath the table and finds a big black cat with the messiest fur in existence staring right back at him.

It meows again.

Shouto, intelligently, says, “uh,” in response.

The cat jumps up next to him and instantly curls into a ball, resting on his left hipbone. It looks up at him, its wide golden amber eyes glistening. Shouto hesitantly places his right hand on the cat’s head.

Before he can do so, the cat tilts his head and licks his hand right on the palm. Shouto looks at it, surprised. He moves his hand so that the palm is facing up before moving it forward again. This time, the cat doesn’t move.

Shouto reaches the cats chin and starts scratching lightly. The cat presses his face into the hand, and Shouto scratches faster. The cat starts purring loudly.

Shouto jumps in surprise at the noise, pausing his scratching.

The cat looks up at him in annoyance, mewling to express his lost comfort. Shouto starts scratching again and the cat calms down, closing its eyes as it places the right side of its head on his lap.

That’s how Izuku finds him.

Shouto looks up in surprise at a weird noise, finding his friend holding two cups and failing to stifle a laugh.

Shouto looks at him, unimpressed.

“S-sorry, i-it’s just funny seeing you so confused,” Izuku says, curling his top lip over his bottom one to stop himself from laughing, “O-oh, also, for some reason, they don’t know how to make flat white’s so I just changed it to a latte. It still has cinnamon, though!”

Izuku places down the cup in his right hand in front of Shouto as he sits down in the opposite seat. “What’s the difference?” Shouto asks, “I thought coffee was just… coffee.”

It’s Izuku’s turn to look unimpressed, “I don’t know why I’m surprised considering your father but I am,” He takes a sip from his mug before placing it down again, leaving a little bit of foam on the top of his lips. Aw, look. He has a moustache. Shouto ends that thought before it can escalate, “A flat white was originally only found in countries in Oceania, but around 40 years ago it became more popular. It’s very similar to a latte -which is two parts milk, one-part pure coffee- but is more milk, less coffee and less foam.”

Shouto nods, pretending to understand.

Izuku continues, oblivious, “There are other types of coffees, such as cappuccinos and macchiatos. They’re very similar to each-other but cappuccinos are one third coffee, one third milk, one third froth; macchiatos are one-part coffee, two parts froth. Also, sugar is a really important part that you need in order to counteract the bitterness. I just gave you three sugars considering I didn’t know how much you’d need. I only need one. Ofcourse,ifit’stoobitteryoucanalwaysaddmorebutIonlyneed…”

Izuku’s muttering starts up again and Shouto smiles, taking a sip of his coffee. It’s really good. The balance of spiciness from the cinnamon, bitterness from the coffee, sweetness from the sugar, and creaminess from the milk is perfect. The only problem is the dustiness from the cinnamon powder itself, but Shouto ignores that.

Shouto almost hums in delight, causing Izuku to pause his muttering and look back up at Shouto. Shouto looks at Izuku and he giggles.

Shouto tilts his head to the side, confused. Izuku blushes, giggling even more while sputtering apologies, “S-sorry, it’s j-just t-that y-you have a-a moustache o-of milk! Also, you should stir the coffee so you mix the cinnamon in with the drink.”

Shouto’s eyes widen and he lifts his left hand to wipe the milk off. Unfortunately, a cat is in the way so when Shouto lifts his hand, said cat is shoved off of his lap and onto the floor.

A moment later, the cat screeches in surprise and Shouto’s eyes widen.

Izuku just laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs.

Shouto looks down at the cat worried -completely forgetting about the still present milk moustache- and finds the animal glaring at him with a level of hatred unfounded to man.

Shouto holds out his hands placatingly, calming the cat down enough to hop back up and swat Shouto’s hand away; allowing it to go back to its original position. He looks back at his friend who is still blushing and struggling not to laugh, having calmed down slightly.

He grabs a plastic spoon from the wooden cylinder at the end of the table and stirs his drink.

“Uh, Izuku?” Izuku’s expression changes to full attention and curiosity as he tilts his head and his large emerald eyes glow at Shouto.

“Yeah?”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Shouto asks.

“O-Oh, that’s easy! I’ve got insomnia so I often drink coffee to stay awake; at least, I used to until the increase in physical training at UA. Since we’ve started, I haven’t really had to worry about not sleeping unless we don’t train for more than a day. Around 10 months ago, when my quirk manifested, I started training a lot. The compound we went to didn’t have a coffee machine and we didn’t have the money to buy a new one since the old one broke, so I just started going to 24/7 cafés and cat cafés. So on, so forth, I became a professional in coffee.”

Shouto looks at Izuku’s mug, seeing it mostly empty. Looking back at his glass, he remembers that he’s only taken a single sip. “I should probably hurry up with drinking, shouldn’t I,” He asks.

Izuku looks at Shouto’s glass before looking up at him and laughing placatingly, “Nah, don’t worry about it! Take your time. We’ve got multiple hours before the quirk comes in and it’s only been around 15 minutes!”

Shouto looks up in shock, “Wait, it’s only been 15 minutes?”

Izuku looks at Shouto, confused, “Well, yeah. 4 minutes for me to get the coffee, and we’ve been sitting here for around 11 minutes,” He explains.

Shouto stares into his cup, contemplating. He looks back at Izuku after a moment, “How about we go for a walk. I don’t think I’ll be able to be here for too long while taking in caffeine.”

“Cool, I’ll get you a to-go cup and get myself another one!” Izuku grabs Shouto’s cup before running off to the counter. Shouto pats the black cat on his lap once more before shifting it off of him, making it mewl.

He gets up and walks over to the door, waiting to Izuku.

After a minute or two, Izuku comes back holding two cardboard coffee cups. He gives one to Shouto, presumably containing his coffee and sips the other one.

“Oh, by the way, I had them refill your one,” Izuku comments as he walks out.

Shouto smiles, following his friend. This, he could get used to.

———^———

They’re walking through a park only a few minutes later when Shouto asks, “You said you had insomnia…”

Izuku looks at him, a glint of amusement visible for a second after he turns, and hums, “I did.”

They continue walking, Shouto taking a sip of his cup, “Isn’t insomnia the inability to sleep despite being tired? Why would going to UA make you ‘tired enough’?”

Izuku ponders for a second, sipping his coffee as he does so, “I never really questioned it. I know that I did have insomnia, though. Over the 10 months that I was training to get to UA I often used up all my energy and was dead tired, but couldn’t sleep no matter what. It’s just that for some reason, ever since I entered UA; I’ve been able to sleep easier, most nights. Some nights I still struggle; getting to sleep around 3 or 4am rather than 11 or 12.”

Shouto looks at Izuku, surprised, “Izuku, that’s not a good sleeping pattern,”

The green-haired lunatic just replies with, “I’m pretty sure it’s fine!”

“Izuku.” Shouto’s deadpan tone has the opposite of the intended effect and only makes Izuku laugh.

After calming down from his laugher, Izuku looks to Shouto, grinning, “Yeah?”

Shouto just glares, making Izuku giggle.

The bi-haired boy smiles at his friend’s antics, “I am wondering, though, where are we going?”

Izuku pauses after a moment, realising, “Uh… I don’t know.” Izuku looks around the park, trying to recognise where he is.

Shouto sighs, smiling amusedly. He takes another sip of his coffee before walking off in a random straight direction.

“Shouto, where’re you going?” Izuku calls, rushing up to walk beside him.

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to find out,” Shouto says, smirking.

Izuku smiles.

———^———

After around 20 minutes of walking, they pass an ice-cream shop.

Having finished their coffees Izuku suggests they buy something.

“Ok, sure.” Shouto says, walking over and opening the door.

Izuku follows him in. “What flavour are you gonna get?” he asks.

Shouto ponders for a second, “Well, I haven’t had ice-cream in quite a few years so I’m not sure.”

“Wait, what?!” Izuku stares at Shouto with bug-eyes, for reasons Shouto is unaware of. Izuku sputters, “B-but, h-HOW?”

Shouto just shrugs.

Izuku sighs exasperatedly before walking up to the counter, “I’ll get two choc-chip mints, please! Both double scoop in waffle cones!”

The employee smiles, “Sure thing!” after a moment of shuffling around, the employee reappears, holding two cones of ice-cream that look way too full of ice-cream to be safe. “There you go!”

Izuku takes them both and passes one to Shouto, who takes it instantly, not actually sure what to do with it. “Thank you very much! How much was that?”

“That’d be ¥916,” the man says.

“Here, I’ll pay,” interrupts, placing a simple 1,000-yen bill on the counter.

“S-Shouto?! I can’t make you do that!” Izuku says, trying to give the note back.

“No, you can’t, and you’re not. I’m doing this of my own accord. Plus, it’s only ¥1,000. My father wouldn’t even know,” Shouto refutes.

Izuku sighs in defeat, “Fine, I’ll let you pay.” Shouto nods to Izuku then to the employee.

“Thank you very much!” The man says. He grabs some coins from the cashier machine and hands it to Shouto’s open palm, “Here’s your change; ¥84!”

In Shouto’s palm there is a single donut shaped nickel coin alongside four copper ones and four simple and smaller silver coloured ones.

He puts them in his back pocket, walking out with Izuku. Shouto ponders for a moment before awkwardly asking Izuku, “H-hey, uh, how do you… how do you eat the ice-cream?”

Izuku pauses mid-step. Shouto thinks he hears Izuku murmur, “You really didn’t have much of a childhood…” under his breath but ignores it. “It’s pretty simple, really. You lick it,” Izuku explains.

Shouto looks at him, dumbfounded. “You lick it.”

Izuku nods, “Yes, you lick it.”

“Y-you lick it.”

“Yes.” Izuku nods again.

Shouto decides to move on and accept it, so he turns on and continues walking. He sees Izuku lick the ice-cream from his peripheral vision. Oh, that’s how you do it.

Shouto copies him and… wow, it tastes good. Shouto’s eyes widen before he speeds up in licking it, causing an indent to shape in the top scoop.

He looks next to him to see a missing Izuku. He looks further behind him and finds Izuku looking more dumbfounded than Shouto had moments before.

“H-how?” Izuku asks.

“How what?” Shouto asks.

Izuku shakes his head. “You know what, never mind. It’s probably to do with your quirk.”

Shouto looks at Izuku, confused, but moves on after a shrug. It probably doesn’t matter.

———^———

“It’s been nearly 50 minutes now…” Izuku says after a little while of walking.

“So that means…” Shouto mutters.

“We have 2 hours, at most.” They both pause what they’re saying, looking at each other. Shouto grins while Izuku breaks down into laughter.

After a moment to collect themselves, Izuku speaks, “W-what I was t-trying to say was that I know a place we could hang out at to pass the time instead of walking around.”

“Where?” Shouto asks.

“Have you heard of a place called Dagobah Beach?”

———^———

They arrive only 20 minutes later.

Shouto looks along the coastline. It’s beautiful.

Pristine sapphire blue ocean reflects the white sunlight onto smooth golden blankets of sand.

He doesn’t even realise his murmur of “wow.” Until Izuku replies.

“Yeah, I know, right? It’s beautiful,” he says, “It used to be covered in garbage but I cleaned it up a few months ago for my training to get to UA.”

Shouto is really impressed. “You did all that in less than 10 months?”

“Yeah, I did. It was hard, I admit, but I enjoyed every second of it,” Izuku says, smiling calmly as the ocean wind gently whips his hair.

Shouto smiles too. “Thanks for showing me this. It’s really nice,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a public beach too, so you could come here any time,” Izuku says.

They lie down and stay there in comfortable silence for a while before Izuku speaks again.

“You know, my old apartment’s only a block away,” Izuku says. Shouto looks over and Izuku blushes, giggling a little, “I-In case you were wondering.”

Shouto smiles, “Ok.”

Shouto closes is eyes, falling asleep to the soothing waves and calming presence beside him.

———^———

Shouto is awakened to someone softly calling his name. He groans as he sits up, nearly hitting said person in the face.

“WOAH!” Izuku shouts, dodging Shouto’s head just in time.

Shouto groans again, stretching his back and arms. “Sorry, Izuku,” He mumbles.

“N-no, d-don’t worry about it! I’m sorry for needing to wake you! I just got a text from All Might that woke me up, it’s been 3 and a half hours since we left,” Izuku blushes, eyeing somewhere bellow Shouto’s nose and giggling, “we fell asleep a little too long. It’s already nearly 1 o’clock.”

Shouto sighs, “So we should probably get going then…”

“Yeah…” Izuku scratches the back of his head.

Slowly and begrudgingly, Shouto stands up and stretches his legs by pointing each foot and angling the leg one at a time.

After he’s ready, he nods to Izuku and they head off back to campus.

———^———

The journey back is quiet, but peaceful.

They walk back to the same gym they were in before, finding everyone who was there before and an additional Aizawa.

They all look at Shouto with weird expressions. “U-uh, young Todoroki?”

Shouto looks up at his Heroics teacher, “Yes, All Might?”

All Might points to his philtrum, “You have something on your… uh-”

Shouto’s eyes widen in realisation. “THE MILK MOUSTACHE!” he screams. He looks over at Izuku who is profusely blushing and failing to contain his laughter. “Seriously, Izuku?! Why didn’t you remind me?”

Izuku, bless him, looks apologetic but continues to laugh, “S-sorry, i-its just t-that, well, it-t was fun seeing you walk around in public all innocent and oblivious to the milk moustache on your upper lip.” Izuku had managed to control himself towards the edge of his sentence, but bursts into laughter right after he’s finished.

Shouto lightly blushes -In the background, Aizawa blanches- but distracts himself by lightly icing over his philtrum and melting it with his left hand’s passive warmth, getting rid of any milk left there.

“Ok. Now, let’s start using One for All,” All Might announces, “First, we want you to use your normal quirk and see how much more powerful it has become.”

Shouto nods, “right.” He stands in the middle of the gym, facing away from everyone else, and prepares a standard glacier. “I’ll start off with a normal glacier, okay?”

“All good, Shouto!” Izuku says from behind him.

Shouto nods once more before activating his right side. The familiar rush of cold energy thrums down his right arm as he swings it. He releases the energy. Within a second, a glacier almost three times the size of his normal ones appears, destroying the roof and back wall of the building.

Shouto swears he hears Aizawa mutter, “Holy shit…” under his breath, but ignores it.

“Wow,” Izuku states, his happy-go-lucky attitude sucked out of him.

“Y-yeah…” Shouto agrees; this power is extremely strong, almost too strong.

“N-now we should try with your fire,” All Might stutters out, managing to talk through the ice-cold atmosphere that Shouto created.

“Okay,” Shouto says. He shifts his stance to have his left facing forward. He feels the waves of emotion boil under his skin. “I’m going to do a standard spiral shot, pretty simple and much weaker in power to a glacier.”

“T-that’s probably a g-good idea,” Izuku stutters through the cold, only managing better than his teachers thanks to his cold resistance via Glacier.

Shouto forces the red-hot waves of heat out of his skin and into his surroundings, pushing it forward alongside his left palm. The flames spiral out with a much wider -almost double- radius than it used to have, licks of blue flames present throughout the funnel of heat.

The glacier cracks and sizzles against the heat, large chunks of it melting into puddles and some even steaming if they’re close enough.

Shouto stops using his left side shortly after, most of the glacier having evaporated or otherwise melted.

He turns around finding Izuku slack-jawed, Aizawa with shock evident in his eyes despite his regain of composure, All Might with pride and awe in his gaunt eyes, Nedzu with devilish joy, and Recovery Girl who is impressed, but not surprised.

“So that’s what a quirk enhanced by One for All looks like…” Izuku utters after he composes himself.

“No, not exactly…” All Might says, sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” Aizawa asks sharply.

“One for All passively makes the quirk stronger, but that’s only a side effect, you could enhance the quirk further by charging One for All into your quirk factor,” The Heroics teacher explains.

“Wait, I thought you were quirkless before One for All, how would you know about this?” Izuku asks.

All Might pauses, looking solemn for a moment, “It’s what my mentor told me when I asked her how her quirk gets stronger sometimes but not others.”

Izuku freezes too before walking up after a moment and quickly hugging All Might, “Sorry.”

All Might barks a single, self-deprecating, laugh, “It’s alright, young Midoriya! Let’s continue working on training, shall we?”

Izuku nods before looking at Shouto, “I’m going to guess that a few injuries might happen pretty soon?”

“Yes, they very much will, which is why I am here,” Recovery Girl says, “I am also going to make sure you don’t send him too far!” She points at All Might as she says this, “He doesn’t need any more injuries than strictly necessary.”

Shouto wants to ask why the principal is also here but he’d rather not cross the crazy rat.

“Ready?” Shouto asks.

“When you are, Shouto.” Izuku smiles and gives a thumbs up.

Shouto nods and turns around once more to face the still present hole in the gym. He closes his eyes and focuses on finding the new energy thrumming through his chest. He drags the energy to his right hand and-

“Stop!” Izuku calls. Shouto freezes in position. “You’re putting too much energy in, you’ll injure yourself.”

Shouto nods and shrinks the tap of energy, like a faucet. He brings his right arm up again and lets the smaller amount flow through. He punches the air in front of him and the ground cracks, wind picks up, and Shouto’s arm throbs. The back wall of the gym goes flying off, loose parts of the roof joining it.

He stumbles back, collecting himself and gripping his right arm in pain. He hisses through his teeth.

Recovery Girl rolls her eyes and waddles over to him, kissing his arm and instantly healing it. “Muscle strain and bruising. You still put too much energy in,” She says.

“That looked to be around 40%, my boy. So, you probably need a little less than that. We just need to get there,” All Might says.

“Actually, I think that’s enough training for today,” Nedzu says in his cheerful voice, “We need to make repairs to the gym and Todoroki will need some rest. We can pick this back up on Thursday.”

“Y-yes, principal Nedzu,” All Might says nervously.

Izuku and Shouto get ready to leave and head towards the door. “Cya, senseis!” Izuku calls, waving his hand as he walks out behind Shouto.

The two walk towards the gate together, avoiding the cafeteria as to not be noticed by their classmates at lunch.

They get to the gates and walk in opposite directions, both giving calm smiles to each other in goodbye before they head their separate ways.

———^———

The Thursday training was mostly successful, but they made little progress. All they know is that Shouto can handle more than 20% but less than 35%. He still injured himself when he tried using it again, even though he used less.

Unfortunately, Endeavor ‘needed’ Shouto home early so they had to cut it short.

Izuku heads home with worry for his -closest- friend.

———^———

Next Saturday, Izuku heads out to the hospital once more.

He arrives and passes by Tsukue with a simple hello.

He arrives at Rei’s room and knocks.

No reply.

“Rei, you there?” Izuku asks.

“Y-yeah, I am, Izuku! Just a moment!” Rei’s voice comes from the other side of the door, sounding nervous. Nervous? Why is she nervous?

“Good now?” He calls.

“Y-yep!” Is Rei’s reply.

He opens the door.

Oh, that’s why.

Inside the room, sitting in the desk chair… is Shouto.

“Uh, Hi Shouto,” Izuku says, surprised. He walks into the room. Rei is sitting in her bed like she normally is. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Shouto looks at Izuku confused, “You didn’t expect me to visit my mum?”

Izuku looks at Shouto exasperated, “No… Shouto, I meant as in I didn’t expect us to be visiting on the same day.”

Shouto’s eyes widen minutely in realisation, “Oh. Right.”

Rei fake-coughs to get their attention. “Well, how was your last two weeks?”

Izuku and Shouto freeze.

———^———

Monday arrives and the three’s suspension is finished. They have their normal classes; English, maths, history, etc until lunchtime. Throughout the week they’ll be doing the midterms.

Izuku heads out with Shouto, Iida, and Uraraka; Tsu, Yaoyorozu, and Shinsou in tow.

When they arrive at their seats, Izuku looks over at the latter three in surprise. “Hi, guys! I didn’t expect you to be joining us!”

Uraraka cuts in, “Sorry, Midoriya. You and Iida were suspended so I expanded the group slightly…” She rubs the back of her head nervously.

Izuku smiles at her and the new additions, “Don’t worry about it! I was just pleasantly surprised.”

“How was your guys’ suspensions?” Uraraka asks.

“I had plenty of time to contemplate my actions and correct myself! Thank you for asking, Uraraka,” Iida says with an overly professional tone.

“Mine was pretty much spent sleeping or watching All Might movies, except for the times I delegated to writing the apology letter,” Izuku explains.

Shouto pauses eating his soba when he realises everyone is waiting for him to say something.

“I trained the whole time,” he explains, not providing any more detail.

Izuku nods, hiding his worry for Shouto behind a smile. “What did you guys do for class while we were gone?”

“It was mostly getting to know Shinsou or simple combat training. Aizawa-Sensei didn’t slack off just because he had you three missing, however,” Yaoyorozu explains.

“Yeah, he certainly worked us to the bone. I feel like it’s gonna be a lot of trouble catching up with you guys,” Shinsou comments.

“Don’t worry, Shinsou! I’m sure you’ll be fine!” Izuku says, smiling.

The group chats lightly, comfortable that everything’s returning to a new normal.

Soon after lunch finishes, they prepare for training, getting into the UA sport uniforms.

“Hello, class,” Aizawa says in front of the class. Behind him is a mass of hills enclosed inside large walls.

“Good afternoon, Sensei!” They class choruses.

“Welcome to field Omega. Today we’ll be doing King of the Hill. I’m sur-” Aizawa is cut off by the class cheering. “ENOUGH!” He shouts, activating his quirk for intimidation. Silence quickly returns to the class.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard of the rules of the game. It’s pretty simple. We’ve set up a hill with a flag inside. There are detectors underneath that hill that increase your point value based on how long you’re on the hill, and how much further than everyone else you are.

The person furthest up the hill will get 10 points every second. Second furthest will get 5, third furthest will get 2, everyone else gets 1 point per second they’re on the hill. To let the sensors know you’re on there, you must wear these on both your ankles and wrists.”

Aizawa holds up black bands with a beeping red light on it,

“Only if the wrists are a reasonable distance from the ankles and both ankles are on the hill will you get points. There are enough bands for everyone and they should be immune to pretty much everyone’s quirks. Now, go crazy.” Aizawa places a box containing the bands on the ground and walks away, letting the class get to it.

It’s pretty hectic; Kacchan puts his bands on and runs in instantly. Izuku quickly follows. The rest of the class run in behind them, probably taking the training as more of an enjoyment than Battle Royale like Kacchan is.

“Go,” Aizawa’s voice rings through the field and Izuku activates his speed quirks, rushing up the hill and towards the top instantly. He blows Kacchan down with Air Pressure and both Power quirks.

He notices on his left wristband that a number climbs up it constantly; probably the point value.

Iida sneaks up behind him and kicks Izuku in the head, confusing him and sending him down to the bottom of the hill in an aggressive roll.

Izuku gets back up, smiling at Iida, who is promptly zapped by Kaminari who are both blown away by Kacchan.

This is the happiest he’s ever been.

Chapter Text

“OK! That’s good!” Izuku calls to Shouto, who deactivates his quirk right after. 

“So… you can melt pretty much every metal and compound…” All Might sweatdrops.

“His flame temperature is exactly 3,300 degrees celsius! Not hot enough to melt something like tungsten but still very hot,” Nedzu announces from his computer.

Steam rises from Shouto’s left side as he coats it in quickly evaporating chunks of ice.

Izuku rushes up to Shouto, “How are you feeling?”

“Tired from pushing my left side so hard, but otherwise pretty good,” Shouto pants out between breaths.

“Aizawa’s just called in. turns out that his patrol will be extended until just before class starts,” Nedzu says as he appears on All Might’s gaunt shoulder. All Might walks forward towards them.

“Young Todoroki, are you ready to start on using One for All directly?” All Might announces as he bursts into his hero form, steam billowing around him.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I think,” Shouto says.

“I should go get ready. I forgot to have breakfast before leaving early this morning!” Izuku calls, “enjoy the training, Shouto!”

Izuku sprints out and heads to the cafeteria, just as Lunch Rush starts setting up. 

“Hey, Lunch Rush! Can you make some breakfast for me and Shouto? Maybe Aizawa and All Might, too… Oh, and Nedzu and Recovery Girl…”

Lunch Rush cuts him off before he can continue, “I get it, Midoriya. I’ll make breakfast for everyone. Nedzu and Recovery Girl have already had their breakfast, so you don’t need to worry for them.”

Izuku blushes, “R-right.”

A few minutes later, Lunch Rush hands Izuku a tray full of food and cutlery. Izuku rushes back to the training field. Hopefully Shouto didn’t destroy his arm again.

———^———

Tenya gets to class relatively early in comparison to everyone else, but he believes that it is necessary to be ready for their teacher when they enter the classroom, allowing plenty of time to prepare both yourself, and classmates!

When he opens the door, expecting the room to be as empty as it usually is at this time, he instead finds Midoriya and Todoroki both present and looking dead on their feet - well, in their seats.

Tenya walks over to them with fervour, “Midoriya, Todoroki, you must make sure you get enough nutrition and sleep to operate in class! It would be bad for your health and education if you were to get fatigued.”

Midoriya chuckles as he wipes his eyes, clearing it of sleep, “Thanks for the worry, Iida, but we’re fine. We just did some pre-class training and got a little tired.”

Tenya widens his eyes. Of course! What was he thinking? These are the two most prestigious peers he’s ever had! Why would they slack off on their health? “Ingenious idea to do that, Midoriya! BUT! I must request you don’t work so hard on training in the mornings, or you will not have enough energy to do the professional training that we get in the afternoons from our Sensei’s!”

“Of course, Iida. Thank you for your concern. We won’t push ourselves,” Todoroki adds from his seat.

Tenya nods before diligently marching to his seat and waiting for the teacher to arrive.

As minutes pass, more and more of his classmates make their way into the classroom, conversing all the way up until a few moments before Aizawa-Sensei should be there, Tenya stopping them to sit down and wait in silence.

Time for homeroom!

———^———

The day passes quickly, Present Mic’s english class and Ectoplasm’s maths lecture passing over Denki’s head. He doesn’t notice Ashido’s and Kirishima’s attempts to charge with his hair, too focused on not going into ‘weyy’ mode, as he proudly named it, from all of the droning lessons. 

The door bursts open for their Heroics class, but instead of All Might, Aizawa-Sensei appears. “Good afternoon, class. Get on your costumes, we’re doing stealth training.”

Oh, this is gonna be sweet!

———^———

1-A stands before him, at his mercy. Shouta will be sure to drive them to the bone until they master stealth. Each and every one of them needs to learn how to shut up, sign, walk without making a sound, and judge what might make any noise by their third year.

Unfortunately, Cementoss is busy alongside Midnight preparing for their big fight next week. They might’ve done collectively adequate during the mid-term exams just last week, but how they will do on this test, Shouta would be very interested to find out.

“Ok, class. I’m going to split you into groups of three. No complaining, no changing groups. Group one will be Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, and Shouji. Group two is Kouda, Bakugou, and Asui. Group three is Tokoyami, Uraraka, and Hagakure. Group four is Aoyama, Midoriya, and Jirou. Group five is Ojirou, Todoroki, and Kirishima. Group six is Shinsou, Sero, and Iida. Group seven is Ashido and Satou.”

His class splits up, forming their respective groups. Some seem more annoyed by their grouping than others, Bakugou showing distain for both of his partners, but more towards Kouda; Midoriya being subtly evasive of Aoyama, but trying to be respectful; Todoroki barely trying to make conversation, preferring to return to his old habits without Midoriya with him, it seems; and Shinsou looking like his seconds away from running out of the country with Iida’s up front hand-waving speaking.

Shouta sighs before calling for attention. Promptly, everyone shuts up and returns their gazes to him, “Thank you. Now, one group will be trying to find every other group. Every other group has to do their best to hide. If you are hiding, you must stick with your group and hide together. Your goal is to be the last group found. This is pretty much a glorified hide-n-go-seek with the addition of teams. I have already decided which team is trying to find people, so don’t ask,” Shouta glares at Ashido when she puts her hand up, returning it to her side at his statement. “Team Ojirou will be trying their best to find everyone else. If Todoroki, Kirishima, or Ojirou see you, you’re out. This is a non-combat game. If I hear anything aggressive, you will be disqualified, understood?”

“Yessir!” The class shouts, but Bakugou says nothing, only grunting. At least he understands who that was aimed at.

“You have Ground Beta to hide in. Unfortunately, Cementoss is busy working on something so we don’t have him to build a place for us. Good luck,” Shouta drones out, barely finishing before everyone rushes in.

Bakugou forces Asui onto his back and she wraps her tongue around Kouda just as the former takes off, Uraraka lightens Hagakure and Tokoyami before letting Dark shadow carry them all inside, Shouji runs in with Yaoyorozu and Kaminari on each of his shoulders, Midoriya is running in while holding Aoyama and Jirou under his arms, Shinsou is riding on Iida’s back while Sero flings himself in, and Ashido and Satou rush in together using their quirks to help them.

5 minutes later, Shouta lets Todoroki, Kirishima, and Ojirou in.

This is going to be interesting.

———^———

When Eijirou was told that he’d be joining Todoroki and Ojirou in chasing down their classmates, he was excited. Now… he’s still excited, and he’s definitely in awe, but it makes him feel more jealous.

Todoroki flies through the air, jumping off the ground with enough force to crack the ground as he reaches the roof. How’d he do that?

Ojirou heads right so Eijirou continues straight forward. Splitting up would be most efficient.

He runs towards the closest building and opens it up. He runs up the stairs and finds an open space on the fifth floor, only support pillars acting as hiding places.

Eijirou loudly runs around the floor, trying to find someone. He hears a little movement, but can’t identify anyone.

Then, he feels a tiny nick on his bicep. He turns around but finds nothing.

Then he drops to the ground. I c-can’t move…

———^———

Izuku was glad that he managed to steal Hagakure’s quirk, just in time to get Kirishima too. Stain’s quirk is surprisingly helpful. Izuku has no idea about what blood-type he is, but it’ll stop him from finding anyone for a good while.

He runs down, not bothering to be quiet for the moment, and sprints back to his teammates, where his clothes are.

Aoyama and Jirou. He’s not sure what to think about either of them. Jirou is a fairly nice and reserved person, not trying to bring attention to herself and making sure to be respectful to those who deserve it. Aoyama, on the other hand, is loud and a little egotistical. Izuku tries to ensure he’s at least friends with the belly-button quirk user, but the attitude always reminds him of back then. Of Kacchan and the history between them. He wants to move forward, and Aoyama just brings him back to that.

“Hey,” he mutters as he picks up his clothes and starts slipping them back on. Once he’s put everything back on, he deactivates Hagakure’s quirk, revealing himself. “I took down Kirishima. We’ve got at least four minutes with one hunter down,” he whispers, “so, we need to-”

“ssh! Someone’s coming,” Jirou stage-whispers.

“We must fuir!” Aoyama screeches, loudly. Dammit, Aoyama. Izuku creates and ice-wall in one of the pathways, leading them through the other.

Jirou plugs in her jacks, “Stop! They’re coming from this side!” Izuku grabs them both before kicking the wall with multiple strength quirks, bursting it open. Jump-falling from the 7^th floor of the building, he lands in the side street.

“Let’s just hope we weren’t seen by doing that,” Izuku pants out.

“Oui,” Aoyama mutters.

The group continue on their journey, entering through the building in front of them.

Hopefully, they can win this.

———^———

Kouji quietly follows Bakugou and Tsu through the sewers of the city. Why would the school bother putting a sewage system in a fake city? He looks ahead and sees the surprisingly silent Bakugou sneakily jogging next to the water. Meanwhile, Tsu happily swims in the water next to them. Kouji is honestly surprised that she can swim in what must be very shallow water.

Bakugou looks around, keeping his mouth closed and quirk off. Kouji keeps calling small rodents near. He knows that a seeker is nearby, he can sense it.

He hears a drip, drip, drip in the distance. Bakugou doesn’t seem to notice it and Tsu is underwater, so she wouldn’t hear it. He turns around and sees Todoroki. Then, everything goes pale blue and white.

———^———

“Bakugou, Asui, and Kouda have been eliminated by Todoroki.” Eijirou hears from the speakers over the city. He had only just gotten up from, presumably, Midoriya and one of his quirks. He can only guess because his quirk’s disappeared. 

He radios in on Todoroki and Ojirou, “Hey, bros! Nice job Todoroki for capturing Bakugou’s team! I got paralysed by Midoriya and had my quirk taken so I don’t have that, but I did hear an explosion on the building across the street!”

“Hey, Kirishima,” Ojirou’s voice cuts in, “I’m pretty sure I almost caught Midoriya’s group, but they left the building before I could catch sight of them. Pretty sure they went in the sewers.”

“I doubt that. I’ve been in the sewers most of the time, and only found-” Todoroki cuts out, “found Ashido and Satou. They’re inside an ice-cream shop chatting, visible from a sewer grate across the street.”

Aizawa’s voice booms from the speakers again, “Ashido and Satou have been eliminated by Todoroki.”

Eijirou tunes out the radio and moves downstairs.

There’s still 12 people to find.

———^———

Katsuki’s done with this shit. He can’t believe that the Icy-hot bastard managed to defeat him! He didn’t even hear him coming… damn shitty hearing!

He lets his quirk loose in his hands as he arrives in the watch-room with Frog-face and Quiet-bitch.

On the screen is Deku’s, Round Face’s, Ponytail’s, and Braindead’s groups. And there’s, of course, the fucking idiots who get the groups out: Icy-Hot, Shitty Hair, and the Monkey. 

Deku’s group have just gone into the sewers, quickly sneaking between places and Earphone Bitch listening every few metres for anyone. 

Ponytail’s group are hiding on the same damn building as Shitty Hair but hidden on the roof, a good few floors upwards of the red-haired bastard.

Meanwhile, Braindead and his group are zig-zagging between streets, Glasses and Tape-arms roughly following the half-dead idiot around; Glasses being even worse at sneaking than Tape-arms.

Monkey is rushing through the buildings looking for anyone nearby. Likely he’ll come across Glasses’ group. 

Shitty Hair himself is headed up the stairs, taking his time checking each floor of the carpark looking high-rise.

That damn bastard better win.

———^———

Izuku, Aoyama, and Jirou silently move through the sewers, looking out for anyone and using Jirou’s quirk to their advantage. Well, Izuku and Jirou do; Aoyama just flutters along, spouting french poems. At least, that’s what Izuku thinks they are. 

Fortunately, the echoing nature of sewers makes it even easier for Jirou to detect noise. Which means she hears Shouto’s footsteps from a far distance. 

Aoyama, being Aoyama, gasps and loudly exlaims, “We’re doomed, mon ami! We must run!”

Jirou notifies them that Shouto’s footsteps have sped up and are getting closer… great. 

———^———

Shouto turns the corner where he heard Aoyama shout from only to find a very, very thick wall of ice. 

Super dense too. 

He could melt it, but it’d take too much time, and he doesn’t have the control over One for All to properly incinerate it.

So he runs around. 

And he runs.

And runs.

Nothing, huh.

Maybe…

Shouto charges up his right side, taking his time building the energy, he forms the image in his mind, of how the ice will form, how strong it is, how far it goes.

He plants his right arm against the wall and releases.

———^———

Shouta watches as Todoroki’s quirk fires off. Or, more accurately, freezes.

The whole sewer system is frozen over. A good 6 kilometres of tunnelling completely covered in ice. Oh, and so are the roads.

This quirk is seriously too powerful for its own good, and illogically given. 

That’s his final straw, Shouta is having a discussion with All Might as soon as possible.

———^———

Kyoka’s stuck. 

Her earphones are frozen to the wall, and Midoriya and Aoyama are both trapped too.

“Hey, Midoriya? Do you have anything to melt this ice?” she asks, desperately.

“Nothing, sorry…” He grunts, trying to shift his body or something. Is he flexing?

Aoyama on the other hand, is shouting and giving away their position, already having given up, it seems. 

Midoriya grunts, a faint white glow in his hand. The ice starts cracking around his hand. 

He shouts further, the light becoming brighter and his muscles expanding, and then the ice bursts open, turning Midoriya’s shell into a spiderweb-crack covered cocoon.

He turns around and throws up an opaque wall of ice to block Shouto’s potential path. 

Kyoka tries vibrating her earjacks, and finds that her right one actually still works. Cracks form along the ice and, bit by bit, fall away from her ear. She extends the lobe to the rest of her body, and slowly the ice falls. Aoyama, on the other hand, remains frozen. 

“MIDORIYA! PLEASE! SAVE MOI!” he shouts deafeningly loud. Kyoka has to cover her ears to block the echo.

“Aoyama, you can melt the ice with your quirk, can’t you?” she asks. 

Aoyama freezes -ha, she wants to end her life now for that horrible pun- before exlaiming, “I was just testing vous! Obviously I know what my quirk can do!”

Within a few moments, the ice coating his body vanishes as the orbs over his costume glow.

Midoriya turns around from his layering of the ice, “Ok, lets go.”

The three race off, and come face to face with an upside-down Ojirou through an access hatch.

“Ah, shit,” Kyoka says.

———^———

“Midoriya, Jirou, and Aoyama have been discovered by Ojirou,” Aizawa-sensei’s voice drones over the speakers as Ochako lies low inside the kitchen of a fast food store. Tokoyami and the, now visible, Hagakure lie in cupboards next to her.

She can’t believe Deku stole Hagakure’s quirk from her right at the start! But she forgives him; he probably tried using it to his advantage, but failed due to Kyoka and Aoyama. 

He’s amazing, after all.   

———^———

Mezou hears someone open the door to their level on the other side of the stairs block. This is the only place they can hide on the roof of an open-style building like a mass-carpark. 

Must be Kirishima if Ojirou just found Midoriya’s group and Todoroki just found Satou and Ashido a bit before that.

As a group, Kaminari, Yaomomo, and Mezou silently walk around the stair block in the centre of the lot, Mezou stopping himself and the other two when he stops hearing Kirishima’s footsteps or if they change direction. 

When Kirishima goes north, Mezou’s group goes South. He always keeps Kirishima’s location opposite to them through the staircase module. 

Dammit is this tedious.

“Iida, Shinsou, and Sero were eliminated by Ojirou.”

Very tedious.

———^———

Rikidou sits in the observation deck, green shaded light coating the dark room from the screens. Only Kaminari, Yaomomo, Shouji, Uraraka, Hagakure, and Tokoyami are left.

Kirishima is deadly close to finding Kaminari’s group though. They’re circling each other around the staircase.

Uraraka’s group, on the other hand, are perfectly hidden inside one of the buildings; they’re all on the inside of a cupboard in one of the fake restaurants.

Kirishima is just seconds away from seeing Shouji when Aizawa calls time out, “Ok, we’re finished. Everyone, head back to the observation room and we can discuss this lesson.”

———^———

Once everyone arrived at the observation deck, Aizawa ordered them to sit and he will explain the successes and failures of what happened.

“In the end, I would say either Midoriya’s or Shouji’s groups were the winners,” a lot of the class breaks out in shock, “Uraraka’s team is not nominable because they didn’t do anything but sit in one spot. Midoriya’s team, while not very stealthy, did manage to keep themselves moving and would’ve probably survived the longest if they hadn’t been caught by Ojirou, and if there wasn’t a time limit,

“In the future, ensure you’re moving around the city as much as possible while not being detected. Shouji’s team had a similar problem to Uraraka’s, but their location would’ve allowed for a level of reconnaissance at the very least. That is all. We will work on your stealth through the future, this was just a comprehension test. Go head home.”

———^———

“Go take a swan dive off the roof of a building,” Kacchan snarks as he carelessly leaves the room.

Deku -weak, alone, Deku- crumples to the floor, clawing at his heart.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

He gets up, his eyes murky. He heads towards the stairs. He starts to head down- up.

Wait what, No this isn’t what happened-

He reaches the roof. Taking his shoes off -No. Stop, please no! STOP IT- he places them next to him.

He falls. The ground. It races towards him, and he-

Izuku wakes up.

“Why that dream…” he murmurs through his tears.

———^———

Shouto gets home late. He always tries to get home as late as possible without actually being late, but sometimes he gets home too late. Like today.

“Shouto, get to the training room. Now.” His father’s burning gaze tingles on his neck as he makes his way.

He swiftly gets changed into his training gear – 1 minute, or he’ll get more training. Can’t let his uniform be damaged now, can he?

Time to take the pain.

———^———

Shouto wakes up the next day. 5am. It’s weird. Since his new training from school, Father has let him sleep in, instead of waking him up to do more training. He also went to bed quite early. Around 11pm rather than the normal midnight.

He is thankful.

The chauffer takes his time arriving at their house, but finally Shouto makes his way to school.

———^———

It’s 7:30. Just in time. Shouto rushes to the training gym they use each morning. He opens the door and composes himself. All Might, Aizawa-Sensei, Recovery Girl, and Izuku are all present already. Dammit.

“Sorry for being late Aizawa-Sensei. It won’t happen again,” he says, monotone.

“Don’t worry kid, you’re less than a minute late. This is extra training that usually takes time to start anyways,” Aizawa, surprisingly, says.

Shouto notices All Might mutter, “so much for being about logic and being on time.”

“NOW!” All Might shouts, “Let’s get One for All under control, why don’t we! We already know that you can do somewhere between 20% and 35%. For now, I think we should work with 25% and Just go from there. If you are able to handle a higher power then that gives you room for error.”

“Agreed. For the sake of getting this quirk mastered as quick as possible, we should just aim for a power level that is near the top, but not your most powerful as to give you space in case you do lose control at any point,” Aizawa says.

“Right,” Shouto says.

“Well, lets do this,” Izuku shouts, fist pumping.

All Might copies him with a shout of “LET US GO BEYOND, PLUS ULTRA!”

Shouto fires up One for All.

———^———

“All Might. We need to talk,” Aizawa says as young Midoriya and Todoroki leave the gym to wait for class to start. “Meet me during lunch in the soundproof room you and Midoriya frequent.”

“Uh, sure thing Aizawa. What’s this about, though?”

“You’ll see.” The gym door closes dramatically.

———^———

“Welcome, class, to your next Hero Training lesson,” Aizawa-Sensei states blandly, before gesturing to the old man next to him, “This is Yoroi Musha, the number 8 Pro-Hero of Japan.”

“Hello everyone,” the giant of a man greets, “I will be helping you learn how to wield weapons to give you a better grasp of the tools villains you’ll fight against might use. Learning how to use weapons may also bring you to include such an item in your arsenal for combat.”

“let’s get going. Get your hero gear and we’ll get going to Ground Theta. We’re going to need to do this in a more open area than just cities,” Aizawa-Sensei murmurs something further under his breath but no-one seems to hear anything, although Jirou does tilt her head.

———^———

1-A arrives at Ground Theta soon enough, the forest-like zone looking almost menacing. Aizawa-Sensei leads them inside and to a large clearing.

In the centre is a bunch of different types of weapons.

“Ok, students! Let’s get started!” Yoroi Musha shouts.

———^———

Katsuki makes his way home. The shitty school’s over already. Deku, the bastard, has been showing him up the past few days, it’s getting on his nerves. If only he could go back to putting him in his fucking place. He was always useless, always! Why did he suddenly become so much stronger?

He arrives home, ignoring her mum’s shouts for dinner being just about ready. He slams his door closed and throws himself onto his bed.

He grips the sheets.

Why did the universe suddenly decide that that bastard should be a hero?

———^———

“Good morning, class,” Aizawa-Sensei starts, “I’m sure you’ve become aware by now; something is happening in Ground Beta.”

Most of the class nods.

Aizawa-Sensei sighs, “Might as well get on with it then. Tomorrow there will be an official assembly with class 1-B about this, but this is for our old tradition for first years. Present Mic first nicknamed it the ‘Hero Class Civil War-fair’. And yes, the last part is a pun. Don’t go researching this on your own but be prepared for some exciting things soon. That is all, class dismissed.” Aizawa-Sensei instantly flops over, his infamous sleeping bag appearing out of nowhere. He’s asleep already.

Most of the class rushes to their friendship groups; Kirishima, Kaminari, Mina, and Sero all clamber to Kacchan’s desk; Jirou, Kouda, Ojirou, Hagakure, and Shouji all group up; and all of Izuku’s friends head over to his desk before he can get up.

“Hey Midoriya! What do you think this is about?!” Uraraka bursts.

“I don’t know. It could mean a sort of combat of 1-A against 1-B, or anything really…” he murmurs.

“It’s not that.” Everyone turns their heads to Shouto, “My father was praised for being the best Kingpin – the leader of the villain team. Although he didn’t get the best score possible, he’s done the best out of everyone who’s played Kingpin so far. That was at least 30 years ago, though.”

“So you know the rules of the game?” Tsuyu and Yaomomo ask.

“No, not completely, but I do know the basic premises.”

“That’s good enough for me!” Uraraka shouts.

“Hold on! This would be too advantageous for us to have this knowledge to ourselves extra early. Todoroki, I recommend you let them learn the premise of this exercise tomorrow with everyone else,” Iida exclaims.

Shouto looks to Izuku for a moment, “…very well.”

“Thank you,” Iida bows, “good luck with the exercise! It’s time for next class now.” Iida turns to face everyone, “EVERYONE, GET READY FOR ENGLISH, WE MUST BE ON OUR BEST BEHAVIOUR AS ALWAYS!”

Chapter Text

“Hello students!” The Principal’s voice reverberates through the hall as a screech of feedback follows. The students within the hall wince through the noise, listening to what Nedzu has to say, “starting today, we have something special for you all. For the next 10 days, you have a task. This ‘game’, if you will, is called the Hero Class Civil Warfare. It is a test before your finals of this term to truly see you in action from the third person!

“There will be two teams: The Hero team and the Villain team. Each team will get a leader that has already been decided. These leaders cannot choose to switch sides. I’ll explain more in a moment! Present Mic, if you will.”

The Principal jumps down from the podium, waddling to the wings while Present Mic takes centre stage. “Thanks Principal Nedzu! Now, you guys ready to hear who’s gonna lead the heroes into battle! I sure am, yeah!” Izuku watches with excitement. Will he be the leader of the heroes? He hopes so…. “The Paragon and leader of the heroes is…!” he drags it out while everyone waits in anticipation. “Todoroki Shoutooo!”

Shouto flinches in shock. That’s surprising. He walks towards the stage while a picture of him from the start of the year with an overly animated crown bouncing on the head lights up behind Present Mic.

“As for the leader of the villains, the darkness in our shadows, our kingpin…!” Izuku looks towards Kacchan, half expecting him to be chosen, but still antsy- “Midoriya Izukuuu!” Izuku’s thoughts are cut off as he hears his own name.

He gulps before slowly making his way towards the stage as his own school image props up on the screen. A nervous smile as he scratches his cheek awkwardly, while a grey and black crown of his own rests on his head. Izuku does his best to ignore the train wreck of a photo.

Present Mic continues on about how everyone else in 1-B and 1-A will be allowed to choose which side to fight for, to show their heroic nature, or to get inside the mindset of the villain, to know the enemy. About having one week to prepare before engaging in a 3-day fight.

Izuku and Shouto awkwardly look at each-other, originally planning to try and work together on this test. Now they lead the opposing teams.

Izuku looks for his other friends, Uraraka, Iida, Tsuyu, Momo, Shinsou. Even Jirou, Kirishima, and Kaminari. He hasn’t interacted with them much but they’re pretty nice friends too. All of them seem nervous, not sure who to choose.

Izuku wouldn’t know either.

“Alright everyone! You have two days to choose which team you’ll work on, or you’ll be put onto a team by us! Midnight the 8^th of June at the latest. Both the Kingpin and Paragon will stay back as we discuss some further things to them both. You’ll all be given rule books for the test on your way out!”

———^———

Izuku, Shouto, All Might, Aizawa, and Nedzu all sit at the table, ready to discuss the test. Aizawa opens his mouth to speak but is cut off.

“This is based off of All for One and One for All isn’t it?” Shouto asks bluntly.

Izuku’s eyes widen as he realises, yeah, that makes sense!

Aizawa hesitates for a moment, “yes. It is. Here is the rule book for you both to review afterwards, but I will explain the more important rules here and now. All rules are exact wording, as a notice. I am quoting them, not summarising. First, you are not allowed to switch teams after the due date, which is the 8^th of June in this case. Second, you are not allowed to get the assistance of teachers for the express purpose of this test. Third, you must not risk lethal injury to anyone. Fourth, the Hero team is not allowed to ‘kill’ anyone on the Villain team.”

“What do you mean by that?” Izuku asks, confused. Why are Villains allowed to kill people?

At this, Nedzu pulls out a gun, making everyone flinch and stiffen in fear. He places it on the table and opens the cartridge. Inside is a pink-red liquid. “This is the guns the Villains will be using. The Villain team will get 20 of these guns, regardless of team size. The liquid inside is a substance that, upon exposure to air, will harden into a breathable rock-like substance. Within reason, being hit by this substance will be considered a ‘death’. You will be given a total of 120 cartridges, but there are additional cartridges inside the city, Midoriya.”

“Right, and what happens when someone dies?” Shouto asks.

“Their comms will be cut off and will receive a message from one of Ectoplasm’s clones to meet them at the edge of the city. If someone who is ‘dead’ tries to intervene in a fight or talk to someone alive, the team will be disqualified. The punishment for a hero ‘killing’ someone, is that they will be disqualified. Not the whole team. There is more on this but I will let you read the rules for that.”

All Might buts in, “Each team will be granted 30 comm links, which can be set to unique frequencies based on your preference by going to Power Loader in the tech lab. We will ensure that none of your frequencies are the same beforehand.”

“Now, onto win and loss conditions.” Aizawa says. “The Villain win conditions must be kept between the Kingpin and us up until the start of the match, so we will discuss the Heroes conditions and then Todoroki can leave. The Heroes can capture the villains and place them in prison cells inside the hero agency. If you capture all the villains, you win. If you capture the Kingpin at any point, you win. If you force the Villains to retreat, you win. Your loss conditions are much simpler. If the villains escape the city, which can only be done on the third day, you lose. If you forfeit, you lose. If you all ‘die’ you lose.”

“Thank you, Aizawa-Sensei.” Shouto stands up and puts his hand on Izuku’s shoulder as he gets up. Izuku can almost image him saying good luck.

“Goodbye Todoroki.” All Might waves him off. “Now, for your win conditions, Young Midoriya! To win, you must get at least 5 objectives. Objectives are random things around the city. You will know what these things are, excluding one, but you will not know where they are. There are 15 objectives overall. If you can get 5 objectives and keep at least half of your team uncaptured by the end of the test, you win. If you escape the city on the third day, you win. Those are the only two ways to win, and you can complete both. The ultimate victory is accomplishing all 15 objectives and escaping the city without anyone being captured on the third day.”

“Keep in mind,” Aizawa comments, “that if you choose to try to escape on the third day, you will not be given much credit. It is best to get as many objectives as possible. Don’t try to lay low and wait it out, or you’ll likely get less credit than if you had just lost trying to get all of the objectives.”

“Thank you, Sensei!” Izuku shouts. He was nervous – still is, but this test seems really fun and quite interesting.

“Oh also, Midoriya. The more underhanded you play your cards, the more credit you’re given. Act like a villain,” Nedzu smiles.

Izuku nods, nervous. That’s going to be the challenging part. He has to remember to approach this like a villain. Not a hero. He can feel his anxiety building. Breathe, Izuku, just breathe.

“That is all, Young Midoriya. Good luck.”

———^———

As Izuku walks down to 1-A, he’s cut off by Kaibara Sen. “Hey Midoriya. I want to join the villain team.”

Izuku sputters, surprised, “uh, y-yeah, o-of course! Thank you!”

“You’re anxious,” he says, “Don’t be. I saw you up on stage earlier. You were stressed about being the villain. I understand that. I want to help you,” Kaibara’s eyes burned with intensity. “I understand why you’re stressed. You only just learned you could become a hero a year ago. I often felt I couldn’t be one myself, with such a weak quirk as Gyrate. But we both can be heroes. If you are forced to stand back and be a villain for a bit with already having waited, why shouldn’t I as well?”

Kaibara looks up to Izuku wiping his eyes. “Thanks, Kaibara. Welcome to the villain team,” he muffles out, “See you for our hero practice class.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you,” Kaibara turns with a two fingered salute and walks to his class.

Izuku continues on, cleaning himself up as he makes his way to class.

He can do this! People are believing in him to do this!

As he heads in, he passes by Yaoyorozu who notices his determined look.

———^———

In class, he notices many of his classmates talking with each-other, discussing the team they’ll join. Chances are they’ll choose the hero team. That’s ok, as long as Izuku has a few people, he can win. He can do this.

He arrives at his seat, barely getting a chance to properly centre himself from this emotional rollercoaster before Iida and Uraraka both slide up next to him.

“Hello Midoriya!” Iida announces, loud as ever, “I want to let you know I’ve decided to join Todoroki as a Hero. I hope you’ll understand and respect my decision as a friend.”

“Y-yeah Iida, that’s fine. Don’t worry. Good luck, and I hope you won’t feel bad when I win.” Izuku looks up at Iida, a smile of challenge on his face.

Iida nods back, a grin on his own, “I look forward to the challenge!”

“Uh, Midoriya. Hi!” Uraraka says from next to him, getting his attention. She seems nervous. “I-I want to join your group!”

“Sure thing,” Izuku smiles. He’ll have Uraraka by his side. That’s good. Uraraka is such a good friend.

On the other side of the class, towards the back, Kacchan walks up to Shouto and shouts, “I’m leading the hero team!”

Shouto simply blinks, “you’re not, but you can join my team if you want.”

Kacchan growls, reaching to grab Shouto by the collar before pausing and walking off, grumbling under his breath. Mina walks up to Shouto too and whispers something in his ear. Izuku can’t hear what, but Shouto nods after some thought before Mina walks off looking quite excited.

What are they planning…?

———^———

Later in the day at the start of lunch, just before Heroics class, Tokoyami walks up to Izuku from behind. “Midoriya.”

Izuku turns around screaming. Was not expecting that. “Y-yes, Tokoyami?”

“I wish to defeat darkness, but to do so, I must first understand it. I am joining the villains team.” Izuku blinks, slowly processing. Eventually, he smiles.

“Thanks. Tokoyami!”

Tokoyami simply nods, walking off.

———^———

Izuku sits down in his normal spot in the cafeteria. Shouto next to him, Iida, Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, Tsuyu, and Shinsou.

It’s an uncomfortable silence on the table as everyone eats.

Yaoyorozu sighs for a moment before looking up and interrupting the silence, “Midoriya, you mind if I talk to you for a sec?”

Izuku stands from his seat, “yeah s-sure…”

Yaoyorozu leads him over to a hallway nearby. “Jirou and myself both wish to join your group. I talked with Jirou earlier. I didn’t want to be rude by asking in front of Todoroki…” she looks to the side, bashful.

Izuku simply smiles, “thanks Yaoyorozu, you and Jirou’ll be a great help!”

———^———

“Hello students! I am here… to teach!” All Might stands in front of 1-A, his boisterous laugh filling the room. “Now, students, due to the upcoming test, for the rest of the week, this class will be replaced with sessions that you work with your respective team leader! But, for now, we will be spending this class to assist you in choosing a team! 1-B will be joining us shortly to join in! Good job remembering to not switch into your hero gear! It would be a waste of time if you did for this lesson,” he tacks on nervously.

Interesting. All Might wants everyone to decide their teams now, rather than giving them the extra day for tomorrow.

Just then, the door behind Izuku opens, Vlad-King walking through followed by class 1-B. As the last student filters through, Izuku sees Aizawa-Sensei walk in too.

“Remember, you don’t need to decide today. You have until the end of tomorrow, we’re just trying to avoid a situation where half the year-level hasn’t given their choice like what happened last year,” Vlad-King rumbles out.

“Midoriya, Todoroki,” Aizawa calls, “stand on opposite sides of the room please.”

Izuku and Shouto do so, stopping at the end of the room and looking right at each-other and then straight at Aizawa-Sensei.

“Anyone that’s already decided on teams go to your leader!” All Might invites, smile as bright and encouraging as ever.

Izuku watches as Tokoyami, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Kaibara, and Uraraka all come to his side.

On the other side of the room, Kacchan, Ashido, Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, and Iida all make their way over.

A moment later, Shinsou walks towards Shouto, looking at Izuku along the way. He understands. Shinsou has been called a villain his whole life. He deserves to get the chance for the opposite.

“Everyone else, feel free to discuss with each-other. Again, you don’t need to make a decision until midnight tomorrow,” Aizawa says before mumbling, “now I’m gonna go get some sleep.” He lies down next to the door, his sleeping bag appearing around him.

Tetsutetsu stands up and joins Shouto’s side, followed by Shoda and Ojirou. Hagakure quickly follows, and then so does Shouji.

Shiozaki quickly joins Shouto’s side as Awase joins Izuku’s.

Kodai hesitantly makes her way to Izuku’s side, followed by Kuroiro, who glares at Tetsutetsu for only a moment.

No-one else moves, despite the conversations. There’re still quite a few people left. Shouto has 12 people already confirmed to his side, while Izuku only has eight. Left in the centre is Satou, Aoyama, Kouda, Tsu, Monoma, Kendou, Honenuki, Tokage, Komori, Rin, Kamakiri, Bondo, Reiko, Fukidashi, Tsunotori, Tsuburaba, and Shishida. Interesting, they’re mostly 1-B students. Is it that they don’t want to be with anyone from 1-A, or that they want to be on the villains’ side but don’t want eyes on them?

Over in the corner, Aizawa Shouta takes a peek at the current teams. Looks like Midoriya will have a bit of a struggle… but he’ll pull through. His quirk and personality allow him to go more Plus Ultra than pretty much anyone here, excluding maybe Bakugou and Todoroki.

All Might writes down the current teams, before announcing to the classes that they may now leave into different rooms, class 1-A or 1-B, depending on their current choice. Anyone else was permitted to leave early.

Izuku takes his limited group of villains into class 1-B. Sen, Kuroiro, Kodai, and Awase make themselves comfortable, leaning against their nearest desk. Tokoyami, Jirou, Uraraka, Yaoyorozu and Izuku all stand awkwardly before slowly leaning against either a wall or desk.

“So, Midoriya. Have any plans?” Awase asks, voice relaxed and carefree.

“I don’t want to say too much yet, not until we’ve got the teams confirmed in place, but I want us to try and learn how to use each-others quirks.” Izuku looks at his hand, feeling the energy of the quirks inside him. Pulsing through him. Reaching to be used.

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Kuroiro says, “you want to switch our quirks around so we know how to fight with a new quirk on the fly?”

“Yes, pretty much. If we can all learn how to fight with each-others’ quirks, we can surprise them with a quirk that’ll counter whoever’s present without them being able to send in an easy counter. The only weakness is that I’d have to be on the front line transferring quirks between you guys constantly.”

“But, Midoriya, don’t you have a speed related quirk, if not multiple?” Yaoyorozu asks.

Izuku nods, “I do, but they aren’t the greatest. One is similar to O’Clock’s quirk, the hero that retired about 7 years ago, but it’s much weaker than Overclock. The rest are just minor quirks that make my legs move faster or something similar to that. If I wanted to get to you guys and get out quickly without risking a loss from getting captured, I’d need a quirk on par with Overclock or a warp quirk. Something that allows for me to be mobile or to give quirks from afar.”

Sen coughs, everyone turning to look at him, “What about Monoma? His quirk is copy. If you stay close enough to the fight, he should be able to copy your quirk continuously and transfer quirks between people. Hell, if you focus on improving his quirk. He might be able to go 10 whole minutes without having to copy it again. We’d have to be careful though. If we aren’t, we could accidentally delete a quirk from his time running out. And it’s possible that re-copying your quirk might even reset the quirks he’s saved.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jirou says. “Although Monoma is a jackass, his quirk could be really useful if we be careful with managing it.”

Tokoyami hums in agreement.

“Ok, sounds good to me too, then!” Izuku smiles, “I’ll go get Monoma tomorrow and try and convince him to join us.”

A knock on the door, and Vlad-King enters the room, “Hey kids, time to head out. You guys finish early too. This was just to give you some time to know each-other.” He walks over and sits in his desk, opening up his computer.

Izuku and the rest of the villains leave the class.

“Welp, see ya!” Sen walks off, followed by Awase who flicks a salute Izuku’s way.

Kuroiro and Tokoyami walk the opposite way, muttering to each-other along the way.

Uraraka, Kodai, Yaoyorozu, and Jirou all walk ahead of Izuku. Probably headed to their lockers. Izuku walks to 1-A and grabs his bag from underneath his desk. It’s more convenient to place it there instead, rather than finding a locker.

Students stroll out of the campus, one by one. Izuku makes his way home, putting in his earphones and closing his eyes to let himself fade into the background.

———^———

“You useless Deku, don’t you remember you can’t be a hero if you’re a cry-baby! All Might doesn’t cry like a wimp -like you!” Kacchan yells at him as he’s slammed against a wall.

“P-please, K-kacchan! St-stop!” Izuku thrashes against hands holding him down as a fist slams into his stomach. He coughs and a hot fluid leaves his mouth in a heave.

Izuku barely recovers before a searing, burning, hoT, SeARING, BURNING P̸̡̢̡͕̝̮̠̫̖̤̱̮̖̘̲̗̭̟͇͇̗͎͓̬͊̀̿͠Ä̷̡̡̧̛̤̤̦̞̻̪̤̼̝̥̪͕̱̗̫̼̩̝͎̻͍̫̹̪̹̞̙̣̘̫́̈́̿̓͐̓͐͐̽͋͂͂͋͌̄͑̀̄͌́̓͗̇̄̓̊͗̋̓̔̂̐̈́̊̆̈́̓̏͗̇͛̈̇̕̚̚̕͘͘͠͠͠͝͝͝ͅĮ̴̛̛̛͍̦̬̜͎͚̩̜̟̬̖̪͍̰͍͉̣͙̦̼̳͚͚͖͖̯͙̪̗̬̫͔̠̬̟̼̤̝̊́̆̔̅̅͒͗̑͒͗͛͒̀͊̍͗̂͒̔͑͌͆̐̇̽́͐́̇͑̇͑̆̓̉͛͐̆̏͑̍̀̉͑̇̅̓̒̓̌̕̕͜͜͜͜͠͝͠͠ͅŅ̵̢̨̧̢̢͖̙͕̤̤̮̦̯͈͎͕͖͙̭̰͈̬͖̱̺̠̦̲͙̲̳̠̯͖̗͙̖͓̼͖̦̫̘̲̲̻͎̞̥̰͎͗̾͊̎̓͋̏͒͊͆̋͐̚̚͜͜͠͝͝͝ͅ -

Izuku wakes up in his bed. He shifts so he’s sitting and looks where he was just lying. His mattress is damp with sweat. He rubs his forehead, his hand coming back drenched.

He turns his light on, checking the clock. Quarter past midnight. He walks out and into the kitchen, making a glass of water.

As he sips on his glass, he rubs his sore shoulder. He doesn’t remember what happened in that nightmare but the phantom pains give him a clue. He’s been having a lot of those over the past few weeks…

It’s probably nothing Izuku dismisses as he finishes his glass.

He heads back to bed.

———^———

Izuku wakes a little earlier for school, hopping up and having a shower at 5am. He goes for a 30-minute run before making his breakfast and rushing off once changed into uniform. Mum only just wakes up as he’s leaving. “Love you, mum!”

Just before he closes the door, he hears a fond mumble, “Love you too, my baby boy.”

Izuku smiles, blushing at the old nickname.

Soon enough, he arrives at school, ready and waiting outside class 1-B for Monoma to show up.

All Might and Aizawa contacted him and Shouto earlier, telling them that training One for All would have to go on a bit of a break until after the Test.

As the minutes tick by, 1-B students make their way in. First is Rin Hiryu, followed shortly by Kodai who gives him a short nod and a small smile.

A little later Kaibara and Awase enter together, waving a quick hello as they enter. Izuku smiles back and waves nervously.

He just needs to get Monoma…

More students enter the class as Izuku waits. Only 20 minutes until class starts. Tokage, Komori, Tetsutetsu and Shishida all pass into the class and Izuku is still waiting.

Shoda and Kuroiro both go past him and enter the class. He waits a minute more until Kendou appears. “Hey Midoriya, can I help you? You’ve been out front our classroom the whole morning according to Rin.”

Izuku fumbles to put his phone away, turning and bowing an apology to Kendou, “S-sorry, I-I’m actually j-just waiting for M-Monoma. I wanted to talk to him...?”

Kendou looks at Izuku apprehensively, “You sure about that?” She pauses for a moment before sighing. “You know what, I’ll just wait here with you.” She plants herself against the wall, next to him.

Izuku plays with his fingers for a second, unsure. He ultimately decides to just let her do what she wants and goes back to standing waiting for Monoma.

Kamakiri, Fukidashi, Yanagi, Shiozaki, Bondo. Student after student enters the class until finally Izuku sees Monoma in the hallway.

Izuku goes to call out to him, but hesitates. No, I shouldn’t. So many eyes would be on me.

Kendou notices Izuku move and looks over to Monoma. She has no such worries and instantly calls, “Hey Monoma. Get over here!”

Monoma, only just noticing them after Kendou’s yell, takes out his earphones. “Oh? What’s this? Is this the great Midoriya Izuku of 1-A coming to bless our pres-” The wind is knocked out of him as Kendou decks him in the chest.

Kendou pulls her hand back, “enough of that, Monoma. Midoriya wanted to chat with you. I’m here to make sure you don’t be a dickhead.”

As Monoma rubs his ribs, still recovering, he manages to roll his eyes and produce an aggressive smirk. “Very well, Midoriya. What did you have to ask me?”

“I-I’d like you t-to join the villains team! Your quirk would be an amazing addition to our group.” Izuku’s voice builds, looking at Monoma with a passionate eye of determination, “please Monoma, your quirk could be the difference between winning and losing.”

Monoma blinks for a moment, his eyes widening. A moment later, he bursts out laughing, “Oh, what’s this? Is a 1-A student praising a 1-B student and his quirk? How amazingly ridiculous is that?! You seriously would stoop to this level? Trying to employ your enemy?” Monoma laughs hard enough to run out of breath.

Izuku pauses, closes his eyes, and breathes. “Monoma, I want to win this test. I know you do as well. You want to prove that 1-B is just as good if not better than 1-A?” Izuku opens his eyes, a challenge in them, “Then defeat Shouto and Kacchan. Show them that you’re not someone who can be toyed with. I will do my best to have us all win, Monoma. I want the best for you and from you. If you don’t think you’re good enough to live up to that, then you underestimate yourself.”

As Izuku finishes his speech, he realises he’d taken steps forward. He’s now practically right in front of Monoma. Looking at his face, Monoma honestly looks quite taken aback. To the side, Kendou is looking between them both, quite ready to intervene.

“I- uhh. S-sor- what, no- I- uhh, What?” Monoma looks quite confused, did I break him?

“Hey, uh, Monoma?” Izuku asks, “You… ok?”

Monoma takes a step back, “I- uhh, yeah I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much!” He pouts, looking to the side.

“Do- do you accept?” Izuku asks slowly.

Monoma is about to speak when Kendou cuts him off, “Yeah he does. I do too. I gotta make sure he doesn’t be an idiot.”

Izuku turns to Kendou in surprise. “I- uh, thank you so much, Kendou!” He bows.

“Stop with all the ‘thank you’s and apologies. I know passion and drive when I see it. I just hope it gets somewhere.” Kendou grabs Monoma by the arm and drags him towards their class, “Now, class is about to start so you might want to hurry up before you get there late. We’ll see you for hero class tomorrow.”

Izuku rushes out one more ‘thank you’ before sprinting to his class. Iida wouldn’t be happy but Izuku would gladly face Iida’s wrath over Aizawa’s.

———^———

“Took you long enough,” Aizawa sighs, sitting down on the couch. Toshinori had been trying to figure out what Aizawa wanted to talk about since he messaged him to have a talk, and then he said they needed one of the soundproof booths in the school.

Toshinori sits on the opposing couch. “What did you want to talk about, Aizawa?”

Aizawa simply sighs, pinching his nose as though he has a migraine, “All Might, tell me,” he opens his eyes and a red flash goes Toshinori’s way, “why did you choose Todoroki to receive One for All?”

Toshinori pauses for a moment. He knows why, he just can’t tell Aizawa that. He knows Aizawa would feel cheated and he knows its bias but still, “I saw him as a reasonable candidate and thought that he’d be-”

“Cut it with the bullshit.” Aizawa stands up and glares, probably harder than he ever has glared. His hair and capture weapon float around him hypnotically. “Tell me the truth. Kirishima and Shinsou would’ve both been excellent choices for One for All and yet you give it to Todoroki, someone who already has all the power he needs to succeed in helping people, and then some. Kirishima’s quirk is defensive, he can’t hold an offensive position in a fight for long. It would’ve made him impenetrable and given him the strength to go on the offensive without risk.

“Shinsou would be an even better candidate. He doesn’t have any physical advantage. Just as I don’t. He deserves better than that -better than me. He’d have his powerful mental quirk, and still have extreme physical prowess. He’d be perfect. And yet you choose Todoroki; the guy who already can kill someone with a thought. He’s already able to hold a fight against many villains. He’s already got everything he needs. So. Tell. Me. Why.”

By This point, Aizawa is right up against Toshinori, his red eyes gleaming into his soul. Toshinori isn’t really sure what to say. Aizawa’s right. “W-well, Aizawa. All for One is a powerful man a-and-”

“All Might,” Aizawa grits out, “I already said. Cut it with the bullshit. I’ve been in this industry for over 10 years. I know how to read when someone’s lying.”

Toshinori deflates -figuratively. He wouldn’t waste his precious 3 hours-. He’s defeated. “I chose young Todoroki because I wanted to thank young Midoriya.”

Aizawa takes a step back and lets himself fall back into the couch, “What for? Sure, he stopped the USJ Nomu and defeated the Hero Killer, but that doesn’t mean anything special. Hell, its almost expected when he has his own version of All for One.”

Toshinori pauses, sighing, “I-I was worried. I trained him how to use his quirks and helped him look for ones to use while training to get into UA but he always had this unnerving part of him. I didn’t want to let him become like All for One. I chose young Todoroki because Midoriya likes him. I thought that if he had someone he liked with One for All, someone he wanted to have One for All as we’d discussed last time, he’d stay good.”

Toshinori looks back up and sees Aizawa once again pinching his nose. A frustrated groan later, Aizawa stands up and starts towards the door. Before he gets there, he stops and points at Toshinori, “Fuck you. I understand, but fuck you.”

Aizawa leaves and the door closes.

———^———

Shouta always does his best to be rational. Always wake up at 6, go to bed at 1, get to school by 7:30.

Rationality is what has kept him alive. Efficiency is key. If something can’t do its job, then it needs to go. If something can do another job better, then get it to do that other job. That simple.

So why was he so angry over this? It’s just one quirk. One for All isn’t an all-powerful quirk. Not like Transfer or All for One. It’s simply a quirk that makes you strong. So why did it hurt so much?

He’s grown past this. He is strong. He made himself strong. He can hold his own in a fight against nearly any villain or criminal. But… deep down, in his memory… Aizawa remembers wanting that power. He remembers hoping that he’d get a quirk just like that. He was only four years old, so it made sense that he wasn’t all that rational back then.

Shinsou really does remind him of himself too much.

But, in a way… he’s glad. Shinsou is a fun kid. Determined too. As selfish as it is, he would never have gotten this chance to connect to a student like that if Shinsou had a strength-based quirk.

But still, One for All would’ve been better in Shinsou’s hands. If someone can become more powerful at a wider range of things, that is better for everyone else. Min-maxing, for a lack of a better term, is never a good thing in the real world. If Todoroki becomes too absorbed into being ‘powerful’ enough, that will be a problem.

All Might needs to learn that not everything revolves around defeating the villains. He does understand the surface of making sure citizens are smiling and feeling safe, but he struggles to understand anything deeper. You don’t stand there and make them smile simply by being powerful enough to defeat anyone.

Midoriya is more than powerful enough to help people. Hell, he’ll get more powerful the longer he works. Todoroki is already there. He has two powerful quirks and is the son of arguably the most physically powerful hero ever, excluding One for All’s users.

It’s only rational to give it to someone who doesn’t have that power. Aizawa wanted -no, needed that power when he was a kid. Didn’t he? Shinsou would want that power too. Wouldn’t he?

Chapter Text

Izuku only had a few hours until the end of school. He had gotten Monoma before class, and Aoyama and Kouda had both come up to him after that at different times with their own reasons for joining… but he still only has 12 people compared to Kacchan’s 18.

Only 10 people haven’t decided on their teams. Izuku needs to get as many as possible if he’s gonna want a chance at winning.

He had looked through the rulebook and he thinks he found a loophole, I just need to go grab her before the end of the day and we should be good…

It’s lunch time once more, last class being English. Izuku sprints straight to 1-B.

“Hey Midoriya!” Kendou yells, backed by 4 people. Oh thank god, she got more people… hopefully.

“H-hey Kendou!” he says as he stops, arriving just in front of her.

“I got as many as I could. I kinda pushed too hard on some of them so everyone else is going to the hero group for sure. Sorry about that,” Kendou bows.

“N-no, it’s fine! We still have a few people then.” Izuku smiles. So their definite count of team members is 16 excluding himself and…

“So, this is Honenuki and Setsuna. They’re the two recommended students of 1-B! These guys,” Kendou pats the backs of the other two, “are Komori and Rin. They’re all willing to help you out in defeating Todoroki!”

Izuku smiles, “Thanks guys!”

Honenuki steps forward, his teeth are attached to his lips, huh. “No problem, Midoriya. I just look forward to beating Bakugou and Todoroki! Can’t wait to see the look on their faces when we win.”

Izuku smiles at Honenuki, not sure how to take that. The other two are Komori and Rin, quite useful quirks too. That’s good.

Komori just walks past him, flashing a mischievous smile.

Kendou pats Izuku’s shoulder, “We’ve got a team, cap. Time for you to plan ahead! Now, Come on, Rin. We gotta return our books to the library.”

———^———

Come on, Izuku. You just need to knock on the door. Open it already! Standing in front of the Support 1-F class really shouldn’t be this scary. But, then again, Hatsume is in this class so maybe it’s justified.

But, then again, Hatsume is who he’s looking for.

One of the rules made him think of this.

Only students in the same year level may participate in the test. Only Hero course students are allowed on test grounds.

This loophole is too obvious to not be intentional, but Izuku will take it. If he can get a senior to help for ‘future reference’ instead of the test, he can get and advantage. If not, he can still use Hatsume to get his advantage.

Hopefully Shouto doesn’t figure this loophole out, though.

Izuku barely has time to activate Halt before a loud explosion sends the metal door his way. Great, now I’m stuck. He can’t move without deactivating Halt and Halt is the only thing stopping the metal door flying into him. The door is already half way to him, too. He probably wouldn’t be able to dodge without damaging the windows behind him or the floor from the force.

“H-hello?” Izuku calls into the classroom.

He’s surprised by both Hatsume and Power-Loader making their way out of the classroom. “Ah, Midoriya!” Power-Loader pauses as he sees Izuku lasering the door to Halt it in place. “Oh, I see…”

“D-do you mind giving me a hand?” Izuku nervously smiles.

“Hey, psst. 10 Million!” Hatsume leans on his shoulder, “What’cha doing over here? Come to test out one of my babies? Or are you finally willing to let me test on you?!” Power Loader disappears back into the class, hopefully to go grab something to help.

“N-no, y-you’re not gonna be t-testing on me…” he grits out, keeping an eye out for Hatsume touching him. He can’t move at all while this quirk is active, and is therefore unable to use pretty much any of his other quirks, but he’d rather not let Hatsume do whatever, “I-I do have an offer, th-though?”

“Oh? What kind of offe-”

“Excuse me, Hatsume, I’ll need you to stand back,” Power Loader places what looks like a big spring contraption the size of Izuku’s chest in between Izuku and the door. “Midoriya, feel free to release your quirk.”

“A-are you s-sure?” Izuku hesitates. He’s not sure if that’ll be strong enough to stop the massive metal door.

“Yeah, it’s strong enough, don’t worry Midoriya! This spring is meant to be strong enough to halt the force of a collapsing building.” Power Loader stands to the side with Hatsume, a confident thumbs up encouraging Izuku.

“O-ok. H-here goes nothing.” Izuku turns off his quirk and the door goes flying forward.

Izuku flinches on instinct, throwing his arms in front of himself. Oh, nothing happened. A moment later, he releases himself to see the door resting inside the grip of the spring contraption.

Huh.

“Well, 10 Million, what was that offer?” Hatsume presses herself against his face right away, now that there was nothing to distract either of them. Izuku takes a step back, holding his arms out to keep Hatsume a breathable space away.

“I need your help creating some tech for some stuff we’re doing in Heroics…”

Hatsume smiles ferally, “Oh? Tell me more…”

———^———

Shouto’s lost. He really wanted to be on the same team as Izuku for this test. Now he’s stuck with Bakugou barking up his neck and so many people who he’d rather not have to deal with. Why do I have to lead the team? Can’t I just work alone and have another guy leading?

Suffice to say it, Shouto wasn’t having a good time. He had quite quickly gotten teammates, being the hero team leader, the ‘Paragon’, but they’re all so loud. Do they know they can talk without shouting?

On the other hand, Shouto is looking forward to this. Even if he can’t be on the same team as Izuku, he is very much looking forward to fighting him.

“Yo, Todoroki!” He only has a moment to brace himself before receiving the full force of Kaminari flinging himself at Shouto. Arm clinging around Shouto’s shoulders, Kaminari smiles, oblivious to personal space, “We doin’ training today? I know we have some 1-B dudes who haven’t joined yet but we can get started, can’t we?”

Shouto shrugs off Kaminari’s arm, “not yet, no. I want to wait until tomorrow to start training or any teamwork development. People still have the opportunity to simply switch sides.”

“Ah, gotcha! Well, I gotta go catch up with Sero. See ya, dude!” Kaminari punches him in the shoulder, not unkindly, before heading off.

People are weird. Weird… but nice.

———^———

The next day, 1-A and 1-B are given the whole day off to plan now that they’ve finalised their teams. Thankfully, no-one forgot to tell Aizawa or Sekijirou. Izuku leads out his team into Gym Epsilon - Shouto’s taken the open field so the villains are stuck indoors training.

He has Uraraka, Monoma, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Kendou, Awase, Komori, Rin, Honenuki, Tokage, Kodai, Kuroiro, Aoyama, Kouda, Tokoyami and Kaibara all bunched up. “H-hey everyone! Ok, so I’d like us to split ourselves into groups. These groups will be four groups of 4 and will be decided based on quirks and skill. These are my proposed groups, let me know if you disagree.”

Izuku places down the hologram and lets the grid come up.

Group 1: Kendou, Honenuki, Awase, Kodai.

Group 2: Tokoyami, Kuroiro, Kouda, Jirou.

Group 3: Yaoyorozu, Kaibara, Uraraka, Monoma.

Group 4: Aoyama, Komori, Tokage, Rin.

Izuku watches as Yaoyorozu nods, sees Uraraka’s excited look, and then Monoma’s distraught.

“I want to let you know now that this isn’t set in stone. Some people, mainly Monoma, will not be spending most of the time with their group. He, along with Yaoyorozu, Awase, Kuroiro, and Tokage will be going on missions with me once or twice,” Izuku says.

Kodai puts her hand up, “What are we meant to do to win?” she mutters an apology afterwards.

“No, it’s fine! To win we have to get objectives throughout the map. There are 15 total, but we only need 5 to win. However, we’re aiming for the top. Go Beyond, Plus Ultra, right?” Izuku smiles

“Right, so the groups are based on what exactly?” Monoma asks, “I didn’t join you guys to end up with two 1-A students!”

“Group 4 is specifically long ranged combat. Komori’s spores can reach very far, and Rin and Aoyama can both send their quirks quite far too. Tokage will be helpful as a scout with her quirk. When I need Tokage for one of my missions, you guys will have Hatsume with you instead.

“Group 3 is a melee focused group. Yaoyorozu’s quirk has a large variety of uses but we’re gonna focus on close range. Kaibara’s Gyrate quirk is really good with melee combat, and Uraraka’s could combo quite well. We’ll have to see. Monoma, in a similar vote, needs touch to use his quirk so close range is best. Also, as a side note. For the duration of the exam, I will be loaning one of my speed quirks to Monoma.”

“Wait, what? This is the first time I’m hearing of this!” Monoma shouts, “I don’t need your help, 1-A scrub! I can do it all by my self-” Kendou sighs, holding Monoma’s hurt form.

“Again, sorry about him. Yeah we’re fine with that.”

Izuku smiles, “Great! Group 2 is more of a defensive team. They’ll hold the fort when everyone else is out and also can work as a distraction for the heroes if we need it. Kuroiro’s high mobility at night will be extremely useful for getting some objectives. Jirou and Kouda will both work as excellent scouts for the team too if the heroes are trying to sneak around. Tokoyami will be their tank with Dark Shadow taking and dealing most of the heavy hits.

“Lastly, Group 1 is mostly a strike team focus. Their main goal is to get in, grab an objective, and get out ASAP. Honenuki can get through walls easily, especially when working with Kendou, Awase can help break apart welded equipment and if need be, weld doors shut behind the group. Kodai is just a good person to have on the team if they need to engage in longer range combat.”

Kendou smiles, “I’m liking this. Good group dynamics, too.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted us to try using different people’s quirks earlier on?” Kuroiro asks.

“Yes, I did. If a certain object requires more use of say Glacier instead of Softening, I’ll switch out Honenuki’s quirk. We want to keep the members of the group as tight as possible so those people I’m removing are needed for more than just their quirk. Sometimes it’s how adept you are at the quirk that matters too. That’s why Monoma will be needed a lot. His quirk relies on the inherit ability to use other quirks which no-one else here really has.”

“Right, well… lets get to training!” Kaibara shouts.

———^———

Shouto’s not really sure what to do, so he asks everyone to present their quirk to the rest of the group as best they can. Their limits.

Bakugou shows his Howitzer Impact and how he can fly around with his quirk.

Iida presents his high-speed boosters and Recipro Burst technique.

Shinsou just explains his quirk, not bothering to show how it works.

Shouji develops limbs upon limbs with unique facial components on their ends, from ears to eyes to noses to mouths.

Ashido produces acids of varying levels of power. She melts through some ice she asks him to make then slathers on a lighter layer that makes the rough texture much smoother.

Shoda punches the left-over ice and then walks off. The ice receives the force of a punch again a little later.

Kaminari just sends his electricity everywhere before losing himself to his… “yey” mode. God, that must not be fun.

Sero talks about the traps he can make, “I can’t show them right now, though. I need something to make them against.” He refuses Shouto’s offer of an ice wall.

Kirishima accepts it greatly, though, ramming himself right on through the structure. Hard headed is right.

Tetsutetsu does something similar. Oh no, they’re multiplying.

Kamakiri produces blades along his skin, presenting how he can manipulate their sharpness to his will. Their length can extend quite far too. That could be useful.

Shiozaki humbly shows her quirk off, turning the empty field into a full on garden as her hair sticks into the ground.

Bondo shoots out goop that dries out quite fast. It’s a lot like what they used for the bullet ammunition, good to know.

Reiko possesses a shard of ice to show off her quirk, zipping around and just dodging some peers’ skin as she flies the shard through the crowd. Good, nice fine control there.

Shishida lets himself erupt into a beast, easily shattering the ice wall he asked Shouto to put up.

Tsunotori lets loose four cones that fly around independently, catching the wind.

Fukidashi simply shouts, “BANG!” The field in front of them promptly goes bang. Dirt and rock flies everywhere.

Asui, too, just explains her quirk.

Ojirou presents his martial art skills and how he implements his tail into the form.

Satou asks Shouto for an ice wall, which he punches at. It does barely nothing, but then he puts a finger up. He grabs a container from his pocket and eats it up. He punches the ice wall again and it shatters against his fist.

They skip Hagakure, it’d be a bit difficult to miss how her quirk works.

Tsuburaba lets out a breath, constructing a wall in front of him.

I can work with this. Izuku… you’re coming down.

———^———

The floorplan of the exam zone is quite large. Twice as large as the original ground beta, if not larger. A city construct nearly 2 kilometres in diameter. Multiple skyscrapers reaching as high as 40 floors.

Izuku’s not sure where to set up their home base, considering where the hero agency is. Going to the opposite side of the map would be too obvious but Izuku doesn’t want to risk being too close either.

Perhaps a tower connected to a large part of the sewer system…

———^———

Giran has been taking his time trying to find people to join their group, it’s getting on Tomura’s nerves.

So far he’s gotten a lizard creep who has his panties in a twist about Stain -that bastard- and some lunatic who can’t decide on anything, including his own goddamn personality. His quirk is good, though. He can create duplicates which will be quite powerful when they have Nomu on their team.

It’s been nearly a week since he got back with those two and he’s been due back a few days ago…

He better have gotten something good.

A knock on the door followed by Giran’s presence. His velvet purple jacket and cigar make Tomura want to incinerate him where he stands, but he just watches. “Hey, big guy! Got two new recruits for you. I’ll let them introduce themselves.”

First comes a man larger than life. He’s not intimidating. Or, at least, nowhere near as intimidating as Sensei. A cloak and mask protect his features, which is annoying.

Following is a small inconspicuous boy wearing a gakuran. He has a backpack but nothing else to him. Brown hair and light brown eyes decorate his face.

Tomura sneers. He sneers right back.

“Tell me your names. And your quirks while you’re at it,” he commands.

The hulk wannabe steps forward, “the name’s Muscular. You’ve probably heard of me. I don’t care. I’m just here to beat some people up. My quirk’s a good strength enhancer.”

Tomura does no Muscular. He’s an idiotic brute, but he can be a pawn, just like Sensei said these members should be. Powerful pawns.

“The other kid’s kinda new to this business. His name’s Ka-” Giran gets cut off by a jab to the stomach.

“I can introduce myself, idiot,” he barks. “Just call me Mustard. My quirk allows me to produce many powerful and deadly gasses. Lethal if you want.” He puts his hand out and a small cloud of dark purple smoke leaks out and to the ground. “I heard you follow Stain’s ideals. They’re pretty interesting so I’m here to join your group.”

Tomura growls. This kid. “I want your real name, kid.”

The boy just stares him down, “I’ll tell you when I want to tell you.”

“You brat-”

“Now Tomura. Violence is not the way to show our guests their entry to our group,” Sensei’s voice fills the room.

Everyone stiffens. The boy, on the other hand, just shifts into a fighting stance. Immune to Sensei’s terror? Who is this bastard!

Tomura will find out. He will find out soon. This bastard has no right to stand against Sensei.

They all collect themselves soon enough. Muscular puffs to cover his fear. A tough guy act, huh. He’ll be a really good tool. This kid, on the other hand… Tomura will have to decide what to do with him.

———^———

6 months earlier

———^———

Kokoro Yuyu is an intelligent man. Komuru knows this. Everyone in their group knows this- hell, the whole organisation knows this. Kokoro built up their empire. Living above the earth.

If Komuru is honest, the world looks quite small from up here.

This organisation had spent years working towards this base, and it’s been the largest man-made orbiter ever since it began operation.

What made Komuru question Kokoro’s intelligence for just a moment was what he asked them to do.

“Your group will attack UA, but depending on a few things, both Siebren and Kakaru will have to stay back.”

Their group was quite shocked, but Kokoro, happy as ever, simply smiled and told them not to worry. It will work.

They’re going to attack UA High School.

Chapter Text

Heyo everyone!

Writing this in part to force myself to be motivated to actually write this fic again because yeah I have finally gotten back into the bnha fandom and I loved the concept for this fic. Currently I'm working on rewriting earlier chapters up to my newer standards. It's been 5 years but still this concept eats at my brain lol

Anyways yeah this is really just an announcement that I will be finally getting back to writing this fic, starting with rewriting earlier chapters. These rewritten chapters will be published under a new fic of the same name. See you there everyone!